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Clint’s down in the living room, sitting a bit too close to the television so that he can still make out Ellie’s contrived warnings with the volume turned way down so he doesn’t wake Aunt May up, when he hears the creak of a stair. He pauses the game and looks back over his shoulder wearily, but his schooled look of wide-eyed innocence quickly melts into an exasperated glare as he catches sight of Peter’s boney bare foot frozen mid-air over the next step down.
Clint turns back to the screen and goes back to bludgeoning other apocalypse survivors to death because apparently Joel only pals around with kids when deadly zombies are lurking around. Peter makes his not-so-silent way down the staircase and sidles up to sit next to him on the floor.
“You’re supposed to be in bed, Petey,” Clint mutters lowly, mashing L1 and R1 to lob a brick at the guy creeping around a busted up counter for poor cover.
Peter pulls his knees up to his chest and leans against Clint’s shoulder. “So’re you.”
Clint tries to shove him off, but Peter just lists back toward him. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t sleep,” Clint grumbles.
The guy he’s sneaking up on to strangle silently turns around abruptly, and his shout alerts his buddies, so they all redirect their randomized paths to come and wail on Joel. He gets off a head shot to take out one guy and punches another dude in the face before he’s offed by one too many blows to the head with a baseball bat, and then he’s blinking back into existence standing outside the rundown shop again. Clint stops himself from throwing the controller down in his frustration, and Peter takes that as a sign that it’s okay to liberate the controller so he can have his own go at it, leaning toward the television so he can make out the screen without his glasses on.
“Are you nervous for your date tomorrow?” Peter wheedles with a grin, directing Joel to crouch behind abandoned cars to avoid drawing attention to him and Ellie.
“No,” Clint scoffs. He whacks Peter upside the head for good measure and steals the controller back.
Peter flops back onto him, digging his pointy chin into Clint’s shoulder. “You so are,” Peter huffs with a laugh.
Clint pauses the game again and drops his head down into his hands with a garbled sigh. “This was a bad idea. I should go text him that something came up, and I can’t make it.”
“What? No!” Peter prods his elbow deep into Clint’s side until he twists around to put Peter into a headlock. Peter yanks at the arm holding steady around his throat ineffectually. “Phil’s cool, man!” he rasps. “It’s gonna go fine.”
Clint loosens his hold so it’s more hugging than grappling. “Yeah, whatever.”
“You’re worrying over nothing.”
“What do you even know? Not like you’ve ever been on a date.”
“So? I’ve seen plenty of movies.”
With a groan, Clint pushes Peter away and rolls back to lay on the carpet, staring at the slowing rotating ceiling fan. “Please stop trying to give me advice if that's where you're getting it.”
Peter sticks his tongue out but plunks down next to Clint anyway. “Fine. You should ask Aunt May, though. She’s bound to have some kind of Elder Knowledge about relationships.”
“What?” Clint whips his head over to look at Peter in shock. “No! I can’t go to Aunt May! She’ll wanna know who I’m going on a date with, and then if she finds out it’s a guy, she’ll ground me or worse.”
“Nuh-uh,” Peter denies, his face scrunched up skeptically. Clint brings up his arms to cross them over his chest, worrying at his lip as he tries to plan out how to make sure Aunt May doesn’t catch wind of his plans to go to a movie with a guy in a so-homo kind of way. Peter sighs and rolls onto his side to face him. “She really won’t care, Clint.”
“You don’t know that,” Clint whispers, memories flashing to the forefront of his mind of the last good foster family he’d lucked into and how quickly the Jones's smiles had turned to scowls when they’d caught him making out with the boy who lived next door. Peter wiggles closer and presses his forehead against Clint’s bicep. They fall asleep on the floor with the video game stuck on pause.
---
Clint and Phil are waiting in line at the theatre for tickets, and Clint keeps having to hold his hand up in front of his face awkwardly or turn his head to hide the yawns that keep cracking his jaw. He and Peter woke up a little after dawn and snuck back up to their rooms, but Clint didn’t manage to sleep anymore after that. Aunt May had seemed worried at first when Clint stumbled downstairs for breakfast, but when Peter followed and looked just as dead on his feet as Clint, she only rolled her eyes and told them they were banned from video games for the rest of the weekend.
Phil’s hand slips around to the small of his back to nudge him forward in line, and he leans in to ask, “You okay?”
Clint does his best to grin. “Yeah, just a little tired. Stayed up playing video games with Petey.”
Phil smiles back easily. “Anything good, or were you two just button mashing your way through an overrated fighting game?”
Clint throws his head back dramatically and proclaims, “There’s no such thing.” Phil laughs, and really, that’s all Clint cares about. “Nah, he somehow tricked Aunt May into letting him get The Last of Us.”
Phil raises an eyebrow, and Clint's struck by the inherent sexiness of such a mundane facial expression, but that could just be a Phil factor. “No wonder you look like you didn’t sleep.”
“I’m not scared of stupid simulated zombies,” Clint says, trying to play it up like he’s offended.
“No, you guys probably just got frustrated trying to stay sneaky and kept getting ambushed. You strike me as the type who’s too stubborn to let a video game get the best of him,” Phil teases. He darts forward as soon as a spot opens up in front of the box office and asks for two tickets to Insidious: Chapter 2. Phil’s handing over money before Clint can insist that he can pay for his own, and when he turns for the doors and catches sight of Clint’s consternated expression, he chuckles. “You can get us a popcorn and soda to share, then we’ll call it even.”
Clint heads for the concession line, eyeing the menu pricing. “Pretty sure that’s not gonna be even at all.”
“We’ll just have to switch off paying for tickets and concessions then,” Phil assures him, and Clint valiantly tells himself that the happy warm feeling in his stomach has nothing to do with the fact that Phil’s implying that movie dates are going to be a common occurrence. He clears his throat awkwardly and goes to get the popcorn.
---
Clint’s a sucker for movie trailers; he’d probably be just as happy sitting for an hour watching trailers back to back with no feature film if given the chance. Phil only grins whenever Clint leans close to his ear to whisper the movie title for each trailer before ten seconds have passed.
The large Dr. Pepper is in the cup holder of the arm rest between them, and Phil’s arm is just lying there, his hand not quite touching the cup and his palm opened and turned up a bit. By the third trailer, Clint drops his arm down next to Phil’s when he pulls back from hissing an excited “Frozen!” When the opening bars of the fifth trailer start, Clint slides his hand into Phil’s and laces their fingers together.
He settles back in the surprisingly comfy theatre seat trying to hold back a happy grin. Everything’s so nice, and he’s so content to be sitting next to Phil holding hands, that when the lights dim for the movie, Clint doesn’t even realize that his eyelids drop shut with them.
---
Clint blinks awake with a frown when someone bumps into his outstretched foot. His brow crinkles in confusion as he tries to place where he is. He’s tipped over in his theatre seat so that he’s leaning over the armrest, and when he realizes that his head is laying on Phil’s shoulder, he flushes and buries his face in Phil’s hoodie sleeve rather than face him.
Phil laughs and attempts to push his head up. “How was your nap?”
Clint groans a garbled apology into Phil’s arm.
“It’s fine. You didn’t miss much of anything,” Phil assures him. “I don’t think so, anyway. I wasn’t really paying attention.”
Clint sits back slowly to regard Phil curiously. He’s smiling softly, and their hands are still entwined, their knuckles damp from being pressed against the condensation on the soda cup.
“I kept getting distracted,” Phil admits, his lips twitching into a smirk. “You’re kind of adorable when you’re sleeping.”
Clint scoffs. “I am not adorable.”
Phil’s smirk softens into a grin. “You really are.”
And that—the smile, the compliment, the whole Phil package—is just too much for Clint to not react without a thought. Clint rocks forward and slots his lips firmly against Phil’s. He tentatively licks at Phil’s sealed lips with the tip of his tongue, and he’s all salt and butter like the very best kind of movie theatre popcorn.
One of the theatre employees sweeping up the snack debris from the floor clears her throat behind them. Clint breaks away, licking at his own lips to chase the flavor on Phil’s, and he's delighted to note that, for once, Phil looks just as dazed as Clint generally feels around Phil all the time.