A/N: Written in an attempt at fluff. It ended up being about two of my favorite things: basketball and parents. Thanks to dysprositos for a quick beta read. The title refers to a bonus free throw given to a player who has been fouled. I like to think of Phil as Clint's 'and one'.
"You want me to fly you where, exactly?" Tony said, pouring himself a stiff drink and staring at Clint as if he had three heads.
"Boston. Thursday, barring bad guys. Please?" Clint recapped, adding the please because it was really, really important that he get Tony to do this for him.
"Why?" Tony asked around an ice cube.
Clint clenched his fists. They'd been through all of this once already. Tony was just fucking with him and he knew it, and they both knew Clint would put up with it because of Phil. "I need to get Phil out of town before he kills a kind-of- innocent junior agent, me, or himself. If you'll fly us to Boston around three and pick us up around midnight, he'll be human again by the next morning. And he won't growl at you when you do something obnoxious on Friday."
Tony stared for a moment and said, "And what was the other thing? The really big part of all of this? Just so we both realize how much you owe me for this one."
Clint stalked to the window and stared out at the city, hoping the lights would calm him down. "Courtside at the Garden. I know you can get them. I'll buy them if you can get them for me." He sighed as Tony sipped his drink, purposefully making Clint edgy. "Come on, asshole. You know you can do this. It'll be helpful."
"Well, I'm always glad to be helpful," Tony said through a grin. "Okay. You have Agent ready at three in the afternoon and I'll pick you up. That'll give you guys time to get dinner before the game."
"Thanks, Tony," Clint said, turning to leave the room.
Tony called out to him, "I didn't know Agent liked basketball."
Clint turned and gave him a wicked smirk. "You should see him play. He's always on the skins team. It's awesome."
Tony grimaced. "Ewww. I'll take your word for it, Barton."
Clint grinned and left, thinking back to the first time he found out about Phil's obsession with the game.
"Barton, we need another body, come on!" Agent Grant shouted from the court, across the room where Clint was jumping rope as fast as he could. Sweat poured down his face and his grey t-shirt clung to his body; he ignored Grant. He didn't like basketball that much. He turned while jumping to say no thanks, but then he tripped over his rope and nearly fell to the ground in embarrassment. It was only his excellent balance that kept him upright and he felt his cheeks color a little, but he was too preoccupied to care.
Agent Phil Coulson, his handler and friend for a couple of years, stood twirling the basketball on his fingertips, wearing nothing but blue gym shorts and his basketball shoes. He was grinning at Clint with a glint in his eye that was rare for the normally bland agent, and Clint couldn't believe his build. He'd never seen Coulson out of a suit or field gear and Clint couldn't take his eyes off of the man.
Grant came over and snapped his fingers in Clint's face and Clint blinked and started winding up his rope. "Sure, okay. I'm not that great, but I'm faster than all of you punks."
Grant shrugged. "You just gotta help us figure out a way to stop Coulson. Everything else is gravy."
Clint threw Coulson a wicked grin. "I'll stick to him like glue."
Coulson just laughed and dribbled the ball to center court, signaling the game to begin. Clint and Coulson matched up in height pretty well, and Clint was pretty light on his feet, but he was still no match for his handler's ball handling skills or jump shot. He resorted to trash talking to try to distract Coulson, and he did a good job of keeping the game amusing, but Coulson wiped the floor with him. Grant just shook his head when they took a break. "It's okay, Barton. No one can stop him."
Clint shrugged and stole the water bottle Coulson was using. "I'll figure it out eventually, boss. I'm usually pretty good with my hands, after all," he said with a leer as he took a swig of water.
Coulson smirked and answered, "I'm sure you are."
Clint thought maybe that was when the spark between them was actually kindled into a flame.
Clint sat on their plush green couch with the remote control in his hand. He glanced over at Phil, who was still wearing his suit pants and white dress shirt, even though he was barefoot and had his collar was unbuttoned, and leaned into his shoulder. "Hey, take a break for a minute?" he said gently, putting the TV on mute. They were watching a Celtics game while Phil worked on a report with his computer in his lap and a pen in his mouth, glancing occasionally at the notepad next to him. He didn't answer.
Clint sighed and stood, heading into the kitchen to pour both of them a glass of iced coffee. After loading his with sugar and Phil's with a shot of hazelnut syrup, he went back to the living room and set his down on the glass-topped coffee table. He leaned over and gently pulled the pen out of Phil's mouth, drawing his gaze and grinning. "Can I have a sec?" he asked, handing Phil the coffee.
Phil sighed and nodded. "Yeah, sorry." And he moved the computer from his lap and took the glass from Clint gratefully.
"It's okay. I know you're busy," Clint replied with a shrug, sitting down again next to Phil and pulling his own glass back into his hand. "I have something for you and I wanted to give it to you before it got too late."
Phil looked at him quizzically as he pulled a white shirt box from next to the couch and handed it to Phil. It wasn't wrapped, and Phil lifted the lid off carefully, as if Clint might put a fake snake in a box (Phil hated snakes, and Clint has occasionally been known to take advantage of that). When he got the lid off, he looked over at Clint with a small smile. There was an envelope sitting on a green shirt. He opened the envelope and two tickets fell into his hand and he looked at them with a raised eyebrow. "Clint," he said.
"Wait," Clint said quickly. "Just look at the shirt, first."
Phil nodded and pulled the shirt out. It was a Rajon Rondo jersey, Phil's current favorite player, and it was signed on the back. Phil looked over at Clint in shock. "What—how?"
Clint grinned. "Tony, actually. I asked him to find me some tickets and he got a friend to scrounge this for you, too. I thought it would be a good addition to your collection. And Phil, listen. I already cleared Thursday afternoon and night with Fury, and Tony's flying us to Boston himself, so we'll be back at the Tower by one or two in the morning. Barring an assembly call for the Avengers, of course." He held his breath and ducked his head a little as Phil processed his words.
"You got us tickets to a Celtics/Miami game two days before it happens and a signed Rondo jersey? Why?" Phil asked, sounding suspicious. "What did you do?"
Clint laughed. The accusation wasn't uncalled for, as Clint had a bad habit of screwing something up about once a week. "Nothing. You've been working too hard and everyone can see it, even Fury. I have a job and a paycheck, and I wanted to do this for you. The jersey thing really was just a bonus. I didn't expect that bit." He paused and then gave Phil his best puppy-dog look. "Come on, Phil. It'll be a blast. They're courtside seats, and Tony got us a reservation at this really kick-ass Italian place for before the game."
Phil was quiet a minute, sipping his coffee and looking at the box. Finally, he set his drink down and pulled the jersey from the box, looking it over carefully. He smiled at Clint. "It really is cool. Thank you."
"So you'll go?" Clint asked, exasperated.
"Yes, of course I'll go, since you worked so hard to get clearance." And he leaned in to give Clint a lingering kiss, sending a tingle all the way down to his toes. "I have to finish this report," Phil said as he pulled back.
Clint groaned. "Damn lucky I love you. Kiss like that and expect me to just go back to watching the game. Crazy."
Phil shrugged and pulled the computer back on his lap and Clint un-muted the game.
That night as they lay in bed, trying to sleep, Phil spoke up in a muffled voice, his chin perched on Clint's chest. "Did I ever tell you about the Bill Russell ball my mom had?"
Clint knew that Phil's mom had been a die-hard Celtics fan and had been the one to spark the interest for the family. They had season tickets for a few years and Phil loved to talk to whoever would listen about seeing the Celtics in the finals in 1985, the year Larry Bird led them to a championship and the year Phil stopped going to games because his mother died of pneumonia. He rarely told that part.
"No, I don't think so," Clint said, running his fingers absentmindedly through Phil's hair.
"Mom had a huge collection – Dad bought her something Celtics-related every Christmas and birthday – and part of that was a signed ball."
"Your mom had a ball signed by Bill Russell?" Clint asked. Clint hadn't ever been to a game, only played pick-up games as a kid traveling with the circus, but even he knew what a big deal that was.
"Yeah," Phil said. "And I…used it for a pick-up game at a park a few blocks from our house."
Clint was silent for a moment and then he barked out a laugh. "Seriously? Phil, how – why – oh man, I bet you were grounded for a month." He could just picture Phil's mom storming down to the playground after noticing her ball was gone and literally dragging Phil home by the ear. "I bet she was all quiet, right? That quiet thing you do when you're mad? You got that from her, right?"
Phil had told Clint about his mother not long after they started dating, lamenting the fact that Clint would never meet her, and Clint asked Phil about her a lot, knowing he liked to talk about her. Clint knew he would have loved her.
"Yeah," Phil said, smiling into Clint's stomach. "Yeah, she got real quiet. I gave her the ball back and it was full of scuff marks, the 'R' hard to read anymore."
"Did you get punished?" Clint asked.
Phil chuckled, warming Clint's stomach with his breath. "No, actually not. My dad told me later that she couldn't think of anything that would be punishment enough but not get her arrested." As the words fell from his mouth he looked quickly up at Clint, eyes sad.
Clint knew that he was thinking of how Clint's father probably should have been arrested for what he did to Barney and Clint, and that a couple of foster parents should have been arrested, too, but Clint knew that Phil's mom would never come within a hundred miles of that category, so he grinned down at Phil. "I bet your guilt was punishment enough anyway," he said gently, his eyes telling Phil that his words hadn't stung.
Phil's eyes sparkled in the moonlight thanks to always-unshed tears coming close tonight. "Yeah, it was. I saved my money and bought her a couple of really cool Celtics things for Christmas that year." They were quiet for a bit, Clint massaging Phil's hair and Phil breathing easily on Clint's chest, but Phil finally looked back up at Clint and said, "Thanks for getting us tickets."
Clint just leaned down and kissed him deeply.
The morning of the game was a disaster. One of Sitwell's teams had a mission go completely south in less than an hour, and Phil was on the phone all morning running exit strategies with Jasper and trying to help him figure out a way to make the mission succeed anyway. Clint paced Phil's office, listening in on speakerphone and offering ideas when he could, and neither man took a break until Phil finally hung up at two-thirty. They were supposed to meet Tony at three, and Clint wasn't even sure the strategy they finally settled on with Sitwell would work.
Clint looked at Phil and said, "Should we stay?" knowing that Phil was probably going to worry anyway, and might not feel like they should go.
Phil stood and stretched and slipped his suit coat back on after shucking it three hours ago. "No. Nick will text me with a 'completed' or 'fubar, get the hell back here' note when it's done. We might as well try and have a good time."
Clint smiled and said, "And you love basketball."
Phil just nodded and opened his office door, gesturing Clint through.
They made their ride with two minutes to spare, and that included changing into jeans and button downs and grabbing a coffee each. The flight to Boston was made in silence, and even when Tony informed them that he'd gotten them a car and driver for the night, his treat, they just quietly thanked him and assured him they'd be back to the pad by one at the latest.
They were halfway through dinner when Phil got the text and sighed in relief. "Everyone's safe," he said, holding Clint's gaze a second longer than usual. "Thanks for your help."
Clint just nodded and waved the waiter down to order the bottle of wine they'd been holding off on in case they had to head back to base. "I have a question," he said, after they each had a glass in their hand.
"Shoot," Phil said with a smirk.
"Was it your dad or your mom who got you into playing basketball?" Clint had a very clear picture of Phil's parents in his head, partly made up of stories that Phil told at night and pictures around their apartment, and partly from Clint's own fantasies of perfect parents. He knew that wasn't fair, but he couldn't help it. Anyone who parented Phil into the most perfect human Clint had ever met had to have been near-perfect themselves, and Clint could fantasize about them if he wanted.
Sharon Coulson, in Clint's mind, was a short, blond haired woman, lean from jogging every day. She had sparkling blue eyes, and when Phil's sparkled for Clint he imagined the two of them laughing while they cooked dinner in their small kitchen in the modest ranch style house Phil grew up in. She was strict and demanding for her son, but she played board games with him, took him to museums, and was one of the best high school biology teachers in the district. Clint liked to imagine meeting her, reaching out to shake her hand and getting pulled into a hug, helping to cook dinner that night, washing dishes and talking to her in the kitchen about Phil as a child while Phil and his dad went for a jog after dinner.
Kenneth Coulson, well, he was a little harder. He worked a lot at his chemical research job with Dow and took a great joy in his work. He didn't connect very well with his son, but Phil was a spitting image of him except for his mother's eyes. Their smile was the same and their voices nearly indistinguishable on the phone, and Phil told Clint about the few camping trips his dad managed to work into his busy schedule throughout the year. They didn't talk to each other much, but they hiked, fished, and climbed together, and when Kenneth died in a lab accident when Phil was thirty-three, Phil had recently had him read in to as much as Phil was allowed to explain about his new career at SHIELD. He'd been incredibly proud.
Clint liked to imagine fishing with Phil's dad somewhere in Montana, not talking much either, but being comfortable in their silence. Clint thought maybe Phil's dad would know a little about Clint's work, too, and would ply Clint with good scotch and get him to tell him stories about the circus and interesting shots he'd made.
Phil's father would be proud of him, too.
Phil sipped his wine and smiled, his eyes sparkling the way he said his mother's did. "Well, my mom was probably the culprit. She made me and my dad 'pick a team sport for me to play,' when I was nine and had a penchant for hiding in my room reading most of the time. She insisted on 'anything,' but Dad and I both knew she'd love it if I tried basketball. I loved watching it with her already, so I figured I'd do it to please her." He shrugged and offered a shy grin. "I don't think any of us thought I'd be any good."
Clint snickered. "Little did you know. How many scholarship offers did you get again?" He knew the answer; he just liked getting Phil to turn a little red.
"Seven, but I took the academic one from Northwestern instead," Phil said, obliging Clint with a small blush.
Clint smiled and dug back into his dinner as Phil talked a little more about his parents and his years as the captain and point guard of the varsity basketball team.
A few hours later, at the end of the third quarter, Phil leaned over and whispered in Clint's ear, "My mom would have loved you."
Clint leaned back and said, "Yeah, because I would've been smart enough not to use her collectable basketball in a pick-up game."