#yeah sure let me just readjust all my personal preferences to account for this thing I don’t care about

[pineappleliar]

how to tell someone no I will not be growing as a person in order to enjoy this piece of media I just don’t like it cause I don’t like it.

hell maybe I don’t even dislike it, I just don’t care about it enough to allow it to make me reevaluate my priorities.

[itsmyusualphannie]

you had me at hydrangea

Chapter 1/6 - i hope thistle cheer you up

“I want him to see the flowers in my eyes and hear the songs in my hands.” ― Francesca Lia Block, Dangerous Angels

a phan flower shop/video editor au

(read on ao3) - beta’ed by zara! all remaining mistakes are mine.

next chapter

~~~

“Hello!” Phil said to the empty counter.

There was a thunk and a round of colourful swears. Wild curls came into view as the person behind the counter stood up, his eyes clenched shut with pain and rubbing the back of his head. “What the fuck,” he said, not opening his eyes but greeting Phil with a rather backward spew of words. “I mean. How can I help you? How many flowers do you want? Welcome.”

“Hi, Dan,” said Phil, unbearably fond.

“Oh!” Dan’s eyes flew open. His dimples appeared. “Oh. Hi, Phil! Flowers.”

Phil wondered if the bump had affected Dan more seriously than it had seemed. “Hi,” he said again, not knowing what else to say.

Dan was grinning sheepishly. “Er, sorry. I was trying to - I mean, I’d dropped the tape on the floor, so. I was kind of just sitting down there for a moment.”

“Oh.” Phil could understand that. The floor had to be more comfortable than the single narrow stool behind the counter that Dan was afforded. “That’s fine. It’s just me.”

Dan ducked his head. The silver hoop in his ear caught the light from the wide windows by the door, and Phil was suddenly, hopelessly endeared by the pink splotch of embarrassment that crept onto Dan’s cheek. “Yeah,” Dan said. “Can I...what can I get for you?”

Phil wished he had the courage to say ‘your number.’ Instead, he gestured to the stout table in the corner of the little shop, surrounded by long-leafed potted plants. “I just wanted to let you know I was here. I’ll get some flowers later, but you said you didn’t mind if I sit here and work?”

“No, no, not at all,” Dan assured him, hastily. “That’s what the table’s there for.”

Phil asked almost every time he came in to work on his computer at the table, but Dan consistently said it wasn’t a problem. It helped Phil feel much less awkward. “Thanks,” Phil said. “It just makes me feel more, like, productive if I’m -”

“- surrounded by plants, yes,” Dan finished for him, a smile tugging at his lips. “Yes, you’ve mentioned. Go ahead.”

Phil noticed that he was beaming back at Dan, an unhesitant reaction to the dimples that caved in Dan’s cheeks. Dan should have looked ridiculous in this tiny flower shop, with his perpetually dark clothing, incredibly long legs, and slumped shoulders, but instead, the bright colours only made him look more at place amongst them. It was as if he’d drained the colours from himself and given them to the flowers surrounding him, making them all the more vibrant for it.

Phil also noticed that he hadn’t said anything for a very long moment and Dan’s smile was starting to slip.

“Door!” said Phil, panicking. He gestured widely at it. “You should get a bell.” He felt like maybe he’d been the one who’d hit his head when he came in.

“Oh,” said Dan.

“To tell you when customers arrive,” Phil clarified.

“Oh!” said Dan again. “Yes. I mean, I’ve asked Louise, but she said the loud sounds would bother the plants.” His face twisted. “Whatever that means.”

“No, I get it,” Phil assured him. He thought that maybe he did. The tiny cactus on his bedstand did seem to perk up whenever he played soft music near it. “My plant Susan likes nice sounds. She always looks greener after I’ve played classical music.”

Dan’s expression was warm. “You should work here, not me,” he said. “I don’t actually know anything about flowers. Or plants.”

“Neither do I,” Phil admitted. “Most of mine end up dying. That’s why I’m in here so often. I’m hoping to absorb some knowledge from the leaves, like...photosynthesis.”

“That’s for light,” said Dan, his mouth wide in a silent laugh.

“See!” said Phil. “You do know things about plants.”

“If you say so.” Dan was still laughing at him, a quiet, insubstantial thing.

“Hush,” Phil ordered, but he didn’t mean it, and his unhesitant smile betrayed it. He wondered briefly what it would be like to press his thumbs into Dan’s dimples, the deep, shadowed ones that only appeared when Dan was beaming at him like this. He wondered how Dan would react if he did that.

“Go work,” Dan told him, swallowing his laughter with visible effort. “That’s what you came here to do.”

Phil was so very tempted to tell Dan that he actually came here for him, but he didn’t have the heart to do it, and so he just stuck out his tongue in a completely mature reply and readjusted his bag over his shoulder to trudge to the table. He was just fighting with getting his laptop charger into the stubborn wall outlet when Dan’s voice drifted to him.

“What are you working on today?”

Phil wrestled with the outlet and barely managed to fit his plug into it. “Er,” he said absent-mindedly, “a project.” The outlet’s obstinacy has been passed onto the charger and now it didn’t want to attach to his computer. He tried to fit the metal into the opening in his laptop, twisting it this way and that as if it might make a difference. The difficulty in his task might be because hadn’t gotten a new laptop in three years, but Phil preferred to believe that it just hated him.

“Oh, a project?” said Dan, sounding amused.

“Yes.” Phil finally got his laptop fully plugged in and he opened it, typing in his password with slow fingers. He finally glanced over at Dan. “I’ve got this commercial for a game that I have two more weeks to finish. It’s going very slowly.”

“What game?” Dan asked.

Phil was disappointed that he couldn’t tell him. He felt like Dan might actually be interested in the answer. “I can’t say,” he confessed. “Client confidentiality and whatever. Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine, I get it.”

Phil remembered that about three weeks ago in a brief discussion about the news, Dan had admitted that he had once been to law school. He could recall with vivid detail the embarrassed flush on Dan’s cheeks when he mentioned it, as if it was something he was ashamed of doing, and Phil had gotten the feeling that he didn’t want to talk about it. Phil thought that Dan had probably dropped out but wasn’t going to admit it, but Phil certainly wasn’t going to bring it up. It didn’t matter. But Dan would doubtlessly understand client confidentiality.

“How much do you have left to do?” Dan asked.

Phil opened the project and winced at the chunks of unedited files. “A lot,” he said reluctantly. “I’ve been procrastinating. It’s a little harder when I have to set my own schedule.”

“I definitely get that,” Dan said.

Phil grinned at him. “You seem to do fine here.”

Dan was balancing on the rickety stool by the till. Phil couldn’t see his legs from this angle, but he imagined they were wrapped awkwardly around the stool. He was leaning on the counter at an almost dangerous angle. “Sure,” Dan faux-agreed with Phil, 

A thought occurred to Phil, something he had read a few days ago. He snorted a laugh and turned to Dan. “Hey, what’s a cactus’ favourite song?”

Dan frowned warily, and he had every right to do so. Phil enjoyed terrible puns and didn’t hesitate to wield them like a weapon of mass destruction. “What?”

Phil grinned. “‘Can’t Touch This.’”

“Oh god.” But he was clearly trying to fight a smile. “I’m in physical pain. Why are you like this?”

Phil just laughed.

Dan groaned and leaned on his elbows. His phone buzzed and he glanced down at it, then his eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

Dan dropped his face into his hands in exasperation swaying treacherously on his seat. “I have an order I’m supposed to be working on. I completely forgot about it.”

Phil glanced past drooping ferns at the door. He could see the sidewalk through the glass, decorated with potted plants, but devoid of any passersby. “I can watch the door for you if you want to go ahead and do it,” he suggested.

Dan’s head came up, hopeful. “You don’t mind?”

“No, of course not,” Phil reassured him. “You let me sit here for hours, so I might as well help out a little, right?”

“I’m going to take you up on that,” Dan said. He jumped to his feet and the stool creaked angrily at the mistreatment. “Just yell at me if anyone comes in?”

Phil nodded and Dan was gone in an instant, vanishing between the racks of flowers behind the counter and into the back room. Phil could hear faint cursing and he surmised from the words that Dan had a fairly large order of bouquets to prepare. It would probably take him a little while, then.

His computer beeped at him, offended at his lack of attention, and Phil turned back to it instead of listening to Dan slam things around in the back. He had no idea how Dan could bang flowers together, but apparently it was a talent. Phil opened the notification that had appeared on his laptop screen. It was an email from his supervisor, so he decided it probably wasn’t the best idea to ignore it as he did with most of his messages.

It was a politely stern reminder that he had to turn in part of his work by tomorrow night. Phil sighed heavily, typing out a quick reply. Sometimes he wished he’d gone with a stable, nine-to-five job that didn’t involve a paranoid boss constantly checking up on him. Other times, he remembered that the freedom of having his own schedule and being able to do what he actually liked was well worth the irritation. The paycheck, when he finally finished his work, wasn’t too bad either. He definitely would need his payment for this project soon, too. His diet of pizza and half-hearted scrambled eggs was draining his bank account, not to mention the flowers he bought every few days for usually no reason other than coming in to see Dan.

“Shit fuck mother duckling,” Dan swore creatively as he dropped something in the back,  easily audible with the passion of his curses, and Phil had to remind himself that he had work to do and that laughing loudly would not help Dan at all.

His cell rang at that very moment, which helpfully stifled his chuckles. He tugged it out of his pocket to see the caller ID, which was only the picture of his manic-looking best friend. Phil answered it immediately, lifting it to one ear and listening distractedly for any more sounds from Dan with the other. “Hey, PJ.”

“Hey!” came a cheerful voice, tinny through the speaker. “What are you doing right now?”

Phil glanced down at the still-open email. He felt very judged all of a sudden, the blunt words staring back at him, and so he closed the tab. “Working, kind of.”

“Cool, so not important,” PJ said breezily. Phil felt rather offended, but PJ barrelled on without pause, “So you’re going to be here tomorrow night, right? Seven o’clock.”

“Yes, I’ll be there,” Phil promised. “You’ve only reminded me every day for the past two weeks.”

“I’m just excited!” said PJ. “It’s my first official day living with Sophie! And I have good reason to be worried that you’re not going to show up. You’ve forgotten my birthday. Twice.”

Phil winced. PJ would never let him forget that.

“Be there or be square!” PJ bellowed. Phil had been expecting it and pulled his phone away from his ear just in time, otherwise, he’d be nursing a throbbing eardrum right about now. “Bring a date!” PJ added.

Phil sighed. “I wish.”

PJ laughed at him. “You’re an idiot. Ask that flower boy out; you’ve been pining over him for, what, three months now?”

Phil glanced around, suddenly afraid that Dan could somehow overhear his conversation. “Shh!” he hissed. “It’s not like that.”

“You’re there at the shop right now, aren’t you?” PJ sounded delighted, and Phil’s silence only proved his guess. “I knew it! Come on, Phil. You’re both wimps. Just ask him out.”

“I can’t,” Phil protested, still in a desperately low voice. “He...he already has a girlfriend.”

PJ howled with laughter. “You’re fucking with me! I’ve stopped in there and believe me, that boy does not have a girlfriend.”

“First of all,” said Phil, feeling the urgent need to defend Dan, “assuming someone’s sexuality based off their appearance or actions or whatever is not okay. Second, yes he does. She owns the shop. I’ve seen her. They’re definitely together.”

“You’re an idiot,” PJ said fondly, but at least he’d stopped laughing. “A delusional idiot.”

Phil felt rather like he wanted to punch PJ. Or maybe just stare at him very harshly. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do either through the phone, so he settled for sighing very weightily and hoping that got his point across.

It did. Having a ten-year friendship had some perks, after all. But PJ just sighed back at him. His tone was gentler when he spoke next. “Take your time figuring that out, then. No date tomorrow. But still, show up.” He then added pointedly, “If you’re at the shop anyway, Sophie has an empty vase.”

“What’s her favourite flower?” Phil asked, grateful for the change of subject.

PJ paused. Silence stretched for a few long moments.

Phil pulled the phone away from his ear and regarded it with disbelief as if PJ could sense the emotion through the phone. He probably could, knowing him. He returned it to his ear. “You don’t know what her favourite flower is?”

“She never told me!” PJ said defensively. “Anyways, do you know your flower boy’s favourite flower?”

Phil scoffed. “That’s entirely different. You’ve been dating Sophie for a year now. I’ve barely known him for three months.”

“Yeah,” said PJ. “But he works in a flower shop.”

“I’m not moving in with him tomorrow,” Phil pointed out. “You have no excuse.”

PJ sounded pitiful when he asked, “Well, how do I ask her now? She’ll just think I’m a twat for not knowing.”

“Not my problem,” said Phil cheerily.

PJ whined at him.

“Nope,” said Phil. He felt much better being able to get back at PJ for the constant comments about Dan. “Bye! Have to work. See you tomorrow!”

“You’re mean,” said PJ. “Fine. Bye.”

As Phil hung up, he was already reluctantly making plans in the back of his mind to help PJ figure out his newest crisis. It shouldn’t be that hard. He figured that tomorrow evening if he brought flowers to their flat, he would casually inquire if he’d gotten her favourites - or actually, what was her favourite?

A shrill tone rang out in the quiet shop, and Phil thought for a startled moment that PJ was calling him back. But no, his ringtone didn’t sound like that. It was coming from the counter.

“Dan!” he called, his voice almost drowned out by the loud tones. The moment he’d said it, he felt ridiculous. Dan could definitely hear it himself.

“Coming!” Dan yelled back at him. The ringtone stopped for a moment, then screamed demandingly again, and Dan came stumbling through the open doorway. His hair was dusted with pollen, and he looked out-of-breath from the brief sprint. “Hello?” he said desperately as he answered it. Phil watched his expression shift from tense, furrowed lines to a softer, gentle look as he recognized whoever’s voice it was. “Hi,” he said. It had to be his girlfriend.

Phil felt despairingly awful for wanting Dan to look at only him like that.

Dan had turned away from Phil, the phone balanced between his shoulder and ear as he wandered back into the room he’d just sprinted from. “Yeah, I’ve just started it, don’t worry,” he was saying, and then his voice faded away and Phil was left in the room with perky, bright flowers lining the walls and a chair that creaked heavily under him when he shifted his weight.

The fern that was tucked between his chair and the window leaned over him as he sighed, a frond brushing against his cheek. He batted it away and regarded it with a frown. “Stop pitying me,” he told it.

It, obviously, did not respond, but Phil imagined that if it could, it would tell him to stop being worthy of pity.

“You’re worthy of pity,” he retorted and then felt abruptly absurd for talking to a plant, no matter how sassy the fern looked. Fortunately, there was no one human in the room to judge him.

“I have work to do,” he reminded himself. He returned to his computer, ignoring the quiet ache that nudged at him every time he heard Dan’s murmurs in the back room.

He didn’t like Dan like that, anyway.

next chapter

[dispatchvampire]

Out Go The Lights

Pairing - Steve Rogers x OC, 

Warnings: Some swearing, minor violence, nothing terrible

Summary: Clint and Delilah go to a haunted house within a haunted house. Shenanigans ensue. It’s amusing and traumatic for everyone. 

A/N: This is part of the Slow Burn series, and in the same universe as Brighter Than the Sun. It’s out of order but I wanted to share it because of Halloween. 

“Come on, HP. You know you wanna go. It’ll be fun.” She kicked her bare legs over the side of the table like a small child with her well-loved canvas shoes barely hanging on to her toes. It wasn’t really shorts and tank top weather, but then, it wasn’t like Delilah got cold, either. She reclined on the empty workbench across from her friend, watching him painstakingly assemble some part for his Iron Man suit. 

Tony pushed his welding goggles up his forehead with a disapproving frown. “Oh yeah, absolutely. Random people jumping out at me and yelling. Not at all flashback inducing or bad. Not to mention it’s a haunted house within a haunted house. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

The Junior League Haunted House was an annual charity event to raise money for Toys for Tots as well as their ongoing youth initiatives. From all accounts it was one of the most fun haunted houses in the city. The fact that it was in a building that dated back to almost the Victorian period and was rumored to have its share of spooks and specters was just a bonus. 

Now it was her turn to frown. “Since when do you believe in ghosts?”

“Let’s just say I don’t not believe and leave it at that, can we?” He readjusted the equipment in front of him and cocked his head as he looked it over. “I would have thought Capsicle would take you. He seems like he’d be into that kind of thing.” 

“Steve…” she rolled her gaze toward the ceiling as she considered how to phrase her thoughts. “He doesn’t quite see the point of going to a haunted house and I’m still working on having him wear a costume to your party, so I need to pick my battles. Not to mention the whole ‘people leaping out at him’ thing might be a bad deal.”

“See? It’s not just me!” Tony crowed triumphantly with his welding torch held aloft over his head. 

“Boss, Agent Barton is outside, shall I let him in?”

Tony nodded and flipped his welding helmet down. “Yes please do, FRIDAY. Especially if it means an end to this tedious conversation.”

“God, you’re such a child. It’ll be fun. I think you’re allergic to fun.”

“It’s not my fault your idea of fun is both dull and trite.” 

The glass doors to Tony’s lab whispered opened behind her, and in strolled Clint in a vintage Dokken shirt with cutoff sleeves over a pair of jeans that was more shreds than actual denim and his armguard. He winked as he passed her by on his way to the workbench where Tony was modifying a different part of his suit. 

“Yeah… so those new explosive arrowheads you wanted me to test?” The way he cringed when he spoke had the engineer powering down his arc-welder and giving the man his full attention.

“How bad?” he asked as he raised his helmet again.

“More sparkler on the Fourth of July, less ‘Death from Above’.” Clint pulled a box from the threadbare pocket of his jeans and slid them gingerly across the table toward Tony. 

Her dark-haired friend stared at the box for a long moment before heaving a sigh and dropping his face shield back into place. “Okay. I’ll add them to my list of shit to do in the relatively near future.”

The blond beamed as he slapped him on the arm. “Thanks man.” 

“Can I get a light?” Tony held up his welding torch in Delilah’s direction. She’d taken to lighting it for him when they worked on her brace and cane, prior to the nanite installation. He’d helped her so much, it was really the least she could do. 

She hopped off the table and lit him up with a flick of her fingers. “Only because I love you.” She slapped his ass before wandering across the room to the fridge for a bottle of water. 

“Buttering me up isn’t going to make me go, Hotstuff.” He looked over his shoulder in her direction and even though she couldn’t see his face, she could hear his smirk. 

Amused by their interaction, Clint hopped up on the table where she’d been sitting, effectively stealing her spot. “Where are you trying to drag him?” 

She sighed dramatically and cracked open her beverage. “I got two tickets to the Junior League Haunted House and Nervous Nellie over there won’t go with me.” Delilah couldn’t help the pout that followed that sentence. It had been a while since she and Tony had hung out outside of him making her gear and she missed his cranky butt. 

The archer’s big blue eyes lit up the moment she said ‘haunted house’. “Ooooh, the one inside the actual haunted house?”

Dee nodded eagerly. “Yeah! It’s supposed to be great. I figured we could make a night of it.”

“Cap doesn’t want to take you?” 

Her lips pursed as she thought about her conversation with her boyfriend. “Yeah, he’s not really into it. He’d go, but he doesn’t really see the point. Plus the moment someone jumped out at him, he probably wouldn’t react well.” 

Clint blinked several times as his eyes unfocused imagining just such a scenario. “Yeah, probably for the best.” 

“Uh huh.”

“I’ll go,” he offered with a nonchalant one-shoulder shrug. 

“Really?” She was practically bouncing on her toes in glee. 

“Sure! Phil’s off on a mission, so we’ll hang out. It’ll be great.” 

“Fantastic, I’m glad that’s settled. Now both of you, get the hell out of my lab!” 

Tony was on the receiving end of one stuck-out tongue and one obscene hand gesture as they left. 

“He’s a spoilsport.”

“Allergic to fun, I’m telling you.” 

********************************************

The ride uptown was pretty quick, just a couple subway stops before they were out on the street and headed to their destination. 

Delilah had changed into more appropriate outdoor attire of a white cable-knit sweater, corduroy skirt, and black riding boots. Steve had been very appreciative of the look before they left. Clint had opted for a faded green henley that showed off his muscular chest and arms over the jeans. Dee promised Tasha she’d defend his virtue if she had to. 

The line to get into the three story Queen Anne Victorian mansion wasn’t too bad for mid season. It helped that Dee’d already scored the tickets, but still, they didn’t have to spend the evening fending off the cold. 

The ground floor was opulence defined. Persian rugs, dark wood paneling, imposingly large chandeliers, the works. It was straight out of a Hollywood backlot period piece. Only she got the feeling most of what she was seeing was, in fact, the real deal. Their journey started when they mounted the stairs, passing out of the well-lit parlor and into the daunting blackness of the second floor. 

“You wanna hold hands?” Clint whispered. She’d felt the heat of him moving a bit closer to her, though she wasn’t sure if it was for his protection or hers. 

She snorted, her eyes moving as she heard a noise coming from the darkness on her right. “I’m good, bud. You?” They were the only two in their group and the further they made it down the hall, the more oppressive the feeling around them became. 

The archer straightened away from her and squared his shoulders. “Nah, I’m—fuck me running with a chainsaw!” he squealed and jumped behind her as the door at the end of the hallway shot open, revealing a neon-lit corpse approaching them, head in hand. 

“Okay, that’s bad.” The ‘ghost’ moved pretty spryly for someone whose eyeballs were now waist-high, and the attention to detail and realism was disgustingly impressive. 

The ‘spectre’ shrieked and ran at them, chasing them until they rounded a corner, at which point, Dee and Clint paused for a minor hysterical freakout breather. “Now there’s something you don’t see everyday,” she huffed out between pants. “You were saying?” She couldn’t resist tweaking him just a bit, just because. 

“Oh whatever, dude.” He took her hand decisively, almost like he dared her to say something else. 

They walked for a bit, hearing noises and footsteps, seeing things move out of the corners of their eyes, feeling people in the darkness move closer to them and then away again. It was a very creepy vibe and they were both winding up for the next jump-scare. 

“That was a pretty high-pitched scream for an assassin,” she mused softly as they neared another door. 

The growl next to her was totally worth it. “It wasn’t a scream and let us never speak of it again.” 

“Fair enough,” she agreed magnanimously. When nothing jumped from behind the door, she held it open for him with her hand out. “Shall we?”

The darkness of the hallway gave way to a weirdly lit funhouse area with strangely patterned walls and floors and a strobe light that was almost nauseating to observe. An agonized wail drew their attention to the corner of the room where a person dressed in a white clown suit with crazy red hair and a rictus grin painted on his neon white face was pulling the intestines out of a woman strapped to a table. It was disturbing as he looked over his shoulder and noticed them, running at them with the innards in his hands. 

“Fuckin’ hell!” Dee pulled her friend along behind her surprisingly quickly for someone with a limp until they made it to the next room. The performer got a lot closer a lot faster than she would have preferred. 

“That was interesting.” He sounded amused, like he knew they were even now and had no problem rubbing it in. 

“No goddamn clowns,” she muttered darkly. 

Clint picked up her hand and brushed a kiss across her knuckles as he exhaled a quick laugh. “Noted.”

The next couple scares got even closer still, with each performer chasing them, and they were only just able to flee to safety. It was an adrenaline rush and a half, but even then, her feeling of oppression--like something bad was about to happen--never left her. 

“They’re not allowed to touch you, right?” Clint asked as they mounted the stairs to the third floor. 

“I wouldn’t think so,” she answered, though her tone said she wasn’t quite as sure as her answer would indicate. 

The feeling of unease that had beset her the moment she walked in the building was now a buzz in her head, an itch just out of reach, and only getting stronger. It was almost enough for her to want to mention it to Clint, but she knew he’d laugh at her and then she’d have to kick him in the shins again. It was too much effort. 

They left the stairwell and were immediately enveloped in a kind of darkness that qualified as sensory deprivation. No sound other than their breathing and her heart in her ears, they walked along a path indicted by a rope on one side, with Clint in the lead. Delilah wasn’t happy about bringing up the rear, but given that they were a party of two, her options were minimal. 

From the corner of her eye, a white light drew her attention and brought her to a halt. It was across the room, and bobbing around, but it was clear as day. 

“You see that?” she murmured, as she tapped his hand. As soon as the words left her mouth the light cut out. 

“See what?” 

Hell. “Nevermind.” It wasn’t something she felt like explaining but as they walked along, she knew they weren’t as alone as it seemed. The lights appeared and disappeared again a couple times, dancing closer each time before winking out and since Clint didn’t bring them up, she didn’t either. 

It felt like they’d been walking forever in the darkness and the suspense was unbearable, but then it happened. 

A hand gripped her wrist firmly and she snapped. Shrieking high enough to make glass vibrate, she yanked her wrist toward her body and used the momentum to smash the person who grabbed her in the face with her fist at least three times that she could tell. When the scare happened, with an airhorn going off loudly all around them as the lights blazed to life suddenly, what Clint saw had him doubled over in laughter. 

Delilah stood over her victim, victorious as she kept a foot on his chest, hands up like she’d learned in training. Natasha would be so proud. The kid on the floor would have been rolling around in pain, but the blood flowing out of his nose and down his cheeks when he pulled up his black faceless mask said everything his moans of pain couldn’t. 

“Jesus, lady!”

All at once she came back to herself, realizing where she was and what was going on. “Oh fuck! I’m so sorry! You shouldn’t have touched me, but I’m so sorry! Holy shit! I’m so sorry…” she repeated it as she gingerly removed her foot from his chest and took a step back. 

“Easy, killer.” Clint, wiping mirthful tears from his cheeks, leaned over and helped the kid to his feet, breaking into giggles as the young man in the black bodysuit’s legs crumpled underneath him. “She really rung your bell, huh, kid?”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen!” the teenager whined as another performer came through to see what the ruckus was about. As the archer handed him off to his coworker, his blackened eyes widened comically. “Holy shit! You’re Hawkeye!”

Clint was at her side in an instant later. “Time to go.”

Dee couldn’t agree more, doing her best to keep up with his quick pace as he squired her out of the room and on to the next scene. And if she happened to hear a snickering giggle coming from an empty corner of the room right before they left, well, that was between her and the wall. 

The scenes after that were tame to the point of being mundane. Apparently when you pummel a performer, word travels quickly. By the time they made it outside, they were greeted by a small crowd that had gathered around the ambulance and the police car at the front of the mansion. 

Clint’s lips twitched, but wisely he kept quiet. Hoping for a quick and discreet exit, they left the grounds and headed in the opposite direction of the way they came. “We’ll get an Uber,” he told her as they crossed the street away from the scene of the crime. 

“No need,” a voice behind them called, bringing both of them to screeching halt. They turned slowly to see the grinning face of one Tony Stark, looking like a cool suburban dad in his leather jacket and trendy jeans that cost more than most of the cars parked on the street, strolling up to them looking like he was having the time of his life. “How’s it goin’, Boom Boom? Though ‘First Punch Ford’ has a nice ring to it. Maybe ‘The Schenectady Steamroller’? No? ‘Midtown Mauler’, then?”

The nicknames broke Clint, and it was all she could do to keep him upright and off the sidewalk as he dissolved into a heap of gasping, sloppy giggles. 

“He shouldn’t’ve touched me,” she offered defensively. She was horrified that she’d hit a performer, but he was actually pretty lucky she’d only punched him. A few times.

“Uh huh. Pretty sure he’s not going to be seeing or touching anyone else for the next couple days. Go you!” Tony linked his arm with hers, leaning down to press an affectionate kiss to her temple as he led them down the sidewalk to the waiting black Mercedes with Happy and Steve both leaning against it with matching crossed arms and disappointed looks. Over his shoulder, he yelled down the block, “Catch up, Legolas! Let’s go get some tacos.”

Happy opened the back door and Delilah folded herself into one of the seats. She was followed by Tony and Clint, whose eyes were so red, it looked like he’d been binge watching ‘This Is Us’. Last but not least was the love of her life, Steve, in his brown bomber jacket and jeans that really magnified the national treasure that is his ass. He had The Look™ and she shuddered to imagine the lecture she had coming her way.

The ride to the taqueria was filled with Clint’s highly embellished debrief of their adventure in the haunted mansion, right down to the sound effects. Surprisingly enough, he left out the part about him screaming like a banshee at the headless corpse. By the time they rolled up to the restaurant, all the guys were laughing and she was left with a flaming blush and a smile made entirely of rue. 

Delilah got out of the car last, taking Steve’s hand as she emerged on the sidewalk. So far he hadn’t really said too much too her, and she was honestly mortified. She would never want to embarrass him with her actions and this totally qualified. Pausing on the sidewalk just outside the doors to the restaurant, she turned to her boyfriend. “Look, babe—” 

He slung an arm around her shoulders, drawing her to his side and kissing her forehead, effectively silencing her. “So…” he gazed down at her with laughing eyes and the most affectionate smile she’d ever seen. “You were the one worried about my reactions, huh, Sugar Ray?”

The nickname brought an unbidden bark of laughter to her lips as she lightly slapped his chest. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, chuckles.”

His beautifully perfect face wrinkled up into a shit-eating grin as he grabbed the door with his free hand. “Don’t mind if I do… slugger.”