They usually only barely manage to celebrate the big holidays, so Halloween almost always falls through the cracks, but one year they get back from a really really bad op, the kind that leaves them both with no hope for mankind, and Phil is at the market, wandering around listlessly, picking up random food (his basket holds eggs, bacon, blue-cheese-stuffed olives, bananas and Chef Boyardee ravioli) when he notices the sad, picked-over display of pumpkins and realizes that the woman at the register is wearing an actual costume, not just the latest bizarre trendy clothing, and that's it's actually Halloween. He can't remember the last time his life was even approaching normal, so he buys the best of the sad pumpkins, goes back to his little house in Arlington and googles the best way to carve a pumpkin. (He vaguely remembers his father talking to him as he cut into pumpkins in his childhood, but he can't remember what the precise advice was.) He is somewhat bemused by how complicated this has all become, but dammit, he has a pumpkin and he is going to carve it. Clint comes home from his own listless wandering (he has 6 different kinds of ice cream, because they made a deal early on that they wouldn't enable each other with anything alcoholic, no matter how bad things had been) and finds Phil sitting on the floor of the kitchen, newspaper spread out and several pumpkins in various stages of disembowelment surrounding him. He watches for a few seconds and then goes puts the ice cream away and gets a trash bag to clean up while Phil creates his masterpieces. Halfway through, he realizes they'll need candles so he's the one who runs back to the store and gets some, plus some peanut butter cups, too, because hey, Halloween. In the end, they have three aggressively cheerful jack-o'-lanterns to set out on the porch and it's a good thing that Clint bought candy because it turns out that there are kids in the neighborhood and, encouraged by the pumpkins, they troop up on the porch to ring the doorbell. It's not a bad way to come back to the real world.
After Loki, Phil does not react well to things moving in his peripheral vision, so when one of his nieces invites him to her school's Harvest Festival and there is a haunted house put on by the sixth graders, Clint presses close to Phil the whole way through, just so he knows someone's got his back.
Coulson goes as Fury (eye patch, leather coat, RPG (you didn't think that time on the helicarrier was the first time Fury took down a rogue aircraft, did you?) and his scariest smile.) Clint goes as Coulson (suit, one of Coulson's own ties, C4 in his pocket.) It's unnerving enough that no one ever invites them to a costume party again, which is really the best case scenario.
It is a little known fact that Phil Coulson is a world-class blanket fort engineer. ::nods::
It takes Clint years to break the habit of hiding his things away where no one can take them; Phil makes extra sure never to take anything without asking.
Well, Clint does beat Phil's best time getting through the maze by more than 3 seconds, so clearly Coulson was lost and confused for a while, right?
Natasha. The woman knows stories that will turn your hair white. Everybody knows it; nobody even tries to challenge her these days, because that just encourages her to go for the really scary stuff.
Clint spends a lot of time up in trees and stuff; he picks up leaves and tucks them in his pack and Phil helps him research them to see which tree gave him shelter this time.
um, this got long...
They usually only barely manage to celebrate the big holidays, so Halloween almost always falls through the cracks, but one year they get back from a really really bad op, the kind that leaves them both with no hope for mankind, and Phil is at the market, wandering around listlessly, picking up random food (his basket holds eggs, bacon, blue-cheese-stuffed olives, bananas and Chef Boyardee ravioli) when he notices the sad, picked-over display of pumpkins and realizes that the woman at the register is wearing an actual costume, not just the latest bizarre trendy clothing, and that's it's actually Halloween. He can't remember the last time his life was even approaching normal, so he buys the best of the sad pumpkins, goes back to his little house in Arlington and googles the best way to carve a pumpkin. (He vaguely remembers his father talking to him as he cut into pumpkins in his childhood, but he can't remember what the precise advice was.) He is somewhat bemused by how complicated this has all become, but dammit, he has a pumpkin and he is going to carve it. Clint comes home from his own listless wandering (he has 6 different kinds of ice cream, because they made a deal early on that they wouldn't enable each other with anything alcoholic, no matter how bad things had been) and finds Phil sitting on the floor of the kitchen, newspaper spread out and several pumpkins in various stages of disembowelment surrounding him. He watches for a few seconds and then goes puts the ice cream away and gets a trash bag to clean up while Phil creates his masterpieces. Halfway through, he realizes they'll need candles so he's the one who runs back to the store and gets some, plus some peanut butter cups, too, because hey, Halloween. In the end, they have three aggressively cheerful jack-o'-lanterns to set out on the porch and it's a good thing that Clint bought candy because it turns out that there are kids in the neighborhood and, encouraged by the pumpkins, they troop up on the porch to ring the doorbell. It's not a bad way to come back to the real world.
After Loki, Phil does not react well to things moving in his peripheral vision, so when one of his nieces invites him to her school's Harvest Festival and there is a haunted house put on by the sixth graders, Clint presses close to Phil the whole way through, just so he knows someone's got his back.
Coulson goes as Fury (eye patch, leather coat, RPG (you didn't think that time on the helicarrier was the first time Fury took down a rogue aircraft, did you?) and his scariest smile.) Clint goes as Coulson (suit, one of Coulson's own ties, C4 in his pocket.) It's unnerving enough that no one ever invites them to a costume party again, which is really the best case scenario.
It is a little known fact that Phil Coulson is a world-class blanket fort engineer. ::nods::
It takes Clint years to break the habit of hiding his things away where no one can take them; Phil makes extra sure never to take anything without asking.
Well, Clint does beat Phil's best time getting through the maze by more than 3 seconds, so clearly Coulson was lost and confused for a while, right?
Natasha. The woman knows stories that will turn your hair white. Everybody knows it; nobody even tries to challenge her these days, because that just encourages her to go for the really scary stuff.
Clint spends a lot of time up in trees and stuff; he picks up leaves and tucks them in his pack and Phil helps him research them to see which tree gave him shelter this time.