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Okay, so this looked bad.
Well, actually, no. This looked hilarious. Who would've thought that the man who could pull all sorts of elegant aerial acrobatics in a clunky metal suit would turn into a newborn deer, all knock-kneed and wobbly, the minute you strapped ice skates on his feet?
The other Avengers had, for the most part, paired off: Steve with Wanda, Bruce with Pepper, Thor with Natasha (which, Thor on ice skates was also hilarity incarnate), and Sam with Bucky. It left Clint and Tony as the spares which wasn't all that surprising, and it meant that Clint got to stare at the billionaire genius do his best not to crack his pretty head open while Clint lazily circled the rink, just at home on ice skates as he'd been on the highwire as a teenager.
Eventually, he took pity on the other man, twisting around so that he was gliding backwards as he came up on Tony. "C'mon, shellhead, gimme your hands." The six-foot-three archer effortlessly glided over so that he was directly in front of Tony, still skating backwards so that they were face-to-face. He reached out with both hands, fingers curling in a grabby hands motion, trying to get Tony to give him his hands.
Tony, to his credit, gave Clint a skeptical look, even as he desperately tried not to overbalance and send himself pinwheeling across the ice. "Because you're so good at this, Merida?"
Clint snorted, his eyebrows arching. "Between the two of us who's the one skating backwards?"
Okay, fine, it may have been a stupid thing to say, but that wasn't the point, was it? The futurist gave the still-offered hands one more long look before he sighed long-sufferingly and reached out to put his hands in Clint's. The archer's long fingers immediately curled firmly around his hands and Tony found his tongue darting out to wet his lips before he swallowed. "Okay, so what now?"
Clint's lips spread in a smile when Tony finally gave in to the offer of help. "Now, I teach you how to skate. But first," Clint paused and readjusted his grip on the other man so that he was grasping the whole of his forearms instead. It would be easier to keep Tony standing that way, without risking snapping his wrists. "Alright, now stand up straight, feet aligned with your shoulders."
They had long since glided to a stop, so it wasn't all that difficult for Tony to straighten up, getting his legs under him and his skates straight. And with Clint supporting him he felt almost stable on the skates for the first time.
"See, not that hard." Clint smiled, and then chuckled as Tony rolled his eyes. "Okay, so you're going to push off, one foot at a time. Small strokes, and don't worry about running into me, I'll stay out of your way."
"Uh huh, small strokes, right." Tony had to bite back the retort he wanted to give to that, focusing instead on the whole... skating bit. His first couple of 'steps' were shaky, but it actually helped a lot that he had Clint's strong arms to brace himself against (and good God, the man's arms were all muscle, all that archery was seriously paying out dividends).
"Lookit that, we'll have you doing triple lutz's in no time."
"Hilarious, Barton. You ever consider giving up the whole Avenger thing to be a comedian? I feel like you could do well, you'd be a real hoot."
Clint rolled his eyes, but there was a grin on his face. "Y'know, I hadn't before, but now that you've mentioned I just may have to give it a whirl."
Every so often Clint was glancing back over his shoulder to make sure that he didn't run into anyone, but the majority of his attention was on Tony and keeping him upright. "Alright, so let's start working on lengthening that stride. The quicker we get you moving at speed the easier it gets." Skating slowly was a hell of a lot harder than skating at a good pace.
It took them a few minutes, but eventually Tony did get the hang of it. So much so that Clint had to shift so that they were skating side-by-side. At some point, his hand had slid down from Tony's forearm to his hand, their fingers tangled together.
"Legolas?"
"Hmmm?"
"Thanks for the help."
"Anytime, Gimli, anytime."