Darcy Lewis Has No Time For Your Shit
There’s a picture floating around on the internet of Sam, Bucky, and Darcy.
Sam has his arm thrown over her shoulders and Bucky’s on the other side, metal fingers twined with hers.
They’re sweaty and gross because Bucky likes to run with Sam, but only if Steve or Darcy are there to insert themselves when he gets uncomfortable.
Darcy’s head is thrown back and the grin on her face is blinding.
Sam looks smug and Bucky’s giggling like a schoolboy at whatever joke was told.
Fox News calls her a whore.
Bucky almost puts a bullet through the television.
Sam calls out the reporter on Twitter.
Bruce disappears from the Tower for a few hours when he finds out about it. The live feed of Hulk destroying the reporters car goes viral.
Darcy kind of finds is unfairly hot.
__
Here’s the thing about Darcy: she knows not everybody understands her logic. She’s firmly in the camp of you can love more than one person at a time. What she feels for someone isn’t diminished just because she feels that way about several people.
She’s been called worse than a whore since she was in high school, has learned to let it roll off of her back because name calling isn’t ever gonna change who she is at the very core.
Explaining that to Bruce when he’s all Hulk-ed out?
Not as easy as she thought it would be, if she’s being honest.
__
“He’s, uh, not exactly cooperating,” Bucky says with a grimace, metal arm wrapped around his middle.
Hulk had thrown him twenty feet down the road when he tried to talk him down. Darcy’s thankful for the super-soldier serum and the fact that the road-rash on Bucky’s ribcage is already starting to clear up.
“Maybe we should just let him have at it,” Sam offers, like he wasn’t the one who demanded they go round up Bruce in the first place.
Darcy rolls her eyes and darts around Bucky’s body, slips past his stretched out fingers and marches right up to Hulk.
He drops the mangled frame of the car he’s holding and roars at her.
She can hear Sam whimper behind her and she knows without even turning around that Bucky has him in a bruising grip.
“You yell at me one more time and we’re gonna have some problems,” Darcy drawls, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot in impatience. “Let’s go. We’re late for dinner.”
Bucky chokes on a laugh somewhere behind her and she ignores it, stares Hulk right in the eyes when he tries to get in her face and raises an eyebrow at him.
She should probably be scared, but well. She’s played poker with Natasha. That was scarier than this ever dreamed of being.
“It’s okay,” Darcy promises quietly. “He doesn’t matter. The world is entitled to its opinion, but it doesn’t matter. Not when I have all of you.”
And it’s probably the closest she’s ever been to telling any of them that she loves them, that she keeps them safe in her soul; hidden behind her ribcage and making her all that much stronger for it.
Hulk seems to understand, cocks his head slightly to the side before nodding it.
She puts her hand in his when he holds it out, her pale skin a sharp contrast against the green, and he folds his fingers over hers delicately.
“HULK SORRY.”
Darcy beams at him and shakes her head, lets herself be tugged closer. Hulk is so big that she really only reaches his thigh, but it’s okay. She hugs it all the same.
She backs up and thinks he’ll start shrinking, go back to being Bruce. Well, the more public friendly Bruce.
But no, Hulk just bares his teeth at her in what she knows is a smile and rips up a part the cast iron fence that surrounds the reports home, sends it sailing through the windshield of the truck that’s in the driveway.
Darcy’s left eyebrow twitches when Sam lets out a hysterical bubble of laughter.
“I think he was just sorry for yelling at you,” Bucky points out.
“Yeah. Gathered that. Thanks.”
All of her hopes of making it back to the Tower in time to cook an actual balanced meal and force it down these fuckers throats go up in sad, pitiful flames with every piece of fence that flies through the air.
“Goddamnit,” Darcy mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose.
She does the only thing she can think of.
“That is enough!”
Hulk turns around to stare at her, and his wide eyes would have been comical if he still wasn’t holding some of the fucking fence.
“Yeah! I’m talking to you, Mr. Hulk Smash! Put it down! You’re gonna march your happy ass back down the fucking street until you’re normal person sized again because I don’t fucking care! At all!” Darcy yells, and she feels bad about it.
Not bad enough to keep the scowl off her face, she wasn’t messing around about this. But she feels bad, deep in her heart, because Bruce doesn’t deserve to be shouted at for doing what he thinks is right.
His other half just seems to have a thicker fucking skull, is all.
She whirls around and stomps past Sam and Bucky, shoots them a glare when they open their mouths.
They follow behind her in silence, and she can feel the ground shaking from where Hulk reluctantly falls in line.
___
Bruce is mad at her, after that.
“He doesn’t respond the way a normal person would!” Bruce hisses. “You can’t just decide he won’t kill you just because this half of me listens to you!”
Darcy blinks at him over her cup of coffee and takes a small sip, burns her tongue a little.
He runs his fingers through his hair and it’s the messiest Darcy has ever seen him, including the times he’s gone on a five day science bender with Tony.
“Just-“ Bruce sighs, shoving a slip of paper at her with a string of numbers written on it. “If the Other Guy ever comes out while we’re in the Tower, get in the Hulk proof room on my floor. It’ll keep you safe.”
Darcy takes another sip of her coffee and doesn’t burn her tastebuds off this time.
“And for the love of God, stay out of it if it happens outside of the Tower. I’m not worth it.”
__
JARVIS talks her through how to take a recording of her heartbeat and saves it to the network everything Stark Industries uses.
Darcy has thoughts about naming it ‘Worthy’.
She also has thoughts of naming it “Bruce Banner Is A Big Baby And Needs To Trust Other People And Himself”, but that seems a little too passive aggressive.
JARVIS ends up naming it ‘Monster Mash Part II” and Darcy laughs too much to even think about arguing.
__
Darcy, with the help of JARVIS because the IA was a damned godsend, tests it out on the next mission the Avengers get sent on.
She watches live footage from cameras she’s not supposed to have access to, holds her breath when the last of the mutated whatever the fuck they are goes down and hits the play button JARVIS ever so kindly set up for her once Captain America gives the all clear.
It takes approximately seventy-three seconds for Hulk to go back to being Bruce shaped again.
JARVIS had gathered the statistics for her before they had even left on their mission. The shortest amount of time it took Bruce to calm down enough to switch back was twenty-nine minutes, and that was after a short fight that left him seeing barely any action at all.
This one had lasted for five hours and Hulk had been on the front lines.
Darcy pushes the button that lets her speak over the coms and leans towards the hologram microphone that pops up.
“One point for Team Lewis.”
She can see Bruce whip his head around to glare at the closest camera.
“And pick up some damned vegetables on your way home. You’re gonna get fucking scurvy.”