“Phil, Phil, Philly, Phillip, Phil,” Tony clucked, clicking his tongue with every variation of the name as he strolled through the Action Movie section. Coulson rolled his eyes, choosing to ignore Tony’s longwinded whatever it was he was doing in favor of attempting to figure out why Bruce was suddenly so fidgety.

“Bruce, what’s up?” He asked casually, causing Bruce to jump and spin away from the Rom-Com section to face him.

“Oh, um, it’s not-“ He cut himself off. His brow furrowed as he contemplated what he wanted to say before fixing Phil with a sympathetic look. “I just want you to know that it wasn’t my idea. I’m still against it.”

“Ohhhh-kay,” Phil replied slowly, nodding. “Good. That’s good, that’s great. What are you talking about?”

“Philinda,” Tony cut in over Phil’s shoulder with Fast & Furious until Natasha grabbed it out of his hand and literally threw the DVD.

“Philinda,” Both her and Clint agreed in a matching sigh.

“Philinda?” Phil repeated, a bit afraid to ask.

“For the record, I’m against this,” Bruce piped up, still looking very guilty and slightly like he was already prepared to experience some major second-hand embarrassment. Two things that didn’t really bode well for Phil.

In fact, knowing that Bruce was against it made him feel worse. He was the only sane one.

“Bruce, you traitor!”

“What is Philinda?” Phil asked tiredly against his better judgement.

“Oh, come on, Agent P,” Tony moaned exasperated. “Use your brain! We’ve practically spelled it out for you.”

“Almost literally,” Clint added.

“Phil and Melinda,” He clarified. “Why?”

“Mayson and Coulay sounded stupid.”

“I got that,” He rolled his eyes. Now he had to know what this was leading to. “Why’d you Fitzsimmons us?”

“Because you’re totally smitten,” Natasha replied bluntly. Natasha Romanoff was the only person in the entire universe who could say ‘smitten’ with a straight face.

“I’m not ‘smitten,’” Phil denied over Clint’s ‘really, Tash, smitten?’

“You are,” Bruce and Tony agreed.

“It’s an 0-8-4, Coulson!” Clint grinned like the Cheshire cat. “You know what that means.”

“That means we don’t know what that means,” Phil replied.

“Object of unknown origins,” Clint sung loudly, earning a glare from a passing employee.

“May is an 0-8-4?”

“No,” Clint shrugged before furrowing his brow. “Well, yeah. We don’t know where she’s from, like at all, but no.”

“Your feelings for her are the 0-8-4,” Natasha clarified.

“I don’t have feelings for her!”

“You do!”

“But dude, chill,” Clint said, putting his arm around Phil’s shoulders. “0-8-4’s are awesome, sometimes. The last one was pretty useful.”

“What was that again?” Bruce asked.

“Thor.”

“Speaking of, guys. We need to go find Thor before he picked out something awful again,” Phil replied, trying to get them to walk in the direction of where Thor was elbow deep in the five dollar movie bin.

Seriously, Thor was a fan of foreign films.

The last time he chose a movie, it was something in a language that even Natasha didn’t speak and people were naked half the time. They watched it with Fury. It was weird.

Thor cried through the whole thing. They were all afraid to ask.

Apparently, though, it was a beautiful movie.

That was why Thor was no longer allowed to be in charge of movie night. Which pretty much meant that they often steered their big blond friend away from the movie section because who could say no to that Golden Retriever of a man? No one, that’s who.

Phil tried, “We should go see what he’s looking at, guys. Let’s do that.”

“See!” Clint jumped. “You’re even trying to change the subject. We’re totally right?”

“So, what was your plan?” Phil asked, turning to them. “To actually get us kicked out of a movie theater and arrested?”

“No,” Tony answered. “We wanted you to make your move, which you didn’t.”

“And,” He continued, ignoring the look of incredulous on Phil’s face. “We were going to point out to you that you should, but you glared at everyone who ever thought about sitting next to you two.”

“Can you say jealous boyfriend much?” Clint added.

“You took someone who clearly suffers from PTSD to a movie full of murder and violence,” Coulson defended. “May lashes out when threatened. Of course, I didn’t want you near her. It was safer for all of us. Whose brilliant idea was that anyways?”

“Tony’s,” They all responded immediately.

“My bad.”

“She likes you, Phil,” Natasha told him seriously. “And you clearly like her.”

“She’s my friend.”

Of course, he liked her.

He liked her the first time he met her all that time ago in Mrs. Hand’s office when he thought she was slightly crazy. He thought she was brave, and good, and so very strong. Her laugh was like music and sometimes, only sometimes, he could feel warmth seep out through the cracks in her ice façade. She was rebellious, and quiet, and dangerous, and good; and she made him want to be better.

Of course, he liked her but was it like that?

Was the fact that he was even debating this proving just how much she meant to him?

“Earth to Coulson,” Clint said, bumping into him, holding the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. “Come in Coulson. Breaker, breaker. Or is it ‘beaker, beaker?’ I never know.” 

“How would you know?” Coulson asked because he wasn’t sure that May even wanted to be his friend half the time.

“I mean, I guess, I could google it but – Oh. About May?”

“You call her Melinda,” Natasha answered simply. Clint muttered ‘duh’ over Phil’s shoulder.

“So?”

“No one else does.”

“That’s how she introduced herself,” He reasoned.

Yeah, sure, he was the only one who called her Melinda. It wasn’t like she told him not to call her that though. Maybe it was something as simple as not wanting to correct people when they called her by her last name or not wanting to correct him when he calls her by her first.

“And she calls you Phil.”

“That’s my name.”

It was not unusual for friends to call each other by their first names, just because she seemed allergic to them doesn’t mean everyone else was (and she almost always called Clint by his first name so what does that say about you, Natasha?).

It didn’t mean anything.

“If she likes me she would have told me,” He pointed out, and then told Clint, “No, you already have the Lord of the Rings extended editions, put those back.”

“Coulson,” Natasha said in that voice that said she thought he was a moron and was about to drop some knowledge on him. She rolled her eyes too so apparently, she thought it was obvious as well. “May never went to a real school. I doubt that she spent a lot of time around people her age.”

“I doubt she spent time around anyone but her parents and S.H.I.E.L.D. assholes,” Clint cut in. “You’ve seen how flighty she is.”

“She’s–”

“Been through a lot,” Natasha finished. “Case in point, she likes you.”

“She would have said something.”

“No, she wouldn’t have,” Natasha replied smoothly, taking Home Alone out of Clint’s hand and putting it back on the shelf.

‘Like she didn’t tell you about the broken arm or Garrett’s harassment,’ his mind supplied viciously. ‘Like how she only told you things when she didn’t have a choice.’

But this was different than that because this was about feelings and Melinda told him about how she thought she was broken, and scared, and how she missed her parents. And he had told her things that he would never tell anyone.

She would tell him something as important as liking him, right?

“How many boys do you think she’s been around? She’s probably never even kissed a boy. She’s not–”

“I’m not even sure if you have ever kissed anyone before,” Clint said, eyeing him suspiciously. Tony and Bruce stopped trying to pry The Gremins from Thor’s hands to turn and look at him curiously. Thor, on the other hand, continued his dig to the bottom of the bin.

“Have you?”

His face was not going to go red because of Clint Barton and Tony Stark. Especially not about something as trivial and stupid as this.

“Yes!” He exclaimed because he might not let himself be embarrassed about this but he sure as hell was going to be indigent. “Yes! Camilla from Spanish club! And Aubrey, the cellist. I dated her for two years. We kissed!”

“We’re not even sure that she was a real person,” Tony said, shaking his head.

“You sat behind her in World History last year,” Coulson told him.

“I don’t believe that’s true.”

“You know what? Good for you, Coulson,” Clint responded, patting him on the back. “Now kiss May.”

“I’m not taking advantage of someone.”

“If May didn’t want you to kiss her, she’d let you know,” Natasha informed simply.

“Violently,” Clint added.

“Ward and the Spice Girls are currently figuring out if May is all Coulson-crazy,” Tony jumped in, waving his phone in Coulson’s face. “And if the mission is a no-go, they’d text. And there are no messages, so she apparently is.”

“Guys,” Coulson breathed out. “May could be…not straight, you know?”

“Of course, she could,” Natasha replied nonplused.

“No one is saying that she couldn’t be just–” Clint added.

“That she only has eyes for you.”

“Yeah, the rest of us are like extras in a movie. You’re, like, Brad freaking Pitt.”

“She could be asexual,” He pointed out.

“I–” Clint began and then paused. “That’s true. I didn’t think of that.”

“Just trust me,” Tony said, cutting in as Clint mauled over Coulson’s words. “She likes you. It’s obvious.”

“Last time you said that I should trust you, the school had to be evacuated.”

“And you got a four day weekend. You’re welcome.”

“She does like you,” Natasha told him softly, sincerely.

“She’s probably going to ask you out because she’s going to be tired of waiting for you to get a clue,” Clint joked.

“Did you say Daisy and Fitzsimmons are figuring out if May liked me?” He asked unbelieving.

“Yeah,” Clint laughed. “We flipped a coin.”

“There might have been cheating,” Bruce muttered under his breath.

“Those poor souls.”

“Oh, nah, I’m sure it’s going great.”

“Smashing!” Tony added, imitating Simmons’ accent.