"A Funny Thing, Love"
It couldn't be true. There was no way it could be true. If the boss – old boss, but Tony Stark would always be Happy's boss – knew how he'd felt about Phil Coulson, he would never be this cruel. Even so, until he knew either way, Happy would continue to tell himself that this was real.
Besides, Tony would never do this to Miss Potts.
"Phil," she whispered, staring across the room. Happy looked in the same direction, and swallowed down the lump in his throat when he saw that yes, it was true. This was really happening.
"Hey, Pepper," Phil said. He smiled as she nearly bowled him over with an enthusiastic hug. Happy followed slowly, and stood close by, ostensibly under the guise of being her bodyguard. Which, you know, was technically true. Not entirely why he did it, but… well, he'd missed Phil. They'd bonded over a mutual interest in firearms and a mutual frustration over Tony's inability to keep out of trouble.
And then came that video of the gas station, and he fell in love.
"We missed you," Pepper said, almost mumbling into Phil's shoulder. Happy was close enough to hear it.
"We did," he echoed. Phil met his eyes and smiled wider, even as he released Pepper, who was wiping away tears. She slapped him on the arm, but Phil seemed unaffected.
"Good to see you again, Happy," he said. Happy stared at him for a moment.
"Yeah," he said softly. Then he grabbed Phil by the front of his shirt, yanked him forward, and planted one on him.
He might've noticed the stunned silence under other circumstances, but he was too busy not spontaneously combusting as he pulled back and noticed Phil's look of shock. Happy couldn't exactly blame him; it's not like he'd given any warning. Hell, he didn't even see the guy since he left for New Mexico. The first thing he'd heard about him after that was when Pepper told him that Phil was dead. That was one of the worst days of his life.
"Uh…" Phil continued to stare at him. "What was that?"
"I… uh…" Happy gulped. "Let me take you to dinner?"
Phil blinked. "After that, I think you really should. I'll call you." He hesitated, then kissed Happy on the cheek. He smiled wickedly, and then led Pepper out of the room, already catching up with her on the changes at Stark Industries. Happy remained where he was, stunned. Until an Asian-looking woman cleared her throat, and jerked her head pointedly towards the door, reminding him of his duty. He nodded, and jogged out after them, his mind already filling with thoughts of potential dates.
A fill for a prompt on the Avengers Assemble kink meme, page 67 of round 25. A mini-fill, admittedly. The prompt was basically that Happy saw the video footage of 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer', and fell in love with Phil. That's it. Instead, I focussed on their reunion. I really should expand this, but I like the light-hearted tone. Also, I don't know whether I could write Happy well enough to do the pairing justice.
Anywho. Review, please!