Fanmix - Avengers - Epic Avengers Pairings Fanmix - Darcy
PRE-MIX NOTES: Oh god, this took forever. I am so sorry. I started working on it July 2012, and then, well, you guys know what happened last summer, and it's been in the back of my mind ever since, and finally, last week I decided I was damn well going to finish this, because Darcy deserves it, and... well, here it is. And it is insanely long. Over 10,000 words, which I would apologise for, but, hell, Darcy is epic.
Fandom: The Avengers
Subject: All the Pairings
Title: Epic Avengers Pairings Fanmix - Darcy Special
Warnings: ALL THE FEELINGS.
Notes: I figured out that, of all the characters, Darcy is the one who I ship with pretty much everyone. Not because I think she’s a slut, but just because EVERYONE LOVES DARCY. So I decided that she deserved a special edition of the fanmix all to herself. The three pairings that I’d already done for her (Darcy/Clint, Darcy/Loki and Darcy/Jane) are bonus tracks at the end!
Warning, this one got, um, epic.
Standard disclaimer that my headcanons are insane and conflicting and don’t apply to anything but their own entries unless explicitly stated.
1. Darcy/Coulson - “Christmas TV” - Slow Club
It's okay to have scars / They will make you who you are / It's okay to have fear / Because that means you aren't scared of coming here / And in the middle of the night / So if you'll want to talk / Because you know that I want to talk too / It's not bad of you to think of what might go wrong / But you can't blame me for secretly hoping that I will prove you wrong / It's okay that I pray that you will miss your flight / And have to stay with me another night / It's brutal it's brutal / Why can’t you see / It's brutal it's brutal / What have you be / Because we are far apart / And my lonely heart / Finds it hard to get through the night / You pulled me out of the dark and now it's light
A popular post-university job for Darcy is Coulson’s assistant, and I must admit that this was probably my second Darcy ship (after Darcy/Clint). I like so many of the Darcy ships because the majority of the people in the Marvel Movieverse are so EPIC. They have grand feelings and acres of issues. The canon relationships (both explicit and implied) are fraught with all these terrible obstacles and problems with getting together or staying together. Which, I suppose, is the consequence of the storylines - there would be nothing comic-book-superheroey about a happy couple with nothing but mundane everyday banalities to overcome. Darcy, on the other hand, is probably the best candidate in the entire Marvel Movieverse for the archetypal audience insert character. She’s sweet, she’s geeky, she’s easy-going. She tased a drunk guy, and had a healthy appreciation for his gorgeous abs. She was more concerned about losing her iPod than the truckload of research and equipment. In short, she’s your average early-20s college student - and that’s something that most of us can identify with.
And so, why Darcy/Coulson in particular? Well, for one, I always like to start off with people who have at least shared a touch of screen-time, even if they did spend pretty much the entirety of that screen-time at cross-purposes. It provides a nice jumping-off point for my insane imagination. (Although you’ve probably gathered by this point that it’s really not all that necessary).
My personal headcanon for Darcy and Coulson starts after Thor. Darcy is in a bit of an odd position at this point. Jane and Erik are brilliant, brilliant scientists, and SHIELD obviously has a lot of experience with those. It’s easy for Coulson to set them up in snazzy new labs with all the equipment and assistance they could possibly ask for. Darcy, on the other hand, is a civilian, and not only is she a civilian, she’s a pesky one. She knows enough about Thor and the science to be a problem, but not enough to be of much help. So it’s Coulson’s idea for her to go back to university and finish her degree. He gets her set up with a little apartment of her own (so Jane doesn’t feel like they’ve abandoned her), and he visits her whenever he can. At first, it’s to give her a newly tricked-out taser (strictly for self-defence, obviously) and to check up on her, check that she’s still toeing the party line, not letting the cat out of the bag and all those other silly clichéd lines, but he grows to really like her. She’s simple and easy. Not stupid or dim or slutty, none of that, she’s just clean lines and fun and insisting that he wears t-shirts occasionally and takes her to the cinema because she’s scared of horror movies but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to watch them, and it’s so much more fun when there’s someone there for her to grip their hand and hide her face in their sleeve. So they make this standing date - not a date date, at least, not at first - twice a month or so where Coulson makes sure he’s in New York, and they watch a horror movie, the scariest Coulson can find, at first in a cinema, and then, as time goes by, they start having these not-a-date-date-dates at Darcy’s tiny little apartment, on her sofa, so Darcy can snuggle up to him and hide her face in his shirt at the really scary scary parts, and she can jump and gasp and no one gives her a second look. And sort of gradually, they get closer, and closer, and regular movie nights are supplemented with random meetings in coffee shops whenever they’re both free and the odd trip to Coulson’s favourite little music shop, and that time when Darcy discovered that Coulson had never been to a baseball game and she insisted on taking him, and buying them enormous hotdogs or whatever it is you eat there. And then one day, she sort-of-accidentally says “Love you” as she’s saying goodbye, and the ever-so-slight change in his expression makes her want to kiss him, so she does, and then the not-so-slight change in his expression makes her want to tear his clothes off and have sex with him right there in the hallway, but she doesn’t because he’s not that sort of guy, so she just kisses him again, and this time he kisses her back, and then he’s not just kissing her back, he’s pressing her against the wall and his hands are moving on her hips and in her hair and… well, I’m awful at writing smut, so I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination. Hopefully yours is as dirty as mine. But anyway, the following morning, Coulson’s awkward, because there is a massive age gap, and he’s old enough to be her father and he’s a little afraid of what Erik is going to say, because he and Erik have gotten to be quite good friends in the meantime (despite all the “jackbooted thugs” comments), and he’s definitely nervous about what Fury is going to say, because Fury has Ideas about Fraternisation, but then Darcy wakes up, and she sees him, and smiles, and that smile is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and suddenly it doesn’t matter that he’s twice her age and he’s probably going to have to keep this a secret, because all that matters is that she keeps looking at him like that.
God, I’m such a sap. Sorry about that. I just love the thought of Coulson falling in love with Darcy because his life is so damn complicated and she makes it easy for a bit. Also, it’s my headcanon that his motives for sending Jane to Tromsø were two-fold - to keep her safe, sure, but also to keep Darcy safe - and he didn’t mention that to Thor because he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face saying it, because he smiles whenever he says Darcy’s name.
(And the cellist is a cover. ;) )
2. Darcy/Steve - “And I Love You So” - Harry Connick Jr
I guess they understand / How lonely life has been / But life began again / The day you took my hand / And yes I know how lonely life can be / The shadows follow me / And the night won't set me free / But I don't let the evening get me down / Now that you're around me / And you love me too / Your thoughts are just for me / You set my spirit free / I'm happy that you do / The book of life is brief / And once a page is read / All but love is dead / That is my belief
There is a specific subset of fic in the Avengers fandom where Darcy punches Steve’s V-card. In some, she is a SHIELD agent (sometimes Coulson’s assistant) tasked with ‘introducing’ him to the 21st century (mostly through confusing history books and explanations of iTunes), in others she’s still Jane’s assistant, and inexplicably hangs around the Avengers Tower, mostly for shits and giggles. In any case, eventually Steve falls hopelessly in love with her, and they have sex.
I could read these fics ALL FREAKING DAY. My particular favourite is “You And Your High Top Sneakers And Sailor Tattoos” by VictoriaP ( here) - possibly because of the bit where darling virgin Steve suggests having sex on his sofa instead of his kitchen table. Not that Darcy was suggesting having sex on his kitchen table, I hasten to add.
My headcanon for these two is therefore indelibly wrapped up in all the fic I’ve read for them. But I suppose this is the way I see it going. (For everything up to the aftermath of The Avengers, see my headcanon for Darcy/Jane - track 13!)
Post-Battle of Manhattan (or, as Darcy refers to it in her head “That time Thor came back to Earth and NO ONE TOLD JANE”), Darcy insists on Jane getting one of the shiny new labs in the newly re-designed “Avengers Tower”. Of course, as soon as Tony found out about Jane, he’d already given her and Thor a floor to themselves, plus a dedicated lab near Bruce’s, because he guessed (correctly) that they were going to hit it off big time. Then Darcy realises that they were both still living at the crappy apartment in some not-so-bad part of New York that I can’t be bothered to look up, even though Jane had this awesome floor, and she laughs, and basically turns up to the tower one morning and demands to be let in. And of course, JARVIS falls in love with her on sight, because she’s DARCY and that’s what people/AIs do when they meet her, so he lets her in and tells her how to find Tony and then Tony’s all “Gee, why did no one tell me?” and tells her that if she’ll give him a couple of days, he’ll convert ‘Guest Floor Gamma’ into her own personal paradise. So she’s all “Nice!” and then she and Jane move in together and life is awesome.
Then Steve comes across her one day, in the massive communal living room, where she’s lounging on the sofa watching old Captain America propaganda films on the insanely huge TV, and wondering why her personal TV is like, half this size and also if the producers of these films had some sort of blackmail material, because surely no amount of money or patriotic pride could make him think this was a good idea. And then during one particularly effusive laughing fit, she suddenly notices Captain freaking America standing behind her, wearing khaki workout pants, and wow, they make khaki workout pants, and the most shocked, traumatised look on his face. And of course, she’s all “Dude!” and he’s all “Why are you laughing? And more importantly, where did you get that?” And then she tells him that they’re basically cult viewing, and everyone’s seen them, that they get taught in schools when kids learn about the Second World War, and he’s confused, because surely there are better examples than him. Then he sits down beside her and starts telling her about the stuff that happened behind the scenes, and she asks him about the Howling Commandos, because her teacher totally had a crush on Dum Dum Duggan for reasons she can’t explain, and he starts laughing and telling her all these stories about the war, and how there was a lot of fighting and injuries and tragedy, but there were also good times, and laughter and that time when Dernier challenged Morita to a drinking contest and they both ended up under the table in fits of giggles and there was hell to pay from Peggy the following morning. And then he gets all quiet and tells Darcy that she reminds him of Peggy, a little bit, all that dark hair and the way she laughs at him. And she blushes and punches him lightly in the arm and tells him that it’s okay to feel whatever he’s feeling, and he says that he’s feeling like he’d really like to kiss her, and she doesn’t let him have time to regret saying that, and wraps an arm round his neck and lifts herself up to kiss him. It’s good, it’s really good, and then Steve’s sensibilities take over and he breaks away and suggests that they at least have coffee together before this goes any further. And she asks him if he’s been to Starbucks yet, and the look on his face when he says no makes her giggle with glee and tell him that she is going to blow his mind, and then she’s going to blow something else, and he gets all red-faced, but he smiles. And then there’s coffee and lots of kissing and eventually there’s sex and EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL.
So, for their song, I was tempted to have something about a ‘first time’ or a ‘first love’, but then I decided that that’s not what their relationship is about. It’s about not being lonely any more. About finding someone wonderful and falling head over heels for them and not succumbing to the darkness and the nightmares because there’s someone there to hold you. So I picked this. :D
3. Darcy/Bruce - “My Best Friend” - Tim McGraw
You're more than a lover / There could never be another / To make me feel the way you do / Oh we just get closer / I fall in love all over / Every time I look at you / I don't know where I'd be / Without you here with me / Life with you makes perfect sense / You're my best friend / You're my best friend, oh yeah / You stand by me / And you believe in me / Like nobody ever has / When my world goes crazy / You're right there to save me / You make me see how much I have / And I still tremble / When we touch / And oh the look in your eyes / When we make love
Okay, another subset of fic is along the lines of “Hulk Loves Darcy”, and is another category that I could read ALL FREAKING DAY. My particular favourite of the genre is Will You Go Out With My Big Green Alter-Ego? by Dhauren, because it is wonderful and long and delightful.
(However, I’d like to put a special rec in for Take A Load Off by Tashlae, which is an absolutely hilarious fic where Loki curses the Avengers so that if they have sex, they’ll die, and Bruce and Darcy decide to test that theory.)
My reasons for liking Darcy/Bruce so much are very similar to my argument for Darcy/Loki (see track 12). Bruce, for his own sanity, needs someone pretty low-maintenance. He needs someone who’s going to have a laugh with him, who isn’t going to spend all her time talking SCIENCE and CURE and CONTROL. He needs someone who will bring him his special tea and tease him about being the Jolly Green Giant. Most importantly, he needs someone that the Hulk likes, and heck, as soon as the Hulk finds out that Darcy tased Thor, he is going to LOVE HER. (Everyone loves Darcy. Trufax.)
My personal headcanon for these two goes along the lines that Darcy meets Bruce when she moves into the Avengers Tower. Jane’s lab is pretty near Bruce’s, and they’ve heard of each other before, because the Marvel world is TINY, okay, and they’re both sort of infamous in the SHIELD science circle. But, of course, Jane is pre-occupied with working on the bridge and Bruce is too shy to introduce himself, so it’s down to Darcy to go and greet the neighbours!
Bruce is all mumbly and blushing, because he never really dealt that well with meeting beautiful women, and Darcy is gorgeous, and the first thing she says to him is “Does the Big Green Guy mean you can’t have sex?” and well, it didn’t exactly end well last time, but he’s gotten a lot better at controlling the Other Guy since then, so, maybe, maybe not? But of course, he can’t actually say that, because she sounds sincere and she might be coming on to him and they literally only just met, so he just sort of laughs and she smiles and introduces herself, and Jane, even though Jane isn’t there, and then she sits down on a lab stool, gestures to his fancy Stark Industries Interactive Table/Desk Hologram Thing and asks him to explain what he’s doing, in English, if possible. And from there, they’re friends, because Darcy finds making friends pretty easy, and she likes Bruce, so he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. (But it’s okay, because he likes her too.)
The first time Darcy actually meets the Hulk is several months later, and all because Jane accidentally blew something up. She’s in her lab, doing an experiment with lasers and prisms or something, and something doesn’t behave the way the calculations said it would and BOOM suddenly there’s a hole in the wall and then CRASH, there’s a bigger hole in the wall, and the Jolly Green Giant’s butch cousin is standing in the lab looking freaked out. Jane screams, but Darcy just steps in front of him and is all like “Hey honey! Everything’s okay, no one’s hurt, don’t worry!” And the Other Guy is all “DARCY SAFE?” and she wraps her arms around him as far as she can get and is all, “I’m fine, big guy. You got me.” And he hugs her back and lifts her up and then he lets Bruce come back and he hugs her more and there’s kissing and at some point Jane sneaks out (because she has been shipping Darcy/Bruce for weeks, and three’s a crowd).
And after that there are multiple experiments and hey, it turns out the Other Guy isn’t an issue when Bruce is having sex with Darcy!
For their song, I wanted something that reflected them being best friends that became something more, rather than falling in love at first sight. Also, I really wanted something that included the idea that Darcy isn’t afraid of the Other Guy, like most people are. She loves him and trusts him because he keeps Bruce safe. :D
4. Darcy/Sif - “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves” - Lucy Lawless (et al.)
Now there was a time when they used to say / That behind every "great man." / There had to be a "great woman." / But in these times of change you know / That it's no longer true. / So we're comin' out of the kitchen / 'Cause there's somethin' we forgot to say to you (we say) / Sisters are doin' it for themselves. / Standin' on their own two feet. / And ringin' on their own bells. / Sisters are doin' it for themselves
Strangely, I didn’t even consider this ship until I read this fic - A Girl Worth Fighting For, in which Sif defends Darcy’s honour in increasingly inappropriate ways until Darcy accidentally accepts her courtship. It’s fairly short, but excellently written, and I will forever be in its author’s debt for introducing me to such a wonderful pairing.
Sif and Darcy don’t really have any interaction onscreen in Thor, as such, but it’s my personal belief that they would get on like a house on fire. As I said in my track notes for Thor/Sif, it’s my headcanon that Sif and Thor spent most of their formative years beating the crap out of each-other, and Sif usually won. I’d say probably 7 times out of 10 (and of those 3 times she lost, at least 1 of them was her going soft on him). (This is also supported by the AWESOME animated movie Thor: Tales Of Asgard, in which a teenage Sif defeats the Mighty Thor with a stick. A stick. Yup.)
So, at some point, Jane (and probably Tony) figure out how to re-engineer the Bifrost, and then Thor and the Warriors Three and Sif all come through (probably not Loki though, at least at first), and Tony throws a massive party, because this is how Tony’s brain works, but also, this is just how they do it on Asgard; the land of the Week-Long Feasts For No Particular Reason and all that. And of course, everyone loves Darcy, and after the party, the Aesir sort of pass her around amongst themselves (not in a dirty way); Fandral flirts incessantly, and Darcy flirts right back, and he takes her dancing, and she loves him for it; Hogun is impressed by her stories about training with Natasha and that time when she took down six muggers with her bare hands (this may have been an exaggeration - she’ll never tell, and it’s not like the Warriors Three are always so completely honest about their feats of heroism); and she introduces Volgstagg to the idea of All You Can Eat restaurants (of which they are always banned after one visit) for which he is both grateful and completely enthralled. And Sif? Well, Sif finds out about Darcy’s Pocket Lightning Device, and the fact that she managed to floor Thor within seconds of meeting him, and from there, they’re the absolute best of friends. Darcy gets Sif her very own Pocket Lightning Device, which Sif declares to be a mighty weapon, worthy of any Aesir warrior. Of course, it breaks the first time Sif tries to use it, because the manufacturers obviously didn’t take into account the grip strength of god-like aliens, but Tony builds some better ones, and gives both Darcy and Sif the prototypes, which have ten times the strength and twenty times the firepower, and will put down anything from an elephant to Volgstagg (but not Thor, annoyingly - his reinstated thunder and lightning powers are no match for electrical weapons), and Sif is most impressed. (She is somewhat less impressed when the Son of Coul confiscates said tasers, citing various SHIELD directives and ordinances that prohibit the use of high-powered electrical weapons on SHIELD property).
But anyway, Sif is pretty rough and tumble (much to her prim-and-proper-Aesir mother’s dismay), and Darcy totally gets that, because she was a total tomboy growing up, brawling with her brothers and climbing trees and whatnot. So, in return for the tasers, Sif teaches Darcy some awesome fighting moves, and then they team up with Natasha and terrorise the male inhabitants of the Avengers Tower. (Not Bruce though, never Bruce).
Their song is a girl power classic. One of the first times I really heard this was on the second Xena musical episode ( video here), so I’ve always had this in mind as a song celebrating the power of kick-ass women bonding together. And so, um, I was basically forced to use Lucy Lawless’ version. ;)
5. Darcy/Thor - “Mr Blue Sky” - ELO
Sun is shinin' in the sky / There ain't a cloud in sight / It's stopped rainin' everybody’s in a play / And don't you know / It's a beautiful new day hey, hey / Runnin' down the avenue / See how the sun shines brightly in the city / On the streets where once was pity / Mister blue sky is living here today hey, hey / Mister blue sky please tell us why / You had to hide away for so long / Where did we go wrong? / Hey you with the pretty face / Welcome to the human race / A celebration, mister blue sky's up there waitin' / And today is the day we've waited for
In my eyes, Darcy/Thor is not a romantic pairing. Genuinely. It’s one of the very few Avengers pairings I’ve ever envisioned where I cannot stand the idea of them getting together in any sort of amorous or sexual manner (except in the case of threesomes with Jane, but only with Jane, and pretty much only as Jane’s idea). Because I may ship Thor with half-a-dozen people, and Jane with a few others, but I am also a devotee of the friendship between Darcy and Jane, and a girlfriend doesn’t do a girlfriend’s personal Alien Disney Prince without being a massive bitch, and Darcy is anything but a bitch. Anyway, that doesn’t stop Darcy and Thor being the most epic best friends.
My personal headcanon for them is sort of along the same lines as a lot of Darcy/Steve fics. I love the idea of Darcy kidnapping Thor whenever Jane needs to get some work done, and taking him places and teaching him things about Midgard. She introduces him to roller coasters, corn dogs, the subway, and Wii games. She takes him to science museums and natural history museums and art galleries. She organises movie trips and paintballing tournaments and karaoke nights. She shows him what it’s like to be human.
And, of course, the others tag along a lot, particularly Jane, obviously, and Steve, because Darcy is FUN and it’s nice to be normal. But Thor and Darcy are the constants.
Their song was the most difficult of all my Darcy pairings. THE MOST DIFFICULT. Because I wanted a song that was about having an awesome time with someone, but I didn’t want it to be romantic. And, oh my god, do you even know how few upbeat, fun, good time songs there are that don’t have romantic undertones? VERY FEW. At least that I could find. So, in the end, I had to go for this one.
It’s a classic, for one. A total classic, and I can totally see Darcy putting it on and turning it up, and showing Thor the joys of a proper Midgardian dance party. It’s a fun, happy, crazy song, and the fundamental message of it being a new day, and time to have fun, is something I think Darcy would really share with Thor. They’re both blue sky people, I think. Deep and sensible when needs’ must, but always ready to throw off the gloom and have a good time.
6. Darcy/Maria - “I Kissed A Girl” - Katy Perry
This was never the way I planned, not my intention. / I got so brave, drink in hand, lost my discretion / It's not what I'm used to, just wanna try you on. / I'm curious for you, caught my attention. / I kissed a girl and I liked it, / the taste of her cherry chapstick. / I kissed a girl just to try it, / I hope my boyfriend don't mind it. / It felt so wrong, / it felt so right. / Don't mean I'm in love tonight. / I kissed a girl and I liked it (I liked it).
Okay, this one comes from my own twisted imagination.
I have this wonderful image in my head of Tony throwing this awesome party as a “house-warming” for the Avengers Tower, but Fury’s a total spoilsport and he’s all “You can’t invite anyone without top-security clearance”, which means that his awesome party guest list is basically restricted to the team, their particular friends (Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, Betty, Jane, and Darcy - Erik is invited, but after the last drinking contest with Thor, he politely declines) and the SHIELD high-ups (Coulson, a few of the more senior agents, and Fury himself). Coulson drags Maria along as well, even though she’s heard about Tony’s parties and doesn’t want to subject herself to those sorts of drunken shenanigans, because Coulson is permanently of the opinion that she needs to let her hair down more often.
So they’re at the party, and just because Tony couldn’t invite his usual clientele of drunk socialites and celebutantes doesn’t mean that he can’t, as usual, attempt to get everyone completely sloshed. The party is great, lots of drunk superheroes and secret agents getting off with each-other. Particular highlights include strip shots Twister (which is a complicated game including three spinners and a not-as-drunk-as-he’s-acting Clint copping a lot of feels), Tony holding bay leaves over people’s heads and claiming it’s mistletoe, Pepper freaking out about where he got bay leaves when she knows that his kitchen only contains coffee, pop-tarts and booze, and a very drunk Betty and Jane attempting to have what appears to be a serious discussion about astrophysics.
Eventually, there’s this lull, and that’s when Tony suggests playing Spin The Bottle. And of course, it’s a bunch of really drunk, slightly sleepy people in high-risk jobs, so emotionally, they’re basically fourteen years old, and it sounds like the BEST IDEA EVER. So Natasha grabs a bottle, and they all sit in a circle, and this is where my song choice comes in. It’s maybe the fourth spin, and it’s Maria’s go, and it lands on Darcy, and there are all these wolf whistles, and Maria crawls across the circle, and then Darcy holds a finger up (‘wait!’) and she applies some extra chapstick, and then she plants one on Maria like you wouldn’t believe, and it’s so forceful that Maria almost topples backwards, but Darcy sort of grabs her and pulls her instead, so Darcy ends up on her back, with Maria on top of her, still attached at the lips, and then Darcy’s hands are in Maria’s hair, and Maria’s hands are all over the place. Steve looks positively traumatised (mostly because he fancies both of them, and this image is giving him some serious problems in the trouser department, and he thanks God that he’s not wearing his costume right now, because that kevlar/spandex stuff hides absolutely nothing), and Pepper is unsuccessfully trying to cover Tony’s eyes, because he’s literally drooling and looks like he wants to start throwing money at them. The rest have varying reactions, but it doesn’t matter, because Darcy’s making all these delicious noises and Maria’s lips have moved from Darcy’s, down her neck and she’s currently sucking a frankly impressive hickey right over her jugular, and she has one hand on the floor and the other on Darcy’s similarly impressive rack. Then Maria seems to remember where she is and jumps up like she’s been burned, and Darcy’s just lying on the floor, looking totally shagged out and happy, and Maria slightly freaks out and is about to flee from the room when Darcy opens her eyes and gives her this glowing smile and is all “Hey, that was nice” and “Can we do that again sometime?” and Maria softens a bit and sits back down in her place, all blushing and smiling, and not really believing what just happened, but not so much regretting it as regretting she hadn’t done it sooner.
And so, um, Katy Perry. Being all cute and happy and kissing girls for the hell of it. Like Maria and Darcy.
7. Darcy/Tony - “Gettin’ You Home” - Chris Young
Honey, I know you love gettin' dressed up / And you know I love showin' you off / Watchin' your baby blue eyes / Dancin' in the candlelight glow / All I can think about is gettin' you home / Walkin' through the front door / Seein' your black dress hit the floor / Honey there sure ain't nothing / Like you lovin' me all night long / And all I can think about is gettin' you home… / Honey, I know by that look in your eyes / And your hand drawin' hearts onto mine / That our night out of the house / Ain't gonna last too long / When all you can think about is gettin' me home
Darcy/Tony is probably my second favourite Tony pairing. In my eyes, they’re this hilarious couple who play crazy pranks on the rest of the Avengers, and are regularly caught having sex on any available surface. The whole twenty-year age gap doesn’t bother them, because hey, Tony never really stopped dating 22 year olds, and Darcy’s had a thing for older men since she was seven and first saw Labyrinth on TV and fell head over heels in love with David Bowie (she was always a weird kid).
However, I do have this whole headcanon thing where Darcy is the middle kid out of five (four brothers) and they’re all super-protective of her, and Tony doesn’t exactly have the best reputation, even with the whole “saving mankind from aliens” thing, so at one point, all Darcy’s brothers threaten to roast Tony alive with his own repulsor gauntlets, which, actually does scare him a bit, so he’s always a total gentleman when Darcy takes him home.
But anyways, they totally get together almost by accident? It’s one of those situations where they’re just two people who happen to live in the same insanely awesome tower, who are sort of friends but mostly in the way that they mock each-other’s taste in music and clothes and Tony bitches that JARVIS likes her better than him and Darcy’s all ‘you designed him, dude, what does that say about you?’, which makes him sulk the first time and fight back the rest. So, they’re having one of their fun banter-y conversations, which are like 90% double entendre and innuendo and everyone else has just totally given up with them, because they’re far too alike in most respects to be anything other than what they are, and it’s not like they’ll listen to anyone else, even Coulson, and he has totally tried. And they get into this banter spiral that I refer to as “sex-talk-chicken”, where each of them is suggesting having sex, but neither of them really mean it, but they both want the other one to break first, but, hey, this is Tony and Darcy, so neither of them are going to give the other the satisfaction of victory, so eventually they kiss, and, it’s not exactly like a dam breaks or fireworks go off or any of those stupid clichés, but they both simultaneously realise that this feels pretty good, and they break apart, and Tony’s like “bedroom?” because this is still sort of happening in public (Jane and Clint are on the sofa watching children’s cartoons, because this is something they inexplicably have in common) and Bruce is in the open plan kitchen making tea and trying not to roll his eyes every 15 seconds. And Darcy raises an eyebrow and says “Race you!” and dashes out of the room, giggling, and Tony is instantly grateful that Steve’s been beating his ass all month in the gym doing stamina exercises, because he may have a stellar reputation, but it has been a couple of years and, um, shrapnel to the heart and several near-death-experiences since he last did a girl half his age and he is totally intending to do Darcy all night long. Then, the following morning, after copious amounts of sex, he wakes up, and she’s still there, and looking kinda nervous, and he asks her what’s wrong, and she tells him that she promised herself that she’d never have a one-night-stand with a superhero, and he’s all “One-night stand?” and she frowns and he reaches out and twists his hand in her hair and kisses her and tells her that he’s all hers for as long as she wants him. And then he makes an absolutely filthy joke, which she just has to one-up, and they both laugh, and just like that, they have this wonderful, hilarious, sexy relationship, and JARVIS is really happy for them (because he does like Darcy best), and the others think it’s both the best and worst idea ever, but at least the sexual tension has somewhere to go now.
So for their song, I had to pick something fun and upbeat and sexy, like them. I heard this song, and just pictured the Avengers crew at some sort of fancy black-tie ball or dinner or something, and then Darcy catches Tony’s eye, and grins, and then he smiles back, makes a hasty excuse (probably the truth, knowing Tony), and they dare each-other to make it the whole way back to Stark Tower before he rips her dress off. Which, of course, he only just manages, because he’s Tony, the God of Instant Gratification, and Darcy’s not that much better, but they manage to just get to Tony’s floor before Darcy gets too impatient and rips her own dress off. And then sex. ;)
8. Darcy/Pepper - “Good Friend And A Glass Of Wine” - Leanne Rimes
Who died and crowned me everybody's everything / I'm even busting my butt through the weekend / By the time I get home there's not an ounce of sanity / Between the dogs, my momma's calls / Is it against the law / For me to get what I need? / A good friend and a glass of wine / Someone to say it's gonna be all right / A good friend and a glass of wine / A little pick me up to get me through the night / We talk trash n' we laugh and cry / That kind of therapy money can't buy / Every now and then, every now and then / Every girl needs a good friend and a glass of wine
Another little story that came from my twisted imagination.
Pepper meets Darcy on her first day at the Avengers Tower. It’s Saturday night, and she’s just come back from a long day of board meetings and finance presentations and client appointments at Stark Industries, and it’s gone midnight and she’s hungry and tired as hell and Tony’s nowhere to be found, so she goes into the communal kitchen and… there’s a woman there. A woman with a box, a box of wine, and a pan on the hob of something that smells like heaven. And of course, she’s not all that fazed, because hey, this isn’t the first time she’s walked into Tony’s kitchen and found a strange woman there, even if that hasn’t happened since before they got together, and, actually, hey, actually not since before Afghanistan, even, well done Tony, and just as she’s about to clear her throat or something, the woman turns around, almost drops her glass, and screams “OMG YOU’RE PEPPER POTTS!” (like that, saying Oh Em Gee instead of Oh My God). And Pepper doesn’t quite know what to say, so she just stands there with her eyebrows raised, and nods, and the woman is all “I’m Darcy!” as if that explains everything, and then “Jane’s lab assistant?” and then “Thor’s BFF?” and then finally “I live here now?” and suddenly the pieces click into place and Tony did mention that, but it was at least fifteen thousand horrifically dull meetings ago, so of course she’d completely forgotten. So she smiles and laughs and puts out her hand for Darcy to shake and says “Of course, welcome! I didn’t realise you were moving in so soon.” And Darcy grins and is all “You’re CEO of Stark Industries and Tony Stark’s girlfriend, you’re totally allowed to forget silly things like me” and she offers her a glass of the box, box, wine, which Pepper actually hasn’t drunk in about 14 years, since before she was Tony’s P.A. and she couldn’t afford anything better, and Darcy obviously notices the look on her face because she laughs and says “It tastes like battery acid but it’s cheap and gets you hammered fast, and you look like you need it”. So Pepper takes a sip and yes, it does taste like battery acid, but it’s been so long since she had a woman around who was this friendly and not on her payroll (Natasha notwithstanding) so she swallows it down anyway and says thank you. Then Darcy asks if she’s hungry, because Darcy only knows how to cook for a small football team, and that’s not so bad when Thor’s around, but it’s way too much food for her alone, and Jane’s already asleep, so she invites Pepper to join her for dinner. And Pepper has never heard anything that sounded quite so good, so she says yes, and Darcy serves her this massive bowl full of chicken stew with tiny dumplings and little potatoes, and tops up her glass and then digs in like she hasn’t eaten in days, which is exactly what Pepper needed, because she digs in too, only the lingering traces of her dignity restraining her from just dipping her whole face in the bowl, and it tastes even better than it smelled, all home-cooked and real the way food in restaurants never is. And when they’ve eaten enough to be able to talk again, Darcy asks her about her day, and no one ever asks her about her day (that cares about the answer, anyway), and that’s enough to make Pepper burst into tears, and Darcy hugs her and lets her cry and tells her that she could never be the sort of strong, capable, efficient woman that Pepper is, which obviously just makes her cry more, but it’s a good cry, a cathartic, stress-release cry, and when she recovers, she feels better than she has in years. And Darcy grins and says she has that effect on people, and they chat about the stresses of working with hyperactive geniuses who don’t sleep or eat properly and keep defying the laws of physics, which is something they totally have in common, and before they know it, the sun’s coming up and Pepper really ought to go back to work, but Darcy, bad Darcy, convinces her to call in sick, and they sleep (in their own beds) for like 12 hours, and then they spend the following evening drinking more awful box, box, wine and they chat and laugh together until the world makes a little more sense. And then they do it again, at least three times a month for the rest of time. :D
9. Darcy/Fury - “Cut The Cake” - Average White Band
Cut the cake / Give me a little piece / Let me lick up the cream / Cut the cake / Well, just a little piece / baby you know what I mean / Cut the cake / Give me a little piece / A little lovin' on the side / Cut the cake / I need a little piece / Just to keep me satisfied
Hehe, I love the idea of this pairing. There’s just something about the matching of the sweet, easy-going college student and the dry, hard-as-diamond secret agent boss that makes me go all YES, YES PLEASE! This is the way I see it going.
Darcy is a problem. She knows enough about Jane’s research and Thor and Loki and the rest of Asgard and even the Tesseract to be a liability, but she’s not quite scientifically educated enough to actually be on either Erik or Jane’s official SHIELD-funded lab teams, and she doesn’t show enough promise (tasing of a god notwithstanding) to train as an agent (plus, she doesn’t want to), so Coulson has no idea what to do with her. Naturally, he takes the problem to Fury, because what few things Coulson doesn’t know, Fury probably does, and Fury is all “why can’t we take care of her?” meaning kill her, because Fury can be a dick like that sometimes, but Coulson points out that Jane would notice, and Thor loves Darcy, and killing her would more than likely end with them making Thor pretty angry, and you don’t want an Aesir angry at you, so, somehow, Darcy ends up as Coulson’s assistant. Coulson’s assistants don’t tend to last all that long, not in a “they get killed” kind of way, but Coulson has to deal with a lot - a lot a lot - of paperwork, that all needs to be signed and filed properly and colour coded and cross-referenced and some of it needs to be copied and sent elsewhere, and some of it needs to be printed on the special paper that dissolves when exposed to natural light or saliva or whatever, and well, whoever deals with Coulson naturally also has to deal with Clint Barton, and therefore, being Coulson’s assistant tends to be one of the higher high-stress jobs offered in the SHIELD support division.
And at first, it looks like Darcy is taking to it like a duck to water (in the way that she mostly just hangs out and creates a mess and turns the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet behind her desk into a snack repository), but eventually her preternatural talents surface for wrangling people and convincing them to eat healthy food and occasionally take consecutive hours of leisure time that don’t involve sleep or practical chores, and Coulson realises that she’s far too important to be stuck behind the desk outside his office (read: he’s tired of his daily paperwork coming with non-negotiable sandwiches and tickets to sporting events), so Darcy ends up outside Fury’s office with a plate full of Darcy’s Patented Brownies (which actually contain both a small country’s GDP of chocolate and two portions of fruit per square) and the listings for all the cinemas in a 30 mile radius of the SHIELD base they happen to be in right then (which is in Manhattan, so that’s a lot of cinemas). He turns her away immediately, because he’s the Director of SHIELD, goddammit, and he doesn’t have time for movies, but she leaves the plate of Darcy’s Patented Brownies on the table by his office door, takes three steps away, and by the time she looks over her shoulder, they’ve disappeared, so she grins, and thinks that at least there is some reasonably healthy and completely delicious eating in his immediate future, so that’s a start. And then she just keeps on at him. Brownies, cookies, cheesy buns, all sorts of yummy things, which she first bugs him about, and then eventually leaves on the table when he manages to get her to leave - all the time denying that he’s eaten any of it (which of course, he has - even he isn’t completely impervious to Darcy’s considerable charms). Of course, what he doesn’t realise is that Darcy is using the food to gradually wear down his walls, because she has a total crush on him, and, as her mother said, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach!
Which, is of course true, because, at last, one day, Darcy turns up with the most enormous cake that anyone has ever seen, all chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles and little stars, and Fury opens his office door to tell her to go away, but he can’t resist the insanely huge smile on her face, and he asks her what’s so special about the cake, and she says that she’s decided, as he doesn’t have a birthday listed in his file (to which he mentally notes that he is going to kill whoever let her see his file), that he can share hers! (It being that day). And then she insists that they cut the cake together, because she spent forever on it, and it’s his birthday too, so he has to have cake, it’s basically the law. So he cuts the cake, and inside, in the most luridly bright rainbow colours, is the SHIELD logo, all in cake! Then he looks at her face, and she’s got the most nervous look, but not like the usual nervous look that he’s used to seeing on SHIELD recruits and agents and even occasionally on Hill, because he’s never seen Darcy nervous, so he realises how much she thought about this, and how hard she worked, and how much she’s given him, and he can’t resist kissing her on the cheek, but only on the cheek, because he’s the Director of SHIELD, goddammit, and he’s basically old enough to be her father, or even her grandfather, if he started young enough, which he did, because hello, have you seen him, but then he sees that Darcy has an entirely different look on her face, and he lets her push him inside his office and close the door, and um… fade to black. (I said I can’t write smut).
As for the song, well… I think it speaks for itself.
10. Darcy/Natasha - “Fucking Perfect” - Pink
Made a wrong turn once or twice / Dug my way out, blood and fire / Bad decisions, that's alright / Welcome to my silly life / Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood / Miss 'No way, it's all good' / It didn't slow me down. / Mistaken, always second guessing / Underestimated, look I'm still around / Pretty, pretty please, don't you ever, ever feel / Like you're less than fucking perfect / Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel / Like you're nothing, you're fucking perfect to me
Okay, I’ve tried, I’ve read the fic, I’ve thought about it long and hard, but I just don’t see Darcy/Natasha as a romantic pairing. Kinky casual sex and threesomes (or moresomes) with Clint or Coulson or Steve or Tony or Bruce (or all of the above) yes, yes please, but I can’t take them seriously as a couple.
Instead, I totally see them as little sister/big sister. I can completely see Natasha taking Darcy under her wing and teaching her to kick ass and giving her a tricked out taser and helping her play pranks on the rest of the Avengers. I can see Natasha doing the whole “break her heart and they’ll never find your body” thing to any of Darcy’s potential dates, even though Darcy can totally take care of herself. I can see Darcy sneaking into the tower late at night, drunk off her face, and not so much breaking into Natasha’s rooms as begging JARVIS to let her in, to tell her all about the awesome guy she met or a particular kick-ass put down she used. I can see them hanging out in coffee shops and sparring in the gym and tag-teaming Tony with the dirtiest innuendo imaginable. I can see them making cinnamon chocolate chip pancakes together and going rock-climbing and designing complicated tables where they rate the other Avengers and various SHIELD men out of 100.
I picked this song because I can totally see Darcy getting knocked down because she’s not a super scientist or a deadly assassin or a world-famous CEO. She’s just a girl, and there’s no serious reason why she should be one of the Avengers’ inner circle. But on the same hand, I can totally see Natasha teaching Darcy these awesome girl power mantras - the sort of thing that she whispers to herself when she’s feeling scared (because no matter how composed and calm she is on the surface, Natasha is not a robot, and she does get scared and sad and nervous sometimes, and she’s been kicked around and pushed down and tortured and half-killed and she’s made some stupid decisions in the heat of the moment and lived to regret them). And Darcy is perfect the way she is, and everyone can see that, but it’s Natasha, who has so often been on the outside looking in, who sees that Darcy spends so much of her time looking after everyone else, and sometimes, she needs to be reminded that she’s worth it, that she’s perfect.
Which she is.
BONUS TRACKS:
11. Darcy/Clint - “Dixie Chicken” - Little Feat
I've seen the bright lights of Memphis and the Commodore Hotel / And, underneath a street lamp I met a Southern Belle / Well, she took me to the river where she cast her spell / And, in that southern moonlight she sang the song so well / If you'll be my Dixie Chicken, I'll be your Tennessee Lamb / And we can walk together down in Dixieland / Down in Dixieland / Well, we made all the hot spots - my money flowed like wine / And then that lowdown southern whiskey began to fog my mind / And I don't remember church bells or the money I put down / On the white picket fence and boardwalk of the house at the edge of town / Oh, but boy do I remember the strain of her refrain / And the nights we spent together, and the way she called my name
Before I talk about why Darcy/Clint = 4EVER, I have to say that I had to pick a country song for them, because of this fic - http://archiveofourown.org/works/364902 - in which Clint is secretly just as good at playing the banjo/guitar as he is at shooting things, and he becomes a COUNTRY MUSIC SUPERSTAR, called Dirk Hawksley. Oh, and he’s dating Darcy. It was the first fic I read with Clint/Darcy, and therefore, it is inscribed in my brain that Darcy/Clint = Country Music.
Anyway, Clint/Darcy works because they’re both smartarses who talk too much and make off-colour jokes and like the thrill of violence. They’re both very practical and a little bit crazy and loyal to their people.
12. Darcy/Loki - “Accidentally In Love” - Counting Crows
So she said what's the problem baby / What's the problem I don't know / Well maybe I'm in love (love) / Think about it every time / I think about it / Can't stop thinking 'bout it / How much longer will it take to cure this / Just to cure it cause I can't ignore it if it's love (love) / Makes me wanna turn around and face me but I don't know nothing 'bout love / Come on, come on / Turn a little faster / Come on, come on / The world will follow after / Come on, come on / Cause everybody's after love / So I said I'm a snowball running / Running down into the spring that's coming all this love / Melting under blue skies / Belting out sunlight / Shimmering love / Well baby I surrender / To the strawberry ice cream / Never ever end of all this love / Well I didn't mean to do it / But there's no escaping your love
There’s a fic I particularly love, “Simple, Not Easy” by LJC - http://archiveofourown.org/works/324204 -, where Loki accidentally kidnaps Darcy (thinking she’s Jane), and they become the best of friends. Even though it’s actually a Darcy/Clint, Loki/Sif story, it still makes me happy, because Loki needs someone like Darcy. He needs someone who isn’t all epic feelings and grand gestures. He needs someone laid back and casual and relaxed. He needs someone who wouldn’t die for 6 college credits, but is perfectly proud of tasing a six-foot blond Adonis. And that someone is Darcy.
I love them as friends, I love them as friends with benefits, I love them as a couple, I love them as two people who just meet up for crazy sex and icecream. I just love the idea of them being together in any way, shape or form.
I have this wonderful image in my head, of Loki in between Thor and The Avengers, all weak and hiding out on Earth, going to New Mexico because he wants to find Jane, mainly to see what all the fuss is about. Instead, he finds Darcy. Crazy adorable Darcy who doesn’t believe for a second that he could have been responsible for the whole Destroyer battle thing, but who does think he’s pretty cute and he has a gorgeous accent, so she invites him out to a bar. He’s a bit confused, but he figures that Darcy will eventually lead him to Jane, so he goes along with it. Long story short, They both get a little tipsy, then he gets a little weepy, then they end up in bed together - not even having sex, just curled up together in Darcy’s insanely tiny little bed. And she sleeps like an octopus, all hands and arms and legs all tangled up with his, resting her head on his chest, one hand gripping his, the other tangled in his hair, and there, they sleep together, all night. Then, in the morning, he wakes up first, and thinks he should probably want to run away, but he looks down at this puny mortal girl, all curled up around him with a smile on her sleeping face, and feels this rush - this rush of acceptance and love that she’s not afraid of him or repulsed by him or even amused by him. She hasn’t shrunk away from him in her sleep, but actually gotten closer, like she’s trying to crawl inside him. Like he’s safe. Like he’s loved.
Um, so yeah, this is Loki’s song. This is him experiencing requited, mutual romantic affection for the first time, and not really knowing what to do with it except ride it out and let it consume him. And it’s happy and bubblegummy because hey, that’s what Darcy does to people. ;)
13. Darcy/Jane - “My Best Friend” - Weezer
When everything is wrong I come talk to you / You make things all right when I'm feeling blue / You are such a blessing and I won’t be messing / With the one thing that brings light to all my darkness / You're my best friend / And I love you, and I love you / Yes I do / There is no other one who can take your place / I feel happy inside when I see your face / I hope you believe me / 'Cause I speak sincerely / And I mean it when I tell you that I need you
I have this image in my head of Jane posting a flyer on the Department of Social Sciences bulletin board at Culver University, with the saddest look on her face, because she’s been looking for a research assistant for weeks now, and all the physics students laughed (some in her face, some behind her back), and the rest of the science department is avoiding her because everyone thinks she’s nuts. And then she’s sitting at a café with a glass window wall, watching as a classful of students walk past the bulletin board and no one even glances at her flyer. So she goes out and gets it again and colours the big bubble letters in with a pink highlighter, and draws a smiley face in the corner, and puts it back on the bulletin board. Then she sits back in the café with a huge mug of surprisingly awful coffee and waits and waits as more and more students walk straight past. And then a girl stops, and looks at the flyer, and pulls out her phone. Then Jane’s phone rings, and it’s the girl, and she sounds dubious, but Jane promises 6 college credits and all the pop tarts she can eat and a most-of-the-expenses-paid trip to New Mexico, and the girl grins and asks her why she’s recruiting in the social sciences department and Jane practically bursts into tears and that’s when the girl notices her through the window. So the girl comes into the café and sits down beside her and steals a drag of her coffee and winces and introduces herself as Darcy. And from there, it’s like they’ve known each other forever.
After Thor, Darcy goes back to Culver and finishes off her degree, doing very well, thank you very much, and then she goes back to Jane and declares that she’s taking over as official Lab Assistant and Scientist Wrangler, and even though her job mostly consists of making sure that Jane sleeps occasionally and eats at least five portions of fruit or vegetables a week, she has the time of her life. Then they end up in Tromsø and Darcy’s never really dealt well with the cold, so she and Jane spend a lot of their non-SCIENCE time wrapped up in blankets with the really good hot chocolate and little fluffy marshmallows that Darcy had special-ordered and charged to SHIELD. Then someone smuggles an American newspaper into the base, and the whole thing is all ALIENS ATTACK MANHATTAN and AVENGERS ASSEMBLE and Jane freaks out, because, let’s face it, how dare SHIELD not even let her know that her boyfriend was back on Earth, and Darcy gets right in the face of the SHIELD agents guarding them and insists, in no uncertain terms, that they are going to put them on a private jet back to New York RIGHT THIS MINUTE, and the agents are all kinda terrified of Darcy anyway, because she’s the only one who can get Dr Foster to do anything, and she keeps reminding them that she once brought the God of Thunder down with a taser. So they go back to New York, and find out that Thor and Loki have already gone back to Asgard, and Jane freaks out again, because, SERIOUSLY? How is this her life??? And Darcy gets them the fanciest hotel suite she can find (charging it to SHIELD again, because hey, this is all their fault) and they stay up all night drinking tequila and eating the fancy room-service icecream and watching the cheesiest rom-coms Darcy knows about. Then three days later, when the hangover is gone and Darcy’s sort of gotten over the whole “wanting to murder anyone in a SHIELD uniform” thing, they go back to work. Because they’re scientists, damn it, and they’re going to find a way to get to Asgard.
So yeah, they’re best friends. They’re the sort of best friends who make each other better and can say anything to each other and take care of each other. This song is all about that. It’s about having a best friend that you love more than anything else and making sure that they know that. :D
Zip: http://www.mediafire.com/?zr749kzademf2t7
Fandom: The Avengers
Subject: All the Pairings
Title: Epic Avengers Pairings Fanmix - Darcy Special
Warnings: ALL THE FEELINGS.
Notes: I figured out that, of all the characters, Darcy is the one who I ship with pretty much everyone. Not because I think she’s a slut, but just because EVERYONE LOVES DARCY. So I decided that she deserved a special edition of the fanmix all to herself. The three pairings that I’d already done for her (Darcy/Clint, Darcy/Loki and Darcy/Jane) are bonus tracks at the end!
Warning, this one got, um, epic.
Standard disclaimer that my headcanons are insane and conflicting and don’t apply to anything but their own entries unless explicitly stated.
1. Darcy/Coulson - “Christmas TV” - Slow Club
It's okay to have scars / They will make you who you are / It's okay to have fear / Because that means you aren't scared of coming here / And in the middle of the night / So if you'll want to talk / Because you know that I want to talk too / It's not bad of you to think of what might go wrong / But you can't blame me for secretly hoping that I will prove you wrong / It's okay that I pray that you will miss your flight / And have to stay with me another night / It's brutal it's brutal / Why can’t you see / It's brutal it's brutal / What have you be / Because we are far apart / And my lonely heart / Finds it hard to get through the night / You pulled me out of the dark and now it's light
A popular post-university job for Darcy is Coulson’s assistant, and I must admit that this was probably my second Darcy ship (after Darcy/Clint). I like so many of the Darcy ships because the majority of the people in the Marvel Movieverse are so EPIC. They have grand feelings and acres of issues. The canon relationships (both explicit and implied) are fraught with all these terrible obstacles and problems with getting together or staying together. Which, I suppose, is the consequence of the storylines - there would be nothing comic-book-superheroey about a happy couple with nothing but mundane everyday banalities to overcome. Darcy, on the other hand, is probably the best candidate in the entire Marvel Movieverse for the archetypal audience insert character. She’s sweet, she’s geeky, she’s easy-going. She tased a drunk guy, and had a healthy appreciation for his gorgeous abs. She was more concerned about losing her iPod than the truckload of research and equipment. In short, she’s your average early-20s college student - and that’s something that most of us can identify with.
And so, why Darcy/Coulson in particular? Well, for one, I always like to start off with people who have at least shared a touch of screen-time, even if they did spend pretty much the entirety of that screen-time at cross-purposes. It provides a nice jumping-off point for my insane imagination. (Although you’ve probably gathered by this point that it’s really not all that necessary).
My personal headcanon for Darcy and Coulson starts after Thor. Darcy is in a bit of an odd position at this point. Jane and Erik are brilliant, brilliant scientists, and SHIELD obviously has a lot of experience with those. It’s easy for Coulson to set them up in snazzy new labs with all the equipment and assistance they could possibly ask for. Darcy, on the other hand, is a civilian, and not only is she a civilian, she’s a pesky one. She knows enough about Thor and the science to be a problem, but not enough to be of much help. So it’s Coulson’s idea for her to go back to university and finish her degree. He gets her set up with a little apartment of her own (so Jane doesn’t feel like they’ve abandoned her), and he visits her whenever he can. At first, it’s to give her a newly tricked-out taser (strictly for self-defence, obviously) and to check up on her, check that she’s still toeing the party line, not letting the cat out of the bag and all those other silly clichéd lines, but he grows to really like her. She’s simple and easy. Not stupid or dim or slutty, none of that, she’s just clean lines and fun and insisting that he wears t-shirts occasionally and takes her to the cinema because she’s scared of horror movies but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to watch them, and it’s so much more fun when there’s someone there for her to grip their hand and hide her face in their sleeve. So they make this standing date - not a date date, at least, not at first - twice a month or so where Coulson makes sure he’s in New York, and they watch a horror movie, the scariest Coulson can find, at first in a cinema, and then, as time goes by, they start having these not-a-date-date-dates at Darcy’s tiny little apartment, on her sofa, so Darcy can snuggle up to him and hide her face in his shirt at the really scary scary parts, and she can jump and gasp and no one gives her a second look. And sort of gradually, they get closer, and closer, and regular movie nights are supplemented with random meetings in coffee shops whenever they’re both free and the odd trip to Coulson’s favourite little music shop, and that time when Darcy discovered that Coulson had never been to a baseball game and she insisted on taking him, and buying them enormous hotdogs or whatever it is you eat there. And then one day, she sort-of-accidentally says “Love you” as she’s saying goodbye, and the ever-so-slight change in his expression makes her want to kiss him, so she does, and then the not-so-slight change in his expression makes her want to tear his clothes off and have sex with him right there in the hallway, but she doesn’t because he’s not that sort of guy, so she just kisses him again, and this time he kisses her back, and then he’s not just kissing her back, he’s pressing her against the wall and his hands are moving on her hips and in her hair and… well, I’m awful at writing smut, so I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination. Hopefully yours is as dirty as mine. But anyway, the following morning, Coulson’s awkward, because there is a massive age gap, and he’s old enough to be her father and he’s a little afraid of what Erik is going to say, because he and Erik have gotten to be quite good friends in the meantime (despite all the “jackbooted thugs” comments), and he’s definitely nervous about what Fury is going to say, because Fury has Ideas about Fraternisation, but then Darcy wakes up, and she sees him, and smiles, and that smile is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and suddenly it doesn’t matter that he’s twice her age and he’s probably going to have to keep this a secret, because all that matters is that she keeps looking at him like that.
God, I’m such a sap. Sorry about that. I just love the thought of Coulson falling in love with Darcy because his life is so damn complicated and she makes it easy for a bit. Also, it’s my headcanon that his motives for sending Jane to Tromsø were two-fold - to keep her safe, sure, but also to keep Darcy safe - and he didn’t mention that to Thor because he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face saying it, because he smiles whenever he says Darcy’s name.
(And the cellist is a cover. ;) )
2. Darcy/Steve - “And I Love You So” - Harry Connick Jr
I guess they understand / How lonely life has been / But life began again / The day you took my hand / And yes I know how lonely life can be / The shadows follow me / And the night won't set me free / But I don't let the evening get me down / Now that you're around me / And you love me too / Your thoughts are just for me / You set my spirit free / I'm happy that you do / The book of life is brief / And once a page is read / All but love is dead / That is my belief
There is a specific subset of fic in the Avengers fandom where Darcy punches Steve’s V-card. In some, she is a SHIELD agent (sometimes Coulson’s assistant) tasked with ‘introducing’ him to the 21st century (mostly through confusing history books and explanations of iTunes), in others she’s still Jane’s assistant, and inexplicably hangs around the Avengers Tower, mostly for shits and giggles. In any case, eventually Steve falls hopelessly in love with her, and they have sex.
I could read these fics ALL FREAKING DAY. My particular favourite is “You And Your High Top Sneakers And Sailor Tattoos” by VictoriaP ( here) - possibly because of the bit where darling virgin Steve suggests having sex on his sofa instead of his kitchen table. Not that Darcy was suggesting having sex on his kitchen table, I hasten to add.
My headcanon for these two is therefore indelibly wrapped up in all the fic I’ve read for them. But I suppose this is the way I see it going. (For everything up to the aftermath of The Avengers, see my headcanon for Darcy/Jane - track 13!)
Post-Battle of Manhattan (or, as Darcy refers to it in her head “That time Thor came back to Earth and NO ONE TOLD JANE”), Darcy insists on Jane getting one of the shiny new labs in the newly re-designed “Avengers Tower”. Of course, as soon as Tony found out about Jane, he’d already given her and Thor a floor to themselves, plus a dedicated lab near Bruce’s, because he guessed (correctly) that they were going to hit it off big time. Then Darcy realises that they were both still living at the crappy apartment in some not-so-bad part of New York that I can’t be bothered to look up, even though Jane had this awesome floor, and she laughs, and basically turns up to the tower one morning and demands to be let in. And of course, JARVIS falls in love with her on sight, because she’s DARCY and that’s what people/AIs do when they meet her, so he lets her in and tells her how to find Tony and then Tony’s all “Gee, why did no one tell me?” and tells her that if she’ll give him a couple of days, he’ll convert ‘Guest Floor Gamma’ into her own personal paradise. So she’s all “Nice!” and then she and Jane move in together and life is awesome.
Then Steve comes across her one day, in the massive communal living room, where she’s lounging on the sofa watching old Captain America propaganda films on the insanely huge TV, and wondering why her personal TV is like, half this size and also if the producers of these films had some sort of blackmail material, because surely no amount of money or patriotic pride could make him think this was a good idea. And then during one particularly effusive laughing fit, she suddenly notices Captain freaking America standing behind her, wearing khaki workout pants, and wow, they make khaki workout pants, and the most shocked, traumatised look on his face. And of course, she’s all “Dude!” and he’s all “Why are you laughing? And more importantly, where did you get that?” And then she tells him that they’re basically cult viewing, and everyone’s seen them, that they get taught in schools when kids learn about the Second World War, and he’s confused, because surely there are better examples than him. Then he sits down beside her and starts telling her about the stuff that happened behind the scenes, and she asks him about the Howling Commandos, because her teacher totally had a crush on Dum Dum Duggan for reasons she can’t explain, and he starts laughing and telling her all these stories about the war, and how there was a lot of fighting and injuries and tragedy, but there were also good times, and laughter and that time when Dernier challenged Morita to a drinking contest and they both ended up under the table in fits of giggles and there was hell to pay from Peggy the following morning. And then he gets all quiet and tells Darcy that she reminds him of Peggy, a little bit, all that dark hair and the way she laughs at him. And she blushes and punches him lightly in the arm and tells him that it’s okay to feel whatever he’s feeling, and he says that he’s feeling like he’d really like to kiss her, and she doesn’t let him have time to regret saying that, and wraps an arm round his neck and lifts herself up to kiss him. It’s good, it’s really good, and then Steve’s sensibilities take over and he breaks away and suggests that they at least have coffee together before this goes any further. And she asks him if he’s been to Starbucks yet, and the look on his face when he says no makes her giggle with glee and tell him that she is going to blow his mind, and then she’s going to blow something else, and he gets all red-faced, but he smiles. And then there’s coffee and lots of kissing and eventually there’s sex and EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL.
So, for their song, I was tempted to have something about a ‘first time’ or a ‘first love’, but then I decided that that’s not what their relationship is about. It’s about not being lonely any more. About finding someone wonderful and falling head over heels for them and not succumbing to the darkness and the nightmares because there’s someone there to hold you. So I picked this. :D
3. Darcy/Bruce - “My Best Friend” - Tim McGraw
You're more than a lover / There could never be another / To make me feel the way you do / Oh we just get closer / I fall in love all over / Every time I look at you / I don't know where I'd be / Without you here with me / Life with you makes perfect sense / You're my best friend / You're my best friend, oh yeah / You stand by me / And you believe in me / Like nobody ever has / When my world goes crazy / You're right there to save me / You make me see how much I have / And I still tremble / When we touch / And oh the look in your eyes / When we make love
Okay, another subset of fic is along the lines of “Hulk Loves Darcy”, and is another category that I could read ALL FREAKING DAY. My particular favourite of the genre is Will You Go Out With My Big Green Alter-Ego? by Dhauren, because it is wonderful and long and delightful.
(However, I’d like to put a special rec in for Take A Load Off by Tashlae, which is an absolutely hilarious fic where Loki curses the Avengers so that if they have sex, they’ll die, and Bruce and Darcy decide to test that theory.)
My reasons for liking Darcy/Bruce so much are very similar to my argument for Darcy/Loki (see track 12). Bruce, for his own sanity, needs someone pretty low-maintenance. He needs someone who’s going to have a laugh with him, who isn’t going to spend all her time talking SCIENCE and CURE and CONTROL. He needs someone who will bring him his special tea and tease him about being the Jolly Green Giant. Most importantly, he needs someone that the Hulk likes, and heck, as soon as the Hulk finds out that Darcy tased Thor, he is going to LOVE HER. (Everyone loves Darcy. Trufax.)
My personal headcanon for these two goes along the lines that Darcy meets Bruce when she moves into the Avengers Tower. Jane’s lab is pretty near Bruce’s, and they’ve heard of each other before, because the Marvel world is TINY, okay, and they’re both sort of infamous in the SHIELD science circle. But, of course, Jane is pre-occupied with working on the bridge and Bruce is too shy to introduce himself, so it’s down to Darcy to go and greet the neighbours!
Bruce is all mumbly and blushing, because he never really dealt that well with meeting beautiful women, and Darcy is gorgeous, and the first thing she says to him is “Does the Big Green Guy mean you can’t have sex?” and well, it didn’t exactly end well last time, but he’s gotten a lot better at controlling the Other Guy since then, so, maybe, maybe not? But of course, he can’t actually say that, because she sounds sincere and she might be coming on to him and they literally only just met, so he just sort of laughs and she smiles and introduces herself, and Jane, even though Jane isn’t there, and then she sits down on a lab stool, gestures to his fancy Stark Industries Interactive Table/Desk Hologram Thing and asks him to explain what he’s doing, in English, if possible. And from there, they’re friends, because Darcy finds making friends pretty easy, and she likes Bruce, so he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. (But it’s okay, because he likes her too.)
The first time Darcy actually meets the Hulk is several months later, and all because Jane accidentally blew something up. She’s in her lab, doing an experiment with lasers and prisms or something, and something doesn’t behave the way the calculations said it would and BOOM suddenly there’s a hole in the wall and then CRASH, there’s a bigger hole in the wall, and the Jolly Green Giant’s butch cousin is standing in the lab looking freaked out. Jane screams, but Darcy just steps in front of him and is all like “Hey honey! Everything’s okay, no one’s hurt, don’t worry!” And the Other Guy is all “DARCY SAFE?” and she wraps her arms around him as far as she can get and is all, “I’m fine, big guy. You got me.” And he hugs her back and lifts her up and then he lets Bruce come back and he hugs her more and there’s kissing and at some point Jane sneaks out (because she has been shipping Darcy/Bruce for weeks, and three’s a crowd).
And after that there are multiple experiments and hey, it turns out the Other Guy isn’t an issue when Bruce is having sex with Darcy!
For their song, I wanted something that reflected them being best friends that became something more, rather than falling in love at first sight. Also, I really wanted something that included the idea that Darcy isn’t afraid of the Other Guy, like most people are. She loves him and trusts him because he keeps Bruce safe. :D
4. Darcy/Sif - “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves” - Lucy Lawless (et al.)
Now there was a time when they used to say / That behind every "great man." / There had to be a "great woman." / But in these times of change you know / That it's no longer true. / So we're comin' out of the kitchen / 'Cause there's somethin' we forgot to say to you (we say) / Sisters are doin' it for themselves. / Standin' on their own two feet. / And ringin' on their own bells. / Sisters are doin' it for themselves
Strangely, I didn’t even consider this ship until I read this fic - A Girl Worth Fighting For, in which Sif defends Darcy’s honour in increasingly inappropriate ways until Darcy accidentally accepts her courtship. It’s fairly short, but excellently written, and I will forever be in its author’s debt for introducing me to such a wonderful pairing.
Sif and Darcy don’t really have any interaction onscreen in Thor, as such, but it’s my personal belief that they would get on like a house on fire. As I said in my track notes for Thor/Sif, it’s my headcanon that Sif and Thor spent most of their formative years beating the crap out of each-other, and Sif usually won. I’d say probably 7 times out of 10 (and of those 3 times she lost, at least 1 of them was her going soft on him). (This is also supported by the AWESOME animated movie Thor: Tales Of Asgard, in which a teenage Sif defeats the Mighty Thor with a stick. A stick. Yup.)
So, at some point, Jane (and probably Tony) figure out how to re-engineer the Bifrost, and then Thor and the Warriors Three and Sif all come through (probably not Loki though, at least at first), and Tony throws a massive party, because this is how Tony’s brain works, but also, this is just how they do it on Asgard; the land of the Week-Long Feasts For No Particular Reason and all that. And of course, everyone loves Darcy, and after the party, the Aesir sort of pass her around amongst themselves (not in a dirty way); Fandral flirts incessantly, and Darcy flirts right back, and he takes her dancing, and she loves him for it; Hogun is impressed by her stories about training with Natasha and that time when she took down six muggers with her bare hands (this may have been an exaggeration - she’ll never tell, and it’s not like the Warriors Three are always so completely honest about their feats of heroism); and she introduces Volgstagg to the idea of All You Can Eat restaurants (of which they are always banned after one visit) for which he is both grateful and completely enthralled. And Sif? Well, Sif finds out about Darcy’s Pocket Lightning Device, and the fact that she managed to floor Thor within seconds of meeting him, and from there, they’re the absolute best of friends. Darcy gets Sif her very own Pocket Lightning Device, which Sif declares to be a mighty weapon, worthy of any Aesir warrior. Of course, it breaks the first time Sif tries to use it, because the manufacturers obviously didn’t take into account the grip strength of god-like aliens, but Tony builds some better ones, and gives both Darcy and Sif the prototypes, which have ten times the strength and twenty times the firepower, and will put down anything from an elephant to Volgstagg (but not Thor, annoyingly - his reinstated thunder and lightning powers are no match for electrical weapons), and Sif is most impressed. (She is somewhat less impressed when the Son of Coul confiscates said tasers, citing various SHIELD directives and ordinances that prohibit the use of high-powered electrical weapons on SHIELD property).
But anyway, Sif is pretty rough and tumble (much to her prim-and-proper-Aesir mother’s dismay), and Darcy totally gets that, because she was a total tomboy growing up, brawling with her brothers and climbing trees and whatnot. So, in return for the tasers, Sif teaches Darcy some awesome fighting moves, and then they team up with Natasha and terrorise the male inhabitants of the Avengers Tower. (Not Bruce though, never Bruce).
Their song is a girl power classic. One of the first times I really heard this was on the second Xena musical episode ( video here), so I’ve always had this in mind as a song celebrating the power of kick-ass women bonding together. And so, um, I was basically forced to use Lucy Lawless’ version. ;)
5. Darcy/Thor - “Mr Blue Sky” - ELO
Sun is shinin' in the sky / There ain't a cloud in sight / It's stopped rainin' everybody’s in a play / And don't you know / It's a beautiful new day hey, hey / Runnin' down the avenue / See how the sun shines brightly in the city / On the streets where once was pity / Mister blue sky is living here today hey, hey / Mister blue sky please tell us why / You had to hide away for so long / Where did we go wrong? / Hey you with the pretty face / Welcome to the human race / A celebration, mister blue sky's up there waitin' / And today is the day we've waited for
In my eyes, Darcy/Thor is not a romantic pairing. Genuinely. It’s one of the very few Avengers pairings I’ve ever envisioned where I cannot stand the idea of them getting together in any sort of amorous or sexual manner (except in the case of threesomes with Jane, but only with Jane, and pretty much only as Jane’s idea). Because I may ship Thor with half-a-dozen people, and Jane with a few others, but I am also a devotee of the friendship between Darcy and Jane, and a girlfriend doesn’t do a girlfriend’s personal Alien Disney Prince without being a massive bitch, and Darcy is anything but a bitch. Anyway, that doesn’t stop Darcy and Thor being the most epic best friends.
My personal headcanon for them is sort of along the same lines as a lot of Darcy/Steve fics. I love the idea of Darcy kidnapping Thor whenever Jane needs to get some work done, and taking him places and teaching him things about Midgard. She introduces him to roller coasters, corn dogs, the subway, and Wii games. She takes him to science museums and natural history museums and art galleries. She organises movie trips and paintballing tournaments and karaoke nights. She shows him what it’s like to be human.
And, of course, the others tag along a lot, particularly Jane, obviously, and Steve, because Darcy is FUN and it’s nice to be normal. But Thor and Darcy are the constants.
Their song was the most difficult of all my Darcy pairings. THE MOST DIFFICULT. Because I wanted a song that was about having an awesome time with someone, but I didn’t want it to be romantic. And, oh my god, do you even know how few upbeat, fun, good time songs there are that don’t have romantic undertones? VERY FEW. At least that I could find. So, in the end, I had to go for this one.
It’s a classic, for one. A total classic, and I can totally see Darcy putting it on and turning it up, and showing Thor the joys of a proper Midgardian dance party. It’s a fun, happy, crazy song, and the fundamental message of it being a new day, and time to have fun, is something I think Darcy would really share with Thor. They’re both blue sky people, I think. Deep and sensible when needs’ must, but always ready to throw off the gloom and have a good time.
6. Darcy/Maria - “I Kissed A Girl” - Katy Perry
This was never the way I planned, not my intention. / I got so brave, drink in hand, lost my discretion / It's not what I'm used to, just wanna try you on. / I'm curious for you, caught my attention. / I kissed a girl and I liked it, / the taste of her cherry chapstick. / I kissed a girl just to try it, / I hope my boyfriend don't mind it. / It felt so wrong, / it felt so right. / Don't mean I'm in love tonight. / I kissed a girl and I liked it (I liked it).
Okay, this one comes from my own twisted imagination.
I have this wonderful image in my head of Tony throwing this awesome party as a “house-warming” for the Avengers Tower, but Fury’s a total spoilsport and he’s all “You can’t invite anyone without top-security clearance”, which means that his awesome party guest list is basically restricted to the team, their particular friends (Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, Betty, Jane, and Darcy - Erik is invited, but after the last drinking contest with Thor, he politely declines) and the SHIELD high-ups (Coulson, a few of the more senior agents, and Fury himself). Coulson drags Maria along as well, even though she’s heard about Tony’s parties and doesn’t want to subject herself to those sorts of drunken shenanigans, because Coulson is permanently of the opinion that she needs to let her hair down more often.
So they’re at the party, and just because Tony couldn’t invite his usual clientele of drunk socialites and celebutantes doesn’t mean that he can’t, as usual, attempt to get everyone completely sloshed. The party is great, lots of drunk superheroes and secret agents getting off with each-other. Particular highlights include strip shots Twister (which is a complicated game including three spinners and a not-as-drunk-as-he’s-acting Clint copping a lot of feels), Tony holding bay leaves over people’s heads and claiming it’s mistletoe, Pepper freaking out about where he got bay leaves when she knows that his kitchen only contains coffee, pop-tarts and booze, and a very drunk Betty and Jane attempting to have what appears to be a serious discussion about astrophysics.
Eventually, there’s this lull, and that’s when Tony suggests playing Spin The Bottle. And of course, it’s a bunch of really drunk, slightly sleepy people in high-risk jobs, so emotionally, they’re basically fourteen years old, and it sounds like the BEST IDEA EVER. So Natasha grabs a bottle, and they all sit in a circle, and this is where my song choice comes in. It’s maybe the fourth spin, and it’s Maria’s go, and it lands on Darcy, and there are all these wolf whistles, and Maria crawls across the circle, and then Darcy holds a finger up (‘wait!’) and she applies some extra chapstick, and then she plants one on Maria like you wouldn’t believe, and it’s so forceful that Maria almost topples backwards, but Darcy sort of grabs her and pulls her instead, so Darcy ends up on her back, with Maria on top of her, still attached at the lips, and then Darcy’s hands are in Maria’s hair, and Maria’s hands are all over the place. Steve looks positively traumatised (mostly because he fancies both of them, and this image is giving him some serious problems in the trouser department, and he thanks God that he’s not wearing his costume right now, because that kevlar/spandex stuff hides absolutely nothing), and Pepper is unsuccessfully trying to cover Tony’s eyes, because he’s literally drooling and looks like he wants to start throwing money at them. The rest have varying reactions, but it doesn’t matter, because Darcy’s making all these delicious noises and Maria’s lips have moved from Darcy’s, down her neck and she’s currently sucking a frankly impressive hickey right over her jugular, and she has one hand on the floor and the other on Darcy’s similarly impressive rack. Then Maria seems to remember where she is and jumps up like she’s been burned, and Darcy’s just lying on the floor, looking totally shagged out and happy, and Maria slightly freaks out and is about to flee from the room when Darcy opens her eyes and gives her this glowing smile and is all “Hey, that was nice” and “Can we do that again sometime?” and Maria softens a bit and sits back down in her place, all blushing and smiling, and not really believing what just happened, but not so much regretting it as regretting she hadn’t done it sooner.
And so, um, Katy Perry. Being all cute and happy and kissing girls for the hell of it. Like Maria and Darcy.
7. Darcy/Tony - “Gettin’ You Home” - Chris Young
Honey, I know you love gettin' dressed up / And you know I love showin' you off / Watchin' your baby blue eyes / Dancin' in the candlelight glow / All I can think about is gettin' you home / Walkin' through the front door / Seein' your black dress hit the floor / Honey there sure ain't nothing / Like you lovin' me all night long / And all I can think about is gettin' you home… / Honey, I know by that look in your eyes / And your hand drawin' hearts onto mine / That our night out of the house / Ain't gonna last too long / When all you can think about is gettin' me home
Darcy/Tony is probably my second favourite Tony pairing. In my eyes, they’re this hilarious couple who play crazy pranks on the rest of the Avengers, and are regularly caught having sex on any available surface. The whole twenty-year age gap doesn’t bother them, because hey, Tony never really stopped dating 22 year olds, and Darcy’s had a thing for older men since she was seven and first saw Labyrinth on TV and fell head over heels in love with David Bowie (she was always a weird kid).
However, I do have this whole headcanon thing where Darcy is the middle kid out of five (four brothers) and they’re all super-protective of her, and Tony doesn’t exactly have the best reputation, even with the whole “saving mankind from aliens” thing, so at one point, all Darcy’s brothers threaten to roast Tony alive with his own repulsor gauntlets, which, actually does scare him a bit, so he’s always a total gentleman when Darcy takes him home.
But anyways, they totally get together almost by accident? It’s one of those situations where they’re just two people who happen to live in the same insanely awesome tower, who are sort of friends but mostly in the way that they mock each-other’s taste in music and clothes and Tony bitches that JARVIS likes her better than him and Darcy’s all ‘you designed him, dude, what does that say about you?’, which makes him sulk the first time and fight back the rest. So, they’re having one of their fun banter-y conversations, which are like 90% double entendre and innuendo and everyone else has just totally given up with them, because they’re far too alike in most respects to be anything other than what they are, and it’s not like they’ll listen to anyone else, even Coulson, and he has totally tried. And they get into this banter spiral that I refer to as “sex-talk-chicken”, where each of them is suggesting having sex, but neither of them really mean it, but they both want the other one to break first, but, hey, this is Tony and Darcy, so neither of them are going to give the other the satisfaction of victory, so eventually they kiss, and, it’s not exactly like a dam breaks or fireworks go off or any of those stupid clichés, but they both simultaneously realise that this feels pretty good, and they break apart, and Tony’s like “bedroom?” because this is still sort of happening in public (Jane and Clint are on the sofa watching children’s cartoons, because this is something they inexplicably have in common) and Bruce is in the open plan kitchen making tea and trying not to roll his eyes every 15 seconds. And Darcy raises an eyebrow and says “Race you!” and dashes out of the room, giggling, and Tony is instantly grateful that Steve’s been beating his ass all month in the gym doing stamina exercises, because he may have a stellar reputation, but it has been a couple of years and, um, shrapnel to the heart and several near-death-experiences since he last did a girl half his age and he is totally intending to do Darcy all night long. Then, the following morning, after copious amounts of sex, he wakes up, and she’s still there, and looking kinda nervous, and he asks her what’s wrong, and she tells him that she promised herself that she’d never have a one-night-stand with a superhero, and he’s all “One-night stand?” and she frowns and he reaches out and twists his hand in her hair and kisses her and tells her that he’s all hers for as long as she wants him. And then he makes an absolutely filthy joke, which she just has to one-up, and they both laugh, and just like that, they have this wonderful, hilarious, sexy relationship, and JARVIS is really happy for them (because he does like Darcy best), and the others think it’s both the best and worst idea ever, but at least the sexual tension has somewhere to go now.
So for their song, I had to pick something fun and upbeat and sexy, like them. I heard this song, and just pictured the Avengers crew at some sort of fancy black-tie ball or dinner or something, and then Darcy catches Tony’s eye, and grins, and then he smiles back, makes a hasty excuse (probably the truth, knowing Tony), and they dare each-other to make it the whole way back to Stark Tower before he rips her dress off. Which, of course, he only just manages, because he’s Tony, the God of Instant Gratification, and Darcy’s not that much better, but they manage to just get to Tony’s floor before Darcy gets too impatient and rips her own dress off. And then sex. ;)
8. Darcy/Pepper - “Good Friend And A Glass Of Wine” - Leanne Rimes
Who died and crowned me everybody's everything / I'm even busting my butt through the weekend / By the time I get home there's not an ounce of sanity / Between the dogs, my momma's calls / Is it against the law / For me to get what I need? / A good friend and a glass of wine / Someone to say it's gonna be all right / A good friend and a glass of wine / A little pick me up to get me through the night / We talk trash n' we laugh and cry / That kind of therapy money can't buy / Every now and then, every now and then / Every girl needs a good friend and a glass of wine
Another little story that came from my twisted imagination.
Pepper meets Darcy on her first day at the Avengers Tower. It’s Saturday night, and she’s just come back from a long day of board meetings and finance presentations and client appointments at Stark Industries, and it’s gone midnight and she’s hungry and tired as hell and Tony’s nowhere to be found, so she goes into the communal kitchen and… there’s a woman there. A woman with a box, a box of wine, and a pan on the hob of something that smells like heaven. And of course, she’s not all that fazed, because hey, this isn’t the first time she’s walked into Tony’s kitchen and found a strange woman there, even if that hasn’t happened since before they got together, and, actually, hey, actually not since before Afghanistan, even, well done Tony, and just as she’s about to clear her throat or something, the woman turns around, almost drops her glass, and screams “OMG YOU’RE PEPPER POTTS!” (like that, saying Oh Em Gee instead of Oh My God). And Pepper doesn’t quite know what to say, so she just stands there with her eyebrows raised, and nods, and the woman is all “I’m Darcy!” as if that explains everything, and then “Jane’s lab assistant?” and then “Thor’s BFF?” and then finally “I live here now?” and suddenly the pieces click into place and Tony did mention that, but it was at least fifteen thousand horrifically dull meetings ago, so of course she’d completely forgotten. So she smiles and laughs and puts out her hand for Darcy to shake and says “Of course, welcome! I didn’t realise you were moving in so soon.” And Darcy grins and is all “You’re CEO of Stark Industries and Tony Stark’s girlfriend, you’re totally allowed to forget silly things like me” and she offers her a glass of the box, box, wine, which Pepper actually hasn’t drunk in about 14 years, since before she was Tony’s P.A. and she couldn’t afford anything better, and Darcy obviously notices the look on her face because she laughs and says “It tastes like battery acid but it’s cheap and gets you hammered fast, and you look like you need it”. So Pepper takes a sip and yes, it does taste like battery acid, but it’s been so long since she had a woman around who was this friendly and not on her payroll (Natasha notwithstanding) so she swallows it down anyway and says thank you. Then Darcy asks if she’s hungry, because Darcy only knows how to cook for a small football team, and that’s not so bad when Thor’s around, but it’s way too much food for her alone, and Jane’s already asleep, so she invites Pepper to join her for dinner. And Pepper has never heard anything that sounded quite so good, so she says yes, and Darcy serves her this massive bowl full of chicken stew with tiny dumplings and little potatoes, and tops up her glass and then digs in like she hasn’t eaten in days, which is exactly what Pepper needed, because she digs in too, only the lingering traces of her dignity restraining her from just dipping her whole face in the bowl, and it tastes even better than it smelled, all home-cooked and real the way food in restaurants never is. And when they’ve eaten enough to be able to talk again, Darcy asks her about her day, and no one ever asks her about her day (that cares about the answer, anyway), and that’s enough to make Pepper burst into tears, and Darcy hugs her and lets her cry and tells her that she could never be the sort of strong, capable, efficient woman that Pepper is, which obviously just makes her cry more, but it’s a good cry, a cathartic, stress-release cry, and when she recovers, she feels better than she has in years. And Darcy grins and says she has that effect on people, and they chat about the stresses of working with hyperactive geniuses who don’t sleep or eat properly and keep defying the laws of physics, which is something they totally have in common, and before they know it, the sun’s coming up and Pepper really ought to go back to work, but Darcy, bad Darcy, convinces her to call in sick, and they sleep (in their own beds) for like 12 hours, and then they spend the following evening drinking more awful box, box, wine and they chat and laugh together until the world makes a little more sense. And then they do it again, at least three times a month for the rest of time. :D
9. Darcy/Fury - “Cut The Cake” - Average White Band
Cut the cake / Give me a little piece / Let me lick up the cream / Cut the cake / Well, just a little piece / baby you know what I mean / Cut the cake / Give me a little piece / A little lovin' on the side / Cut the cake / I need a little piece / Just to keep me satisfied
Hehe, I love the idea of this pairing. There’s just something about the matching of the sweet, easy-going college student and the dry, hard-as-diamond secret agent boss that makes me go all YES, YES PLEASE! This is the way I see it going.
Darcy is a problem. She knows enough about Jane’s research and Thor and Loki and the rest of Asgard and even the Tesseract to be a liability, but she’s not quite scientifically educated enough to actually be on either Erik or Jane’s official SHIELD-funded lab teams, and she doesn’t show enough promise (tasing of a god notwithstanding) to train as an agent (plus, she doesn’t want to), so Coulson has no idea what to do with her. Naturally, he takes the problem to Fury, because what few things Coulson doesn’t know, Fury probably does, and Fury is all “why can’t we take care of her?” meaning kill her, because Fury can be a dick like that sometimes, but Coulson points out that Jane would notice, and Thor loves Darcy, and killing her would more than likely end with them making Thor pretty angry, and you don’t want an Aesir angry at you, so, somehow, Darcy ends up as Coulson’s assistant. Coulson’s assistants don’t tend to last all that long, not in a “they get killed” kind of way, but Coulson has to deal with a lot - a lot a lot - of paperwork, that all needs to be signed and filed properly and colour coded and cross-referenced and some of it needs to be copied and sent elsewhere, and some of it needs to be printed on the special paper that dissolves when exposed to natural light or saliva or whatever, and well, whoever deals with Coulson naturally also has to deal with Clint Barton, and therefore, being Coulson’s assistant tends to be one of the higher high-stress jobs offered in the SHIELD support division.
And at first, it looks like Darcy is taking to it like a duck to water (in the way that she mostly just hangs out and creates a mess and turns the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet behind her desk into a snack repository), but eventually her preternatural talents surface for wrangling people and convincing them to eat healthy food and occasionally take consecutive hours of leisure time that don’t involve sleep or practical chores, and Coulson realises that she’s far too important to be stuck behind the desk outside his office (read: he’s tired of his daily paperwork coming with non-negotiable sandwiches and tickets to sporting events), so Darcy ends up outside Fury’s office with a plate full of Darcy’s Patented Brownies (which actually contain both a small country’s GDP of chocolate and two portions of fruit per square) and the listings for all the cinemas in a 30 mile radius of the SHIELD base they happen to be in right then (which is in Manhattan, so that’s a lot of cinemas). He turns her away immediately, because he’s the Director of SHIELD, goddammit, and he doesn’t have time for movies, but she leaves the plate of Darcy’s Patented Brownies on the table by his office door, takes three steps away, and by the time she looks over her shoulder, they’ve disappeared, so she grins, and thinks that at least there is some reasonably healthy and completely delicious eating in his immediate future, so that’s a start. And then she just keeps on at him. Brownies, cookies, cheesy buns, all sorts of yummy things, which she first bugs him about, and then eventually leaves on the table when he manages to get her to leave - all the time denying that he’s eaten any of it (which of course, he has - even he isn’t completely impervious to Darcy’s considerable charms). Of course, what he doesn’t realise is that Darcy is using the food to gradually wear down his walls, because she has a total crush on him, and, as her mother said, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach!
Which, is of course true, because, at last, one day, Darcy turns up with the most enormous cake that anyone has ever seen, all chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles and little stars, and Fury opens his office door to tell her to go away, but he can’t resist the insanely huge smile on her face, and he asks her what’s so special about the cake, and she says that she’s decided, as he doesn’t have a birthday listed in his file (to which he mentally notes that he is going to kill whoever let her see his file), that he can share hers! (It being that day). And then she insists that they cut the cake together, because she spent forever on it, and it’s his birthday too, so he has to have cake, it’s basically the law. So he cuts the cake, and inside, in the most luridly bright rainbow colours, is the SHIELD logo, all in cake! Then he looks at her face, and she’s got the most nervous look, but not like the usual nervous look that he’s used to seeing on SHIELD recruits and agents and even occasionally on Hill, because he’s never seen Darcy nervous, so he realises how much she thought about this, and how hard she worked, and how much she’s given him, and he can’t resist kissing her on the cheek, but only on the cheek, because he’s the Director of SHIELD, goddammit, and he’s basically old enough to be her father, or even her grandfather, if he started young enough, which he did, because hello, have you seen him, but then he sees that Darcy has an entirely different look on her face, and he lets her push him inside his office and close the door, and um… fade to black. (I said I can’t write smut).
As for the song, well… I think it speaks for itself.
10. Darcy/Natasha - “Fucking Perfect” - Pink
Made a wrong turn once or twice / Dug my way out, blood and fire / Bad decisions, that's alright / Welcome to my silly life / Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood / Miss 'No way, it's all good' / It didn't slow me down. / Mistaken, always second guessing / Underestimated, look I'm still around / Pretty, pretty please, don't you ever, ever feel / Like you're less than fucking perfect / Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel / Like you're nothing, you're fucking perfect to me
Okay, I’ve tried, I’ve read the fic, I’ve thought about it long and hard, but I just don’t see Darcy/Natasha as a romantic pairing. Kinky casual sex and threesomes (or moresomes) with Clint or Coulson or Steve or Tony or Bruce (or all of the above) yes, yes please, but I can’t take them seriously as a couple.
Instead, I totally see them as little sister/big sister. I can completely see Natasha taking Darcy under her wing and teaching her to kick ass and giving her a tricked out taser and helping her play pranks on the rest of the Avengers. I can see Natasha doing the whole “break her heart and they’ll never find your body” thing to any of Darcy’s potential dates, even though Darcy can totally take care of herself. I can see Darcy sneaking into the tower late at night, drunk off her face, and not so much breaking into Natasha’s rooms as begging JARVIS to let her in, to tell her all about the awesome guy she met or a particular kick-ass put down she used. I can see them hanging out in coffee shops and sparring in the gym and tag-teaming Tony with the dirtiest innuendo imaginable. I can see them making cinnamon chocolate chip pancakes together and going rock-climbing and designing complicated tables where they rate the other Avengers and various SHIELD men out of 100.
I picked this song because I can totally see Darcy getting knocked down because she’s not a super scientist or a deadly assassin or a world-famous CEO. She’s just a girl, and there’s no serious reason why she should be one of the Avengers’ inner circle. But on the same hand, I can totally see Natasha teaching Darcy these awesome girl power mantras - the sort of thing that she whispers to herself when she’s feeling scared (because no matter how composed and calm she is on the surface, Natasha is not a robot, and she does get scared and sad and nervous sometimes, and she’s been kicked around and pushed down and tortured and half-killed and she’s made some stupid decisions in the heat of the moment and lived to regret them). And Darcy is perfect the way she is, and everyone can see that, but it’s Natasha, who has so often been on the outside looking in, who sees that Darcy spends so much of her time looking after everyone else, and sometimes, she needs to be reminded that she’s worth it, that she’s perfect.
Which she is.
BONUS TRACKS:
11. Darcy/Clint - “Dixie Chicken” - Little Feat
I've seen the bright lights of Memphis and the Commodore Hotel / And, underneath a street lamp I met a Southern Belle / Well, she took me to the river where she cast her spell / And, in that southern moonlight she sang the song so well / If you'll be my Dixie Chicken, I'll be your Tennessee Lamb / And we can walk together down in Dixieland / Down in Dixieland / Well, we made all the hot spots - my money flowed like wine / And then that lowdown southern whiskey began to fog my mind / And I don't remember church bells or the money I put down / On the white picket fence and boardwalk of the house at the edge of town / Oh, but boy do I remember the strain of her refrain / And the nights we spent together, and the way she called my name
Before I talk about why Darcy/Clint = 4EVER, I have to say that I had to pick a country song for them, because of this fic - http://archiveofourown.org/works/364902 - in which Clint is secretly just as good at playing the banjo/guitar as he is at shooting things, and he becomes a COUNTRY MUSIC SUPERSTAR, called Dirk Hawksley. Oh, and he’s dating Darcy. It was the first fic I read with Clint/Darcy, and therefore, it is inscribed in my brain that Darcy/Clint = Country Music.
Anyway, Clint/Darcy works because they’re both smartarses who talk too much and make off-colour jokes and like the thrill of violence. They’re both very practical and a little bit crazy and loyal to their people.
12. Darcy/Loki - “Accidentally In Love” - Counting Crows
So she said what's the problem baby / What's the problem I don't know / Well maybe I'm in love (love) / Think about it every time / I think about it / Can't stop thinking 'bout it / How much longer will it take to cure this / Just to cure it cause I can't ignore it if it's love (love) / Makes me wanna turn around and face me but I don't know nothing 'bout love / Come on, come on / Turn a little faster / Come on, come on / The world will follow after / Come on, come on / Cause everybody's after love / So I said I'm a snowball running / Running down into the spring that's coming all this love / Melting under blue skies / Belting out sunlight / Shimmering love / Well baby I surrender / To the strawberry ice cream / Never ever end of all this love / Well I didn't mean to do it / But there's no escaping your love
There’s a fic I particularly love, “Simple, Not Easy” by LJC - http://archiveofourown.org/works/324204 -, where Loki accidentally kidnaps Darcy (thinking she’s Jane), and they become the best of friends. Even though it’s actually a Darcy/Clint, Loki/Sif story, it still makes me happy, because Loki needs someone like Darcy. He needs someone who isn’t all epic feelings and grand gestures. He needs someone laid back and casual and relaxed. He needs someone who wouldn’t die for 6 college credits, but is perfectly proud of tasing a six-foot blond Adonis. And that someone is Darcy.
I love them as friends, I love them as friends with benefits, I love them as a couple, I love them as two people who just meet up for crazy sex and icecream. I just love the idea of them being together in any way, shape or form.
I have this wonderful image in my head, of Loki in between Thor and The Avengers, all weak and hiding out on Earth, going to New Mexico because he wants to find Jane, mainly to see what all the fuss is about. Instead, he finds Darcy. Crazy adorable Darcy who doesn’t believe for a second that he could have been responsible for the whole Destroyer battle thing, but who does think he’s pretty cute and he has a gorgeous accent, so she invites him out to a bar. He’s a bit confused, but he figures that Darcy will eventually lead him to Jane, so he goes along with it. Long story short, They both get a little tipsy, then he gets a little weepy, then they end up in bed together - not even having sex, just curled up together in Darcy’s insanely tiny little bed. And she sleeps like an octopus, all hands and arms and legs all tangled up with his, resting her head on his chest, one hand gripping his, the other tangled in his hair, and there, they sleep together, all night. Then, in the morning, he wakes up first, and thinks he should probably want to run away, but he looks down at this puny mortal girl, all curled up around him with a smile on her sleeping face, and feels this rush - this rush of acceptance and love that she’s not afraid of him or repulsed by him or even amused by him. She hasn’t shrunk away from him in her sleep, but actually gotten closer, like she’s trying to crawl inside him. Like he’s safe. Like he’s loved.
Um, so yeah, this is Loki’s song. This is him experiencing requited, mutual romantic affection for the first time, and not really knowing what to do with it except ride it out and let it consume him. And it’s happy and bubblegummy because hey, that’s what Darcy does to people. ;)
13. Darcy/Jane - “My Best Friend” - Weezer
When everything is wrong I come talk to you / You make things all right when I'm feeling blue / You are such a blessing and I won’t be messing / With the one thing that brings light to all my darkness / You're my best friend / And I love you, and I love you / Yes I do / There is no other one who can take your place / I feel happy inside when I see your face / I hope you believe me / 'Cause I speak sincerely / And I mean it when I tell you that I need you
I have this image in my head of Jane posting a flyer on the Department of Social Sciences bulletin board at Culver University, with the saddest look on her face, because she’s been looking for a research assistant for weeks now, and all the physics students laughed (some in her face, some behind her back), and the rest of the science department is avoiding her because everyone thinks she’s nuts. And then she’s sitting at a café with a glass window wall, watching as a classful of students walk past the bulletin board and no one even glances at her flyer. So she goes out and gets it again and colours the big bubble letters in with a pink highlighter, and draws a smiley face in the corner, and puts it back on the bulletin board. Then she sits back in the café with a huge mug of surprisingly awful coffee and waits and waits as more and more students walk straight past. And then a girl stops, and looks at the flyer, and pulls out her phone. Then Jane’s phone rings, and it’s the girl, and she sounds dubious, but Jane promises 6 college credits and all the pop tarts she can eat and a most-of-the-expenses-paid trip to New Mexico, and the girl grins and asks her why she’s recruiting in the social sciences department and Jane practically bursts into tears and that’s when the girl notices her through the window. So the girl comes into the café and sits down beside her and steals a drag of her coffee and winces and introduces herself as Darcy. And from there, it’s like they’ve known each other forever.
After Thor, Darcy goes back to Culver and finishes off her degree, doing very well, thank you very much, and then she goes back to Jane and declares that she’s taking over as official Lab Assistant and Scientist Wrangler, and even though her job mostly consists of making sure that Jane sleeps occasionally and eats at least five portions of fruit or vegetables a week, she has the time of her life. Then they end up in Tromsø and Darcy’s never really dealt well with the cold, so she and Jane spend a lot of their non-SCIENCE time wrapped up in blankets with the really good hot chocolate and little fluffy marshmallows that Darcy had special-ordered and charged to SHIELD. Then someone smuggles an American newspaper into the base, and the whole thing is all ALIENS ATTACK MANHATTAN and AVENGERS ASSEMBLE and Jane freaks out, because, let’s face it, how dare SHIELD not even let her know that her boyfriend was back on Earth, and Darcy gets right in the face of the SHIELD agents guarding them and insists, in no uncertain terms, that they are going to put them on a private jet back to New York RIGHT THIS MINUTE, and the agents are all kinda terrified of Darcy anyway, because she’s the only one who can get Dr Foster to do anything, and she keeps reminding them that she once brought the God of Thunder down with a taser. So they go back to New York, and find out that Thor and Loki have already gone back to Asgard, and Jane freaks out again, because, SERIOUSLY? How is this her life??? And Darcy gets them the fanciest hotel suite she can find (charging it to SHIELD again, because hey, this is all their fault) and they stay up all night drinking tequila and eating the fancy room-service icecream and watching the cheesiest rom-coms Darcy knows about. Then three days later, when the hangover is gone and Darcy’s sort of gotten over the whole “wanting to murder anyone in a SHIELD uniform” thing, they go back to work. Because they’re scientists, damn it, and they’re going to find a way to get to Asgard.
So yeah, they’re best friends. They’re the sort of best friends who make each other better and can say anything to each other and take care of each other. This song is all about that. It’s about having a best friend that you love more than anything else and making sure that they know that. :D
Zip: http://www.mediafire.com/?zr749kzademf2t7