you need a rock not a rolling stone, 2b/4

[topaz119]

With Jane off doing research in unspecified, we-can-neither-confirm-nor-deny locations--which, please, Darcy knows that means Asgard; you'd think somebody might remember that Darcy's been around long enough to have tased Thor and watched a town get torched by his crazy little not-brother--and everybody else off being, well, themselves, Darcy is stuck for companions. She definitely isn't wild about the prospect of sitting in her room all night, pacing and biting her nails. For one thing, she spent time earlier with Ms. Practically Perfect Potts and her mani-pedi of doom; Darcy's not likely to match those standards, like, ever (rumor has it that Pepper rode out the first Iron Man deathmatch in Prada and Gucci), but she can at least try not to destroy her nails down to the quick. Baby steps, right?

It turns out that the kitchen extends its awesome hanging-out vibe all the way through the night and into the morning. The crew that does the baking starts rolling in around three AM, and Darcy's barely managed to even get to the point where she can sit by then. There's no place to sleep, but that isn't going to happen regardless, and the smell of bread baking and the quiet chatter of the staff is very soothing. At eight, she puts aside her lists and goes up to her room to shower and give herself a pep talk because whichever option she goes with, SHIELD or the Foundation, she's going to have to deal with Avengers assembling and all that entails for a while. Hell, even if she just sits around and does nothing, she's going to have to deal, so she might as well start as she means to go on, as her Nana always said.

At ten, she calls her mom for an attitude adjustment. People always think that means her mom is good at kicking ass, but that′s not how it works at all. Her mom is just the one person Darcy knows who always lives a real life even when that life doesn't go according to any plan. Darcy herself is proof of that; having a baby at sixteen is never a picnic, especially when you have to do the hard work of raising her without a partner, but Darcy never had a clue that life was anything but amazing as she was growing up.

One complete brain dump--minus pertinent and ultimately insignificant classified details--later, Darcy feels a million times better. Her mom never gives advice, of course--that would mean she'd be defining how Darcy's life should go and that's not how she rolls at all--but she's an incredible listener, completely non-judgmental. Darcy always forgets how much of a relief it is to just get everything out of her head. She knows it intellectually, but then the words come rushing out and out and out and when she's done, it's like there's nothing she can't do.

After that, she gives in to Jarvis and his mother-hen tendencies and eats a disgustingly healthy lunch, followed by the most decadent chocolate mousse ever, and goes up onto the roof to watch the world go by. She's pretty sure she knows what she's going to do about SHIELD and the Stark Foundation, but she doesn't see a need to call it, at least not for a little while. Somewhere around dusk, not having slept the night before catches up with her and she stumbles back down to her suite. Jarvis promises to wake her if there's any news, so she lets herself fall asleep.

Jarvis keeps his word, waking her just past dawn to tell her everyone is back, or at least at SHIELD doing debriefing. "It's my understanding that there are no serious injuries," he adds.

"Or at least none that I'm cleared to know about," Darcy mutters.

"No medical staff have been paged," Jarvis says, a little stiffly. Darcy refuses to feel bad about snapping at an AI, especially one that puts up with Tony Stark, but she does sort of wave an apology for being a sulky bitch at it. Sounding somewhat mollified, Jarvis adds, "Shall I alert you when specific personnel are released from debriefing?"

Even half-asleep, Darcy can admire the delicate phrasing: 'specific personnel' is so much more tactful than 'the sniper you're flipping your shit over'.

"No," she says. "Thank you, though." Getting all up in Clint's face isn't going to help anything; whatever else she does or doesn't agree with, that much she knows for sure. It's still good to know he's okay--everybody else, too--enough that she relaxes enough to crash again, sleeping herself out until it's almost noon. While she's in the shower, she nudges a little at the proto-decision in the back of her head, and yep, it's still there, and it still feels right. She'll give it a little more time before she makes it official, but she thinks she's solid.

By the time she gets out of the shower, she's starving; hungry enough that she just throws on the first clean t-shirt and skirt she finds and twists her hair up into a messy knot and goes to find food... forgetting the first law of relationships, because of course the first person she runs into, before she even gets off the third floor, is Clint.

Even better, 'runs into' isn't just a euphemism for 'sees.' It's the literal truth, as they crash together coming around a corner. Darcy staggers back, all the air knocked out of her by the impact. Clint grabs for her before she goes down, and there's a split second where she forgets she's not supposed to be grabbing back, but then he sets her on her feet and she remembers and it's all back to fucked-up normal between them.

Clint's clearly just in, not even showered or changed, but down to the sleeveless UnderArmour he wears as his base layer and trailing a gaggle of white-coated SHIELD science-types who are passing around the Kevlar and clucking to each other, not even noticing Darcy. To be fair, she doesn't think they're noticing Clint either, which at least means they're not already updating the gossip lines. Small mercies.

"Jarvis says the world is saved again," Darcy says, keeping it light and stepping to one side so they can all get past. Good intentions aside, she and Clint don't have the track record that says chance encounters will remain boring and non-gossip-worthy, and she'd really like not to be the topic of the drone smoke breaks for at least a week. "Avengers rule?"

"You know it," Clint smirks. It's not really up to his usual standards, but it's credible enough that Darcy is willing to let it slide until one of the geeks asks him some incomprehensible question about ordnance and ballistics and instead of turning his head to answer he turns his whole body, moving with visible effort, the way you do when everything hurts.

"What happened?" Darcy says. It comes out a little on the sharp side, on the borderline of shrill, but she stops worrying that she's overreacting when Clint starts to shrug at her but stops with a hiss.

"I'm fine," he says, right as one of the geeks says, "The prototype worked perfectly; it stopped not only the AK-47 but also the plasma--"

"Stop," Darcy says to the geek, glaring at him until he shuts his mouth with a gulp--because Jesus Christ, she does not need to hear details that include the words 'not only the AK-47'--and then turning to Clint. "If you're so fucking fine, why can't you move?"

"Because," Clint sighs, "not even Stark's super-juiced Kevlar can dissipate that much force without a little collateral damage."

Darcy's moving before she even thinks about it, though she does make herself stop before she actually yanks Clint's shirt up, her hand hovering at the hem while she looks at him for permission. He looks back at her for a long second before he nods. He looks like he's braced for all hell to break loose, which at least gives Darcy a heads-up not to completely lose it. She tugs his shirt up as easily as possible and then bites down on everything that wants to come flying out of her at the sight of his back. At first it looks like one huge bruise, but then it resolves into overlapping circles of red and blue and purple so dark it looks black and Darcy realizes each circle is centered around a bullet hit.

"Fuck, Clint," Darcy whispers.

"It could have been worse," he says, with a little twist of his lips that she thinks is supposed to be a half-smile. "The Kevlar held, but..."

"All that force had to go somewhere," she murmurs. She touches the center part of one of the bruises very, very gently. Clint is absolutely still, but she almost winces at the heat coming off his skin. "You should ice this," she says, smoothing his shirt back down. "You should have been doing that already."

"Adrenaline is a beautiful thing," Clint says, this time with an actual smile. "I didn't really notice until I stiffened up during the ride over here. Getting that damn Kevlar off was the icing on the cake."

"Yeah, well, I already knew you have that hero-thing going, the one where you forget about the tiny details like this--seriously, you could have just let me fall on my ass right now--but you'd think at least one of the geniuses might have noticed their lab rat was not in the greatest shape, even if it was just so they could figure out what else could be improved." Darcy goes back to glaring at the geeks. "I'm going down to the kitchen to get you some ice, because clearly, clearly multiple PhDs mean nothing in terms of common sense."

"Darce, you don't have--"

"Shut up," Darcy hisses. "Just because we're not fucking doesn't mean I should go skipping off and pretend nothing's wrong. It's ice-ice, not a goddamned diamond."

She glares at Clint, and okay, she might be losing it a little, but she really fucking does not care at the moment.

"I was just going to say that they keep chemical ice packs in all the suites--you don't have to go down to the kitchen."

"Oh." Darcy reverses her righteous storming off and heads for her suite instead. "Then I'll get the ones from my room, because you're going to need a truckload of them. While I do that, why don't you finish this goddamned debriefing somewhere it won't matter if you fall over."

To his credit, Clint doesn't look like he's laughing at her, and the SHIELD geeks all have the same deer-in-the-headlights expression as they scuttle back out of her way. Given how pissed she is at them for not noticing, it's probably for the best, because even if she doesn't lose it any more, she can just imagine how this is going to sound by tomorrow morning.

Then again? she thinks as she stalks back toward Clint's room. Not really giving much of a flying fuck.

"Darcy, wait." Steve catches up with her and her armful of ice packs right outside Clint's door, and it's not that Darcy ever forgets he's Captain America, but it's usually just there in the background, unlike now where it's more like a force of nature. It's not even the uniform he's still wearing so much as how he just radiates it, like an aura. Darcy's kind of surprised he isn't throwing red, white, and blue shadows.

"I can take those for you; I think they're still debriefing," he says, gently but firmly, and yeah, she's not getting past that. "It's important that they know as much as possible about the performance of his body armor."

"No, I know," Darcy says. "But you have to make sure he uses these." She hands over all the ice packs, from both her suite and Jane's. It's stupid--she knows the staff can have as many of the things as Clint might need delivered to his room in no time, but that hadn't stopped her from needing to bring as many as she could herself. "Seriously, Cap. Don't let them get sidetracked with geeky joy or whatever. I mean, obviously, I'm really fucking glad their baby worked, because otherwise he'd be-- he'd be--"

"Not here." His voice is sober and serious and Darcy knows he's lost a lot of people, but she hears it in a whole new way.

"His back is a mess," Darcy says, and her throat is so tight and dry she can barely get the words out. "It needs to be taken care of."

"I was on my way to make sure of just that." He smiles a familiar smile at her, but--nope. Still Cap, not Steve. It's weird to see him like that, but it actually helps her feel a little bit better; if you can't trust Captain America to take care of things for you, who can you trust? "I'll keep an eye on him. Both eyes, even."

It's really sweet of him, trying to cheer her out of her mood. Darcy finds a smile somewhere; it's pretty weak, but she knows he won't hold it against her.

"And you're okay, too?" Darcy asks. "Not to be all up in your face or anything, but I'm beginning to wonder if anybody actually asks."

"I'm fine, honey," he says, as he opens the door. "Thank you for asking."

Darcy goes back to her suite and sits and shakes for a little while, until she gets most of it out of her system, and then finds the card Coulson had given her, the one with his direct number on it but not his name.

"Were you serious when you said you didn't want a yes-woman?" she asks as soon as he picks up. "Because I have some major issues with how your department operates."

"I don't say things I don't mean," Coulson answers. "I have a few issues of my own."

"Then I accept." It's what she's been thinking all along, but seeing Fury's scenarios playing out in front of her eyes definitely made her decision for her.

"Welcome to SHIELD," Coulson says, as though he never had any doubts. There's more, mundane things like HR and proper forms of identification, but yeah, that's about it. Darcy hangs up, but before she can start hunting down the pertinent numbers, a text comes through from Pepper.

Phil called to gloat, it reads. FWIW, I think you made an excellent choice. Best of luck; monastery on standby if needed, VP.

Darcy reads it about fifty times, savoring the 'Welcome to the Madness' glow, before she manages to text back, and for whatever reason, that makes it all official. Once Jane gets her ass back from frolicking with the Norse gods, they can have a party, but for now, Darcy goes to find something to eat and then tries to figure out if she owns a single piece of clothing that might qualify as even business casual. She doesn't, but she's sure Coulson knows that already, and then it turns out not to matter at all, because once she gets through all the bureaucratic BS that will ensure she actually gets paid for her grief, Coulson hands her a folder of graduate programs in public policy and tells her to start pulling applications together.

"It's a little early to start applying for next year, don't you think?" Darcy tries not to let her eyes bug out, but yow: Harvard, Columbia, GW, Northwestern... These are not programs for wimps.

"Who said anything about next year?"

"The whole part where it's months after deadline for this year?"

"Not an issue." Coulson gives her one of those inscrutable looks. "We have arrangements with all the top schools."

"You guys are seriously scary." Darcy already knew that, but it bears repeating, she thinks.

"I can't get you in, but if you meet acceptance criteria, there will be a spot for you." Coulson smiles. Darcy thinks she might like the bland, no-expression look better. "Any school in the folder. Also, you're one of us now, so welcome to the scary."

Darcy rolls her eyes at him and, since they haven't gotten around to getting her a desk yet, goes back to her corner in the kitchen. It takes her two days just to go through all the schools, which is a little much, she realizes, but... Okay, honestly? She's a little giddy, because even if she could have gotten into the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, there was no way she could have ever come up with the cash for it, and now it's just one of her options and--

She sets the timer on her phone to remind her to take a break and stop with the hyperventilating.

Jane finally blows back in from points unnamed; from the manic excitement in her eyes, Darcy thinks Asgard might only have been the way station between even weirder places. Still, she snaps out of it and is properly appreciative of Darcy's news, even calling Thor to come down and join in the celebration.

Thor is always going to be ready for a party, but Darcy can tell he's a little mystified by the reason for it.

"More schooling?" he says, in a tone that suggests Darcy is volunteering for torture. "You are certain this is the path you wish for your life?" He leans close and speaks in what she knows he thinks is a confidential tone. It's still like thunder rumbling in a summer night. "You must not feel obligated to them--my mother would offer you sanctuary should you choose."

Darcy actually gets a little choked up at the big lug and can't answer for a second, which works out well with how Jane's making kissy-faces at him, but when the lovebirds come up for air she says, "Can I take you up on that offer later, like maybe for spring break?"

"Any time, little sister," Thor says, and they all have a moment of the warm fuzzies before Darcy smacks her hand down on the table and says, "Okay, enough with the mush. I held off on the celebratory martinis until you got back but there's a limit to my patience."

It turns out that Thor has yet to be introduced to the joys of pomegranate martinis, and for all that he's not at all impressed by the size of the glasses, he pronounces them "like to candy," and downs them by the pitcherful. Jane is more circumspect, and Darcy isn't at all surprised; the last double tequila night is still a very fresh memory. Darcy is right there with her.

Of course, once Natasha arrives and, sniffing disdainfully at their girly drinks, produces some kind of fucking lighter fluid in a vodka bottle, things get out of hand anyway, but what's a little alcohol poisoning between friends?

The next morning isn't a total loss--Natasha and Thor had hogged most of the really brutal stuff--but Darcy is still seriously glad she isn't expected at SHIELD. Getting out of bed is challenge enough; making it down for breakfast is a total triumph. Jane's there, too, staring vaguely at her coffee. With Jane, that might just mean she's in the throes of a new discovery, but when she looks up at Darcy and mutters something unflattering about Russian assassins, it's pretty clear her brain is not operating at discovery-frequency. Darcy wants to commiserate, but she’s derailed by a sudden shaky memory of having a heart-to-heart with Natasha, during which she might have gotten the Black Widow Seal of Approval with respect to Clint.

"I think?" Darcy pokes disinterestedly at her eggs. "Maybe?"

"You still have all your body parts, right?" Jane says. Darcy nods. "Point in your favor." Darcy can't argue with that logic.

Of course, Clint himself still isn't with the program, so Darcy doesn't exactly know how much good Natasha being okay with her is going to do, but like Jane says, no missing body parts is a good thing.

Since the proper celebrations have taken place, Darcy holes up in her room for a couple of days and works on pulling together kick-ass application packets, writing and revising furiously until her eyes start crossing, and then moving it all down to the kitchens and going through it again. She's on her fourth time through her statement of purpose when she suddenly realizes she has no idea how any of this is going to work. She's stuck here, and, granted, here, Tony Stark's childhood home, is a pretty sweet place to be stuck, but it's not any of the places that correspond to the files she has open on her laptop.

It's absurd that she hasn't thought of any of this yet, but it is what it is. It's also probably an appropriate reason to test out the interoffice VPN and instant messaging. Coulson seems to agree, or at least he doesn't glare at her over said IM (if anyone can glare over a text-based messaging system, Darcy is sure it’s Coulson), only answering full protection detail wherever. Even if it's not the answer she wants to hear--that would be no need for extra security, go wherever--it's more or less the answer Darcy expects, which doesn't do anything to explain why she ends up on the roof, hanging onto the side of the morning-glory trellis with her heart going a hundred miles an hour and her lungs burning.

Fifth Avenue runs right past the mansion, but the rooftop garden is far enough toward the back of the building that the lushly landscaped grounds mute the overall traffic and city noises; it's easy enough to hear the attic door opening even over the blood pounding in her ears.

"Hey," Clint says quietly, staying over by the door until she manages a weak hey in return. "You blew past us like a bat out of hell; I figured I'd make sure everything's okay."

This is where Darcy is supposed to crack back with something fast and clever--and maybe even dismissive--but all she can come up with is a shaky-sounding, "Shit, please tell me I didn't just lose it in front of Fury."

"Nah, it was just me and Cap and Banner." Clint crosses over to where she's still clutching the trellis and holds out a bottle of water. "Come on," he says, gesturing toward one of the benches. "Sit down before you fall down."

Darcy takes the bottle and even manages to get the top off on her own. Not a particularly impressive accomplishment, but she is so taking whatever wins she can right this second. Clint doesn't hassle her, just sits down next to her and lets her drink her water and pull herself together.

"I just--couldn't breathe," Darcy says after a little while. She doesn't know how much Clint has heard about her deal, but he doesn't seem surprised at the details, and when she gets to the part about Coulson's message, he nods. "It's not exactly news, but... I don't know. The walls started closing in on me, and here I am." She takes a couple of slow, deep breaths and lets them trickle out. "Pretty crazy, yeah?"

"It's a pretty crazy set-up to start with," Clint says easily. "If you ask me, that makes it a double negative, so..."

"Not so crazy," Darcy says, something in her chest loosening up.

"Right," Clint says. "Either that or, y'know, we've already covered you and relative distances to crazy, so it could be this was the short putt."

"Oh my god," Darcy says, sputtering with laughter after a split-second of disbelief. "You're such a jerk, Barton."

"Hole in one?" he asks, with a smirk.

"Jerk," Darcy tells him. "Jerk, jerk, jerk."

"Hey, I'm just offering the options--you pick the reality." He leans back and lets the smirk soften into an actual smile, and fine, whatever, she can't resist the real smiles--and she really can't bring herself to care that she can't--so she sits there with him until it doesn't feel like she's going to suffocate when she goes back inside.

* * *

HIgh summer is apparently the off-season for the really whacked super-villains; maybe they summer in the Hamptons, too. At this point, Darcy is willing to believe many things she previously would have laughed herself sick over. Whatever the reason, it gets boring enough that people start standing down a little. Dr. Banner disappears into the wild to do some hardcore meditation practice, SHIELD handler in tow, just in case they have to bring him in again. Tony heads back to the West Coast to harass Colonel Rhodes and, he says, refabricate his suit, which Darcy mentally translates into seeing how much more bling he can throw at it; while Jane lets Thor talk her into taking an actual vacation, one that has nothing to do with research, rainbow bridges, or reality-altering equations. Darcy even spots some seriously slinky lingerie getting tossed into Jane's bag, which is lovely for them. Really.

Darcy catches Steve watching a Dodgers game on TV with a mournful expression on his face, and is at a loss on how to counteract it until Natasha shows up and takes him off on a club crawl of epic proportions. Word gets out that Captain America is on the dance floor--seriously, the first shaky phone video hits YouTube not an hour after they leave--and they're one step ahead of the paparazzi all night long. Darcy makes a point of going to the SHIELD offices the next morning, just so she can watch the rumors fly. It's vastly entertaining, but then Fury puts an end to any more nights like that by way of a spectacularly aggravated email, fueled in part, Darcy is certain, by Stark blasting everybody with suggestions for where they really should have gone and insisting somebody give him a couple of hours worth of a heads-up the next time so he can jet in from LA. Natasha rolls her eyes at all of it--like there's any way she'd be caught dead at a club with Tony--but Darcy thinks Steve might be a little relieved at the prohibition. Not that he didn't have a pretty awesome time, to judge from the blushing going on, but he agrees to stay in at the Mansion and watch movies with a suspect ease.

They start off with your basic geekfest, but--to Clint's utter horror--it turns out Steve is a sucker for costume dramas. Natasha is bored out of her mind and gone in no time, but Darcy ignores Clint's moaning and groaning and gleefully cues up one after another. She does relent and let him critique any and all archers that show up, mostly because it's too hilarious how he gets so torqued about shit Darcy doesn't see even when makes her go frame by frame and points to the bad things. They watch two or three every night, except for the night they catch Gone With The Wind, which Steve had actually seen in a movie theater before the war, on a double date. He doesn't say who he'd been with, but he doesn't have to. They switch over to poker after that, to let the memories fade. Steve pretty much sucks at bluffing, no surprise there, which probably has a lot to do with him insisting they get back on track the next night. Darcy goes for broke and pulls out The Princess Bride, which isn't strictly a costume drama, but which Steve loves and Clint somehow does not hate on sight, and tries not to think about how she's gotten herself into this low-grade, extended torture session where she's sitting on a couch next to, as Jarvis continues to call him, 'specific personnel' while Buttercup and Westley find true love.

Popcorn, it turns out, provides an excellent diversion. Who knew?

At the very least, Darcy reminds herself, they're not bitching at each other nonstop, and she'd said she was a big girl, she could deal if they weren't together, so that's what she's going to do. Deal. Even if it fucking kills her.

The dry spell lasts almost ten days, and then weirdness returns in the form of a blast from the past, somebody who makes Natasha's eyes go so cold Darcy's hair stands on end just looking at her. She and Clint throw down in as nasty of a fight as Darcy's ever seen without actual bloodshed, but when Black Widow leaves, Hawkeye goes with her. So, to Darcy's probably not-so-secret relief, does Captain America, and seriously, Darcy wishes like hell the SHIELD investigators would get with the program and get her clearances set, because it is beyond old to not know what the fuck is going on. Again.

At least she has a desk now, and a computer, and limited access to the SHIELD files. She can't find out anything going on in the present, but there's lots of history to read up on, and while that sounds boring in the abstract, some seriously weird shit has gone on in the past. The words "soap opera" come to mind, and that doesn't even begin to cover the Starks.

Plus, while she's waiting around for full clearance, she's working this idea that she's 90% sure will make Coulson's eyebrow twitch, if only because she's planning on putting in for 300 copies of The Checklist Manifesto so everyone will have their own copy when she goes live with it all. She's pretty sure that exceeds her requisition level, which means he has to sign off on it. Writing and rewriting her justification so he'll agree keeps her distracted enough that she's not spending every waking minute trying to figure out which of the baddies from Natasha's past is out there now. The list is long and varied, and from some of the mission reports, it's really no wonder Natasha gets that look in her eyes. And, not that Darcy's counting, but Clint shows up around the edges an awful lot, which is a solid foundation for his middle-of-the-night ramblings, too.

The first two nights, Darcy makes herself lay down in her bed--sleeping isn't really much of a possibility, but she catches a couple of hours both nights--but by the third, she gives up the pretense and stays on the couch so she doesn't miss anything. It's pretty hard to keep Captain America on the down-low, but nothing is showing up in the regular media. It's more than a little freaky, but Darcy maintains until the fourth day, when she gets to SHIELD and Coulson is gone and the rumors are flying that Fury's out, too.

It's a little harder then, but Darcy keeps on keeping on, based mostly on the fact that they haven't called in Iron Man yet (Tony is very clearly raising hell in his own persona in LA) and Jane and Thor are still off having wild, thunder-god sex (at least Darcy hopes Jane is getting some. One of them needs to be; the world cannot be that unfair.)

She still sleeps out on the couch that night, though.

It's dark outside when she wakes up, no sign of lightening toward dawn in the sky. The house isn't totally quiet, though, faint murmurs of activity filtering through the halls. A couple of doors slam across the gallery; Darcy's pretty sure that's what woke her.

"Hey," Clint says quietly, and Darcy leans up onto one elbow far enough to see him sitting on the floor with his back against the couch. He's showered and changed into a t-shirt and track pants, and he's finishing up a giant glass of something green and disgusting-looking, one of Tony's energy concoctions, so there's at least a tiny bit of care-taking happening.

"Hey," Darcy says back. She pushes her hair back off her face and eyes him critically. "Are you okay?" He has a small cut along one cheekbone, the edges held together with a butterfly and the start of bruising around it, but that's all she can see.

"Just got this," Clint says, touching the cut. "And the new bow beat the hell out of my arm." He shows her the bruising on the inside of his forearm even where she knows his shield covers. "Fucking awesome range, though."

"Yay for technology," Darcy says. "And not that I'm complaining, but you don't even have any stitches--that seems pretty low-key for four days out."

"Cap and I didn't do much," Clint says. "This one was Natasha's, beginning to end." He sounds ten times more serious than he ever does. "You saw her--she barely let us come out with her."

"But she's okay, too, right?"

"Physically, she's banged up pretty good, but yeah, she's okay." Clint slouches down so he can lean his head against the couch. Darcy wouldn't have to reach far to be able to touch him; her fingers almost twitch at the thought, but she makes them be still. "Mentally... I don't know. It was a bad one, and she... finished it herself."

"I'm guessing I don't want to know how, even if I got the clearance," Darcy says.

"No," Clint says, his voice very quiet. He turns his head so he can meet her eyes. "You really don't." He's still for a couple of seconds. "Fury's got her, though."

"There's an irresistible-force-meets-immovable-object scenario if ever I heard one," Darcy says.

"Yeah," Clint snorts. "Phil's probably cleared a city-block radius around them to try to cut down on the collateral damage."

"So, you're okay, she's... in the best possible hands, and I'm guessing Steve's good, too?" Darcy pauses to let him nod. "So why are you sitting on the floor instead of tucked up in your bed with visions of compound bows dancing in your head like a good little Avenger?"

"Waiting for you to wake up," Clint says, and Darcy can't not touch him. His hair is still a little damp from his shower and it's soft and silky for all that he keeps it short. Her fingers trace down from his temple along his jaw; he shivers once against her and she forces herself to stop, to move her hand and break the physical connection.

"What are we doing?" Darcy wishes her voice sounded stronger, but she wants so badly.

"What you said before--about us," Clint says, and his voice isn't all that much louder than hers. "Do you--Is that still true?"

"Yes," Darcy whispers, and gives in to the screaming need to touch him again: the cut on his cheekbone, the curve of his jaw. He turns his face to her, brushes his mouth across the tips of her fingers and it's her turn to shiver. This isn't just about her, though, and she curls her fingers away from him. "But you--what you said in the end..."

"Yeah," Clint says. "I--"

"Please be sure," Darcy says. "Whatever you're going to say--I can't--bounce back and forth, and what you said before, if you really think that--"

"Darce, hey, ease off for a second, okay?" He edges his hand under hers until she uncurls it and lets him run his thumb back and forth across her knuckles. "That's--yeah, not just something I threw out there--I've fucked up a lot of things in the past. Too many."

He gets quiet again, but doesn't let go of her hand, and sooner than Darcy expects, he's looking up at her with a half-smile and saying, "But I just spent four days sitting around with Captain America, and... some things got said."

"Okay," Darcy says. "There's definitely a joke in there--or maybe a hundred--about Cap and the birds and the bees and who said what to whom, but... I can't--""

"Yeah, I'm not trying to jerk you around," Clint says. "Or, well, not any more than I already have--I just--he said..."

"Good things," Darcy guesses. Clint nods, his eyes on where his thumb is still stroking gently over her knuckles.

"He said he didn't think I'd need it, but he'd be there to make sure the team didn't get screwed."

"Ohhh," Darcy says, finally starting to understand. She definitely owes Steve big time for this. Even if things don't ever really work between her and Clint, she still owes Steve for knowing what to say. "Captain America things. He's good at that."

"Yeah," Clint says, almost inaudibly. "He is."

"For the record, I don't think you'll need it either," Darcy says, sitting up all the way. Clint still has her hand, like he thinks she might take off if he lets go, which is idiotic, but it's not like Darcy is going to complain about skin-to-skin contact, however tame it might be. She tugs him closer, watching how he moves, just in case he's 'forgetting' about any extraneous bruises or contusions or, y'know, arterial wounds, but he slides over easily. "I never did."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, but you're not exactly an impartial observer." For all the negativity--which Darcy does not approve of, but might be starting to understand--he's still relaxed. "You really don't care about everything else?"

"No." Darcy slides off the couch to sit next to him on the floor, twisting around so she doesn't have to let go of his hand. She doesn't care if that makes her a sap. "I really don't. I mean, I'm not exactly excited when you go out, but I have personal history that tells me you know what you're doing. The rest of it is--not an issue. Swear."

He nods but doesn't say anything, and Darcy thinks it might take forever to untangle all the things she's seeing in his eyes.

"Am I really that scary, Barton?" Darcy likes that it comes out lightly, but there's way more under it than she's comfortable admitting.

"Oh, sweetheart," Clint says, leaning closer and smiling when she moves to meet him halfway. He kisses her, long and slow and unhurried, and all the tension and worry and uncertainty drain out of her. "You terrify me." He kisses her again, more fiercely this time, his mouth hard against hers, and Darcy wants to tell him he scares the shit out of her, too, in all the best ways, but then he gets a hand up into her hair, threading it around his fingers, and there are so many more important things to pay attention to, like how carefully he's still holding her hand, and how easily his other hand is cradling her head, and most importantly, the quiet, almost soundless groan that vibrates through him when she gets her mouth on his throat.

Clint tips his head back in an invitation, one she takes gladly, crawling into his lap and pressing close, searching out the exact right spot--there, at the pulse under his jaw--to bite down. He hisses and tightens the hand he still has tangled in her hair, a quick, bright sting that shocks across nerve endings that all but stand up and scream for more, flipping switches she never knew she had. Darcy gets in one more bite, sharper than she intends, but that's all there's time for before Clint is kissing her again, rough and demanding, and Darcy loses herself in the rush of his mouth on hers, his hands sliding up under her shirt. It'd be too much except he's right there, lost with her, and that's what makes it really fucking close to perfect.

"Fuck," Darcy gasps when they finally have to stop to breathe. She rests her forehead against his and shivers as his fingers trace swirls and dips low on her back, the calluses from his bow scraping delicately over her skin.

"Are we past sixth grade now?" Clint's lazy smirk would be totally annoying, except for how he's as out of breath as she is and isn't bothering to hide it.

"Oh, yeah," Darcy murmurs. "Want to go for prom?" She drops kisses along a path from his temple down to his jaw, and then over and back to his ear. "Because I totally scored that night." She mouths along the lobe, smiling as he goes still against her and filing away another bullet-proof spot. She has a very definite feeling she's going to need every advantage she can find and more. "Bases-loaded, two-out, bottom-of-the-ninth, walk-off grand-slam score."

"Is that a dare, sweetheart?"

"Totally," Darcy answers with a smirk of her own, one that's lost in the hiss she can't hold back when he rolls his hips up into her.

"Are we doing this here?" Clint murmurs, his hands sliding up her back, a long slow sweep that she's aching to arch into even as she narrows her eyes at him. He's teasing, she knows, because his eyes are saying there's no way they're doing this for the first time out where anyone could come across them, but she's almost tempted to see how far they could take it and still stop.

"No," Darcy says, finally. "We have rooms--with beds and everything--" She breaks off with another gasp when he rolls up into her again, already hard, and she's grinding down onto him before she can even think. "Barton," she warns through gritted teeth, despite having no idea how she might finish the implied threat. He grins at her, though, and lets her pull away from him and stand up. She catches his hands in hers and doesn't bother hiding how much she appreciates the smooth bunch and flex of muscle as he rolls to his feet, especially not once a very possessive little voice in the back of her head whispers that she's got a claim on all that. She does manage to keep from purring at the thought, but only because she needs to hold something back for Round Two.

"Come on," Darcy says, feeling a tiny bit less out of control now that she's got some distance between them, even if she is backing toward her room as fast as she can and towing him with her.

"Ma'am, yes, ma'am," Clint drawls, and she rolls her eyes at him before she turns and walks the normal way, still holding onto him. For all that it's taken for-fucking-ever to get here, she can't say that she isn't stupidly happy that the snark hasn't stopped flying. When she sneaks a look back over her shoulder, though, he's watching her with an expression that's way less a smirk than usual.

"What's that for?" Darcy has to let go of him to deal with the door to her room, but he steps up close behind her and pushes her hair over one shoulder so he can get his mouth on the back of her neck, which is fucking awesome as far as feeling good goes--seriously, she could stand here like this all night--except for the part where she has many more plans than this. Her hands and brain can't quite seem to cooperate, though.

"I was just trying to picture you in one of those dresses," Clint murmurs, lips still against her skin like the fucking tease that he is. His hands slide around her waist to pull her back against him, and Darcy loses at least a million more brain cells to feeling him press close.

Focus, she tells herself sternly, which is just ridiculous what with how she's practically writhing against him.

"Aren't they fluffy and boring?" Clint finally eases off her neck, but since he trades off in favor of tracing his tongue along her ear Darcy isn't gaining much there. "Not your normal style."

"Oh, I was rocking a retro vibe," Darcy laughs, finally getting the stupid door open and stumbling into the welcoming mess of her room. "All Stevie Nicks leather and lace and my knee-high Docs."

Clint makes a low, rough sound into where her neck curves to her shoulder and there's a crazy few seconds--minutes?--where his hands are everywhere and the low-key kisses he's been mouthing over her skin turn into a whole lot of quick, sharp little bites.

"The dress is gone," Darcy says breathlessly. "No, that's a good thing; it was a totally unfortunate lapse of judgement. But I still have the boots--play your cards right, superhero, and I'll see what I can do about a private modeling session."

She turns her head and smiles at him, and for having just practically fucked her with their clothes still on, he brushes a surprisingly sweet kiss across her mouth.

"I fucking love how your brain works," he says, kissing her again and again, light and teasing, and though they've been living in each other's back pockets for months, Darcy doesn't know that she's ever seen him quite as open.

"I'm totally never letting you forget you said that," Darcy tells him, managing about two words per kiss.

"Sometimes," he amends, turning her around so he can kiss her properly, still open and free somehow, but gradually replacing everything else with a focus that's laser-sharp and all on Darcy. She almost shivers at the intensity. "Let's see if I can make that modeling session worth your while."

"Okay," Darcy says, or tries to say, because it turns out the intensity was just a preview of the real thing, and Darcy needs every last bit of oxygen in her lungs just to stay upright. She holds on to him desperately, gulping in air when he moves his kisses away from her mouth, breathing him in when he doesn't. Her t-shirt is gone somehow, and then the thin cotton sleep pants she'd pulled on an eternity ago, before she'd known he was safe, before she had any idea the night might go like this, her in nothing but a little wisp of silk, her hands wrapped hard around his biceps, the echo of his mouth everywhere: her hair and neck, across the tops of her breasts, along the curve, too, down past her navel and along her hips, all the places he's touched in turn. Her nipples are swollen and hard, achingly sensitive, so she can barely breathe when he brushes them with the slightest of touches, the backs of his fingers trailing back and forth between her breasts, circling each one lightly. She shakes and whimpers when he rolls them between his thumb and forefinger, and cries out, telling him not to stop when he teases at them with blunt nails, a perfect wavering balance between too much and not nearly enough.

Impatiently, she pulls at his shirt, muttering, "Off, off," until he stops and yanks it up over his head. She takes advantage of the few seconds’ respite to take care of his pants and boxers, so she can touch as much skin as possible: shoulders and arms, back and ass and thighs, all for her, so when they finally crash down onto the bed, she's mapped and marked and tasted him, too.

"So gorgeous," Clint says, leaning over her braced on one arm, three fingers sliding up into her and his thumb riding hard against her clitoris. She almost loses it right then, arching up into him wildly. "Let me see you, sweetheart," he coaxes. "Please?"

It's maybe the first thing he's ever asked her for; however hard it is, Darcy drags her eyes open and keeps them that way, throwing everything he's giving her right back at him. She reaches up and touches his face--his mouth, the short, soft hair at his temples, the bruise on his cheekbone--and then digs her hand in hard on his shoulder, holding on as he picks up the pace.

Beautiful, he says, fucking deep into her, curving his fingers exactly right, and Darcy almost comes off the bed at how good he's making her feel. Beautiful and amazing and all Darcy can answer with is his name, gasping it out with every breath, saying it over and over, so he knows she's there with him, until everything stutter-stop-stutters and it's all she can do to keep breathing. He fucks her through it, easy, smooth strokes that bring her back a little at a time, until she can let go of the death grip she's dug into his shoulder and slide her hand up to cup his jaw.

"My turn," she says, getting herself up on one elbow so she can kiss him, lightly at first, and then a little more, licking into his mouth and pushing at him until he eases onto his back and lets her roll up against him. The spot under his jaw she knows about already, and the one behind his ear. There's another place that he loves at the base of his throat, along his collarbone; that one makes him sigh out and relax a little bit more against her. There are scars, too: ones that look like gashes from a knife along his ribs, a round indentation that's clearly a bullet on the front of his shoulder; she makes sure not to avoid them, not to pretend the part of him he thinks she shouldn't want doesn't exist. He doesn't rush her or push her, and she takes her time, indulging herself with all the places she's wanted to touch for longer than she's admitted even to herself.

He's quiet until she finally smooths her hand over his hip, stroking the tips of her fingers along the line of muscle and down to his thigh, and then he gasps out, "God, please," and there's no way Darcy is not going to give him what he wants. She wraps her hand around him, stroking him slowly, learning everything she can there, too, until he's shaking against her and she has to stop before everything goes too far and she can't. She crawls up over him, and he breathes out a long, shuddering sigh and pulls her down on top of him.

"What do you want?" Clint murmurs, kissing her throat, her jaw, and her breath catches at everything in his voice.

"You," Darcy whispers, and he rolls them easily, bracing himself over her on strong arms, and dropping more kisses on her face and mouth. "I want you so much, Clint. So much."

"You've got me, sweetheart," he answers. "You had me all along."

She has condoms in her messenger bag, a remnant of her last spectacularly stupid trip down the road to coupledom; this one is already going a million times better, explosions and kidnappings and all. Without moving away from her, he somehow manages to reach where she'd dropped her stuff the night before when she'd known she couldn't spend ten seconds more in her room alone. It seems like forever ago.

"It's the first time out; maybe we should keep it simple?" Darcy says when he asks how she wants to do it. "Just like this."

Clint nods and kisses her, and then he's sliding into her and she can wrap her legs around his waist and pull him even closer. He moves slowly at first, but when she whispers to him how good he feels inside her, how much she wants him to fuck her, how hard she wants it, he pushes into her fast and deep and rough. Darcy arches up to meet him, words spilling out of her mouth without conscious thought, every one jacking both of them higher like some kind of crazy feedback loop sparking wildly between them.

"So close," she grits out. "God, Clint," and then he reaches under her and pulls her up to sit on his lap and she's grinding down on him, perfect angle, perfect depth, so fucking good it slams her over the edge and she's coming again, biting at his shoulder, clawing at his back. He drives up into her twice more, and then again and she can feel him, feel the shock waves shuddering through him even through her own orgasm.

Darcy wraps her arms around him and buries her face in the curve of his neck, holding onto him as he eases them down, not letting him go until she can breathe without sobbing and her heart doesn't feel like it might pound out of her chest. Even then, she keeps a hand on him, traces idle patterns along his spine when he rolls away to deal with the condom.

"You're staying, right?" Darcy murmurs, lazy and content. "You're done with debriefing and nobody should be looking for you?"

"I'm done with debriefing," Clint says, lying on one side and stroking Darcy's hair back off her face with his free hand. "And nobody should be looking for me."

"Mmm," Darcy purrs. "That's nice. You should keep going. And don't think I didn't notice how neatly you avoided the actual question I asked."

"Keeping going," Clint says, doing just that. "I don't know about the actual question."

"I already know you don't sleep worth shit," Darcy says.

"No, sweetheart," Clint sighs. "You know I'm awake half the night. Being around for the not-sleeping part is... different."

"Are you liable to strangle me in my sleep?"

"You mean, more so than when you're awake?"

Darcy feels obliged to flip him off, but secretly she's more than a little happy he's not just shutting her down. After a few more seconds of no actual answers, she catches his hand and presses a kiss across the back of his fingers. "I want you to stay, but not out of obligation, and I swear I won't get my feelings hurt if you don't," she says. It's a little blunt for afterglow, but better that than another month of messed up non-communication.

Clint's mouth twitches in that not-quite smile that means he's considering running for the hills, but he lies down beside her and lets her drape herself over him. She'd feel bad about hassling him about it all except that he's cuddling her back and he's relaxed, and that's worth a lot in her book. "It's not pretty," he says.

"Okay," Darcy says. "I promise I won't flip out on you."

Any romantic notions she might secretly have been harboring about how being with her might hold the dreams at bay get blown to hell four hours later, when he goes from sound asleep to bolt upright and choking for breath in no time flat. Darcy had fortunately rolled away--or he'd eased her away before he'd fallen asleep; she thinks she might have a hazy memory of that--so she's on the other side of the bed when it all goes down, but he hadn't been kidding about it not being pretty. Then again, she hadn't been kidding about not flipping out, so she stays in his direct sight line and makes sure her voice is quiet and calm when she talks to him.

"I can--" Clint waves toward the door, once he's all the way back with her. He's clearly trying to give her the easy out, and it doesn't take much brain power to figure out it's gone that way often enough that leaving is the best of his options. Darcy does not share her express desire to meet whoever convinced him of that so she can slap them into next week, but she doesn't do much to hide it either.

"You have shitty taste in women, Barton," she sighs, shoving pillows at him so he can settle himself against the headboard. It's not the most tactful thing she could have said, but she's maybe a little closer to losing it than she can admit. Nightmares are one thing; not being able to breathe is something else. Watching it is bad enough; Darcy is trying hard not to think about living it or she really will lose it. Moving slowly, so she doesn't trigger some reflexive reaction and undo everything--not to mention she's not keen on getting karate-chopped or whatever--she curls up under his arm. There's a long few seconds when she thinks it could go either way, him staying or going, but then he brings his hand up and slides it into her hair, letting the waves curl around his fingers. It's less how he'd been stroking it back off her face earlier and more like someone playing with worry beads. Darcy isn't sure she's actually worthy of that trust, but she will do just about anything not to fuck it up. She makes double-damn sure none of that shows up in her voice when she finishes, "Present company excepted."

"Present company excepted," Clint agrees, his hand still combing slowly through her hair.


***


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