Chapter Nine
The next morning, Peter strolled into work juggling two trays of coffee cups from the little place down the street. Bruce rushed over to help him out, carefully taking the tray off of the top and balancing the second tray in Peter’s hands.
“Thanks, Bruce,” Peter smiled.
Bruce’s lips quirked up in one corner. “You appear to be in a good mood. I take it last night went well?”
“What, you mean Steve and Tony haven’t been gossiping about it all morning?” Peter teased.
“No, but I have!” Clint sang from the balcony.
Peter grimaced. “I brought coffee. Do you want some?”
“No! Stay out!” Clint yelled quickly.
Peter and Bruce glanced at each other.
“Clint, what are you up to?” Bruce called suspiciously.
“Nothing!” Clint’s head appeared over the edge of the balcony. “Nothing. I just already have coffee and I don’t want the kid coming up here and telling me all about his date. I don’t need that sappy shit when I’m trying to shape gumpaste into pretty pink flowers.”
Peter leaned over and opened the door to the dumbwaiter. “Okay, well I’m just gonna send a cup up in case you change your mind, crazy.”
Clint narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you judge me, Parker. I will blare classic rock all day long and chuck cold pancakes at you from the balcony.”
Peter rolled his eyes and heard Clint yank the curtain back in place above him. Bruce chuckled and moved to the counter to drop off the coffee cups. Natasha scooped one out of the container and thanked Peter. Bruce snagged one for himself and one for Steve before disappearing into the kitchen. Peter dropped a cup off for Tony and returned to the counter.
“Hey, have you heard from Darcy?” Peter asked anxiously.
Natasha nodded. “She was here this morning. She went with Thor and Loki to help with the deliveries. They agreed to drop her off in a few hours to help with the rush.”
“How is she?” He prodded. “Did she seem okay? Is she still upset?”
Natasha held up a hand to stop his babbling. “She’s fine, Peter. You should still apologize, but she’s okay.”
Peter gave a sigh of relief. “Good.”
Steve stuck his head around the doorframe leading to the kitchen. “Morning, Peter! Thanks for the coffee.”
Peter gave a small salute. “No problem.”
“What are your plans today?” Steve shifted slightly, the steam from the coffee swirling around his face.”
The teenager shrugged. “I don’t know. I have to turn in an essay for one of my classes by tomorrow night. I finished it a couple of days ago, so I thought I’d swing by campus and drop it off after work.”
Natasha looked up from her notebook. “I can drive you, if you’d like. I need to drop off my reports to Fury. Your probation period ends at the end of the week, and he needs our decision on whether or not we’re keeping you and Darcy.”
“Are you?” Peter blurted. “Keeping us, I mean.”
Natasha shot him a disbelieving look. “Do you really have to ask? It’s been two weeks, and you guys are like family. Of course you’re staying. Now, do you want a ride tonight, or not?”
“Yes, please,” Peter answered quickly.
Natasha passed him the notebook. “This is the book we use for holiday orders. It’s October. In a couple of weeks, we’ll start getting orders for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Every order not being picked up within a nine days of placing the order goes in this notebook. Each order gets its own page. The delivery date goes on the top right in very large red letters. The rest of the order goes along with how we record every order. At the end of every day, I input the orders from the book in the computer and save them in two different folders. These orders are responsible for probably half of our annual income. It is vital that they not get fucked up. Got it?”
Peter nodded reverently. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Now go help Steve and Bruce with the cupcakes until Darcy gets back,” Natasha ordered, holding back a smile.
“So, why exactly are you spying on Peter like a serial killer?” Clint asked.
Wade glanced at him, arching an eyebrow.
Clint held up his hands defensively. “I’m not judging, I’m just asking.”
Wade shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea. I never get to see him anymore, now that he isn’t staying on campus.”
“I thought you lived off campus?” Clint remembered Loki mentioning it.
“I do,” Wade explained. “But we…ran into each other a lot.”
Clint squinted his eyes. “You made that sound a lot like, ‘I plan random meetings that he never suspects are planned so I can admire his face without being creepy.’”
Wade stared at him. “I do not admire his face. We…talk. Hang out. Go places. I don’t just stare at him. That would be creepy.”
“And this isn’t?” Clint gestured at Wade, who was watching Peter’s exchange with Natasha.
“This is me checking in,” Wade said firmly. “Making sure everything’s okay.”
Clint grunted. “All right. As long as you’re here, you wanna help me decorate cupcakes?”
Wade hesitated. “Can I use the sparkly shit?”
“Absofuckinglutely, my friend,” Clint passed him the luster dust.
Thor, Darcy, and Loki arrived a little after noon. They were arguing.
“Thor! Cut it out! I’m serious! It’s none of your business!” Darcy begged.
Loki’s lips twitched in amusement.
Thor laughed heartily. “Dear Darcy, you are like a daughter or a sister! Of course it is my business. I wish to meet the young man, that is all.”
Darcy buried her face in her hands. “No! You aren’t meeting him. Peter hasn’t even met him, and Peter’s my best friend.”
“Good to hear that again,” Peter spoke up from behind the counter.
Darcy shot him a smile before turning to Natasha. “Please, for the love of god, get them off my back.”
“What’s going on?” Natasha inquired curiously.
“Dearest Darcy has a suitor,” Thor explained.
Natasha looked proud. “Yeah? Good for you, Darcy.”
“Yeah, but these two won’t stop pestering me to bring him to the bakery!” Darcy explained, frustrated.
Natasha turned towards Thor and Loki. “Leave her alone. If she wants that to be private, respect that. A bit of advice for you, Darcy. Don’t tell them you’ve met someone or everyone will go on a manhunt for the poor guy. Keeping quiet has always worked best for me.”
Darcy scoffed. “Oh, please! We all know about you and Clint.”
Natasha laughed. “Ah, see? You think Clint and I are a couple, which keeps you from bothering either of us about who we’re seeing. Misdirection. Clint and I are roommates, who used to have a thing. Now, we’re roommates and very close friends. Only Clint and Steve have met the person I’m involved with. Clint out of necessity, and Steve by accident.”
Loki slouched over the counter. “You’ve been dating again?”
Natasha smirked. “I have.”
“Go, Nat!” Darcy whooped. “But seriously, it isn’t Clint?”
“Nope. Hasn’t been in years,” Natasha assured her. “Now, let’s stop gossiping and get to work. Thor, Loki, there are a dozen deliveries waiting in the kitchen for you. Darcy, I need you to go up with Clint and help him decorate cupcakes. Peter, you can help me go to the warehouse to pick up supplies. Let’s go, people. Get to work.”
Natasha pulled her keys out of her pocket and grabbed Peter, pulling him along until they got outside. Peter ducked out of her grasp and slipped into the car. Natasha paused at her door, an affectionate smile decorating her lips, before joining him in the car.
Back inside, Darcy left the brothers and climbed the ladder to Clint’s balcony. A few wrungs from the top, she heard Clint talking with someone. From the voice, she could tell it was another guy, and it sounded vaguely familiar. Darcy pulled herself up and ripped open the curtain.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” Darcy yelped.
Both guys froze. Clint’s was reaching for the industrial size bucket of gumpaste and Wade’s hand held a slim brush coated in hot pink edible glitter. Wade recovered first.
“Hey, Darcy. You look nice this morning,” he grinned sheepishly.
Darcy put her hands on her hips. “What the hell are you doing here? They didn’t hire you, did they?”
“Are you kidding me? I hate working,” Wade scrunched his face.
Darcy glanced around the workspace. “Then…why are you here.”
“He’s here because he’s hot for Peter,” Clint explained simply.
Wade glared at him.
Darcy barked out a laugh. “Oh, I get it now! You’re stalking your boyfriend.”
Wade slammed the brush down. “Will you be quiet! He’s going to hear you!”
“Relax, Wilson,” Darcy pushed his shoulder playfully. “He’s gone on a supply run.”
Wade retrieved the brush. “Good, because I’m not done with my fairy princess cupcakes.”
Darcy pulled up another stool and picked up one of the undecorated cupcakes. “Are you and Peter going out again tonight?”
“I don’t know,” Wade shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe tomorrow. We haven’t talked yet.”
Darcy gave him a long suffering look and dusted her cupcake with colored sugar. “Will you two just hook up and get married already? You’re ridiculous.”
“Listen, Lewis, you don’t get to judge my relationship skills. You avoid dating like the plague,” Wade pointed out.
Clint watched the two of them bicker, his eyes flicking back and forth between them.
“Commitment freaks me out, okay?” Darcy said defensively.
Wade looked up. “Darcy, dating isn’t a commitment. It’s…it’s ‘hey I like you and you like me so we should hang out even more than we already do and maybe do some things that friends don’t because I find you attractive and if it doesn’t work out at least we had fun.’ That isn’t committing to anything.”
“Is that Webster’s definition?” Darcy sneered. “It doesn’t matter. You can stop lecturing, because I’m dating.”
“What?” Wade yelled.
“Who?” Clint demanded at the same time.
Darcy raised her eyebrows. “Wow. Not the reaction I was hoping for or expecting. I was thinking something more along the lines of ‘hey, that’s great, good for you!’”
“Hey, that’s great! Good for you! Who?” Clint demanded.
Darcy smiled evilly. “Don’t worry your little head over it. You’ll meet him at the wedding.”
Wade laughed loudly and Darcy winked at him.
Clint furrowed his brow. “Okay, see, normally that would be creepy, and Wade laughed.”
“He laughed because he knows my opinion of marriage,” Darcy explained.
Wade’s eyes lost focus, remembering. “Yeah…Drunk Darcy tells all.”
“What, you don’t believe in marriage?” Clint asked, surprised.
“Hell no! I will never get married. I’ve seen first hand what marriage can turn into. It can turn into a prison, a trap, a chain wrapped so tightly around your throat that you’re gasping for air. I’ve seen people ruin their own lives trying to save one relationship. I’ve seen women abuse themselves in the hopes that it will land them a husband. And I’ve seen those husbands get in their cars, wave good bye to their wives, and drive a few blocks over to see their mistresses. My best friend growing up watched her parents go through a divorce so rough that it left her father with a third of his liver, and her mother with an addiction to pain pills. Last time she bothered to call me, she was so drunk I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. A few weeks later, I found out she’d been arrested and forced to go into rehab for alcoholism. So, no, Barton, I don’t put a lot of stock in marriage. You can be happy with more than one person. If you find one person, and you think you’ll stay with them for a long time, then do it. You don’t need a piece of paper to say you love the person. Love isn’t binding yourself to someone else so tightly that there isn’t any wiggle room. Love is being with someone who makes you happy and trusting that if they leave, they’ll love you enough to do it nicely,” Darcy finished, setting her cupcake down gently. “It’s irrational to think that you’ll be able to love one person for the rest of your life, and it’s irresponsible to make that promise.”
The balcony was quiet.
Clint twitched in his seat. “Is that really how you feel?”
Darcy nodded and spoke quietly. “It is.”
That evening, after helping Darcy run a few dozen cupcakes across town when Loki and Thor went MIA for a couple of hours, Peter was perched on a stool behind the counter, waiting for Natasha to return with her coat so they could leave. Tony had swung by the house when he was out running errands and picked up Peter’s paper for him so that they could leave as soon as they shut down for the night. Today had been slow. Bruce went home early, eager to start in on some experiment he and Tony were running throughout the next week. Steve and Tony were driving down to see an old friend of Steve’s for dinner, and Thor and Loki were long gone, having been sent home for wandering off. Peter was alone in the front of the bakery. Natasha and Clint were somewhere in the back of the building, and Peter could hear Darcy moving around on the balcony, murmuring into her cell phone. Peter yawned and stretched, rolling his neck around.
The door to the bakery was kicked open and two men came barging in.
“Hey, we’re closed,” Peter said, looking up suddenly.
One of the men drew a handgun from his waistband. “Does it look like I give a fuck, kid?”
Peter slid off the stool. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You don’t need to point that at me. I’m just a dumb kid, I’m not going to fight you.”
“Y-you aren’t?” The second man narrowed his dark eyes in confusion.
Peter kept his hands in sight and moved toward the register, at the same time positioning himself closer to the man with the gun. “Of course not. I don’t want to get shot.”
Peter glanced up and saw Darcy staring down at him, her mouth open in horror. He looked away quickly, hoping neither of the men had noticed.
“So what do you want?” Peter asked loudly, intending to draw their attention to him.
The man with the gun laughed. “What the fuck do you think we want? Empty the register into one of them bags.”
“And the rest of those cookies!” The other man ordered. “I got a sweet tooth.”
Peter reached under the counter blindly, snagging two paper bags. He dumped the tray of cookies into one of them and set it on the counter. He unlocked the drawer with his ID card and started pulling bills out a few at a time, stalling for time. His gaze flicked up to check on the men. The one with the gun was in arm’s reach, and the other- Peter froze. The door to the dumbwaiter was sliding open slowly. A boot slid out, followed by one denim-clad leg, and then the other. Darcy unfolded herself and gestured for Peter to call attention to himself. Peter hesitated for a second and then gave the greatest fake sneeze in history. Both muggers jumped and turned toward him. As they did, Darcy lept out, slamming into the unarmed man. Peter lunged forward, knocking the gun out of the other man’s hand and pushing him into the corner of the counter. The man flinched in pain and slumped, giving Peter the opening he needed. Within a few seconds, Peter had him on the ground and was kneeling on his back. He could hear the sound of scuffled fighting around the corner of the counter and leaned forward. He caught sight of Darcy just as her foot connected with the intruders gonads. The man went pale. Darcy grabbed his slumped shoulders and shoved him to the side, smacking his head against the counter forcefully. The man slumped to the floor, knocked out cold.
“You okay, Peter?” she asked.
Peter looked down at the man he was kneeling on. “Yeah. Where the hell are Clint and Natasha? Did they not hear all that?”
Darcy rolled her eyes. “Probably not from the alley. They had to take out the trash.”
“Shit!” Peter swore. “I forgot about that. Go get them, I’ll stay here.”
Darcy leaned over the counter and slapped the bottom of it with her palm.
“What was that?” Peter peered at the counter.
“Silent alarm,” Darcy explained.
Before the words were completely out of her mouth, the kitchen door burst open so quickly it sent a woosh of air over Peter. Clint and Natasha were over them in an instant.
“What happened?” Clint demanded.
Natasha crouched next to the unconscious man. “Nice work.”
“These two came in and tried to rob us,” Peter explained simply.
“And?” Clint gestured for him to continue.
“And we stopped them,” Darcy said proudly.
Clint glanced between the two intruders, his hands on his hips. “Hmm. I’m impressed. You guys are better than guard dogs. Anybody hurt?”
Peter scanned his limbs. “Not me, this time.
“Ah, fuck,” Darcy stomped her foot. “This asshole made me bleed on my jeans. Can I kick him?”
“Yes,” Natasha and Clint said in unison.
Darcy nailed the guy in the ribs and went into the bathroom to try to wipe up all the blood she could. Clint looked down at Peter, who was still kneeling on the gunman. Clint crouched in front of him and tapped the trapped man on his shoulder.
“So, should I call the police now or after I let the angry girls deal with you?” Clint said pleasantly.
The man groaned and dropped his face to the floor. “Just kill me now, man.”
Clint laughed happily. “Oh, this is my lucky day!”