she blinded me with political science 5/10
The girl was maybe four or five, and she pressed her face shyly into her father’s thigh as the reporter leaned in over her.
The girl was maybe four or five, and she pressed her face shyly into her father’s thigh as the reporter leaned in over her. He was smiling in that jovial, faintly patronizing way that grownups sometimes got when they were talking to little kids. That look had always make ten-year-old Darcy kind of want to punch people in the throat.
“What do you think of the Avengers, sweetheart?” the reporter asked.
The girl turned her head further, so that all the camera could see was a head full of corn silk fine black hair and the back of purple shirt pattered with pink and blue flowers.
“Do you have a favorite Avenger?” asked the reporter, apparently cottoning on to the fact that asking an introverted five-year-old to weigh in on current events and public policy wasn’t going to yield much in the way of results.
The girl was silent. Her father shrugged, amused but not particularly apologetic.
“Black Widow,” the girl said, and she was quiet with her mouth muffled against the denim of her father’s jeans but the mic picked it up anyway. “She’s really cool.”
“Oh my God, that is just precious,” Darcy said. “JARVIS, did you get that?”
“I am recording as requested, Ms. Lewis.”
*
The second time Darcy showed up on Bruce’s doorstep, it was well after midnight and she was clutching her favorite monkey blanket to her chest like it was her maiden virtue.
“They’re really loud,” she said in her most pathetic voice. “And Thor gets up in the middle of the night to make poptarts. Naked.”
Bruce looks bemused, but also sympathetic. “Naked Thor is a... bad thing?”
“Drooling over your best-friend-slash-boss’ man candy is always a bad thing,” Darcy said. “Total violation of the girl code. Also, I wasn’t expecting naked man in my living room at oh-god-oh-god-o’clock, and I screamed. And Thor thought there was danger, so he summoned Mew-Mew. And accidentally broke the wall.”
“He broke the wall.”
“Yes.” Darcy looked up at him through her lashes. “Can I sleep on your couch again?”
“I have a second bedroom,” Bruce said, and Darcy thought that she must look really pathetic, because he actually took her by the shoulders to guide her inside. She wondered if he knew that his thumbs were stroking little circles against the tops of her shoulders, or just how completely unfair that was since she thought her chances of bypassing the guestroom in favor of the bedroom were so low they approached zero. Doctor Bruce Banner was a freaking tease.
...she needed to get laid. If she was actually starting to think of her shoulders as erogenous zones, it had obviously been way too long. Either that or she was ridiculously far gone on the doctor, and that was probably going to turn out to be exactly as disastrous as it sounded in Darcy’s head.
Darcy sighed and pushed back into the touch. Just a little.
She felt rather than saw Bruce tense behind her, his hands tightening reflexively on her shoulders. A hot puff of breath, almost but not quite surprise, stirred her hair. He leaned a little closer, just close enough for Darcy to feel the warmth of him against her spine, and for a moment all she could think was yes and this.
She started to turn, and his hands dropped from her shoulders. He stepped away.
For a moment, Darcy was very nearly angry, because it was one thing if he wasn’t interested or didn’t notice, but it was kind of another if he was just messing with her. That wasn’t very nice, and it sure as hell wasn’t very cool. Darcy wasn’t big on playing games, and she didn’t like the idea of someone deciding to play one with her.
He didn’t look like he was playing. His face was carefully blank, and he was breathing deep and slow, in through the nose and out through the mouth like that chick in the one yoga class Darcy had taken before realizing humans weren’t supposed to bend that way had tried to teach her. He was also back to not making eye contact, and that had gotten old, like, weeks ago.
For a moment, Darcy wanted to just come out and say it, because ‘not interested’ was sort of sliding off the table but ‘completely oblivious’ was gaining speed, right alongside ‘damaged in some way that she wasn’t sure she was equipped to deal with,’ and whatever the case was, she wanted to know.
“Second bedroom is down the hall on the right,” he said, and it was entirely clear that he was trying to pretend that not a damn thing had just happened. Which, also not cool, but probably tomorrow’s problem rather than tonight’s. He already seemed a little edgy, and something warned her that, as always, it was better not to push him too far, or too hard.
“Okay,” Darcy said. “Okay, thanks. I appreciate it, Doc. I’ll see you in the morning.”
The guest bedroom was - weird. The walls were painted a soothing blue, but they were also covered in some kind of thick, hard plastic. There were no windows. The bed appeared to be bolted to the floor.
Whatever. Tony Stark’s weird decorating choices were another of tomorrow’s problems.
“My life, fuck it,” Darcy muttered, and collapsed onto the bed.
So, yeah. Definitely too far gone. That was one question answered, at least.
*
Bruce was gone by the time she woke up in the morning.
Of course he was.
*
It was odd, because Darcy sort of expected Bruce to be all weird after their little almost-moment. If anything, he was more chatty than he had been before. Chatty for him was still approaching silent when compared to Jane or especially Tony, but it was a hell of a lot more than she’d gotten from him before.
“Favorite color,” he said the next day while they were working in the lab, and the sole reason Darcy knew Bruce was addressing her was that when she looked at Erik, the only other person in the room, he shrugged and stared at her pointedly.
“Green,” she said, baffled.
“Hmm,” Bruce said, and appeared satisfied.
“Why does Tony call you Betty?” he asked, two hours almost to the minute later.
“Boop or Page, according to him.” Darcy considered for a moment. “It’s also possible that he really and truly believes it’s my name.”
She was probably imagining the little huff of laughter that came from behind his computer console.
“Boxers or briefs?” she asked, because that only seemed fair.
He looked up from his computer briefly. His gaze caught hers, and for a second Darcy thought there was - a something, to it. Another little almost-moment. A hint of heat. He was smilingly faintly as he looked away. “I’m not going to answer that.”
“So they’re like Schrödinger's underwear?”
Erik choked. Bruce shrugged. Darcy looked thoughtful.
“Am I allowed to ask other questions?” she wondered, trying to feel her way around the edges of whatever new rules Bruce had established while she was looking the other way. Flirting with a physicist was complicated.
He looked nervous, which just proved that he was as smart as rumors might lead her to believe. “O-kay,” he said slowly, like he already knew that agreeing was a bad idea.
Erik stood. “I’ve got to go. There are... things... which I must do.”
Darcy looked at him. She raised an eyebrow. Erik was a terrible liar. She had gotten Clint to score her the SHIELD recording of him trying to fib Thor’s way out of government custody while they had been in New Mexico, and it had been the most hilarious three minutes of listening to someone awkward his way into an even deeper hole that she had every heard in her life.
He looked at Darcy. Then he sighed. “This conversation is horrible and it makes me uncomfortable. I am going to leave now. I would like you to never try to use quantum physics to flirt again.”
“I’ve already exhausted the entirety of my knowledge on the subject,” Darcy said cheerfully.
Erik looked like this statement was actually physically painful to him. He exited the room pretty quickly after that.
Darcy looked at Bruce.
Bruce lifted an eyebrow of his own.
“Cats or dogs?” Darcy asked.
*
natasha i need your help, the text read.
Who do I have to shoot?
what? no! why would you ask me that? there will be no shooting.
A few seconds passed.
but you’re still on leave, right? i think i need you to go to brazil.
*
from: Clint Barton
to: Darcy Lewis
date: Sun, July 22, 2012 at 6:05 AM
subject: Re: OPERATION: DOG
Darcy,
You owe me so many beers when we get back.
Also, these codenames are stupid, and I refuse to use them.
I’m a bit player in a fucking romantic comedy, and it is all your fault.
- C
from: Darcy Lewis
to: Clint Barton
date: Sun, July 22, 2012 at 10:27 AM
subject: Re: Re: OPERATION: DOG
Whatever you say, Miss Kitty.
from: T. Stark
to: Darcy Lewis
date: Mon, July 23, 2012 at 12:49 AM
subject: Tell me
What is OPERATION: DOG? Tell me, tell me right now. I am your boss, and deserve to know these things, because anything that drives Clint to drink and admit that he watches romantic comedies is way too funny for me to be left out of it. Knowing will make me so happy. Don’t you want me to be happy, Betty?
from: Darcy Lewis
to: T. Stark
date: Mon, July 23, 2012 at 08:12 AM
subject: Re: Tell me
Need-to-know basis only, Tony.
Also, Pepper is my boss.
xoxox Darcy
from: Darcy Lewis
to: Clint Barton
date: Mon, July 23, 2012 at 08:14 AM
subject: Fwd: Re: Tell me
I told you so.
from: Clint Barton
to: Darcy Lewis
date: Mon, July 23, 2012 at 4:20 PM
subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Tell me
I stand corrected.
- Miss Kitty
from: Nicholas Fury
to: Darcy Lewis
date: Tue, July 24, 2012 at 7:52 AM
subject: See me in my office
We need to have a little chat about misallocation of SHIELD resources.
*
“...so I go in there, right? And I figure he’s going to rip me a new one, and also that no one will ever find my horrifically mutilated corpse,” Darcy said, waving her naan through the air to illustrate.
“What happened?” Jane asked.
Darcy shrugged. “Nothing. I explained why I had asked Natasha and Clint to go to Brazil, and reminded him that they were on leave, and he just stroked his chin and said all serious-like, ‘I suppose that Doctor Banner will find that very soothing,’ or something.” She bit down viciously on the bread in her hand.
“Huh,” Jane said.
“I do not like this food,” Thor said sadly to his curry, “for it is mighty, and makes my tongue hurt.”
Jane patted his shoulder. “Come on, baby. Let’s make you some poptarts.”
*
“It’s just not natural,” the woman told the camera, a Whole Foods sign visible over her left shoulder, a toddler on one hip and a grocery bag in the opposite hand. “People weren’t meant to have that kind of power.”
*
Darcy first met the Hulk because she really, really should have paid more attention during orientation, or maybe have read the manual.
It was a Wednesday, and SHIELD Central had kind of been invaded. Consuela had said something about panic rooms and anyone below a level three clearance before trotting off with what was apparently a top secret briefcase, handed to her by Agent Sitwell, and a gun. None of which was particularly helpful to Darcy now, because the panic rooms were, surprise, surprise, well hidden, and she didn’t have the faintest clue where to start looking.
All in all, Darcy was feeling pretty okay. She had already tased two guys in weird militaristic outfits and watched both of them go flying back, and god bless Tony fucking Stark for that.
Of course, she probably would have felt better had the man standing in front of her not managed to raise his gun before she could fry his ass.
Slowly, she let the taser drop and raised both of her hands above her head. It was worth a shot. The man smiled slowly, and Darcy was sure he was moments away from using the hand not holding the gun to twist the mustache that he totally had when this massive blur of green just shot around the corner.
The man half-turned, and had just enough time to shout out, “If a head is cut off, two more-urk!” before he ended up slightly flatter than he had been before on the floor near Darcy’s feet.
“Oh, good,” Darcy said, and felt relieved for the approximately two seconds it took her to remember that there was a Hulk standing in the hallway with her.
The Hulk stared at Darcy for a few seconds, then grunted. He reached out and patted her on the head twice with a green hand roughly the same size as a hubcap, before he kind of just muscled her aside and continued on his way down the hall. By the time he reached the bend of the hall Darcy had just about managed to register that she wasn’t a pancake, even if her scalp was most likely going to be bruised the next day. “Uh. Thanks?”
The Hulk paused, growled out something that might’ve been a reply, and then went around the corner.
It was over pretty quickly after that.
She found Consuela a short time later, her heels up on the edge of her desk and her jacket unbuttoned. The secretary was smoking a cigarette in long, leisurely drags, but Darcy couldn’t foresee anyone complaining, being as the wall behind Consuela’s desk was also smoking faintly.
“Well,” Darcy said, still a little dazed, “that was surreal.”
Consuela snorted and took another pull on her cigarette. “Darcy, sweetheart, that was a Wednesday. It’s just been a little slow recently.”
“Oh,” Darcy said.
*
“So, I’m thinking of quitting SHIELD,” Darcy told Jane conversationally when the other woman phoned up from the labs hidden away in the depths of the building to make sure Darcy was okay.
“Darcy,” Jane said. “I need you to listen to me closely, because this is very important: If you leave me alone with these maniacs, I will end you.”
Darcy stared at the phone for a moment.
“Okay,” she said, pressing it back to her ear. “Got it. Loud and clear, boss lady.”
Everyone around her was insane.
*
It had been wrongheaded to seek Bruce out as a bastion of sanity in the sick, sad world of SHIELD. Darcy knew that now.
She was just-well, she was still riding the adrenaline high of being not dead a couple hours later, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.
He was in his lab. He was also shirtless.
Darcy spent a moment weighing her options. On the one hand, this was the best look she had gotten of that chest yet, and Bruce being shirtless was never a bad thing in her book. On the other hand, it had been a whole big fat day of weird, and Bruce being shirtless at work after an attempted siege was just more of the same weird.
“I’m sure that this is for science,” she said, and tried to sound understanding. “I’ll just come back at a better time, shall I?”
*
Darcy took a sip on her coffee, and tasted soap and, hmm, salt.
She set the coffee down.
“Shampoo and table salt in the coffee?” she asked. “Dude, your age is showing. That’s old school.”
Tony glanced at her haughtily over his shoulder. “That’s just to hide the taste of the arsenic.”
She was pretty sure he was joking. She decided to risk it, and took another long swallow of the coffee just to prove that she could. When she looked back at Tony, he was watching her with something that very much resembled shock and awe.
“How are you even a thing that exists?”
Darcy smiled. Tony: 4. Darcy: Eleventy billion.
*
Two days later, Jane walked into the living room of their suite. And stopped.
She looked at Thor, and then she looked at Darcy. She closed her eyes. “Why is this my life?”
Darcy didn’t think that question required a response, seeing as it seemed to be directed at a cruel and unfeeling higher power rather than either of the room’s occupants.
“Jane!” Thor cried joyfully, and while his hands remained gentle on Darcy’s hair she had to grab his ankle to keep him from ruining the hard work she was putting into his toenails. “The Lady Darcy has been sharing with me in the Midgardian tradition of ‘girl talk.’” He frowned. “At first I doubted her, because I am not a maiden, but she explained that the tradition is so named because in the past, brave warriors would often come together to speak of the dearly beloved ladies that they had been forced to leave behind in order to partake in glorious victory on the battlefield, and that in these magnificent days of gen-der equ-al-ity, it is not unheard of for comrades both male and female to gather together and paint their nails the color of blood to terrify their enemies while partaking in this ancient and venerable ritual.” He lifted his foot and showed his Really Red toenails to Jane with pride. “Truly, I feel honored that I am considered such a friend to your friend that she would wish to include me. She has even allowed me to place warrior locks in her hair!”
“I needed to talk to someone about the massive failure that is my love life,” Darcy said with a shrug. “I couldn’t find you, and Thor was here.”
“The Lady Darcy has gone through many a trial in order to secure the affections of the Doctor Banner, but he has not bestowed his favors upon her,” Thor said. “She wished to ask my advice in how to court him, since I have secured the hand of the most beauteous and wise maiden in the land.”
Jane whimpered. Thor eyed her with concern.
“We have mimosas,” Darcy told her placidly.
“Oh thank God, gimmee.”
Darcy reached out and handed Jane her own mostly full glass. Jane swallowed it down quickly, and held out the glass for a refill. Thor reached out to slap Darcy on the shoulder, and she mostly managed not to wince. “See how well my love quaffs her ale! She is truly a marvel among women.”
“That she is,” Darcy said, and handed Jane back the glass.
With a second mimosa in hand, Jane seemed a lot calmer. “Okay. I’m ready. Tell me what the problem is with you and Doctor Banner.”
Darcy shrugged, and went back to carefully lacquering Thor’s toenails. “I’m just not sure what to do with him. He flirts with me, and then he backs off. He spends weeks basically avoiding anything close to me touching him, when I’m about ready to start humping his leg, and then freaks the hell out while giving me a shoulder rub. And then the next day he asks me all these questions, and I swear he was collecting data points, and somewhere there is a scatter graph on what Darcy’s favorite ice-cream flavor is-.”
“I enjoy the chips of chocolate in dough flavor,” Thor intoned.
“Darcy,” Jane said, in that patented I-will-be-patient-with-you-so-help-me-Darcy voice of hers. “Have you tried just asking him out?”
Darcy laughed darkly. “I tried. Oh, did I try.” She closed her eyes, and groped blindly for Jane’s hand. "Jane. Jane, it was so bad. It was an itty bitty baby step ahead of me having you go and ask him if he like likes me."
“Oh dear,” Jane said.
*
The awful thing was, it had almost gone so well.
Darcy found Bruce in the lab that morning, because theirs was doomed to be an epic not-romance centered almost entirely around Stark Tower’s Lab #12. It was probably a good thing that Tony had never managed to finish writing that no girls allowed sign on the door.
“So,” Darcy said, because she figured she’d given him long enough to chill the hell out after that night in his suite, and really, Darcy had never been particularly shy about going after what she wanted. “I kind of have this ridiculously massive crush on you. I think you should take me out to dinner, and also that if you play your cards right you will get incredibly lucky after dinner.”
It wasn’t the most eloquent speech in the history of ever, but Darcy thought it conveyed her point adequately. More importantly, Bruce finally seemed to be getting the point. He leaned forward, and maybe he looked a little alarmed but there was also something suspiciously like pleasure or hope on his face.
He cleared his throat, and tugged off his glasses, polishing them against the edge of his shirt in what might have been either a nervous gesture or an attempt to buy time. “I would like that. If you’re sure. I mean - the other guy.”
Darcy’s brain stalled.
She had absolutely no idea why he would think there was some other guy. More to the point, she wasn’t sure who he thought this other guy was. Steve, maybe, except that she didn’t think anyone knew about her and Steve’s trips to the movies. Clint? No, anyone with two eyes and half a brain could see that Natasha was far too terrifying for anyone to try anything, even if nobody seemed entirely clear on what, exactly, Natasha and Clint were to each other. Tony was taken, and Darcy really hoped that Bruce didn’t think she was dumb or smarmy enough to go after a taken man. Fury? God, she hoped he didn’t think it was Fury.
Maybe he was thinking of Sid from the research department. Sid did hang out around her a lot, but that was just because he was depressed over getting bumped down to level two clearence after making one little mistake with the year that a baseball game had been broadcast, and Darcy was good at cheering him up.
Still, Darcy had come too far to allow this one tiny hitch to derail all of her glorious plans. Better to brazen it out now and figure out what the hell he was talking about later, she decided. “Ah, not my favorite. Creeps me the hell out, honestly.” She cleared her throat, and hoped that he couldn’t see the what-are-you-talking-what about written all over her expression. “Totally."
Bruce’s face just shut down, the pleasure fading out of it like someone had thrown the switch. “I can’t say I blame you,” he said, with that funny little smile she hadn’t really seen much of since her first few weeks at Stark Tower. He slid his glasses back onto his nose. “I’m not sure a date would be the best idea, Darcy.”
He said it very gently, but that didn’t keep the rejection from stinging.
*
Finally, Darcy opened her eyes. Jane’s hand had gone a little limp in hers, and she looked stunned, which was basically the reaction Darcy had been hoping for. “But-Darcy, you have to know. The Other Guy is what he calls the Hulk.”
“Huh?” Darcy sat up so suddenly that Thor’s hand caught in and tugged on her hair. “He thinks I have the hots for the Hulk? It was one t-shirt! And he said that he liked it!”
Thor looked confused. Jane looked like she might be having a very quiet little aneurism.
“Darce,” Jane said. “I hope you know that I say this with the utmost of love, affection, and fond regard for both you and your mental faculties. But I think you might just be stupid in your head.”
“Not supportive, Jane!”
“Wait,” Thor said. “Does the Lady Darcy not know that Doctor Banner is also the most fearsome Hulk, he who strikes terror into the heart of even Loki of Asgard?” He beamed at her. “This is a most fortuitous day, friend Darcy! You thought to win yourself a scholar, and have found that the one you pitch woo to is also a warrior of great strength, who will doubtless give you many strong man-children.” He paused, and evidently her little lesson on gender equality was still fresh in his mind, because he added heartily, “And woman-children, too!”
“What.”
“As I said, a most fortuitous turn of events!”
“Not fortuitous! Not!” Darcy snapped, then took a deep and calming breath because yelling at Thor was a little like yelling at an enormous puppy who could also put you through the wall if he wanted to. Sort of like Clifford the Big Red Dog on steroids and with a truly superior bleach job. “Ah, begging your pardon, big guy. I’m just having a little bit of a freak out over her.”
Thor nodded solemnly. “You excitement is understandable, and I hold no ill will over the harshness of your words. I believe I shall keep my peace until you have finished, as you say, freaking out.”
Darcy looked to Jane as the more sensible one, which was a mistake, because Jane had somehow managed to plant her hands on her hips without ever leaving the couch. “Darcy,” she said severely. “You didn’t read your SHIELD orientation manual, did you Darcy?” When Darcy wilted in a little on herself, Jane jumped to her feet. “It’s mandatory reading for a reason! This is the reason! This right here!”
“Because SHIELD is worried that someone will put the moves on Doctor Banner without knowing he’s the Hulk?” she managed.
“Yes!”
When Jane found the manual in question (it was on top of the ‘fridge, Darcy didn’t know how or why), she sort of... threw it at Darcy’s head, which Darcy could just about admit that she deserved. It hit Thor’s chest instead, and bounced harmlessly down into his lap. He frowned disapprovingly at the dark blue binder, but apparently decided it was beneath his dignity to acknowledge any harm done to him by puny mortal paper goods.
With a sigh of pure resignation, Darcy grabbed the binder, blew off a thin layer of dust, and flipped the cover open to the first page.
**ATTENTION ALL S.H.I.E.L.D PERSONNEL OCCUPYING NON-COMBATANT POSITIONS AT A LEVEL THREE CLEARENCE LEVEL OR BELOW. PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING NOTIFICATIONS WITH CARE, AS THEY HAVE BEEN INCLUDED FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY AND WELL-BEING.**
Darcy skimmed over the information about emergency procedures, including escape routes and panic rooms, and yeah, it would have been good to know about those. Midway down the page, under a strongly worded recommendation about how to deal with Namor the Sub-Mariner during conference calls to Atlantis, she found the only item really relevant to the current conversation.
DOCTOR BRUCE BANNER, GENERALLY TO BE FOUND IN THE LABORATORIES LOCATED IN S.H.I.E.L.D CENTRAL’S SUBBASEMENTS, IS TO BE HANDLED WITH EXTREME CARE. PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT DOCTOR BANNER’S ALTERNATE IDENTITY AS THE HULK MAKES HIM VOLATILE AND PRONE TO ANGER. HE IS A VALUED MEMBER OF THE S.H.I.E.L.D TEAM, BUT YOU WOULD NOT LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY.
“Oh,” Darcy said. “Oh, wow.” She leaned back against Thor’s knees. “I think I might actually be a little stupid. Yeah, good call, Jane.”
The girl was maybe four or five, and she pressed her face shyly into her father’s thigh as the reporter leaned in over her. He was smiling in that jovial, faintly patronizing way that grownups sometimes got when they were talking to little kids. That look had always make ten-year-old Darcy kind of want to punch people in the throat.
“What do you think of the Avengers, sweetheart?” the reporter asked.
The girl turned her head further, so that all the camera could see was a head full of corn silk fine black hair and the back of purple shirt pattered with pink and blue flowers.
“Do you have a favorite Avenger?” asked the reporter, apparently cottoning on to the fact that asking an introverted five-year-old to weigh in on current events and public policy wasn’t going to yield much in the way of results.
The girl was silent. Her father shrugged, amused but not particularly apologetic.
“Black Widow,” the girl said, and she was quiet with her mouth muffled against the denim of her father’s jeans but the mic picked it up anyway. “She’s really cool.”
“Oh my God, that is just precious,” Darcy said. “JARVIS, did you get that?”
“I am recording as requested, Ms. Lewis.”
*
The second time Darcy showed up on Bruce’s doorstep, it was well after midnight and she was clutching her favorite monkey blanket to her chest like it was her maiden virtue.
“They’re really loud,” she said in her most pathetic voice. “And Thor gets up in the middle of the night to make poptarts. Naked.”
Bruce looks bemused, but also sympathetic. “Naked Thor is a... bad thing?”
“Drooling over your best-friend-slash-boss’ man candy is always a bad thing,” Darcy said. “Total violation of the girl code. Also, I wasn’t expecting naked man in my living room at oh-god-oh-god-o’clock, and I screamed. And Thor thought there was danger, so he summoned Mew-Mew. And accidentally broke the wall.”
“He broke the wall.”
“Yes.” Darcy looked up at him through her lashes. “Can I sleep on your couch again?”
“I have a second bedroom,” Bruce said, and Darcy thought that she must look really pathetic, because he actually took her by the shoulders to guide her inside. She wondered if he knew that his thumbs were stroking little circles against the tops of her shoulders, or just how completely unfair that was since she thought her chances of bypassing the guestroom in favor of the bedroom were so low they approached zero. Doctor Bruce Banner was a freaking tease.
...she needed to get laid. If she was actually starting to think of her shoulders as erogenous zones, it had obviously been way too long. Either that or she was ridiculously far gone on the doctor, and that was probably going to turn out to be exactly as disastrous as it sounded in Darcy’s head.
Darcy sighed and pushed back into the touch. Just a little.
She felt rather than saw Bruce tense behind her, his hands tightening reflexively on her shoulders. A hot puff of breath, almost but not quite surprise, stirred her hair. He leaned a little closer, just close enough for Darcy to feel the warmth of him against her spine, and for a moment all she could think was yes and this.
She started to turn, and his hands dropped from her shoulders. He stepped away.
For a moment, Darcy was very nearly angry, because it was one thing if he wasn’t interested or didn’t notice, but it was kind of another if he was just messing with her. That wasn’t very nice, and it sure as hell wasn’t very cool. Darcy wasn’t big on playing games, and she didn’t like the idea of someone deciding to play one with her.
He didn’t look like he was playing. His face was carefully blank, and he was breathing deep and slow, in through the nose and out through the mouth like that chick in the one yoga class Darcy had taken before realizing humans weren’t supposed to bend that way had tried to teach her. He was also back to not making eye contact, and that had gotten old, like, weeks ago.
For a moment, Darcy wanted to just come out and say it, because ‘not interested’ was sort of sliding off the table but ‘completely oblivious’ was gaining speed, right alongside ‘damaged in some way that she wasn’t sure she was equipped to deal with,’ and whatever the case was, she wanted to know.
“Second bedroom is down the hall on the right,” he said, and it was entirely clear that he was trying to pretend that not a damn thing had just happened. Which, also not cool, but probably tomorrow’s problem rather than tonight’s. He already seemed a little edgy, and something warned her that, as always, it was better not to push him too far, or too hard.
“Okay,” Darcy said. “Okay, thanks. I appreciate it, Doc. I’ll see you in the morning.”
The guest bedroom was - weird. The walls were painted a soothing blue, but they were also covered in some kind of thick, hard plastic. There were no windows. The bed appeared to be bolted to the floor.
Whatever. Tony Stark’s weird decorating choices were another of tomorrow’s problems.
“My life, fuck it,” Darcy muttered, and collapsed onto the bed.
So, yeah. Definitely too far gone. That was one question answered, at least.
*
Bruce was gone by the time she woke up in the morning.
Of course he was.
*
It was odd, because Darcy sort of expected Bruce to be all weird after their little almost-moment. If anything, he was more chatty than he had been before. Chatty for him was still approaching silent when compared to Jane or especially Tony, but it was a hell of a lot more than she’d gotten from him before.
“Favorite color,” he said the next day while they were working in the lab, and the sole reason Darcy knew Bruce was addressing her was that when she looked at Erik, the only other person in the room, he shrugged and stared at her pointedly.
“Green,” she said, baffled.
“Hmm,” Bruce said, and appeared satisfied.
“Why does Tony call you Betty?” he asked, two hours almost to the minute later.
“Boop or Page, according to him.” Darcy considered for a moment. “It’s also possible that he really and truly believes it’s my name.”
She was probably imagining the little huff of laughter that came from behind his computer console.
“Boxers or briefs?” she asked, because that only seemed fair.
He looked up from his computer briefly. His gaze caught hers, and for a second Darcy thought there was - a something, to it. Another little almost-moment. A hint of heat. He was smilingly faintly as he looked away. “I’m not going to answer that.”
“So they’re like Schrödinger's underwear?”
Erik choked. Bruce shrugged. Darcy looked thoughtful.
“Am I allowed to ask other questions?” she wondered, trying to feel her way around the edges of whatever new rules Bruce had established while she was looking the other way. Flirting with a physicist was complicated.
He looked nervous, which just proved that he was as smart as rumors might lead her to believe. “O-kay,” he said slowly, like he already knew that agreeing was a bad idea.
Erik stood. “I’ve got to go. There are... things... which I must do.”
Darcy looked at him. She raised an eyebrow. Erik was a terrible liar. She had gotten Clint to score her the SHIELD recording of him trying to fib Thor’s way out of government custody while they had been in New Mexico, and it had been the most hilarious three minutes of listening to someone awkward his way into an even deeper hole that she had every heard in her life.
He looked at Darcy. Then he sighed. “This conversation is horrible and it makes me uncomfortable. I am going to leave now. I would like you to never try to use quantum physics to flirt again.”
“I’ve already exhausted the entirety of my knowledge on the subject,” Darcy said cheerfully.
Erik looked like this statement was actually physically painful to him. He exited the room pretty quickly after that.
Darcy looked at Bruce.
Bruce lifted an eyebrow of his own.
“Cats or dogs?” Darcy asked.
*
natasha i need your help, the text read.
Who do I have to shoot?
what? no! why would you ask me that? there will be no shooting.
A few seconds passed.
but you’re still on leave, right? i think i need you to go to brazil.
*
from: Clint Barton
to: Darcy Lewis
date: Sun, July 22, 2012 at 6:05 AM
subject: Re: OPERATION: DOG
Darcy,
You owe me so many beers when we get back.
Also, these codenames are stupid, and I refuse to use them.
I’m a bit player in a fucking romantic comedy, and it is all your fault.
- C
from: Darcy Lewis
to: Clint Barton
date: Sun, July 22, 2012 at 10:27 AM
subject: Re: Re: OPERATION: DOG
Whatever you say, Miss Kitty.
from: T. Stark
to: Darcy Lewis
date: Mon, July 23, 2012 at 12:49 AM
subject: Tell me
What is OPERATION: DOG? Tell me, tell me right now. I am your boss, and deserve to know these things, because anything that drives Clint to drink and admit that he watches romantic comedies is way too funny for me to be left out of it. Knowing will make me so happy. Don’t you want me to be happy, Betty?
from: Darcy Lewis
to: T. Stark
date: Mon, July 23, 2012 at 08:12 AM
subject: Re: Tell me
Need-to-know basis only, Tony.
Also, Pepper is my boss.
xoxox Darcy
from: Darcy Lewis
to: Clint Barton
date: Mon, July 23, 2012 at 08:14 AM
subject: Fwd: Re: Tell me
I told you so.
from: Clint Barton
to: Darcy Lewis
date: Mon, July 23, 2012 at 4:20 PM
subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Tell me
I stand corrected.
- Miss Kitty
from: Nicholas Fury
to: Darcy Lewis
date: Tue, July 24, 2012 at 7:52 AM
subject: See me in my office
We need to have a little chat about misallocation of SHIELD resources.
*
“...so I go in there, right? And I figure he’s going to rip me a new one, and also that no one will ever find my horrifically mutilated corpse,” Darcy said, waving her naan through the air to illustrate.
“What happened?” Jane asked.
Darcy shrugged. “Nothing. I explained why I had asked Natasha and Clint to go to Brazil, and reminded him that they were on leave, and he just stroked his chin and said all serious-like, ‘I suppose that Doctor Banner will find that very soothing,’ or something.” She bit down viciously on the bread in her hand.
“Huh,” Jane said.
“I do not like this food,” Thor said sadly to his curry, “for it is mighty, and makes my tongue hurt.”
Jane patted his shoulder. “Come on, baby. Let’s make you some poptarts.”
*
“It’s just not natural,” the woman told the camera, a Whole Foods sign visible over her left shoulder, a toddler on one hip and a grocery bag in the opposite hand. “People weren’t meant to have that kind of power.”
*
Darcy first met the Hulk because she really, really should have paid more attention during orientation, or maybe have read the manual.
It was a Wednesday, and SHIELD Central had kind of been invaded. Consuela had said something about panic rooms and anyone below a level three clearance before trotting off with what was apparently a top secret briefcase, handed to her by Agent Sitwell, and a gun. None of which was particularly helpful to Darcy now, because the panic rooms were, surprise, surprise, well hidden, and she didn’t have the faintest clue where to start looking.
All in all, Darcy was feeling pretty okay. She had already tased two guys in weird militaristic outfits and watched both of them go flying back, and god bless Tony fucking Stark for that.
Of course, she probably would have felt better had the man standing in front of her not managed to raise his gun before she could fry his ass.
Slowly, she let the taser drop and raised both of her hands above her head. It was worth a shot. The man smiled slowly, and Darcy was sure he was moments away from using the hand not holding the gun to twist the mustache that he totally had when this massive blur of green just shot around the corner.
The man half-turned, and had just enough time to shout out, “If a head is cut off, two more-urk!” before he ended up slightly flatter than he had been before on the floor near Darcy’s feet.
“Oh, good,” Darcy said, and felt relieved for the approximately two seconds it took her to remember that there was a Hulk standing in the hallway with her.
The Hulk stared at Darcy for a few seconds, then grunted. He reached out and patted her on the head twice with a green hand roughly the same size as a hubcap, before he kind of just muscled her aside and continued on his way down the hall. By the time he reached the bend of the hall Darcy had just about managed to register that she wasn’t a pancake, even if her scalp was most likely going to be bruised the next day. “Uh. Thanks?”
The Hulk paused, growled out something that might’ve been a reply, and then went around the corner.
It was over pretty quickly after that.
She found Consuela a short time later, her heels up on the edge of her desk and her jacket unbuttoned. The secretary was smoking a cigarette in long, leisurely drags, but Darcy couldn’t foresee anyone complaining, being as the wall behind Consuela’s desk was also smoking faintly.
“Well,” Darcy said, still a little dazed, “that was surreal.”
Consuela snorted and took another pull on her cigarette. “Darcy, sweetheart, that was a Wednesday. It’s just been a little slow recently.”
“Oh,” Darcy said.
*
“So, I’m thinking of quitting SHIELD,” Darcy told Jane conversationally when the other woman phoned up from the labs hidden away in the depths of the building to make sure Darcy was okay.
“Darcy,” Jane said. “I need you to listen to me closely, because this is very important: If you leave me alone with these maniacs, I will end you.”
Darcy stared at the phone for a moment.
“Okay,” she said, pressing it back to her ear. “Got it. Loud and clear, boss lady.”
Everyone around her was insane.
*
It had been wrongheaded to seek Bruce out as a bastion of sanity in the sick, sad world of SHIELD. Darcy knew that now.
She was just-well, she was still riding the adrenaline high of being not dead a couple hours later, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.
He was in his lab. He was also shirtless.
Darcy spent a moment weighing her options. On the one hand, this was the best look she had gotten of that chest yet, and Bruce being shirtless was never a bad thing in her book. On the other hand, it had been a whole big fat day of weird, and Bruce being shirtless at work after an attempted siege was just more of the same weird.
“I’m sure that this is for science,” she said, and tried to sound understanding. “I’ll just come back at a better time, shall I?”
*
Darcy took a sip on her coffee, and tasted soap and, hmm, salt.
She set the coffee down.
“Shampoo and table salt in the coffee?” she asked. “Dude, your age is showing. That’s old school.”
Tony glanced at her haughtily over his shoulder. “That’s just to hide the taste of the arsenic.”
She was pretty sure he was joking. She decided to risk it, and took another long swallow of the coffee just to prove that she could. When she looked back at Tony, he was watching her with something that very much resembled shock and awe.
“How are you even a thing that exists?”
Darcy smiled. Tony: 4. Darcy: Eleventy billion.
*
Two days later, Jane walked into the living room of their suite. And stopped.
She looked at Thor, and then she looked at Darcy. She closed her eyes. “Why is this my life?”
Darcy didn’t think that question required a response, seeing as it seemed to be directed at a cruel and unfeeling higher power rather than either of the room’s occupants.
“Jane!” Thor cried joyfully, and while his hands remained gentle on Darcy’s hair she had to grab his ankle to keep him from ruining the hard work she was putting into his toenails. “The Lady Darcy has been sharing with me in the Midgardian tradition of ‘girl talk.’” He frowned. “At first I doubted her, because I am not a maiden, but she explained that the tradition is so named because in the past, brave warriors would often come together to speak of the dearly beloved ladies that they had been forced to leave behind in order to partake in glorious victory on the battlefield, and that in these magnificent days of gen-der equ-al-ity, it is not unheard of for comrades both male and female to gather together and paint their nails the color of blood to terrify their enemies while partaking in this ancient and venerable ritual.” He lifted his foot and showed his Really Red toenails to Jane with pride. “Truly, I feel honored that I am considered such a friend to your friend that she would wish to include me. She has even allowed me to place warrior locks in her hair!”
“I needed to talk to someone about the massive failure that is my love life,” Darcy said with a shrug. “I couldn’t find you, and Thor was here.”
“The Lady Darcy has gone through many a trial in order to secure the affections of the Doctor Banner, but he has not bestowed his favors upon her,” Thor said. “She wished to ask my advice in how to court him, since I have secured the hand of the most beauteous and wise maiden in the land.”
Jane whimpered. Thor eyed her with concern.
“We have mimosas,” Darcy told her placidly.
“Oh thank God, gimmee.”
Darcy reached out and handed Jane her own mostly full glass. Jane swallowed it down quickly, and held out the glass for a refill. Thor reached out to slap Darcy on the shoulder, and she mostly managed not to wince. “See how well my love quaffs her ale! She is truly a marvel among women.”
“That she is,” Darcy said, and handed Jane back the glass.
With a second mimosa in hand, Jane seemed a lot calmer. “Okay. I’m ready. Tell me what the problem is with you and Doctor Banner.”
Darcy shrugged, and went back to carefully lacquering Thor’s toenails. “I’m just not sure what to do with him. He flirts with me, and then he backs off. He spends weeks basically avoiding anything close to me touching him, when I’m about ready to start humping his leg, and then freaks the hell out while giving me a shoulder rub. And then the next day he asks me all these questions, and I swear he was collecting data points, and somewhere there is a scatter graph on what Darcy’s favorite ice-cream flavor is-.”
“I enjoy the chips of chocolate in dough flavor,” Thor intoned.
“Darcy,” Jane said, in that patented I-will-be-patient-with-you-so-help-me-Darcy voice of hers. “Have you tried just asking him out?”
Darcy laughed darkly. “I tried. Oh, did I try.” She closed her eyes, and groped blindly for Jane’s hand. "Jane. Jane, it was so bad. It was an itty bitty baby step ahead of me having you go and ask him if he like likes me."
“Oh dear,” Jane said.
*
The awful thing was, it had almost gone so well.
Darcy found Bruce in the lab that morning, because theirs was doomed to be an epic not-romance centered almost entirely around Stark Tower’s Lab #12. It was probably a good thing that Tony had never managed to finish writing that no girls allowed sign on the door.
“So,” Darcy said, because she figured she’d given him long enough to chill the hell out after that night in his suite, and really, Darcy had never been particularly shy about going after what she wanted. “I kind of have this ridiculously massive crush on you. I think you should take me out to dinner, and also that if you play your cards right you will get incredibly lucky after dinner.”
It wasn’t the most eloquent speech in the history of ever, but Darcy thought it conveyed her point adequately. More importantly, Bruce finally seemed to be getting the point. He leaned forward, and maybe he looked a little alarmed but there was also something suspiciously like pleasure or hope on his face.
He cleared his throat, and tugged off his glasses, polishing them against the edge of his shirt in what might have been either a nervous gesture or an attempt to buy time. “I would like that. If you’re sure. I mean - the other guy.”
Darcy’s brain stalled.
She had absolutely no idea why he would think there was some other guy. More to the point, she wasn’t sure who he thought this other guy was. Steve, maybe, except that she didn’t think anyone knew about her and Steve’s trips to the movies. Clint? No, anyone with two eyes and half a brain could see that Natasha was far too terrifying for anyone to try anything, even if nobody seemed entirely clear on what, exactly, Natasha and Clint were to each other. Tony was taken, and Darcy really hoped that Bruce didn’t think she was dumb or smarmy enough to go after a taken man. Fury? God, she hoped he didn’t think it was Fury.
Maybe he was thinking of Sid from the research department. Sid did hang out around her a lot, but that was just because he was depressed over getting bumped down to level two clearence after making one little mistake with the year that a baseball game had been broadcast, and Darcy was good at cheering him up.
Still, Darcy had come too far to allow this one tiny hitch to derail all of her glorious plans. Better to brazen it out now and figure out what the hell he was talking about later, she decided. “Ah, not my favorite. Creeps me the hell out, honestly.” She cleared her throat, and hoped that he couldn’t see the what-are-you-talking-what about written all over her expression. “Totally."
Bruce’s face just shut down, the pleasure fading out of it like someone had thrown the switch. “I can’t say I blame you,” he said, with that funny little smile she hadn’t really seen much of since her first few weeks at Stark Tower. He slid his glasses back onto his nose. “I’m not sure a date would be the best idea, Darcy.”
He said it very gently, but that didn’t keep the rejection from stinging.
*
Finally, Darcy opened her eyes. Jane’s hand had gone a little limp in hers, and she looked stunned, which was basically the reaction Darcy had been hoping for. “But-Darcy, you have to know. The Other Guy is what he calls the Hulk.”
“Huh?” Darcy sat up so suddenly that Thor’s hand caught in and tugged on her hair. “He thinks I have the hots for the Hulk? It was one t-shirt! And he said that he liked it!”
Thor looked confused. Jane looked like she might be having a very quiet little aneurism.
“Darce,” Jane said. “I hope you know that I say this with the utmost of love, affection, and fond regard for both you and your mental faculties. But I think you might just be stupid in your head.”
“Not supportive, Jane!”
“Wait,” Thor said. “Does the Lady Darcy not know that Doctor Banner is also the most fearsome Hulk, he who strikes terror into the heart of even Loki of Asgard?” He beamed at her. “This is a most fortuitous day, friend Darcy! You thought to win yourself a scholar, and have found that the one you pitch woo to is also a warrior of great strength, who will doubtless give you many strong man-children.” He paused, and evidently her little lesson on gender equality was still fresh in his mind, because he added heartily, “And woman-children, too!”
“What.”
“As I said, a most fortuitous turn of events!”
“Not fortuitous! Not!” Darcy snapped, then took a deep and calming breath because yelling at Thor was a little like yelling at an enormous puppy who could also put you through the wall if he wanted to. Sort of like Clifford the Big Red Dog on steroids and with a truly superior bleach job. “Ah, begging your pardon, big guy. I’m just having a little bit of a freak out over her.”
Thor nodded solemnly. “You excitement is understandable, and I hold no ill will over the harshness of your words. I believe I shall keep my peace until you have finished, as you say, freaking out.”
Darcy looked to Jane as the more sensible one, which was a mistake, because Jane had somehow managed to plant her hands on her hips without ever leaving the couch. “Darcy,” she said severely. “You didn’t read your SHIELD orientation manual, did you Darcy?” When Darcy wilted in a little on herself, Jane jumped to her feet. “It’s mandatory reading for a reason! This is the reason! This right here!”
“Because SHIELD is worried that someone will put the moves on Doctor Banner without knowing he’s the Hulk?” she managed.
“Yes!”
When Jane found the manual in question (it was on top of the ‘fridge, Darcy didn’t know how or why), she sort of... threw it at Darcy’s head, which Darcy could just about admit that she deserved. It hit Thor’s chest instead, and bounced harmlessly down into his lap. He frowned disapprovingly at the dark blue binder, but apparently decided it was beneath his dignity to acknowledge any harm done to him by puny mortal paper goods.
With a sigh of pure resignation, Darcy grabbed the binder, blew off a thin layer of dust, and flipped the cover open to the first page.
**ATTENTION ALL S.H.I.E.L.D PERSONNEL OCCUPYING NON-COMBATANT POSITIONS AT A LEVEL THREE CLEARENCE LEVEL OR BELOW. PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING NOTIFICATIONS WITH CARE, AS THEY HAVE BEEN INCLUDED FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY AND WELL-BEING.**
Darcy skimmed over the information about emergency procedures, including escape routes and panic rooms, and yeah, it would have been good to know about those. Midway down the page, under a strongly worded recommendation about how to deal with Namor the Sub-Mariner during conference calls to Atlantis, she found the only item really relevant to the current conversation.
DOCTOR BRUCE BANNER, GENERALLY TO BE FOUND IN THE LABORATORIES LOCATED IN S.H.I.E.L.D CENTRAL’S SUBBASEMENTS, IS TO BE HANDLED WITH EXTREME CARE. PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT DOCTOR BANNER’S ALTERNATE IDENTITY AS THE HULK MAKES HIM VOLATILE AND PRONE TO ANGER. HE IS A VALUED MEMBER OF THE S.H.I.E.L.D TEAM, BUT YOU WOULD NOT LIKE HIM WHEN HE’S ANGRY.
“Oh,” Darcy said. “Oh, wow.” She leaned back against Thor’s knees. “I think I might actually be a little stupid. Yeah, good call, Jane.”