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"Finally! Gimme your phone."
Phil stopped short as he walked into the Avengers communal area, his progress interrupted when Clint slid to a stop in front of him. "Hello to you too, Barton. I wasn’t expecting you back from England until later tonight."
"Yeah, uh, hi. We got sent home early due to extreme awesomeness. You should be proud. Phone, please." Clint grinned as he held out his hand.
Phil reached into his jacket pocket and took out his phone. He pulled it back at the last second before it landed on Clint's palm. "No changing any settings, text or ring tones, or pictures. You will be sorry."
Clint’s face was the perfect picture of wounded innocence. "I would never dream of it."
"Just because I can't prove it doesn't mean I don't know that it was you that changed the language to Hungarian before you left on Sunday."
“I am shocked and appalled you would accuse me of something like that, sir. Shocked and appalled.” Clint grinned again. “You'll like this, promise.”
They stared at each other a moment longer until Tony piped up.
“What have we said about such graphic PDAs from you two? Corrupting innocent eyes here, guys. Let's keep it for the bedroom, yeah?”
Clint and Phil’s eyes didn't waver from the grip they had on each other as Clint lifted the hand that wasn't waiting palm up for Phil to deposit his phone into and gave Tony the finger.
“Nice, Barton. Classy.”
“Nobody ever said I was classy, Stark. Not really the basis of my appeal.”
“And he is very appealing,” Phil said as he dropped his phone into Clint's hand to the accompaniment of soft, pretend, retching noises from Tony until Steve reached over and smacked him upside the head.
Phil moved to sit down beside Steve while Clint bounded back over to his original seat and started fiddling with Phil's phone and something that he had pulled out of his pocket.
Steve pulled his own phone from his chinos pocket and looked at it thoughtfully. "I didn't realise you can change things on your phone yourself."
Phil spared Steve a glance before his eyes returned to watching Clint. "Yes. Quite a few things, actually. I can show you how if you'd like me to."
"Huh. Okay. Thanks, yeah, that would be... So it's not always an automatic update thing when you plug it in to charge at night? Some things have to be physically done?
Coulson sighed as he got what Steve was hinting at. "Yes, someone had to select whatever has changed. What’s happening? Are your texts in another language or something?"
Steve shook his head. "No, no nothing like that. Still English. Just...different songs for different people that call."
"Like what?"
"Um, well, when Tony called yesterday it was a very loud woman singing something about wanting a man to spend money on her."
"Can I see?" Phil asked and held out his hand. The snicker from Clint as Steve handed over his phone told Phil all he needed to know about who had been fiddling with Steve’s phone. "And when I call you?"
The words were barely out when Steve's phone started blaring out the chorus of “I Will Survive" and Phil's picture popped up on the display.
“Fairly appropriate, I suppose,” Phil commented as he dismissed the call. He smiled as he flicked through the rest of Steve’s contact list. “I suppose in a way they’re all appropriate.”
“They may well be appropriate but some are also a little embarrassing if I get a call whilst in public.”
“Of course, absolutely. Look, all you need to do is...” Phil quickly ran Steve through the process to change the ringtones back to the standard ones, starting with the one Clint had chosen for himself, a 30 second burst of ‘Sexy and I Know It’, then handed the phone over to Steve again to let him get on with changing the rest as Clint sat down on the couch arm at Phil’s other side. He couldn’t quite keep the smile off his face as he looked up at Clint. “That was mean. How many times did you call him?”
Clint gave Phil his best wide-eyed innocent look, which, Phil had to admit, was effective. “Can’t imagine why you want to know but maybe a couple or twenty times more than usual, I don’t keep a tally. I’ve got a really good phone plan. Free international calls. Do you want your present now?”
“You do know you’re only supposed to bring gifts back from vacations and not missions, don’t you?” Phil asked as he held out his hand. “It’s very unprofessional.”
“Yeah, well, the mission ended earlier than everyone else expected so we had plenty of time for visiting with Jane and Darcy took me shopping. Took us, what, 20 minutes to get from the street to inside the Director’s office at the London base?”
“17.5,” Natasha replied.
“We were so awesome we made their new chief of security cry and offer his resignation. Don’t think we’ve ever managed that combo before. Which left us...”
“You,” Natasha interjected.
“...me plenty of time to get you this bad boy.” Clint held out Phil’s phone, angling it so that the tiny Captain America he had attached to the casing dangled and spun slowly.
Phil smiled as he took his phone from Clint with one hand and caught hold of the little figure with the other so that he could inspect it more closely. “Cool. Thanks. I don’t have one of those.”
“I know.” Clint beamed, immensely proud of the fact that he had found a piece of Cap memorabilia that Phil didn’t already own. “And no one needs to get jealous; I brought back enough for everyone.” He crossed over to his previous place and picked up the bag he had left at the side of the other couch. “You guys will have to take pot luck though,” he said as he removed a handful of the Kinder Surprise eggs and threw one each to Tony, Bruce, Steve and Natasha. “I stopped opening them once I’d got a full set each for myself and Coulson.”
He dropped the bag down onto the centre of coffee table as he moved to sit back down near Phil again, choosing this time to slide down to the floor by Phil’s feet and lean against his leg. “And they’re not just decorative. There’s a game you can play with them. Their heads open up and you twist them against each other to score points, highest number wins. It’s kinda weird.”
Steve had been peeling the foil wrapper from his egg as Clint had been speaking. He separated the two halves of the chocolate part, gave them both to Phil who promptly handed the candy off to Clint, and popped open the plastic container that had been in the centre. He grinned as he held up a small green figure. “Hey, look, Bruce. I got you.”
Bruce glanced over and shook his head. “That’s not me. You ever seen the Other Guy wearing a lab coat? And he doesn’t have...” Bruce’s eyes narrowed slightly as he studied the small figure. “...pointy teeth.”
Phil had taken Steve’s little info sheet from the plastic egg and examined it. “Wait, what? They have Lizard and they don’t have Hawkeye or Black Widow? That...that’s messed up.”
“Preachin’ to the choir, babe,” Clint said around his mouthful of chocolate. “If we don’t get into phase two then we will be having words.”
Natasha looked over from where she was opening her own orange plastic container. “If there’s a phase two.”
“Oh there will be,” Clint said with conviction. “They may just not know it yet. I’m gonna sic you on them.”
“You’ll need to do your own persuading.” Natasha smiled as she picked out the Iron Man model, slipped the loop attached to the top of its head over her index finger and began spinning it around. “I do not believe I wish for a plastic me with a piece of thread coming out of the top of my head.”
Tony stared at her for a moment and said, “Could you...stop doing that? It’s very...disconcerting.” He winced when, with a flick of Natasha’s finger, the string was released and Iron Man hit the wall. “And giving me flashbacks.”
Phil reached out and pulled another egg from the bag. “Given the random, often loaded, nature of this kind of thing just how many did you have to eat to get two full sets?
Clint shrugged "A few."
"Too many,” Natasha said with a laugh. “I didn't think it was possible for one person to consume that much chocolate in one sitting. He was rather...boisterous on the flight home."
Clint grinned, unrepentant. "That's not how Stevens described me in his report, 'Giant over-sugared pain in the ass' were his words. Now that is unprofessional behaviour right there. He shouldn't be using words like that in an official document."
Phil made a soft, non-committal noise. "Not the worst I've seen. Blake was particularly vitriolic and colourful in his report on the nonsense in Venice.”
“Next time, remind me not to save his ass. But anyways, it means I've got you guys covered for swapsies if you get doubles, the spares are in the bag there.” Clint pointed to the bag containing the rest of eggs. “Except the Thors, I promised Darcy first dibs on them. She’s got plans for, I dunno, a collage or something. She was a bit vague on the details but I said I’d post any extras back to her."
Steve pulled the bag closer to him and started rummaging through it. "Clint," he asked as he pulled his hand from bag, "What happened to Loki?" He lifted his hand higher to show everyone that the Loki figure was missing the top half of its head.
Clint shrugged. "He just kinda broke. When I was playing the game thing with them." He looked over to Bruce and smiled. Bruce smiled back when Clint said, “Hulk won again.”
"And this one?" Steve held up another Loki figure. "His feet have melted."
"Yeah. Kinda left him too close to the radiator in the Jane’s flat. You know how those things are in Europe, either not working or hot enough to take your skin off, never in between."
"I guess.” Steve didn’t sound convinced and he frowned as his hand dipped into the back again. “Clint!" Steve gave Clint a hard look as he brandished yet another Loki figure. "This one has a hole in his chest."
“Hmmm, yeah, that one. I was playing darts and he was sitting too close.”
Steve blinked because nothing about the implications of that sentence made sense. “Are you saying that not only did you miss the score you were aiming for but you missed the entire board?”
“It happens.”
Steve’s mouth opened but before he could respond to the challenging note in Clint’s voice and call him out on what Steve clearly believed to be a lie Phil stood up, yawning noisily and stretching out his arms.
“Well, I’m officially supposed to be resting in the afternoons, doctors orders, and this one’s sugar rush will be wearing off soon.” Phil nudged and pushed at Clint with his knee to get him to his feet. “And that is a crash none of you need to see. It’s not pretty. So, nap time.”
He pushed Clint towards the elevator, pausing only to snag the damaged Loki’s from the table and Steve’s fingers before following. “See you guys later for dinner.”
The elevator door opened as soon as Clint hit the button and Phil hustled them inside before the other Avengers had the chance to respond. Phil pushed the button for his floor then moved to stand close to Clint, leaning into him and sliding an arm around Clint’s waist, and waited for the elevator door to close before speaking. “So. To recap. You, the guy who can hit a moving target whilst looking in the opposite direction, just suggested that he completely missed a stationary dart board.”
Clint’s arm lifted around Phil’s shoulder and he smiled. “I don’t remember agreeing with the good Captain’s assertion.”
“Indeed you did not. So what did happen?”
“The previous occupants of Jane’s apartment left the board behind when they moved out, Darcy had attached him to the bullseye with some gum. I didn’t miss.”
Phil smiled and pulled his arm a little tighter around Clint’s waist as the elevator doors opened on their apartment. “That’s my boy.”