Chapter Text
One thing before we start, Clint signs. Barnes frowns at him over the mountain of ingredients on the counter. The others are watching, but none of them can sign as fast as he and Barnes can, and with the ingredients obscuring their hands, it’ll help keep the conversation private.
What? Barnes asks.
I want to go first.
Because Clint’s spent the last week in very close quarters with Barnes, he can see, in a way he suspects nobody else except maybe Steve can see, the agony of indecision on his face. First, advantage sensed. Then, immediate mistrust of advantage. And finally...
Fine.
Clint grins.
“Thanks.” He looks over at the table where Darcy is sitting. She is wearing one of Thor’s capes, a cardboard crown that may have come from a burger joint, and a large, round button that says Nobody kill me, I’m the judge, and she has an hourglass taped to a stick that she’s holding like a sceptre. She grins at both of them and looks around.
“Okay people, are we ready?”
Both he and Barnes nod.
Darcy sits up a little straighter. She is the only one sitting; the room is pretty packed.
“First we go over the rules,” she says. “One: No tampering with ingredients, recipes, tools, utensils, or ovens. Two.” She pauses. “Hey, should somebody be signing this?”
Clint shrugs and nods. It’d be nice to be sure about the rules. Natasha shoulders forward.
“I will,” she says.
Darcy nods. “Perfect. One, blah blah blah, basically no messing around with each other’s stuff. Okay, two: Each contestant makes one loaf of banana bread and then presents it to the judge, c’est moi, on bended knee.”
Clint snorts. Barnes leans forward and maybe makes a noise or something because a few people smile, and Darcy straightens up and gestures to herself. “I don’t make the rules, I’m just the judge.”
Barnes narrows his eyes at Thor and shakes his head. Thor’s head goes back just a bit, as if he finds it unnerving.
“Three: Blood must remain in its original container at all times.”
Clint sees a swift, unpleasant smile cross Barnes’ face.
“And bruising will totally be counted as blood out of its container.”
Barnes frowns.
“Okay I think that’s it. I mean, "that is all". You have one hour.” She raises the hourglass on a stick and turns it over. “Go!”
It’s all very civilized. Clint ignores Barnes and Barnes ignores Clint, and they get on with it. The part of Clint that understands showmanship keeps tugging at him, telling him he ought to be doing something, probably something to do with flames and maybe some kind gunpowder-based banana-unpeeling apparatus, but he pushes that aside. He’s not here to entertain the others, he’s here to win the competition. The loaf comes out not too bad, a little scorched on the one side, but otherwise okay. He sets it out to cool and sees Barnes smirking just a little, his perfectly golden loaf of banana bread steaming gently on the counter beside him. Clint doesn’t care.
He takes the tub of margarine he requested and the brown sugar and a bowl and starts mixing the icing. While he waits for the loaf to cool enough to be iced, he considers. He glances at Barnes, who’s looking critically down at his naked loaf of bread, like he hadn’t anticipated brown sugar icing and is wondering if he should ice his too. Good. Distracted.
Clint tears the corner off one of the brown paper grocery bags and grabs a pencil from a drawer and writes a few words. It won’t take many. He reads it back, smiles, and sets it by the plate upon which he is going to present his masterpiece. It’s just a plate. Just a dinner plate. Nothing special. It's got to look homey and inviting. That's part of it.
He ices the loaf with the lumpy brown sugar icing and then waits. He risks a glance at the audience. He never did like seeing people’s faces when he performed, it was always better to have a blindfold on, or have the lights in his eyes, but he looks up anyway. Natasha is leaning against Bruce, who’s leaning back on her, and they’re both talking to Tony, who’s nodding, slowly but getting faster, grin spreading like he’s having something confirmed. He looks for Phil and finds him squashed up near the back corner of the room, looking over Sam's shoulder to see. He flashes a little smile at Clint and Clint nods back. He knows better than to show certainty in front of a judge, even if he’s pretty damn sure this is going to work.
Darcy calls time, and Clint washes his hands, puts the loaf on the plate, slides the note just a little under it, and carries it over to the table. He bows like a trained horse, on one knee, low, deep, perfectly theatrical. Darcy appears to be delighted.
She says a few words, takes the knife and slices a piece, pops in into her mouth. Her eyes go wide.
“Oh my god," she says, "you made my mom’s banana bread?! How did you even … …" something something. Clint can guess.
“She’s your emergency contact. Selvig gave me her number.”
“Oh my god. It’s exactly how she … … … cheap margarine and everything.” She looks back at the plate and sees the note and gives him a stern look. “Bribes will not avail you.”
“Not a bribe.”
She narrows her eyes a little more.
“Poetry might work.”
“Not a poem.”
She takes the note, chewing as she does, and reads it. She stops chewing. She swallows. She licks the icing off her finger, gets to her feet, points at Clint and shouts, Winner!
Consternation and uproar.
Clint can hear the buzz of jumbled voices raised, and the booming voice of Thor calling for order, and Tony has doubled over he’s laughing so hard, Pepper standing beside him, arms folded, shaking her head. Steve looks dumbfounded, and he’s pushing toward Darcy to, no doubt, speak earnestly and urgently with her, and then Thor is demanding an explanation and when people have sort of started to calm down, Natasha touches his shoulder.
What did you tell her?
The truth, he says and shrugs. His bananas are 72 years old and they were down my pants.
Barnes is looking at him. Looking over, smiling faintly, shaking his head.
You asshole, he signs. Clint grins back.
Yep.
He sidles on over and takes a look at what Barnes cooked up. "Mind if I…?" he asks. Barnes shakes his head and shrugs.
"Go ahead," he says.
They get into it, both of them. The fact is, it's delicious.