Claim
“You’ve gotta tell them,” Tony tells her over Ben & Jerry’s a couple weeks later.
Darcy pulls her spoon out of her mouth. “Tell who what?”
Tony rolls his eyes. “I’m not dumb, Lewis.”
“No shit, genius.”
“So don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Tony admonishes, pointing his spoon at her. “The super soldier duo may be oblivious, but it fucking hurts you every time you touch them.”
“That’s not true!” Darcy protests.
Tony raises an eyebrow.
Darcy flinches. “Okay, maybe it’s a little true.”
“Look, Lewis… I’ve done a lot of research since you showed up… we’re your hoard, right?”
Darcy just nods, not trusting her words.
“And so are Rogers and Barnes, but they’re… something else, too?”
Another nod.
“So why does it hurt you to be around them? Is it because of whatever kind of creatures they are or…”
She shakes her head.
Tony groans. “Okay, I need words here… I’m pretty sure those two would literally kill themselves rather than knowingly hurt you, so what’s the deal?”
“Your research… anything about Mates in there?”
Both Tony’s brows raise to his hairline. “Some.” He scratches his head. “Wait… there was one… very old, super obscure text. I haven’t finished translating it yet, but there was something about denying a Mate… oh, Darcy.”
She closes her eyes. “I can’t… I won’t… they’ve both been forced into so many things. I don’t want them to feel like they’re obligated to me.”
Despite her efforts to distance herself from them, Darcy falls into a pattern with Bucky and Steve. In the Avengers off time, Darcy tends to feed everyone, and she’s made her open door policy clear, but Bucky and Steve seem to take up near permanent residence in her apartment. She learns Steve can’t be trusted to boil a pot of water, but he’s a master at nearly any type of breakfast. Bucky, however, makes the best coffee. Steve develops a habit of pulling her onto his lap while he’s sketching, the t.v. an idle drone in the background. Bucky has a knack for picking out her favorite old vinyl records and spinning her around the kitchen as the music plays. They usually end up in her apartment before they even hit the showers after a hard mission. Natasha eyes her shrewdly and Tony looks at her with nothing short of pity. It’s all the most painfully bittersweet thing Darcy has ever experienced… and she’s experienced a lot.
Darcy uses Christmas as an excuse to quietly lay claim to her hoard. She thinks most of them know what she’s doing, but none of them call her on it, and every one of them accepts their gifts, and she’s grateful for that.
She gives Jane a delicately crafted silver chain with a star cluster made of tiny jewels, and the astrophysicist immediately demands Darcy fasten it around her neck.
Erik gets an immaculately maintained early-seventeenth century pocket watch.
She gives Thor a set of bracers - early Viking with protection runes forged in the inner walls.
Tony gets a bottle of fine white powder - the ground bones of a healthy Caladrius - and a simply forged, deep red colored necklace chain that she knows he’ll enjoy trying to figure the origins of - eventually she’ll tell him; if one has the know-how, Dragon scales can be forged like metal.
She gives Bruce a set of worry beads she picked up in Greece toward the end of the Medieval era and he offers her a small smile as he wraps them around his wrist like a bracelet.
Clint gets a stone pendant - carved from the heart of the first Gargoyle she ever met, gifted to her on his death - with a gleaming bit of red scale in the center, on a thin leather band. He blinks at her owlishly, then holds it out to her and turns his back to her. “Burn the ends,” he requests. Darcy blinks the tears away and secures it around his neck.
Natasha reacts almost identically to Clint to the thin gold chain interwoven with gems so delicate the whole thing almost vanishes against her fair skin.
Every one of them gets a simple band - black metal that gleams like obsidian - inscribed with the most powerful protection runes she knows.
After the team’s Christmas dinner, Bucky and Steve trail after her like puppies. Bucky flops onto her couch, pulling her down with him. “No presents for us, doll?”
Darcy bites her lip and won’t meet his eyes.
Steve sits on the coffee table in front of them and takes her hand. “Hey, he’s just teasing sweetheart. We don’t need anything.”
Darcy huffs something like a laugh. “I just… I didn’t want to give them to you in front of everyone else.”