What’s something you like about Clint x Stephen ?

My beloveds SOBS

I really love their pain. And I'm being 100% serious here. Like, them sharing this understanding about what constant pain feels like. Stephen with his hands, Clint with his constant injuries. How debilitating it can be to be in constant pain and how to manage that while still going through life is something not many people would understand, but they do for each other.

Sort of related, their respective disabilities (once again, Stephen with his hands and Clint with his hearing). Specially how they aren't really that visible. Sure, Stephen has the tremors and scars, and sure, Clint sometimes wears his visible hearing aids, but they're not the most visible disabilities there are (to the point that even in fandom they are often OVERLOOKED entirely, even more so in-universe). How to navigate a world that offers little accommodations with that, how there are days worse than others, how they try to show up for each other on bad days, how they get it. Hearing aids can get overwhelming, hand tremors/pain can become paralysing.

How tired they both are, yet how they always get up. Because jesus christ both of this men have gone through the gutter. They continuously go through the gutter on a weekly basis.

Their respective humour too. I feel like that bounces off each other neatly, like, Clint wouldn't be put off by Stephen's sometimes dry humour and would just banter right back at him.

Their two different flavours of traumatised (See that shipping dynamic image of serious tired traumatised guy + funny traumatised guy with sun glasses and finger guns??? THEM)

Taking care of each other, in relation to some of the points above: Clint helping Stephen out with small tasks when his hands are too much, Stephen patching Clint's multiple injuries and generally making sure that they're healing nicely, that he gets the proper medical care.

And also, and most importantly:

hii its touch starved ironstrange anon again! just wanted to say that i completely understand that you would wanna take a break, dont worry about it! i think youre an amazing writer i keep going back and rereading your stuff (soothe my soul is among my favourite) so whatever you wanna do with that prompt im willing to wait for it (no pressure ofc if you wanna leave it no hard feelings) take care of yourself first and foremost! we have loads of stuff to reread regardless ❤️

Aww, this makes me so happy! 🤍

I just about finished editing about 13k that features a little bit of touch starved Stephen and I’m sure there will eventually be more. It’s really a lovely concept to play around with.

Soothe My Soul? Thanks for mentioning that, it reminds me that I still have one last ficlet for that series lying around. I guess I’ll put that up now... (This will be the 200th story featuring Stephen, by the way. I can’t say Ironstrange because there is a little bit of gen without Tony in the mix but Stephen is a constant.)

Thank you so much for the lovely words and sorry for the rather long response time. *handwave* Things happening, you know.