Who: Jack and Gabe (and later, Samantha) What: Reunited and it feels so good (and later, surprise spy!) Where: Jack’s apartment, LA When: Backdated to late evening, July 14th, 2020 Warnings: Probably definitely NSFW
It was late, and Jack was alone.
The trouble started at Bullseye. Lucas had the closing shift, not that that usually meant anything. Most nights, Jack stayed at the bar until a good reason to leave walked through the door. Tonight, though, Lucas had all but sent him home, and for good reason.
Jack couldn’t stop looking at his phone.
Lately — since the Solstice party, in fact — Jack had been more addicted to his phone than a self-respecting elder millennial ought to be, to the point where the crappy thing was dying every couple of hours. Naturally, Jack never had a charger on him and resorted to stealing Lucas’s. And then he lost it.
That, apparently, was the last straw. Jack only felt kinda bad about the charger, but he knew better than to stick around to test his best friend’s last nerve, which he had an awful tendency to test long after fraying it. Once promises to buy Lucas a new one were sworn (and promptly forgotten), he trudged home, checked his phone, messed around with Lucky, checked his phone, surfed Netflix unsuccessfully for something to watch as he ate the rest of his “Welcome back!” cake from the party his Camelot teammates had thrown from him last week… and checked his phone.
Nothing. For almost a whole day.
Normally that wouldn’t have bothered him. Different people had different texting habits, whatever. Jack was just as likely to be ghosted as he was the one doing the ghosting. But this was different. Gabe was different.
Jack had texted him first, almost as soon as they went their separate ways at the party. Just a simple, Hey, you make it out alive? that turned into hours of texts that made Jack bite his lip to keep from losing his shit in public. Even in messages the heat between them was as palpable as it had been in the car, the missed opportunity and what they could’ve done with each other burning through the screen. The ache he felt deep in his stomach was not unfamiliar to Jack, though it did seem more intense this time compared to others. Jack liked it. And so, for once: no ghosting. He kept the texts going, long after the party was over.
Usually Jack didn’t wait when he felt this level of attraction for another person. But nothing, not even the one or two flings he'd had (and promptly forgotten) in the time since Gabe nearly topped him in the car, eased the memory of Gabe’s hands on him, grabbing his collar, gripping his neck. He wanted those hands on him again. If texting was the only way to keep those memories fresh in both their minds? Well, shit. Captain America didn’t have anything on him. Jack could do this all day.
And he did. For days. With reckless abandon, because that was how Jack did everything. When Gabe said he and Matt had gotten word of their next mission, Jack half-expected the messages to dry up and steeled himself for the very real possibility that this thing with Gabe was going nowhere fast. The relief he felt when Gabe’s responses kept coming, sometimes sporadically and at weird hours, was not fully explained by the low-level horniness Jack was carrying around for hotshot (emphasis on hot) pilot, though. Things were left criminally unfinished between them, yes, but Jack also… really liked talking to him? Like, really really.
It was new and definitely kind of weird. Jack didn’t want it to stop.
And then, when it did, he didn’t know what to do with himself. All of his usual distractions weren’t working — probably because he thoroughly burned through them all during his long recovery — so at last he resorted to an unusual one.
Grabbing his bow and a quiverful of orange-banded arrows, Jack hopped out of his bedroom window onto the fire escape. He took extra care not to fall (been there done that, no thank you) as he perched in the corner, back against the brick wall and half-sitting on the iron bars. It wasn’t the best stance for archery, but he tested his pull anyway, sending an arrow halfway down the block. He hit his target — the corner of a window right where the paint was beginning to peel — and allowed himself a satisfied smile. A lot had atrophied over the last year, but not his eyesight, and not Clint. Thanks, buddy.
With that, he settled into his favorite late night boredom-killer that didn’t involve naked bodies: Rear Window, Hawkeye style.
Jack rarely had the patience for a multi-step process, but this was the exception. First, he waited. Not a lot of cars drove by his part of town this time of night. Sometimes he waited until an interesting one came along; mostly, he couldn’t be choosy and let an arrow loose at whatever car happened to pass by. Once the arrow attached itself under the carriage and jettisoned its superfluous parts, the tracker activated with a cheerful ping! on Jack’s phone. He repeated this process until the arrows were gone, then went inside and had himself a little spy party. For the next few days, he’d be riveted, making up stories about the cars and who drove them, whatever came into his head. Way better than Netflix.
Unless they all got stuck in traffic, at the same time, which tended to happen a lot in LA.
In any case, this ritual was one of the few that properly calmed Jack down. In another life, he might’ve been a good spy like Clint. In this one, he had to settle for overly complex snooping as self-care. Most of the time, it worked and put whatever was bothering him out of his mind for at least a few hours. Tonight, not so much. He was barely an hour in and three or four arrows deep when the thoughts he was trying to avoid came creeping back in, circling back to the real reason he’d been checking his phone non-stop at the bar and commandeering Lucas’s now-lost charger.
Gabe wouldn’t just stop texting him. Jack had a good feel for people like that; Gabe wasn’t one of them. But… he was on a mission. Radio silence was never a good sign on a mission.
Jack lowered his bow across his lap and tipped his head back against the brick. The street was quiet, a lonely breeze shifting the quiver at his hip. There were worse places to finally admit this to himself, he supposed. That he was worried.
But it was stupid to worry like this, wasn’t it? Gabe wasn’t his boyfriend. Gabe was barely even a hook-up. But also, was it stupid? Combat lost people all the time. And it wouldn’t be the first time Gabe got injured on a mission. If that was the reason he’d stopped texting, it would be the second time in two months.
So, yeah. Maybe it was stupid to let himself worry so much about a guy he’d only kissed once. But Jack was a pretty big dummy. Selfish one, too. He’d hate to live in a world where he only got to kiss Gabe Martinez just the once.
The sound of tires blessedly interrupted Jack’s train of thought. He straightened and raised his bow, fixing his eyes in the distance to get a good look at the approaching car. It was a nice one, he could tell from this far, practically silent. He notched an arrow and began to aim, squinting down the shaft.
The car passed under a streetlight. Jack’s eyes widened. He knew that car.
“Holy shit,” he breathed.
A wide smile spread across his face as he watched the Mitsubishi Evo park outside his building. The door opened. Jack, realizing belatedly that he looked like a crazy person, hastily threw his bow back through his bedroom window, quiver and belt following close behind. By the time Gabe climbed out of the car, Jack was leaning casually over the fire escape balcony, grinning like an idiot.
Unable to contain himself, he wolf-whistled to get Gabe’s attention. “Hey, hot stuff!” he called down. “Come here often?”