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you need a rock not a rolling stone, 2a/4
The second time Darcy gets kidnapped by a mad scientist, it's still not her fault--victim-blaming is entirely lame--but she's willing to admit that if she hadn't been so.fucking.pissed at Clint, she probably wouldn't have given CrazyForBrains!Jr. a second glance. She is, though: angry and--fine--hurt, and really tired of it all.
CFB!Jr. is not completely whacked on the surface--Darcy does have standards, thanks--and he's mostly polite, enough that talking to him while Clint's pretending to extricate himself from some Avenger-groupie isn't a completely excruciating process. And hey, it's not like she and Clint are at the bar on a date or anything, because he'd made it pretty damn clear how bad an idea he thought the two of them would be. She's supposed to be there with Steve, who's been awesome about stuff, everything from being genuinely happy to be introduced to Darcy's mom to playing along with Darcy's no-really-I'm-fine-about-Barton-and-his-issues act, but who'd gotten a late-afternoon request to go be Captain America for some sick kids. Darcy is not enough of a bitch to make him feel guilty about having to cancel, but he'd been all 'No, no, you haven't been out in weeks, Clint can make sure you're okay, you'll be fine with him.' Since Darcy's singular motivation in life lately has been not to let Barton know how much he'd gotten to her, she'd smiled and nodded and now here she is.
It's not the end of the world, at least not until CFB!Jr.'s babblings about how The World Is Too Messed Up To Take Care Of Itself But I Know Exactly How To Fix It shift into specifics and timetables, and Darcy finally pings to how not-normal he is right about the time he realizes exactly how much he's told her and it all goes to hell. Given how weird her life has gotten in the last year, Darcy seriously should have known better than to assume that anybody taking an interest in her is not suffering from some kind of mental issue. And hell yes, she's counting Barton in that tally.
She wakes up on what is probably the most comfortable couch she's ever slept on--seriously, it's huge and squashy and covered in the kind of velvety material that's a bitch to keep clean but is like heaven against your skin. It's unfortunate that her head hurts so bad she thinks it might have already exploded and her mouth and throat are dry enough that swallowing makes her want to cry. Everything else seems okay, though, and there's even a fuzzy blanket over her.
She must make some kind of pathetic noise, because CFB!Jr. sits down on the floor in front of her, babbling apologies and rationalizations and generally being even less impressive than she'd originally thought and, no shit, the bar hadn't been set all that high to begin with. Back at the club, she'd felt a little bad that she couldn't remember the poor dweeby guy's name, but now she's seriously happy that she hadn't wasted the brain cells.
He offers to get her a glass of water, and then stumbles around another apology when she shoots him an Are you shitting me? look, as if he seriously hadn't thought about why she might not want to take anything from him. She pushes herself upright slowly, which is a head-spinning exercise of complete suckitude, but she makes it without throwing up--go her--and then almost falls back over when she realizes her purse is still looped over her shoulder. More importantly, from the weight of it, it still has everything in it.
"I wouldn't go into your purse," the idiot tells her earnestly. "That would be such a personal invasion--" He gulps and sputters when she shoots him another disbelieving look even as she tells herself to stop engaging with him. "I'm really sorry," he adds. "I didn't mean to hurt you--"
She'd like to make a clever remark, but her head is killing her and her throat is waiting in the wings in case her head doesn't finish her off, so she just hits him with her taser and doesn't bother with the style points. He falls over with a high-pitched squeal that is immensely satisfying to hear. She doesn't zap him again right away because he really doesn't look so good, but she keeps one eye on him while she scrabbles in her purse again, this time for her phone.
As soon as she gets it turned on it tells her she has 37 missed calls, all from Clint, which at least means she can just hit call back and not have to find his number.
"Barton," he snaps on the first ring, and Darcy fucking hates how much tension drains out of her just from hearing his voice.
"I want you to know you're still the last goddamn person I want to talk to, but I think I'm in your kind of shit." Even knowing how bad her throat hurts, Darcy's still a little surprised at how shredded she sounds.
"Darcy?" His voice doesn't quite crack, but it's close, and for the first time, Darcy loses the tight grip she's been keeping on the whole not-crying thing. There's a flurry of activity in the background; Darcy guesses she's on speaker with all of SHIELD listening in, so she sucks it up and gets herself under control. Clint's doing the same--he's pretty much back to baseline deadpan when he says, "If it's my kind of shit, I'm gonna need you to walk through a challenge and response with me."
"Okay," Darcy sighs, leaning her head back against the couch. When they'd eased up on her having to keep so close to the mansion or SHIELD, Coulson had gotten her to come up with super-secret passwords to use for emergencies, and she guesses this definitely qualifies. Everyone on the team uses them; Jane has her own set, too, and Pepper probably has ten different ones, which at least means Darcy isn't the only freak in her circle of friends.
"Right, so my challenge is..." Clint's voice trails off while he goes through the security protocol to access her file. Darcy hears clicking and the little beep that says the retinal scan is good, so yay, she really is talking to Clint, and then he says, in a beautifully disbelieving tone, "Someday my prince will come?"
"I picked that so I could hear Coulson say it," Darcy says. "Just so you know."
"Darce--"
"Yeah, I know. My response is 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'." The deal is that if she says anything else, they play along like it's okay but whoever has the line tells the team to go in hot, that she's under duress. Words cannot convey how unexcited Darcy is that her life includes all this shit, but it is what it is.
"A team scrambled as soon as you turned your phone on and we could get a GPS lock," Clint says, and he sounds like he's moving himself, not quite breathless but definitely not sitting in front of the computer. "I'm on my way, but they'll get there first. Stay on the line with me."
"Okay," Darcy says again. "My head hurts. He stuck me with something."
"Who--the dork you were talking to? He's my problem?"
"Don't fucking start with me, Barton." There's a lot more Darcy wants to say, about people who can't look away from cleavage even if it's obviously faker than 7-Eleven nacho cheese, but it's not worth tearing her throat up over.
"The team that's on the way--they'll have a full field med kit," Clint says, quietly. "Let them do whatever they can, okay?" He waits until Darcy makes an affirmative noise, and then goes on, "Not hassling you, I just need to know if that was the guy?"
"It was," Darcy says. "I tased him."
"Good job," Clint says, and Darcy knows that before, he'd have said something more like That's my girl, but that's so not true it's funny, in the way that makes her want to scream. They go through the whole night, everything she remembers, Clint babying her voice along when he can and relaying info to the rest of the team when he thinks it's necessary. He keeps it short and businesslike, no personal commentary, and Darcy tells herself she shouldn't miss the snark, it's better this way, but she's not being very convincing.
The SHIELD team arrives with the usual show of force, but it's all focused on the moron who's still twitching on the floor. Darcy is pretty okay with that. She's not so okay with the dickhead agent who pricks her finger and then won't tell her what the blood screen says, but it turns out that kind of shit pisses Agent Hill off, too, and she's the one leading the team, so Darcy doesn't even have to stress her throat out for him to get that message.
Clint shows up right about the time she's actively resisting the idea that she has to go to the hospital. She expects him to take their side, but he gets them to admit that the only reason she'd be there would be for observation and maybe a little fluid replacement.
"Jarvis can do that," he says, staring down Hill and the medical guy before he turns to Darcy. "I don't know that your medical records getting sucked into Stark's databanks is much better, but it's your call."
"Mansion," Darcy rasps, and the medical guy mutters something about her mental processes that sounds pretty unflattering, but he at least gives her something for her head and throat and stops poking at her. It's unfortunate that he also takes it to mean she's good with Clint, because that means she gets to ride all the way back to Fifth Avenue in the back of an SUV with him, which is really the craptastic end to a craptastic night.
Whatever the med jackass gave her is pretty good, though, so before they even get out of Brooklyn she's all floaty and, well, not exactly mellow, but not nearly as rage-filled as she has potential for, enough that there is no way she's not winning the first-one-to-talk-loses thing she and Clint have going on. Normally, that'd be a solid W in his column, but, whooo, baby, not tonight, Darcy thinks.
He starts to say something twice, but then pulls back--such a shock--and waits until they're only a couple of blocks away before he says, "I'm sorry--"
"Nice timing," Darcy says, not bothering to open her eyes. "You can drop that sincere apology and be out of the car and away from me before I can really answer and things get out of hand." Sure enough, the car's turning off Fifth to go around to the back entrance. His timing really is almost perfect. Hers is better, though. "You know, I made it through four years of undergrad at a party-hearty state school without getting roofied. It figures my first time is out on an I'm-just-her-protection-detail not-date with you."
It's dead quiet in the car after that, the driver and the other agent in the front seat clearly not wanting to miss a second of the drama. Clint's in total sniper mode next to her, the thing he does where he can consciously control his heart-rate and breathing, so that it sounds three times as loud as usual when Darcy sighs, "Fuck. That came out way nastier than I meant it to."
"It's still the truth," Clint says evenly, and goddammit, there's one more thing between them. Darcy isn't sure how everything fell apart so fast, but here they are, barely speaking and when they do, it's just to rip at each other a little more. The car pulls up through the back-gate security; as soon as they stop, Clint nods to the driver and the second agent to take off, like they haven't already heard enough to light up the goddamned SHIELD gossip line, and then comes around to open Darcy's door. She slides out easily enough, but it turns out that her knees aren't speaking to her brain and they pretty much miss the standing now message.
Of course, of course, Clint grabs her before she face-plants, picking her up like she's helpless and useless and everything else not capable of taking care of itself. The fact that she isn't capable, not right now, does nothing for her mood.
"Seriously, Barton, I can--"
"No," he says. "You can't--or, okay, fine, you can, but I can get you up to your room and be gone in a tenth of the time."
"Well, if you put it that way," Darcy mutters.
"Yeah, I thought you'd like that,"Clint says, shifting her around so he can hold her easier. Darcy sighs and loops an arm around his neck. An agent opens the door for them, and another one is holding the elevator, but thankfully nobody comes with them. Clearly, they've been clued in as to the potential for bloodshed. Wimps.
It's quiet in the elevator, even more strained than it was in the car. Since the night is already shot to hell, Darcy decides she's high enough on the pain meds to say, "You could have just said something, you know. Before. I'm a big girl; I can deal."
"Darce--" Clint sighs.
"It was a couple of kisses, Barton," Darcy says, and she is not going to get all emotional about this. Not now. "My sixth-grade crush got more tongue than you did--was that really enough to spook you so bad?"
He's not looking at her, but his jaw is so tight she bets he gives himself a migraine. She wishes that thought made her happier than it does, but this whole thing is so stupid. The elevator door opens on the third floor and they make the last part of the trip in oh-so-familiar silence. She manages to find her key and get the door open with only a little fumbling, and she's never been so happy to see her bed.
Jarvis comes online and Clint relays all the medical crap, which is, like Clint said, completely do-able from Jarvis's point of view. Darcy just burrows under the covers and says a little thank you for the Maria Stark Foundation and enough money for the housekeepers to buy amazingly-high-thread-count linens. It's going to suck when she has to go back to the real world and discount-store markdowns. She opens her eyes to see Clint watching her, not exactly smiling, but not the full-bore no-expression expression either, and she figures it's as good a time as any to go for broke. She can always blame it on the drugs.
"Clint." Darcy reaches out and snags his wrist before he can totally bail. "What I said in the car--"
"Was the truth," Clint says, and his arm might as well have been stone for all it gives under her hand.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Barton--"
"What part of 'You got taken on my watch' isn't getting through to you?"
"The part where I've been taking care of myself all my life and I did it again tonight. Thanks for the pick-up, but I could have called a cab at that point," Darcy snaps, and wow, they really are Olympic gold at managing to never talk about what's actually going on. "Shut the fuck up and let me apologize for being a bitch, okay?" He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't walk out, which is at least something. "Right, so that was totally out of line, and I'm sorry, especially saying it in front of the drones, and double especially--" He's got that look on his face like he's going to start in on her again, so Darcy raises her voice and talks faster because she is getting this all out, dammit. "Double-especially because that's not even close to the real issue and I'm so fucking tired of this, this, whatever this is we've got working."
She stops for a second, almost daring him to jump in with an evade-and-avoid verbal diversion, but maybe he's tired of it, too, because he doesn't even try for a weak one, just leaves the ball in Darcy's court, which is fine by Darcy.
"It's not even the damn groupies," Darcy says. Clint slants her a look at that, one that dares her to keep going. "Not in the overall scheme of things, Barton," she snaps.
"Then what is it?" Clint bites out, and Darcy doesn't know that she's ever seen him on this tight of a leash, but at least he's not playing like he's not invested in this.
"It's... Even if we aren't...whatever--" Darcy waves her hand to signify the vast unknown of their interpersonal relationship, or lack thereof. "Even if you didn't want to be anything more than friends, you still could have come to my graduation." She's really happy that her voice stays steady, and that any roughness is easily alibied by her throat still hurting.
"It was better I didn't come--"
"Fuck, Clint, Tony came but you couldn't be bothered?" There was some marginal SHIELD excuse, but she's pretty damn sure Clint could have gotten out of it with no trouble. She knows Tony only came because Steve dragged him along--Steve is really big on celebrating the good moments, and he's still in the pre-GI Bill mindset where college is a Big Fucking Deal--but it's the principle of the thing.
"It's--better this way," Clint finally says, and Darcy wishes she could call bullshit but she can tell he seriously believes that. He shoves his hands in his pockets, and Darcy knows he's gone. If she's being honest, she's surprised he lasted as long as he did. "If you need anything, have Jarvis track me down. I'll be--around."
"Clint," Darcy says, and he pauses with one hand on the door. "Thanks for coming for me." He nods once and closes the door quietly behind him.
For whatever it's worth, Darcy at least feels better for actually talking about it, not just pretending she's cool and throwing out nonstop bitchy comments. It's too bad nothing technically came out of it, but it's maybe a step in the right direction. Still, when Jarvis says, very tactfully, "Might I suggest some tea? Ms. Potts has a custom blend created for her more... fraught moments with Mr. Stark," Darcy gets kind of choked up. "I am quite certain she would recommend it in this situation," Jarvis goes on. "And proper hydration is very important."
Darcy manages to nod, which is apparently enough for Jarvis to fully engage mother-hen mode. He sends a plate of cookies up along with the tea, and cues her up a Thin Man marathon so her dreams are about martinis and banter, and however odd it is to be taken care of by a computer, given the night she's had, Darcy is not looking that gift horse in the mouth at all.
* * *
It's kind of surprising, given how much like hammered shit Darcy feels when she falls asleep, but twelve hours of natural rest and a swim in the small lake masquerading as the bathtub in her suite work a miracle on her outlook the next day. Meeting up with Steve on the way to breakfast, letting him fuss over her and generally be the sweet guy he is while downing pancakes and eggs and sausage and bacon and strawberries and melon and oatmeal and whatever else Steve normally eats in the morning is even more helpful. (Not only is Steve super-nice and very restful to be around emotionally, when the kitchen knows he's ready to eat, they send up massive quantities of everything and keep sending it until his super-soldier metabolism waves the white flag. Darcy thinks the staff has a competition going to see who can get him to eat more, which means normal people can just slide around the edges and not feel guilty about making more work for the kitchen when they eat two bites of ten different things. It makes her grazing soul very happy.)
Not even Jarvis relaying that Agent Coulson would like to see Darcy in his office if she feels up to it really brings her down. She knows she's gonna get yelled at at some point for the stupidity last night; she might as well get it over with. Steve is going over to the SHIELD offices, too, so Darcy laces up her Chucks and takes his spare helmet and hitches a ride with him, because Captain America and a motorcycle on a sunny summer day? So much better than the standard SUV and driver-drone it's not even in the same galaxy.
She hits her first snag when the security guys tell her Coulson is waiting for her in Fury's office, but Steve rides up with her for moral support. Again, really sweet of him, but when they step off the elevator and nobody looks at her like she's never going to be seen again, she sends him off to go test new body armor or whatever excuse they're using for playing with guns and knives today, because Captain America doesn't need to be a babysitter. She checks out the view from the penthouse suite until Fury's assistant tells her, "They're ready for you, Ms. Lewis."
Ms. Lewis is ready for them, too, Darcy tells herself, as she pushes open the door. The office is still bad-ass, and there's a brief second when Darcy wishes she hadn't let Steve go, but it's not just Fury and Coulson waiting for her. Pepper's there, too, and she smiles like she knows what Darcy's thinking and she's got her back, and it's okay again.
"I'm sorry to drag you up here today," Pepper says. "It's my fault--I'm only on the East Coast this afternoon and I wanted this meeting to happen in person."
"No problem," Darcy says, as though she has any clue what's going on, and takes the chair next to her, trying not to think too hard about the contrast they must present. Don't get her wrong, she dresses exactly the way she likes to look, but normally she's not sitting next to sleek perfection in four-inch heels. Pepper nods once at Darcy, like she approves, and then turns expectantly toward Coulson, who--no shit--smiles back at her.
Darcy's so flipping shocked to see an actual human expression on Coulson's face--and it's a nice smile, it makes him look twenty years younger and like he would be a ton of fun to hang out with--she completely misses what he's saying and has to ask him to repeat himself.
"I asked if you had settled on any post-graduate plans," Coulson says, back to the usual no-expression, except Darcy's on to him now and she can see that glimmer of humanity in his eyes. She remembers what Clint said about him, and how he's the one that Clint still trusts even now, and doesn't just throw a smart-ass answer out there.
"Not settled," Darcy says. "It's pretty hard to do that when I'm... here." She tries to say it as neutrally as she can, because 'here' is a hell of a lot better than some of the alternatives, but it's still a little too weird that the only way she went to her own graduation was with a team of undercover agents surrounding her.
"We may be able to help with that," Pepper says, which is when Coulson tries to make Darcy's head explode by offering her a job.
He takes advantage of her being rendered speechless--and he knows what he's doing; she can almost see the unholy glee in his eyes, the devious bastard--to add, "Not an agent, you understand, but on our strategic side--it would be contingent on your completing an advanced degree in public policy, but that would seem to fit with your academic goals. The tuition would also be reimbursable."
Everybody looks at Darcy, and the only thing she can think of is, "You're going to have to give me a minute here--I thought I was coming up here to get yelled at for last night," which is really not the best way to affirm they've made a good choice in offering her anything, much less grad school on a platter, but holy shit, Coulson just offered her grad school on a platter.
"If you'd like, I could strongly request that you keep your phone turned on so we can track its location if necessary," Fury says, in a your-ass-is-so-mine voice. It’s very effective--Darcy is certain he’d be totally unimpressed with her if-Barton-needs-to-tell-me-anything-he-can-damn-well-say-it-to-my-face reason for turning it off in the first place. "It was a long ninety-four minutes last night, and not just for Agent Barton." He flicks his gaze toward Coulson, who doesn't react, but Darcy knows Fury doesn't just say stuff, which is not helping with keeping her head from exploding. "Apart from that, you managed to expose a rather annoying little group of megalomaniacs, which was helpful, so I'll refrain from any further commentary."
Darcy nods because, well, because she's not exactly sure what to do with that non-verbal part about Coulson and it's probably best if she just doesn't open her mouth for a couple more seconds.
"I will add," Fury says, in a more normal tone--which: still pretty damn scary, but at least not quite heart-attack-inducing--"that, academic achievements aside--" Darcy allows herself a microsecond of righteous satisfaction about pulling out the summa cum laude after all-- "you're in a unique position, one that addresses one of our most common problems in recruiting personnel to work with the Avenger Initiative: you already see our people as people, not as infallible heroes, nor as unkillable mutants. One perception leads to unchecked mayhem; the other leads to unwinnable strategies and kamikaze missions. Neither is acceptable."
Darcy nods again, but more thoughtfully this time; she can see where both of those scenarios are entirely possible. It goes without saying, she thinks, how not-good they'd be for the team, let alone the people she does know comprise that team.
"Questions?" Coulson asks. "Concerns?" He gives her one of those almost-expressions, and damn if she is going to end up having to let go of her general annoyance with him. "Opinions?"
Darcy snorts, because, oh yeah, he's got her pegged, but since he asked so nicely and all, she says, "What happens if I have one of those and it doesn't agree with yours?"
"’If’?" Coulson asks with a beautifully arched eyebrow, and Darcy can't help it; she has to return it.
"Not to be argumentative, but talk is cheap," Darcy counters. "Grad school really, really isn't."
Coulson leans back and nods to Fury, who says, "That would actually be the reason we're doing this in my office: to assure you that we expect our analysts to analyze, to assess and to make their case as objectively as possible. That's in writing, in every contract, but Agent Coulson and I felt--your situation being what it is--we needed to make it crystal clear that there is no expectation of anything else here."
"I'm not interested in buying a yes-woman," Coulson adds. "I can find those on every floor right now."
"Cool," Darcy says, because, hey, free rein to argue. That could be sweet.
"And the reason I'm here is to make sure you understand this isn't all or nothing," Pepper says. "As a board member of the Maria Stark Foundation... if you feel Agent Coulson's offer is not the direction you'd like your life to go, we have several year-long internship opportunities with the Foundation for which I can recommend you, for many of the same reasons."
Again, everybody's back to staring at Darcy, and it's not that they're impatient or anything, but jesusfuck, she's got the CEO of Stark Industries and the director of an entire government agency cooling their jets while her brain is doing its best impression of a hamster on speed, so she gives herself a mental thwap or two and comes up with something that is not 'Are you sure you have the right Darcy Lewis' and they all adjourn to let her "weigh her options," as Pepper phrases it. Darcy manages not to blurt out any kind of disbelief that she has options, so score one for her.
In the elevator down, Pepper offers her a ride, which prompts Coulson to, jesuschristonastick, make a joke about Pepper trying to unduly influence Darcy's decision, and when Pepper replies, "Of course," he laughs, and Darcy has not had enough coffee for this. There probably isn't enough coffee in the world for this.
Coulson walks them across the lobby and Darcy pulls her act together long enough to exchange eyebrow twitches with him before she follows Pepper out, trailing along behind the crisp crack-crack-crack of her heels on the polished floor. Tony's driver is waiting outside, so they're in the car and moving in no time flat.
"I had some of your tea last night," Darcy blurts out, and so much for maintaining an aura of competence. Of course, maybe Pepper wants to fill her internship with a babbling idiot. It might seem like a refreshing change... which is kind of a stretch, but hey, a girl can hope, right? Darcy sighs. "Sorry, that was, like, totally random but, yeah, Jarvis offered. Your custom blend."
"I hope it helped," Pepper says, smiling, and that's the thing about Pepper: no matter that she's wearing Chanel and Louboutin, and has legs that go on forever, and probably spends more on her manicures than Darcy did on her entire college career, the thing that absolutely blows Darcy's mind is that she deals with Tony Stark on a hourly basis and, hideously expensive special tea blends aside, doesn't seem to have resorted to any unhealthy means of coping with that insanity.
"It was nice," Darcy says, which is so banal as to be cringe-worthy, but true, too. 'Nice' is becoming an ever-rarer commodity in Darcy's life because even the good things are taking on an edge of insanity, and she thinks Pepper might understand that. "What do you have for rage-induced blackouts?"
"A standing reservation at a Trappist monastery outside of San Francisco," Pepper says dryly. "They have a beautiful guesthouse for retreats, but the best part is their vow of silence--it is the most exquisite relief."
"I'll keep that in mind," Darcy says, a little doubtfully. She can see where quiet would be good sometimes, but vows of silence probably won't play well with her mouth.
"Whatever works." Pepper smiles like Darcy's a member of the club now, and Darcy's always liked her, but now she really, really likes her. The rest of the trip is taken up with Pepper shamelessly recruiting Darcy for the Maria Stark Foundation, because she says it's hard to compete with a job that has the unofficial motto of We save the world--what do *you* do? going for it. Darcy thinks that anything with the Stark name attached to it might give it a run for its money, but she's happy to be wooed. It's a nice feeling.
It's quiet at the mansion; Darcy figures everyone's off being their bad-ass selves--or, in the case of Dr. Banner, she hopes, achieving Zen and peace and happiness--so she assembles herself a little brainstorming and decision-making microclimate right there in a corner of the kitchen, complete with snacks in her favorite 60/40 sweet-to-salty ratio, legal pads, and a rocking pack of Pantone markers. Seventy-two colors is probably more than she'll need for organizing purposes, but it never hurts to be prepared. She triumphs over the insane coffeemaker Tony insists on, and thus fortified with nearly pure caffeine, sits down to figure out what the fuck to do with her life.
It's like her own personal coffee shop, with people coming and going, making a little background noise so Darcy doesn't feel totally isolated, but not anyone she knows well enough to stop and chat and break her concentration--not until Steve comes wandering in and starts stealing her snacks while he waits for actual real food to stoke the never-ending metabolism.
"It'd be harsh to get mad at America's hero," Darcy says, without looking up from her Analysts: Stuffed Shirts or Okay Dudes Who I Wouldn't Mind Hanging With 80 Hours A Week? list. "But if you take my last Nutter Butter, I will be annoyed with you."
"Um," Steve says, through a mouthful. "Sorry?"
"No, no," Darcy sighs, because Steve is too much fun to guilt. "It's my honor to give up my cookies to Captain America. Please, take my Oreos, too."
"Thank you!" Steve says, with a shit-eating grin that tells Darcy he's been hanging out with certain archers entirely too much. He shares his burger with her, though, and since the kitchen is exerting their usual over-the-top effort for him, it has bacon and blue cheese and mushrooms on it. Darcy could have told them that was a little too exotic for their Cap, but since she's happy to help him, it all works out for the best, especially since she thinks they used an ice-cream scoop to portion out the cheese, guh.
Clint walks in right as Steve's telling her that he likes women who enjoy their food, like Peggy always had. He's not maudlin about it or anything, but Darcy's not made of stone--of course she's leaning in close and there might have been some shoulder-patting happening, but hey, friends don't let friends walk down memory lane all alone.
She arches one eyebrow at Clint and his stoic face of it's-better-this-way, but it's not like it was last night, if only because she's not stoned. Even so, she thinks his game face might be slipping, and now that she a) actually has an operational brain, and b) isn't running around pretending she doesn't care, she thinks she's probably ready to push the issue and see if there’s anything left to salvage. Of course, by the time she works that out Clint is gone again, but it's not like she doesn't know where he lives. Or that he sleeps like crap and is almost always somewhere not his suite during the night.
In the end, she stays more or less right where she is, and it's not much past one in the morning when Clint comes ghosting through again. He never walks into or out of a room without at least basic recon, which means he knows she's there, but he's probably counting on her still being pissed and not wanting to engage. To be fair, that's how it's been for a month, so tactically speaking, it's a safe bet. It's still wrong, though.
"Why is it better this way?" Darcy supposes she could have started with something a little more innocuous, but this is what she should have said last night, so it's more like a continuation of that conversation and not a new one. "You can make me a list if you want."
She pushes the paper and pens in his direction, half joking, half not. She wishes her hands weren't suddenly shaking--she knows he's not going to miss that--but she's not letting this go and she hopes he's gotten that message. In case he hasn't, she says, very quietly, "You're gonna have to spell it out for me, Barton."
Clint looks at her for what feels like an eternity, then takes one of the straight-backed chairs and turns it around to straddle it. The breath Darcy hadn't realized she'd been holding finally eases out of her lungs, and she drops her head so she can hide behind her hair for a second and maybe get a little equilibrium. When she flips her hair back, Clint's still watching her.
"Hit me with your best shot," Darcy says. As banter goes, it's pathetically lame, but these are stressful times and you just have to work with what you have.
"I'm too old for you," Clint says, which is so much better than the Darcy, sweetheart, you're terrific but you're not my type Darcy's been expecting that her brain kicks into high gear and, as usual, her mouth follows right along.
"See, now, that's interesting," Darcy answers. "It's not that I'm too young for you, it's that you're too old for me, which is--"
"Darcy, come on--I'm doing good not to have a kid out there that's your age," Clint interrupts.
"You started that early, huh?"
"Your family--"
"It's just my mom and me," Darcy says. It's always been like that; Darcy was practically in junior high before she realized some people thought she'd been missing out on something, but they'd never met her mom. "My grandmother died a couple of years ago, so it's only the two of us."
"And she wouldn't care?"
"She'd think you were hot." Truthfully speaking, her mom wouldn't just think Clint was hot, she'd want to sculpt him, which would probably lead to requests to strip down, but Darcy is sure Clint's not ready for the full Lewis Experience just yet, so she doesn't mention that. "If you'd come to my graduation, you'd know that already."
Clint's eyeing her like he's looking for the bullshit meter--which is a sign that not mentioning her mom's artistic sensibilities was probably a good move--so Darcy smiles at him, even though she isn't really feeling it. If nothing else, it'll keep him off balance, because she can tell he's way over-thought this whole thing.
"Look, if you thought I was too young for you, that'd be one thing, but you thinking I should think you're too old is something different. That's leading the witness and I move to strike. So. Next?"
Clint looks at her for a long time, like he can't quite believe she's still there, but she stares back at him and waits him out.
"You don't need to be spending half your life wondering if I'm coming back," Clint says, finally. "It's no way to live--"
"Okay, again? Quit telling me what I should be worried about."
"Somebody needs to be thinking about it, because goddamn if I think you are," Clint snaps. "And if you think I'm making this shit up, we have a serious problem." His eyes are dark and resolute, and Darcy can read the truth in them.
"Okay," Darcy says, with a sigh. "Seriously, I don't care about the age difference. And I--I'm not blowing off the fact that you do crazy shit on a regular basis, but that's all me and I'm asking you about you. So far, nothing you've said is about you, so let's try this again. Next?"
His jaw is set and is mouth is back to being a tight, hard line, but seriously, he's known her long enough that he should have figured out she doesn't give up on things she cares about. Hell, she's been reliably informed that it only takes a day for people to figure that out; Clint's got no excuse.
"Next?" Clint grits out, and this is it, Darcy can tell, and as much as she's been pushing for it, the look in his eyes is enough to make it hard to keep a even keel. "Next... is that I really don't do this, for good reason. When it blows up--and it will--everything in the blast radius gets fucked over; you, me--"
"That doesn't mean it would happen like that now," Darcy says.
"Yeah, but if it did... it wouldn't just be you I'd be fucking over," Clint says. "I can't--" He stops for a second before he goes on, very quietly. "This team--it was too hard to put it together. We almost didn't make it more times than I can count. I--" He stops again, and Darcy makes herself sit and listen and wait, even if she can tell how much she doesn't want to hear what he's going to say. "I should have remembered this up front. They have to be my focus, no matter how much I might want anything else."
The stubborn part of Darcy, the part that never ever gives up on anything, wants to take that last part and run with it, but the rest of her insists that all she can really do is stow it carefully away so she can hold on to it for as long as possible while she figures out how to deal with the first part. Before she can do either, his phone buzzes, and Darcy doesn't even have to hear him say Rolling, Cap to know it's one of those kinds of calls.
Natasha blows into the room, game face already on, saying, "Wheels up in five, Hawk. We're briefing and arming on the jets." Her gaze flickers between Darcy and Clint, and when it comes back to rest on Darcy, there's a clear and unmistakable Do not fuck my partner up in it. Darcy keeps her own eyes as steady and sure as she knows how, until Natasha nods once in acknowledgement and heads for the stairs.
"Darcy--" Clint starts, as though Darcy didn't just have this conversation with Natasha. Okay, it was wordless and all, but a lot got said. You'd think he'd have noticed.
"I'm good," she says. "I--get it." She leaves off the part where she disagrees, because she is so not what he needs to be thinking about right now. "Wheels up in five, right? I know you're in great shape, but you're going to have to sprint to make it up there that fast." They hangar the Quinjets on the top floor, all the way on the back side of the mansion; it really is a hike. It's also a plausible enough excuse to cut him off before he says anything irrevocable, all without being too blatant of a dodge. He knows that's what she's doing, of course, but he lets it go, hesitating for a second before leaning down and brushing a kiss across Darcy's cheek before heading out, already at a jog before he even gets through the door.
"Be safe," Darcy says, but she's not sure he hears her.