The X-Project

Chinese is a not-date. This is a rule. Somewhere.


Clint tipped the driver who dropped the Chinese food outside the mansion gates, then walked up the long drive to the front and inside. He was upstairs a few moments later, knocking on Gabriel's door.

"Yeah, come on in." Gabriel glanced up from the couch, where he was idly flipping through an issue of GQ. He'd expected to have a little more time between his shower and company, and so he hadn't bothered to finish towel-drying his hair after a post-workout shower.

"Oh, awesome." He grinned as Clint entered. "I'm starving."

"Right, I really want some of those sugar doughnut things," Clint said, making a beeline for the couch. "Like, yeah - sesame chicken is awesome, but I want some fried dough and I don't even know why."

"Ick." Gabriel wrinkled his nose. "I don't know how you eat those. It's like a diabetes morsel." He grabbed his phone off the table and scooted over on the couch.

"YOLO," Clint said, grinning as he put the food down on the coffee table. "Besides, I got some vegetable stuff, too. It's not like I'll keel over from a sugar high."

"Mmhmm." Gabriel started typing a quick text, then looked up at Clint. "I never really got Chinese food until I moved here. Not a thing in my family." He finished typing, then put his phone on the arm of the couch. "Soda?" He leapt up.

"Yeah, thanks. And you're in for some serious education, then, on the many varied ways of eating Chinese," Clint said. "I mean, Tandy and I invented this Chinese pizza - it's basically just leftover Chinese on a pizza. But whatever, it's delicious. The fried rice from this place is really good, too."

Gabriel grimaced. "That sounds horrible." He sped to the fridge, grabbed a Coke and a diet and sped back. "I didn't say - here you go," he passed Clint a can, "I've lived here a little while, you know. Tandy's the one who's in an arranged marriage to Julian, right?" He popped open the silver tab, not taking care to avoid the bubbly fizz that sputtered out of it and onto his black jeans. He looked up and Clint and grinned sheepishly. "Oops. My bad."

"Never let it be said you're one to worry about Coke fizz," Clint said, laughing. "And don't knock the Chinese pizza till you've tried it - there's a million different potential combinations. I'm sure I could find something you'd like." He popped his own can of soda open but sat it down without actually taking a sip, focusing on the sugar doughnuts.

"Shut up and pass me a napkin." Gabriel frowned, looking at his pants.

"Sir! Yes, sir!" Clinton dug through the bag of Chinese until he came to the fortune cookies, utensils, and napkins.

"Thanks." He grabbed the napkin from Clint's hand and patted at the wet spots. "I bet you can," he added, even though the moment had very clearly passed.

"I'm good like that," Clint agreed, handing over the containers of actual food. "One's sesame chicken, one's beef and broccoli. There's probably some lo mien in there, too, but I can't remember if I actually ordered it or not. Oh, and dumplings. What're we watching tonight?"

"Oh, I don't know." Gabriel threw the napkins into the bag and grabbed a container. "I'm feeling pretty uninspired. I'm thinking channel surfing might be in order?" He opened the top. "Dumplings. Awesome." He reached over Clint's lap for a pair of chopsticks. "It's November, right? So no cheesy Christmas movies."

Clint pointed his fork at Gabriel, half a sugar doughnut on the end, and said, "No Christmas movies until after my birthday. It's a rule."

"I, uh," Gabriel scratched his neck. "I don't know when your birthday is." He grabbed a dumpling with a chopstick and popped it in his mouth. "I don't know if that's come up."

"December sixth," Clint said, quirking a smile. "Andre's really into Christmas so it was always like we went straight from Halloween to holly and Christmas carols everywhere. No passing go, no collecting $100, no turkey at Thanksgiving. That's an exaggeration, there was always turkey at Thanksgiving. It was just kind of an afterthought. So I made a rule when I turned thirteen."

Gabriel laughed. "Sounds festive, though. Like, too much holiday cheer's probably a good problem to have."

"Yeah, that's a good point. There are definitely worse holiday issues to have," Clint said, nodding. "Is there like. A Texas thing that equates to the New Yorker tendency to default to eating Chinese?"

"Okay, first of all," Gabriel jabbed Clint in the side with the blunter end of a chopstick, "Texas is big, so, like, every part of it is different. I think people still eat a lot of Chinese there, like, whatever. Definitely a lot of Chinese restaurants in Austin. But it wasn't really my family's thing. My parents never grew up eating it in Mexico, so they never really got into it." He shrugged. "Anyway," he changed the subject, "when I was in Austin, I just ate tacos all the time."

"I can respect tacos," Clint said, nodding along as he flipped the remote control off the coffee table with his foot. It landed on the top of his shoe and, after stabbing his fork into another doughnut, he tossed it up to himself and caught it one-handed. "Add some lettuce and tomatoes and you've got like. All the major food groups, I guess. Miss Dane - Lorna - keeps trying to convince me that vegetables are more important than protein and carbs, but I still don't completely believe her."

Gabriel cocked an eyebrow. "She's right, you know. I went out with this personal trainer slash nutritionist a few times, and all he could talk about was how half your plate is supposed to be kale or something." He put down the dumplings and grabbed the container with the beef and broccoli. "I wouldn't worry about it, though. You're in pretty good shape."

Clint gave Gabriel a funny look. "I mean, okay - kale in a salad I could like. Probably see? But dude, I'd rather have my salad on a burger. I mean, I was a vegetarian for like a year because Mads got on this this vegan thing after we helped out at a farm as a project and like. There's only so much soy a dude can eat, y'know?"

"Well, yeah, soy has estrogen or something, so, you know." Gabriel waved his hands noncommittally. "Doesn't matter. On the third date he got mad I wouldn't order a veggie burger, and that was that."

"Lame," Clint said, shaking his head. "Bacon broke me. And chicken. And burgers. I kind of went on a meat eating spree when I finally made up my mind to quit the vegetarian thing. Besides, I was doing nothing but eating salads and stuff there for a while, especially after workouts with Logan. An apple might be tasty but it's not gonna cut it after getting tossed around for like two hours in the Danger Room."

"You spend too much time in there getting your ass kicked," Gabriel clicked his tongue before shoving a piece of broccoli in his mouth.

"Hey, it's getting handed to me by people who want me to not get pummeled if freaky statues come to life again," Clint said, reaching over to steal a piece of beef from Gabriel's container. "Which would definitely be really nice."

"Oh, god, another freaky Xavier story?"

"Scorpions," Clint said, shoving the beef in his mouth. He chewed for a moment, then continued, "Huge, stone scorpions with actual poisonous stingers. Sue nearly died."

"Jesus," Gabriel winced. "How are you all not more overtly fucked up around here?" He thought he was the master at pretending problems hadn't existed and moving forward, but this was some next-level emotional gymnastics.

"Therapy," Clint deadpanned. Then he smiled a little. "It helps that Sue didn't actually die. I mean, getting yanked into a parallel universe was almost worse. But we shouldn't talk about that one cause it draws the attention of the people who did the yanking and we don't want that. Internet memes shouldn't come to life."

"This is why the rest of us drink."

"Add sarcasm, inappropriateness, and shenanigans and you've got the foundation for the perfect friendship," Clint said, grinning.

"Or something else." Gabriel winked.

"Ha," Clint said, laughing. "Yeah, let's go with that." Finally turning the TV on, he lowered the volume and pulled up the guide.

"Oh, whatever." Gabriel snorted. His phone vibrated, and he grabbed it off the couch. "No Legally Blonde. I own a copy - don't look at me like that, I stole it from my first roommate - and it's stupid to watch it with commercials."

"I'm totally judging you for having gone to the trouble of stealing Legally Blonde from a roommate," Clint said, watching that title scroll by. "There's one of the Transformer movies. Zorro from a million years ago. Catch Me If You Can. I'm kinda feeling Zorro."

"It's Zorro," Gabriel teased, rolling his r's with some fanfare. "Never seen any of them, but put that on. I know you like old-timey movies, plus classic movie channel means no commercials."

"All very valid points," Clint said, nodding as he clicked that channel, the put the remote down and actually reached for some real food as opposed to just sugar-covered fried dough.

"Here, have the last dumpling." Gabriel grabbed the container and passed it to Clint. "You know, with all the movies and the hanging out with me, I'm starting to think you're not actually a real student."

"I plan really carefully," Clint said, actually serious this time. "And like, my school work isn't something I put off. Otherwise, I really wouldn't have any time for anything else." He stabbed the last dumpling with his fork and ate it as he put the empty container in the paper bag the rest of the food had come in. "I mostly finish everything this week that's due next week."

"The problem with that," Gabriel pointed out, "is that your life allows little room for spontaneity. Although," he grinned, "that's because I take advantage of most of your free time."

"Yeah, you do," Clint said. "Be careful or the paparazzi will start harassing you, too."

"Please, like I can't handle them." Gabriel snorted. "One, super-speed. Two, super-handsome. Three, super-charming."

"Wow, super modest, too."

"Uh, yeah, which means the photographers wouldn't think I was a giant douche."

"You dazzle them with your with and charm and smile. I'll exit stage left so we can possibly reconvene and play some naked peek-a-boo," Clint said, waggling his eyebrows a little.

"Is that — " Gabriel groaned. "You are so corny, Barton, oh my God." Gabriel playfully shoved him. "I mean, really?"

It took Clint a moment to remember the rest of the lyrics, but then his grin widened and he finished, "It's clear I'm only here for good, clean fun - shut up and kiss me like the antidote's under my tongue."

Gabriel leaned in, drawing toward Clint's face. His lips came close to Clint's, as if he were going to oblige, before he whispered, "You have a piece of broccoli stuck in between your teeth."

Clint leaned in a little farther so he could murmur, "I haven't eaten any broccoli yet."

"Oh, okay then." Gabriel's nose almost brushed against Clint's. "Must be my imagination."

Trying to suppress a grin and failing miserably, Clint said, "So're you gonna kiss me or not? Cause I've got some doughnuts I could go back to eating."

"Oh, fine." Gabriel leaned forward the extra inches to place his lips on Clint's, placing one hand on the younger man's shoulder.

Clint laughed against Gabriel's lips before pressing closer, moving the beef and broccoli back to the coffee table so they wouldn't accidentally spill it. He had a feeling that they wouldn't be watching Zorro, after all.