Clint catches a baton in the jaw and Matt feels an arrow whizz just a little too close to his ear and even though they meet by accident, they instantly decide they like each other.

Tuesday evenings become reserved for drinks on neutral turf, which usually means anywhere that isn't Midtown because Clint knows too many people in the city. (Matt only knows, like, five people. Tops.)

So they take turns choosing dive bars and ritzy cocktail joints. Clint usually likes the former, but sometime's he'll drag Matt to the latter just because he thinks it's funny the way the waiters treat them like they're on their first date.

Other times, he'll drag Matt to exclusive West Village speakeasies that smell like bourbon and moustache wax. He says it's easier to get in when the bouncers take pity on his blind companion - plus, he explains, the girls there are always real cute.

(Like Matt wouldn't know.)

Sometimes Matt drags Clint to Chinatown for unique cocktails in hip bars and sometimes he drags him there for cheap, put-hair-on-your-chest baiju. Either way, Clint likes it better when Matt invites him to Harlem for a good beer and good music.

"And then we blew up the bunker and flew away in our invisible spy plane," Clint finishes, taking a sip of his drink as punctuation. He sets it down next to his hearing aid, which he's carelessly tossed onto the sticky table. (It's usually Matt's job to make sure he pockets it before they leave, because five-drinks-deep Clint can't be relied on to pay his tab let alone remember his expensive personal belongings.) "You know. Boring Saturday stuff."

"Boring Saturday stuff. You're just too cool for me, Barton," Matt shrugs, tapping his fingers against the glass of his old fashioned. "Hanging around with superspies and superheroes and, you know, arms-dealing rich people. Or so I assume," he adds with a self-conscious cough.

"You forgot the Norse god."

Matt cringes a little, but he makes a good show at hiding it by taking another swig of his drink. "Uh huh."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Norse golden calf." Clint grins at him. "The way you just winced, I think you and Rogers would get along just fine."

He doesn't bother to lower his voice for the name-drop because the name-drop is innocuous out of his mouth; he knows very well that none of the people in this bar know who Hawkeye is, let alone Clint Barton, because, well, it'd be an understatement to say the press weren't much interested in an arrow-shooting dude's involvement in the Battle of New York. He's cool with it, though (except for a teeny-tiny, deeply-hidden part of his ego).

"Nope," Matt shakes his head. "Nope."

"Yeah, yeah, spare me." Clint rolls his eyes and sighs. "You still believe in secret identities. I can't promise that I'll stop bugging you about it, though." He adds, quickly, like ripping off a band-aid: "I may have mentioned you to Kate, in passing, vaguely. So, so vaguely. But other than that, we're good."

Matt grimaces. "Come on."

"You come on! Can you blame me for having a hard time keeping this a secret? A blind, crime-fighting vigilante lawyer? Who, did I mention, is blind." He waves his hands in front of Matt's face to make his point, which is equal parts insulting and charming - or maybe unequal parts, but Matt can't really be bothered to be bothered.

Anyway, Matt's bourbon is damn good: all charred oak and fruit notes and it's worth the pretentious atmosphere of the bar (there are three separate-yet-identical debates going on in the building, and Matt wants to settle them all by screaming vinyl-is-not-better-than-digital-trust-me-I-have-superhearing-just-shut-up but his bourbon is a satisfying enough distraction).

"Don't fetishize me," Matt says, only half-joking, as he signs covertly: F-U-C-K-Y-O-U, with one hand held up to shield the insult from the rest of the room like a sneaky schoolboy.

Clint snorts a laugh. "Yeah, fuck me for getting excited about making a pal who's down a sense too. Also? Cursing kind of loses its oomph when you spell it out like that. May I?"

"Yeah, show me," Matt nods, an invitation for Clint to reach across the table and grab his hand. It's a gesture that could be awkward and overly-intimate, but Clint's hands are rough and to-the-point. Matt can sense heads turning in their direction, wondering what the fuck they're doing, but Clint doesn't seem to notice.

"Not exactly the same, but a close-enough sentiment," he explains as he works, pressing Matt's fingers down into a fist, leaving only his thumb and middle finger sticking straight out. "Now touch your chin with your thumb," he instructs. "Ta-da!"

"Like this?"

"So rude," Clint admonishes as Matt does as he's told. "I mean, how dare you."

"Sure, sure. Alright, middle finger sticking out is obvious, plus the thumb…" Matt taps his thumb against his chin, thinking hard for the right sign. "It's some kind of ASL portmanteau?"

"You're calling me a motherfucker right now," Clint laughs, nodding. "Well done."

"Ah," Matt says, making a whoops face and making a show of sitting on his hands. "Useful. Thanks."

Clint grins at him.

Matt grins back.