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It was a rare Sunday morning that found both Phil and Clint at home in their apartment in the Avengers Tower. A rare morning that had turned into a lazy one. Phil was sitting at one end of their couch and reading the entertainment section of the New York Times. Clint was lying along the rest of the couch, his head on Phil’s thigh, dozing lightly. The remains of their late breakfast littered the low table in front of them along with the discarded sections of the newspaper that had already been read.
Clint’s eyes opened when his phone pinged to indicate an incoming text message and he reached out to pick it up. Phil’s gaze shifted from his newspaper to Clint when he noticed that Clint wasn’t moving, neither replying to or ignoring the message and putting his phone down. He could see that Clint was still poised with his thumb hovering over the read button and asked, “Trouble?”
Clint paused before replying and drew out the words when he did speak. “I don’t know.”
Interest piqued, Phil closed his newspaper enough that he could hold it in his left hand, his right moving to clasp Clint’s shoulder. “Who is it from?”
“Darcy. It’s a picture message. I’m scared.”
Phil laughed and gave Clint’s shoulder a squeeze before opening up his newspaper again. “How bad could it be?”
“Pretty bad. You haven’t seen the memes she’s taken to sending me.”
“Is there a message with it? A title? Any kind of words to give you a hint what it might be?”
“Phase Two.”
“What was Phase One?”
“Fucked if I know.”
Phil rolled his eyes. “You are a highly trained, highly skilled operative with many years of field experience in war zones around the world. I think you can handle looking at a picture a twenty-something political science major has sent you.”
“I think she graduated. And you clearly don’t know Darcy very well.”
“Stop being a wuss and open it, Clint. That’s an order.”
Clint hesitated another second or two before hitting the phone screen to open the message. “No! Oh fuck no!” He twisted round to sit up beside Phil, staring in horror at his phone screen. “I have changed my mind. I have sooo fucking changed my mind. I do not wanna be in phase two. My god, the humanity.”
Phil leaned over to get a look at the picture that had apparently traumatised his husband and saw that it was an image of the new Avenger themed Kinder prizes. “They don’t look so bad. Wilson’s gonna be stoked.”
“They don’t...they don’t look so bad?!” Clint exclaimed incredulously. “There’s a fucking hole in my head, Phil. That’s the very definition of bad. And look at the fucking size of my head. You have to fix this, Phil. You, you can do that right? Call in a few favours from those guys in high places you know. Get them...get them recalled. I am going to be a fucking laughing stock.”
He jabbed his forefinger at one of the figures on the screen. “Fury!! Fury’s gonna hate them. That’s it, that’s my in. I’ll...I’ll show...you can show him them. He likes you better. Won’t hurt you. He fuckin’ owes you. Then...then he can kick ass in Switzerland. They won’t know what hit ‘em and then they’ll issue the recall and we can all forget the whole thing ever happened.”
“Nick approved them. Said his grandkids would love them.”
“Nick...approved them?” Clint said slowly then shifted a little away from Phil and pointed an accusing finger at him. “You!! You fucking knew about this, didn’t you?”
Phil sighed and folded up his newspaper and threw it on the table. “You seemed so disappointed not to be included the last time. I thought you’d like it.”
“They were fucking cute the last time.”
“They’re cute this time.” Phil reached out to tip Clint’s phone towards himself to get another look at the screen and smiled as he looked back at Clint. “Look at you with your cute little bow and arrow.”
“It’s in the wrong fucking hand,” Clint grit out.
“Thought you were ambidextrous.”
“So not the fucking point.”
They stared at each other until they heard the tone indicating another message had arrived and both looked down to see that it was another picture from Darcy.
Phil glanced up at Clint when he didn’t move to open the message. “Do you want me to…?”
When Clint nodded Phil pressed the ‘open’ button. When the picture loaded they saw that it was a tableau this time. The Loki figure was lying on the floor in a puddle of something red, surrounded by the Hawkeye, Cap, Hulk and Iron Man figures, with a little paper speech bubble coming from Hulk’s mouth so he was saying ‘Puny God.’
“Is that ketchup?”
“Looks like it.”
“That girl sure knows how to hold a grudge.”