Work Text:
The claxons sound and the goddamn strobes flash and the countdown starts from ten, the airlock opening silently behind the shelter of the helicarrier’s force field. The blankness of space is exposed sliver by sliver until Alpha Company’s quinjet glides through and is all the way inside.
Redhawk stubs her smoke out with her boot on the worn deck plate of the hangar. She radios Johns, notes Williams immediately stand at attention behind her, and then walks over to Al-Maliki and not so gently shoves him in the head until his buggy blue eyes focus on her; as usual he’s too busy flirting with a certain newish ship mechanic to be at all alert.
“Get your shit together, Private,” she hollers at him over the alarm, knowing that Romanov will be considerably less nice if he’s not prompt.
She starts walking towards the doors of the bay with Williams shadowing her and Al-Maliki scurrying to catch up with them. Johns, Captain Rogers’ liegeman, meets them as the hangar door comes all the way down and the force field blinks out, making the crew on the deck of the carrier suddenly strangely aware that sometimes there’s a presence to nothing.
Johns claps Redhawk on the shoulder, nods at Williams and gives Al-Maliki a glare. They stop at the edge of the quinjet’s descending ramp, waiting for their commanders to deploy.
Romanov and Barton are down first, and Al-Maliki and Williams automatically exchange places with Redhawk and Johns to tend to them. The two jaegers already have their helmets off. They look identically battle-worn and stoic as they come down the ramp, but bear the hundred-yard stare of compatible fighters who are still in the Drift together, meaning – someone’s hurt.
Because Al-Maliki actually is worth his salt as Romanov’s liegeman when he’s not too busy trying to get laid, he can tell it’s her that’s wounded. He knows Barton’s been keeping her upright basically just with the power of their bond. Al-Maliki readies his medical kit for her as Williams rushes to Barton’s side and leads them all to Medical.
Not all of the Drift-compatible Avengers team respond the same way, however. Redhawk and Johns’ commanders are generally a sight to behold after a prolonged battle like this one. They wait patiently for them on the hangar deck.
They take a little time to deplane, but when they do - the irritation and frustration of Rogers and Barnes not being in physical contact with one another because of the barriers of their armor is apparent to their liegemen the minute they appear in the doorway. They tramp down the exit towards Redhawk and Johns as fast as their reinforced uniforms will allow, Barnes almost dragging his Driftmate down the ramp.
Redhawk and Johns unstrap Cap and Barnes from their gear, helmets and face plates first, the disengaging pneumatics of the specialized Stark armor still shockingly loud in their release even over the constant din of the hangar bay. The men are on each other as soon as their gear is gone, locking mouths and nipping at earlobes and necks as soon as they’re able. Barnes’ hands, gigantic like bear paws still in his gloves, reach for Rogers’ head, his waist, his hips, grabbing and kneading him everywhere.
Redhawk catches Johns’ eye and raises her eyebrows at him. Still dismantling Rogers of his uniform, Johns tries to suppress his laughter.
“Get this shit the fuck off me,” Barnes orders Redhawk, pulling his mouth off Cap only for the scant time it takes him to say it. They’ve been out of the quinjet not 15 seconds and Redhawk’s already stripped Barnes of the armor on his back, shins, calves and shoulders, but he clearly wants his hands free.
“Get your fucking hands off Roger’s ass and maybe I can get your gloves off before you pop all over the inside of your suit, sir,” Redhawk growls back. Because she’s so not cleaning that.
Barnes thrusts his right hand at her, never detaching himself from Roger’s mouth. She shucks the adamantium plates and the kevlar sheathing, exposing the skin of his natural arm.
Then he starts using it to tear Rogers out of the front of his armor. There’s enough moaning and groping and spit being exchanged that it’d look like a death match if there weren’t so much affection happening, really.
Redhawk gets Barnes down to nothing but his kevlar shorts, armor on one thigh and one bicep, when she looks over at how Johns has been faring with Rogers – not bad, everything off but the kevlar on his neck, crotch, and shins – when she gives the agents the green light.
“Go, Jesus, get the fuck outta here before god and everyone gets the Full Monty,” she says, shoving Barnes vaguely towards the living areas of the ship. Their post-battle antics are fairly well-known among the S.H.I.E.L.D. staff on the helicarrier, but Redhawk and Johns still feel protective of their superiors during their more vulnerable, intimate moments.
To a point, anyway. They watch Barnes and Rogers’ progress across the hangar deck while standing at the bottom of the quinjet ramp, surrounded by sweaty sheaths of discarded kevlar and hunks of singed black and blue metal armor.
Hilariously, Barnes, still fused to his Driftmates’ mouth, is shoving Captain Rogers not towards the officer’s quarters, but instead steadily backwards towards the non-com toilets. Redhawk and Johns bust out laughing when he pushes Cap through the door and into the first empty stall within, scaring the bejesus out of a young military nurse trying to exit at the same time.
A few moments pass, and then there are junior officers fleeing the restroom. As each of them flings open the swinging door in a hasty retreat to give the jaegers some privacy, Redhawk catches a brief glimpse into the bathroom: there's Barnes pinning Rogers to the side of the stall, his metal arm cradling Cap’s naked ass while his flesh arm wraps Cap’s legs around his hips, all the while having never released his lips.