degrees
They come together by degrees.
The first time she sees him, he’s sitting on a rooftop doing surveillance as they clean up after the Thor fiasco. She can’t tell at this distance if he’s surprised she spotted him or if it doesn’t matter what she sees, but she salutes him with her coffee cup anyway. She doesn't think he sees.
She doesn't see him again until they’ve both moved into Tony’s Giant Monument to Himself (known as Tony’s Giant Monument to His Penis in PG-13 crowds, and in case you were wondering, no Captain America does not count as PG-13. Not in Darcy’s book.)
Darcy’s just an assistant and he’s an Avenger, not even one of the science-y ones, so he doesn’t really see her very often. But the first time he sees her, he salutes her with his coffee cup. He doesn’t look as good as he did the first time, and Darcy hasn’t even seen him up close yet. There are pretty visible bags under his eyes that make Darcy want to find Loki and hit him over the head with something hard. Like Mjolnir, but Darcy would prefer something with spikes.
(Yes, Darcy knows everything that went down before and during New York. Thor can be the epitome of discreet when he chooses. He simply doesn’t choose to be that way around Jane, and there’s nothing Jane knows that she won’t try and share with Darcy. When it comes to metaphysics and mathematics, Darcy doesn’t really pay attention. But when it comes to current events and Avenger doings, she can remember every word.)
She doesn’t let her murderous intent show in her face, giving Clint her very best smile, hoping to make him feel better. He does smile back, which Darcy is counting as a win. It’s not as satisfying as smacking Loki with something spiky, but it’s something.
Two weeks later, he speaks to her for the first time. After the Coffee Incident.
Clint, as it turns out, is decidedly not a coffee connoisseur like Darcy is. He will take anything that looks even a little like coffee, brew it, and drink it. Sometimes right out of the pot, which was why he had his own dinky little machine. It looked kinda beat-up and pretty pathetic, especially next to Stark’s next generation monster of a machine. Darcy suspected that not only could that thing make pretty much any beverage you could dream up but was probably also a Wi-Fi hotspot and could, in a pinch, be used as a weapon of mass destruction.
Clint avoided it like the plague. Darcy didn’t blame him.
But she could, and did, blame him for not at least using his crappy coffee machine to brew decent coffee. She couldn’t even be sure that the brown crap he stuck in a filter was even actually coffee. “It looks suspiciously like that stuff they serve in hotel rooms,” she muttered to Jane one morning, watching the archer open a package and pour it into the top of his coffee maker.
“It is,” Natasha said as she passed them. “He takes them from every hotel we stay in. Ever. I think his stash of free coffee is large enough to last him even if the world ends.”
“Except that it’s not coffee,” Darcy muttered through clenched teeth before lurching after Natasha and asking for the Widow’s help. The Widow agreed.
Darcy selected the coffee, buying all different kinds, but lots of her favorites. Mostly her favorites. Okay, save for a little here and there, Clint’s new stash of real coffee was dictated entirely by her taste. She hoped that phrase “Great minds think alike, but fools rarely differ,” was accurate. Though whether she and Clint were great minds or fools was up in the air.
After Darcy had finished selecting the coffee, it was up to Natasha to swap out Clint’s old, disgusting stash with his new and improved stash. The former Soviet spy did so with aplomb she did everything with. (Darcy firmly resisted being jealous, as aplomb wasn’t really her style anyway.)
Then they waited.
The next day, nothing happened. At least, as far as Darcy could tell. She watched Clint carefully, but she wasn’t entirely sure Clint even noticed there was something different about what he was putting into his coffee machine that day.
She left the communal kitchen kinda disappointed. Sure, the purpose of a good deed isn’t to get recognition for it, but Darcy would have at least liked some kind of acknowledgement that the good deed had been done.
A few hours later, she was passing him in the hallway when he caught her by the arm. “I know you had good intentions and all, but did it ever occur to you that I like my cheapo not-coffee?” Truthfully? No, it hadn’t. Darcy stared up at him and paled, her heart racing for some reason, and Clint sighed. “A little life advice, sweetheart, don’t mess with a carnie’s coffee.” He let go of her.
She scurried back to the lab to meditate on her sins.
Three days later, she speaks to him for the first time.
She made him cookies by way of apology. Because… what’s better than cookies? Homemade cookies should more than make up for her screw up. She made him basic chocolate chip and headed up to his apartment, where she learned he leaves his door unlocked. Seriously? You’d think a SHIELD agent would be more security conscious.
She also discovered he has a dog. A huge, fluffy, kinda fat golden retriever that is honestly the friendliest dog Darcy had ever met. She’d planned on just leaving the box of cookies on a counter somewhere and ducking out as fast as she could, but… that… dog…! She played with him for a few minutes before she heard the door open behind her.
“What are you doing in here?” Clint asked.
Darcy jumped, and turned. Shit, she thought. “The door was unlocked.”
“So?” he asked.
“I baked you cookies?” She pointed to the box she left on the counter. “By way of an apology for the coffee thing. I’m sorry, it’s just that that stuff is really gross to me, and no, it didn’t occur to me that anyone would drink it voluntarily. I just assumed you didn’t have any real coffee for some reason, and I thought that was a travesty-”
“I get it,” Clint said, interrupting her. “You were trying to do something nice. But maybe, ask? Next time?” She nodded mutely.
He frowned at the box on his counter. “Cookies?”
She nodded again. “Cookies.”
“Thanks,” he said, walking into the apartment and giving his dog a treat.
Darcy took that as permission to escape and left quickly, her heart pounding hard. She didn’t really know why her body was reacting the way it was. He wouldn’t hurt her, and she knew that, but that… didn’t stop her from feeling so flustered!
“Hey,” Clint said, poking his head out into the hallway.
Darcy turned. “Yeah?”
“You wanna go out sometime?” he asked.
“What?”
“To get, like, coffee or something?” He grinned. “You can try and convert me into a coffee snob.” Then he winked and suddenly Darcy completely understood why her body was reacting to him the way it was.
“I, uh,” Darcy blinked, taking a second to collect herself, and flashed him one of her other good smiles. The alluring one. “Sure. I’ll take up the cause. See you around seven?”
He nodded. “Seven.”
Three hours later, they had their first date.