Chapter 6
Darcy did her best to shake off the gloom her run in with Tony had created before she reached Jane’s room. She would have to try and patch things up with him later…
Girl’s night was a tradition that had begun after the attack of the doom bot in Puente Antiguo.
Jane had been mopey and stressed. She had her notebook back and an encounter with a literal god from another dimension fueling her but the occasional bouts of depression had hit her harder and harder the longer Thor failed to return. So Darcy had rallied. She’d pulled Jane out from under her covers and dragged her to their miserable little couch, popped in a trash movie, poured some cheap wine, and brushed Jane’s hair into ridiculous styles for a few good hours.
It had become ‘their thing’ after that.
Somethings normal and stupid to do after all the insanity they had gone through.
Their one rule was that mopey-ness was absolutely not allowed.
By the time Darcy made it up to knock on Jane’s door, her friend had already amassed the required ingredients for a successful Girls’ Night; there was a bowl of chips, a plate full of cheese and crackers, a couple bottles of cheap wine, and a small collection of face scrubs, hair brushes, nail polishes, and make-up at the ready. They popped in 1986's Aliens to play in the background as they drank, painted each other's toenails, and planned the downfall of the patriarchy together.
Thankfully, Jane only remembered to pester her once. "So are you going to do anything about this mystery person?" the scientist asked as she finished painting Darcy’s pinky toe a sparkly blue. Darcy, whose brain was sufficiently buzzed by that point, considered for a moment and grinned. A beautiful idea taking shape in her fuzzy mind. Then Jane grabbed the hair brush and all was forgotten as they brushed each other's hair and put on facial masks.
For a few hours neither of them thought about superheroes, world ending catastrophes, their messy love lives, or the ever growing feeling that everything was about to come crashing down again…
They were just two regular people enjoying a completely normal evening.
As the wine ran low and the last movies credits began to roll, Darcy helped Jane pick up the trash and hugged her good-night.
She really was very lucky to have Jane, Darcy thought to herself as she opened the door to her own apartment. Ignoring the light switch she slid her shoes off in the dark. Fumbling around, Darcy brushed her teeth wearily and changed quickly into comfortable pajamas.
She was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.
-….-….-…-
The next day Darcy took her lunch-break early and went down to Tony’s workshop.
The large automatic doors, that usual slid open as she approached, remained firmly shut as she stepped up in front of them. There was a key pad on the side of the door glowing a faint blue but she had no idea what the code was.
Not feeling particularly hopeful, Darcy tried scanning her ID badge.
The pad beeped but nothing happened. The large metal doors remained firmly in place. Feeling sort of stupid she nocked against the cold steel. Nothing. She nocked again. More nothing.
Darcy sighed and turned away.
Still the week hadn’t been a total bust. (Even if she still had absolutely no idea what she was going to do about these feelings she definitely didn’t have for Natasha. Nope, not even going there. And she had somehow managed to piss off and possibly ruin her budding friendship with Tony Stark.)
She at least finally knew what she wanted to do with the coding she had managed to salvage.
Now it was just a matter of getting it there.
(‘Someone to watch my back’, someone to snark and banter with, someone to bully and boss him out of his labs, some to remind him to eat,- more a person than a computer….someone to be Tony Stark’s Darcy…)
-….-….-…-
Life at the Avengers compound continued on as usual for the next week.
Darcy got up in the 'mornings' and worked with an increasingly frustrated Jane in the labs. She would stumble into the kitchen at all hours and occasionally manage to catch Natasha in her usual reading spot in-between her missions. In whatever time constituted her evenings she'd continue work on the code (google was becoming a very dear friend. So much googling. ‘How to code real artificial intelligence step by step guide’) and tried to ignore the fact that she hadn't seen Tony since he'd walked away from her.
Friday morning Darcy was seated at the kitchen table for once rather than the island. She sat crisscross on the chair, her feet in a pair of fluffy socks and the rest of her in yoga pants and oversized sweatshirt. She was munching on a bagel with one hand and finishing editing Jane's upcoming speech for one of her science convention's with the other, when Tony entered the room.
In shock, Darcy stared up at him.
He was dressed to impress in a sharp looking suit and a pair of expensive sunglasses. The large dark frames shading his face. The black of his shoes glowed in the light.
His determined evasion of her all week and forced Darcy to consider that she might have actually ruined whatever friendship they had been building. Actually, she had been planning to make a last desperate attack that in the day- lab locks be damned. (At the very least she was going to leave a sticky note stuck to his stupid metal doors.) She had not been expecting him to come to her.
Being faced with him so suddenly, she wasn't sure quite sure what to do.
Darcy awkwardly swallowed her last bite of bagel.
"Catch," he said and tossed something shiny at her.
Darcy's body jerked in surprise but her arms didn't actually make it up to catch anything and so something soft hit her square in the face. It fell into her lap as a second ball hit her.
Yarn, she realized.
"I hear you take commissions." he said like it was a challenge.
"You want a beanie?" she asked in disbelief.
They hadn’t spoken or seen each other in over a week and the first thing the man did was hurl yarn at her head?
Tony stuffed his hands into his jackets stiff pockets. "Yep. Was feeling left out." There was something aggressive about the way he was speaking. An underlying tension of challenge that she didn’t really understand. Darcy gave him a searching look before shrugging and examining the yarn he'd thrown at her. If he didn't want to talk about their previous discussion, she was cool to just roll with it.
Finding the tail of the yarn she pulled a little free to tug between her fingers experimentally. The balls were red and gold, of course, but it didn't feel like any yarn she had ever worked with before. The odd fibers glinted strangely in the light and felt weird. Soft but bizarrely coarse on the pads of her fingers.
"It's a micro titanium-gold alloy weave. Same stuff as the suit basically."
She nodded distractedly, trying to get a read on him. "So how much will you pay me?" she asked, leaning back in the chair. He was the one to bring up commissions after all, but mainly she wondered what he would do. The man froze for less than a second before he pulled a few bills from his wallet. He tossed them on the table.
Darcy squinted at them- those numbers looked suspiciously large. It had to be shit ton of cash but Darcy didn't touch it. "Don't think that's going to cover it." She told him blithely.
Now the twist of his mouth looked angry but he reached back for his wallet again. Darcy shook her head and pushed the cash back towards him. "Think you owe me a bagel." She said seriously. Tony tilted his head and snatched his glasses from his face to stare with unreadable eyes.
Darcy picked up one of the fresh bagels and waved it at him and after a moment he unbuttoned his jacket with a brisk flourish and dropped into a chair across from her. Taking the bagel from her hand and grabbing the knife from the top of the cream cheese container, he split the soft bread in half and schmeared both halves in the creamy goodness. Then he held out one half to her and deliberately took a liberal bite out of the other. Darcy took the offered half of the bagel and took a large bite of her own.
Tony Stark leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. Swallowing, he gave a considering look at the pastry remaining in his hand. "This isn't mine. Where did you even get these?" He wondered. The air around him now significantly more relaxed.
"If by 'yours' you mean 'not part of the food you order to fill the kitchens', then no. I get them from a bakery downtown" Darcy shrugged and took another bite.
Both of them ignored the pile of bills sitting on the table.
"What's wrong with my bagels?" he demanded as he added another glop of cream cheese to the side of his bagel.
"Your bagel is no bagel." She informed him "you don't order bagels. You don't even order bread."
The man hummed thoughtfully.
The padding of bare feet approaching had both of them looking towards the kitchen entryway- right as the Black Widow sauntered in.
They stared in mutual surprise.
Natasha was indeed barefoot, but that was hardly the surprising part of her appearance. No, she was also- wet?
Her copper hair dripped slightly at the ends.
She was dressed in only an impressively short towel that was tucked around at the front to display a daring amount of cleavage. Ignoring the stares her attire was drawing, the spy headed for the coffee pot and poured herself a full mug.
Natasha turned and leaned casually against the granite counter. She took a large sip from her mug. Tony and Darcy continued to stare in confusion as the Widow offered the two a clever smile.
She wasn't dripping torrents of water or anything but Darcy couldn't help but ask, "Aren't you cold?"
She could see Tony snap his head to look at her out of the corner if her eye but Darcy was pretty distracted because honestly- it was always cold in the Avengers Compound. The AC had been stuck on what felt like full blast since the day she'd moved in. Darcy had taken to sleeping in socks most nights.
Natasha blinked at her for a moment, smile morphing just slightly, although Darcy couldn't quite read the shift. "I'm Russian. We're used to the cold."
Thankfully before Darcy could do something stupid (like offer Natasha her oversized hoodie) they were interrupted by a disgusting semi-wet sounding bang from above the fridge. There was a curse and muffled banging as a slow gloriously triumphant smile spread across Darcy's face. Natasha furrowed her brow, eyeing the top of the fridge as she took another sip of coffee. Tony spun on the spot to stare in the direction of the sound with a deep frown, one hand gripping his wristwatch tightly. "What the hell?" he demanded.
The curses slowly faded way. Natasha observed Darcy curiously as the brunette took a victorious final bite of her bagel.
Tony scowled at the both of them, "No. Really, what the hell was that?"
The Black Widow swallowed the last of her cup thoughtfully. "I'm more curious what he did to deserve it."
Darcy said nothing, basking in the throes of vengeance.
A few moments later Clint stomped around the corner to the kitchen, hands covered in a black tar. He scowled at Darcy. "Really, Lewis?" he demanded, shaking his black goop covered hands around in a righteous display. "Really? You messed with my vent covers?"
Oh, Darcy had indeed messed with his vent covers. Not only had she pasted the black sticky goop on the backs of random covers but she had also taken care to gorilla glue a select few of them closed. Some, like the one in the kitchen that she knew through careful observation he used frequently, she had done both to.
It was a fair price she figured- those bruises had taken weeks to fade from her forearms.
"Vengeance is patience, 'Clinton'." Darcy smirked at his disgruntled expression. Natasha gave a surprised but regal nod and raise her coffee mug in agreement.
"You been crawling around in my vents, Barton?" Tony demanded slightly incredulous.
Natasha poured herself another cup from the coffee maker, "Don't take it personally, Stark. Clint never outgrew playground tunnels." She took a sip of her fresh drink, completely immune to the grumpy glare Hawkeye gave her.
"Oh thanks, Nat." he grumbled which had Natasha grinning innocently. Darcy watched him stomp over to the sink and turn on the faucet with his elbow.
"Do you call her Nat because its short for Natasha or do you call her Nat because you think she's like a gnat?" Darcy wondered.
Clint turned and splashed water ineffectually at her, "Stop trying to get me in trouble!"
Behind him Natasha was grinned.
"Tony! There you are."
Everyone's heads swiveled to the entrance as Rhodey strolled in and paused. Darcy wondered what he had to think: Tony in a suit with a glob of cream cheese on his goatee, Natasha still wet in her tiny towel, Clint scrubbing black goop from his hands, and herself with a wet shirt and a lap full of metal yarn. The man took it all in for a moment as Tony exclaimed brightly at his arrival. "Rhodey! Honey Bear, Come take a bite of my bagel!" he called, shaking the pastry with a wiggle of his eyebrow.
The poor man shook his head exasperatedly. "Why you got to make it weird man?" Rhodey asked even as he took an obliging step forward. He ripped a section free and popped it into his mouth. "Okay, no. That is amazing."
"Yes they are." Darcy said absentmindedly, eyes on Natasha as she finished her second cup of coffee. She was speaking softly to Clint as the man struggled to get the black out from under his nails. Her eyes fell to the clock and, realizing she was going to be late if she didn't leave, Darcy stood up and collected the two balls of yarn.
There was warm relief in her stomach as she called a hurried farewell to everyone and made her way towards the elevators.
Just another day at work.
-….-….-…-
Darcy was close. So close. Her heart pounded- face undoubtedly flushed. Her fingers stilled and she flopped back on the bed.
Darcy glared at the laptop. She was stuck again. With a frown she ran her eyes over the coding again. With a sigh she saved (multiple times as was her habit) before closing out and opening up Tumblr.
She scrolled her dashboard for a few minutes. She reblogged an artfully shot photo someone had managed to capture of Thor flying overhead. Then she amused herself by looking through the wonderfully hilarious posts crossing Tony Stark and House Stark in the wake of the latest Game of Thrones season. Darcy resolved to get Tony a house Stark banner just for her own amusement.
She flicked through the general Avengers tag, liking and reblogging as she went, until a rather long post caught her eye. It was some kind of angry rant. She read through it then opened up google to search for 'Sokovia Accords'. Under some horrific pictures of the damaged Sokovian landscape were a few political articles.
The accords turned out to be an up and coming treaty that was going to be propositioned before the United Nations. Mainly it seemed to be centering on the concerns and regulations around 'super groups'. She scrolled threw the news for a few moments. Frowning slightly she pulled out her phone and searched her contacts for Natasha's number. (Thanks to the now automated group texts that went out for movie night reminders Darcy now had all the Avengers cell numbers. Luckily she had managed to control herself so far and keep texting heroes to a bare minimum.).
D: have you seen about that un treaty?
Texting any of the Avengers was a bit of a tossup anyway. Someone them would not have their phones on or available to them for days at a time. She was surprised therefore to feel the almost immediate buzz of a response.
N: ?
D: callrd sokovia accords. Its about you guys.
D: you might want to read it
Finding the article on her phone she linked it and sent that too.
D: (attachment)
There was no immediate response this time so Darcy went back to reread the article. Then she looked up two others and read those. Fifteen minutes later her phone buzzed again.
N: what do you think?
D: honestly? Surprised it hasn't come up sooner.
D: Avengers used to by run by sheild/government right? Now your like a international civilian military group thing? Don't think there's ever been anything like you guys before. Got to be causing all kinds of oversite questions.
Darcy's phone was silent for a few more minutes.
N: Thank you for the heads up.
D: no problem! Still just a proposal for now but …it's interesting.
Her phone fell still. Darcy deliberated for a moment with a frown then forwarded the article to Tony too.
D: un treaty about you guys? Have you seen?
D: (attachment)
Tony responded after a moment with a thumbs up emoji.
T: Legal departments on top of it already.
Well that was good. Stark Industries had famously vicious lawyers. They had been known to make people cry in court. With a shrug she headed back to Tumblr.
There was a surprisingly detailed ink drawing of the hulk she shared. A few candid photo’s she liked absentmindedly. 'You deserve to be happy' a gif of sparkling letters flashed at her. Darcy scrolled down past it then back up.
'You deserve to be happy'
Fuck it.
She took her phone back out.
D: hey if yor going to be bck for the weekend would you be up for dping something?
She typed quickly and hit send before she could change her mind.
This was so stupid. Darcy hid her face in one of her extra fluffy pillows. What was she even doing? She didn't even know if Natasha was interested in woman that way.
Urrgggg
She felt her phone buzz again in her hand.
N: what did you have in mind?
Heart pounding a bit Darcy went into her favorites list and copied the url to send Natasha.
It had taken hours of skilled googleing to find the right place. She'd gone over several locations- comparing reviews and options. The hardest part was finding a place that would work with just two people but she thought that maybe…this was something they could do that Natasha might even enjoy…
D: (link)
Darcy stared at her text box as a realization washed over her. Natasha didn't like closed spaces. She had shared that while on their walk at the bakery.
Well done, moron.
Cursing she started to type as quickly as she could and still make it somewhat legible.
D: ive donr similar stuff becore but I knkw you dont like small spces. I dont think it will be tooo claustrophobic but if its not your thing or your busy then its nbd.
She hit send just as a text came back from Natasha.
N: should for back for Friday. Pending no threats of global destruction. Saturday?
Saturday?
In a bit of a daze she slowly typed out her affirmative. Every second she waited for the agreement to be rescinded but it wasn't. All that came back in was a little smiling emoji. She somehow had managed actual plans to a maybe, sort-of, possible, date with the Black Widow. Caught between elation and horror she stared at her phone screen. Oh god, what had she done?!