Gabriel & Clint | Saturday Night

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

Sue dragged Clint to Silver only to lose him in the crowd... and Clint finds Gabriel with a lumbersexual. Awkwardness ensues.


Mutant bars weren't as fun as gay bars, but they came close.

Which, really, Gabriel should have expected, since they sprung out of the same ethos. Be around people like you, let your hair down and go crazy. Which is what he'd been doing since he'd ended up at Silver on a whim during a rare Saturday night off.

He stood by the bar, a whiskey cocktail in his hand to supplement the decent buzz he already had going, and scanned the room. Mutants were bumping and grinding with near-reckless abandon. He sped time up and downed his drink quickly before moving to join them.

Clint found himself laughing as Sue dragged him into Silver. She attempted to drag him straight onto the dance floor, but he was wise to her wily ways and dodged her when she tried to get a hold on his hand. It was one of those eighteen and up nights at the club and, since he was actually eighteen now, she'd teamed up with a couple of their friends from Columbia to get him to Silver. That didn't, however, mean he was dancing. He made his way through the crowd toward the bar, ordering a Coke before turning to brace the small of his back against the bar so he could watch the people dancing.

The bass began thumping out of the speakers before Gabriel found a solid spot on the dance floor, but the song was one he recognized, and so he started moving to the music as he pushed through the crowd. He'd settled into a healthy groove after a minute or two, when a lumbersexual in an NYU-branded knit cap appeared in front of him.

"Hey," the bearded man said, his eyes meeting Gabriel's.

"Hey." Gabriel looked at the man and tilted his head. "I know you. Why?"

"I sit at your bar sometimes. A lot."

"Huh." Gabriel appraised him. "Not sticking out. Wanna dance?"

Through the haze of artificial smoke and the flashing lights, Clint was pretty sure he'd caught sight of someone he knew. He narrowed his eyes a little, the smoke drifted away a bit, and... yeah, he'd totally caught sight of someone he knew. Pushing away from the bar a little, Clint let himself move through the crowd as he watched Gabriel dance with... a guy with a very impressive beard.

Gabriel and the other man weren't exactly leaving room for Jesus, but as far as dancing went, this was pretty tame. Every time his partner tried to start an earnest conversation, Gabriel would turn around to cut the talking short. It was loud, and he was here for the music and the dancing, and not so much to meet someone.

After a while, he thought they'd settled into a healthy groove and that he'd made that clear. So when the taller, burlier man put his hand over Gabriel's shoulder an got a little closer, he was surprised. But he figured he'd let it go.

Head tilting a little as he watched the two men dancing, Clint had a moment to consider several different things - he liked Gabriel, he enjoyed his company, he knew there were no strings attached, there'd never been a discussion of any sort about... anything, he'd been okay with that - was he still okay with that? He supposed he'd have to be. It didn't look like there were any other options. And it wasn't like he wanted to be a tool or anything. That'd just... that wasn't his style. But he still had a weird feeling coiling in the pit of his stomach.

The song changed, and Gabriel tried to take that opportunity to pull slightly away from his sometime-customer. He glanced around Silver, scanning the room for mutants. Most of the folks here were disappointingly average-looking, more like him than they were like the feral that pursued him, or even Clarice. Still, it was a fairly attractive bunch, including the man who he was still kind of dancing with.

As Gabriel turned his head back toward the man, he did a double take toward a familiar face. A stream of fog came out of a nearby machine, blocking his vision. He shifted and—yep. Clint. Gabriel turned back toward the lumbersexual so he could free himself from the situation.

That's when the other man leaned in to kiss him.

Clint reminded himself that jealousy wasn't a good look on anyone. That didn't make seeing Gabriel kissing someone else any easier to take, though. He took a large gulp of his drink and took a step back toward the bar so he could put the glass down and... maybe go somewhere else.

"Oh my—" Gabriel planted a hand on the other man's chest and pushed him back. "No," Gabriel said somewhat imperiously. "Nope. Are you nuts?" He looked back toward where he'd seen Clint's face and spotted only the back of his head. Fuck.

Gabriel turned from the now-baffled lumbersexual and started to push his way through the crowd. "'Scuse me," he grunted, shimmying around a large pair of wings. "Sorry, can I just—thanks. Sorry."

Clint flagged the bartender down and put his glass on a napkin to keep it from making the bar any stickier than it already was and turned around so he could find Sue. He didn't plan on telling her why he was cutting this impromptu birthday outing short, but since she'd driven, he kind of needed her to get back to the mansion. Or maybe they could just go to a Waffle House or something. This wasn't exactly how he'd intended to spend his eighteenth birthday, but needs must.

Gabriel's heart was pounding. He stood on his tiptoes to find Clint to no avail. "Fuck it," he muttered. On his next step, he was moving faster than the rest of the club, using his powers to push past drunk dancers and flirting mutants in search of Clint. Once he'd reached the edge of the dance floor, he powered down and searched for Clint at the bar.

Bingo. He caught sight of Clint's profile and made his way toward him.

Turning slowly on the heel of his foot, Clint came face to face with Gabriel - who was no longer attached at the lips with a burly dude in flannel. "Er," he said, eloquence incarnate. "Hi."

"Hi." Gabriel smiled half-heartedly. "Hi. I—" He wasn't sure whether to acknowledge what had happened or act normal. This was exactly the kind of situation Namor had been pushing Gabriel to avoid, and sure enough, here he was. "I didn't expect to see you here." That sounded wrong, like he was making excuses. Defensive. "I mean, you know, this is the opposite of your kind of place."

"Yeah, no," Clint said, shaking his head a little. "Sue's idea - for my birthday. It's... y'know. Not really my scene." Excellent - awkward conversations for the win.

Gabriel's eyes got a little wider. "It's your birthday," he repeated. "Happy birthday! The big 1-8! Finally legal!" Should he have known that? He probably should have known that. "I probably should have known that," he said a little sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. One more reason to feel a little guilty.

Clint quirked a rueful smile, eyes shifting slightly as his brain started calculating angles and trajectories, lines of escape through all the moving people, the places the lights would and wouldn't be and when they'd be there. He could totally get out of this situation with minimal effort if he felt like it. Did he feel like it? Yeah, kinda. But he also didn't wanna be that dude, the one who was weird and possessive and ruined everyone's night by being an asshole. Nobody liked those dudes. Where was Sue? "So yeah, no - I was just getting ready to head out."

"What? Oh, I–" Gabriel frowned. "Well, I... okay. Where are we going? I mean, you know, I'll go with you."

Blinking, Clint said, "What? You don't have to do that - I mean." He stopped talking because he wasn't making any sense, anyway. "I mean, you seemed to be having fun, that's all. You don't have to leave."

Gabriel's frown deepened. "What?"

Clint nodded toward the dance floor. "You were having fun with the dude with the beard. You don't need to leave." It wasn't like they'd even arrived in the same group. "I'm probably just going back to the mansion, anyway. You should stay."

"Clint." Gabriel looked at Clint in disbelief. "Seriously? I don't want to hang out with beard guy. He's creepy, and he tried to make out with me after I kept blowing him off. Fuck that guy."

Unsure exactly how to react to that, Clint opened his mouth only to close it a moment later. "Yeah, okay, but like. You don't have to leave just because I am."

Gabriel frowned. "Are you trying to get rid of me?"

"What? No," Clint said, genuinely startled by the question. "I just... don't want you to feel like you have to do anything. Since y'know. We're not like..." He gestured somewhat helplessly between them. "A thing."

"Clint." Gabriel looked at the space between them, then looked up. He moved closer, a smile forming on his lips. "You dummy." Gabriel used his powers and grabbed Clint's shirt, pulling him toward him to plant a kiss on his lips before the younger man could register any objections.

Well that was - that was... Clint was too distracted to figure out what that was, but it was something. He focused on the kissing instead of trying to sort through the situation.

Gabriel moved his hand from Clint's chest to his back before pulling his lips away. "Let's be a thing." He grinned.

"Yeah, okay," Clint said, starting to smile despite himself. "Okay." He tugged Gabriel back in for another kiss.

"Wait," Gabriel pushed him back for a second. "I'm serious. Like, wore-a-tie-to-Thanksgiving-to-impress-your-parents serious."

"Yeah, I got that," Clint said, grinning now. "I totally got that."

"Good." Gabriel grinned back. "Happy birthday, Clint Barton."