14Clint Barton: "The city is flying and we're fighting an army of robots. And I have a bow and arrow. Nothing makes sense."
June 2010
Darcy's chipped 'salsa' red fingernails strummed softly down a beaten wooden guitar, patches of the instrument's glaze long gone like scars from the years it had endured with her.
The now rough-grained wood remembered the childhood paradise where a pair of soft, strong, hands had gifted her the gleaming strings. It remembered the rough foster homes where numb fingers had memorized chords, and then later the cheap college dorms where determined strums turned into improvised dance parties in the shadows of early dawns. Now, in the middle of a forgotten town, the battered lifelong friend of Darcy Lewis sat across her folded lap as she figured out lyrics to match her repeating melody.
"In my defense, I have none," Darcy sang low in her throat and barely audible, her own exhaustion sidelined at the emerging lyrics richotteching in her mind. "For never leaving -"
Her eyes flickered to the closed wooden door that separated the single bedroom that Darcy and Jane shared and the living room where Jane had set up her lab space. Her voice was quiet in the unairconditioned fall air, but she made sure to sing softly enough as to not wake Jane asleep on the couch in the room next door.
Jane had finally succumbed to exhaustion after a 32-hour marathon of science!and Darcy didn't want her boss/best friend/graduation recommendation to get back up on her feet for at least another 9 hours, impending scientific breakthroughs or not.
Her astrophysicist might have been the smartest woman Darcy had ever had the pleasure to know, but she also had zero sense of balance when it came to managing her professional obsession and her personal health.
Frankly, Darcy had never met another woman, another human, who could consistently run off of nothing but black coffee and pop-tarts like Jane could.
Darcy paused. That sounded like a good bridge for a song.
She made a quick note in her Stark Phone, pausing to put away her battered iPod in the front pocket of her backpack, and then came back to her guitar.
She plucked at an E string softly. She had the bridge about finished to her latest creation, but she still needed a decent chorus. Willing herself to fall into the turbulent memories of her latest ex -'boyfriend' again, Darcy focused on the sharp pain she'd been pushing down since the beginning of her internship to refresh her sappy-ass inner muse.
She concentrated, thinking of the feelings she'd had with him. The want, and hope, and then despair when it had all come crashing down.
She remembered the way his smile had first made her feel during an off-campus kickback.
The disappointment that had flooded her when he'd first spoken and his Words didn't reflect one of the two lines of script down her back.
The rapture they'd shared despite it all in laughs and fumbling fingers in the back of his car and in her dorm.
And then the crushing anguish when his Words were said from a bartender down the street a few months later, just after they'd finished looking at apartments together.
She closed her eyes.
"In my defense, I have none," she sang again. "For never leaving well enough alone. But it would've been fun," she sang, the whisper of her chords barely filling the bedroom of the dingy New Mexico rental.
"If you would've been, the One."
In the weeks following Darcy's quiet music session, her whole world exploded.
Aliens, gods, and powerful government agencies had the power to completely upheave her carefully built life. Her boss, her Jane, had found her Words - her fucking soulmate, with an ancient Norse god.
An actual, thousands of years old, god. Not capital "G". Butstill.
Who Darcy had met by hitting him with Jane's van, and then by a panicked tazing session. Who at first sight, seemed like a hot, crazy, extra from a LARPing convention.
And who quite frankly, she liked.
She liked Them. All of the Norse warrior squad that dropped out of the sky and helped destroy/save the little town her graduation depended on.
What she liked most, was Thor's genuine inability for malicious thoughts or actions. He was absolutely arrogant - especially as he usually addressed himself with natural confidence as "mighty" in regular intervals, but he was never cruelly loathsome. Specifically not to Jane, a mere mortal.
He treated her as if she herself had created the twinkle of stars and hung them in the length of her hair and the curves of her shy smiles.
Darcy had seen Thor's Words at the hospital, his eyes wide, and settled on her best friend. They were in very plain English on his right arm, covering the majority of the inside of his bicep with"Come on, big guy. Do me a favor and don't be dead, okay? Open your eyes and look at me".
Apparently, Jane later explained to her, the weird squiggle-looking runes that Jane been born with (and had started her obsession with the stars because it resembled nothing found on Earth) that expanded the length of her left forearm was the language of Asgard. "My wait has been long, but the Fates have surely blessed me."
It was nauseatingly romantic, and they both looked as if literal hearts would start popping into thin air between them, the laws of the universe be damned.
After the destruction of the town's Main Street from the giant space robot sent by a different Norse god,(holy shit, this was her life now)and then Darcy's frenzied rush to save the pet shop animals from destruction, she had learned to like Thor's friends Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun, also known as the Warriors Three, as well. They helped her move the animals trapped in the building before it was blown to bits, and didn't try to stop her when she went back for animals a second time around. They didn't try to save her as she hustled, and they didn't get in her way. They just made her a route to lead the animals to safety and kept close to her side. She could understand why Thor trusted the three men and named them as close as family.
Sif was the adult Darcy aspired to be one day. Sif was a badass. Sif probably killed her own spiders. She had big 'pass me the shoe' energy. Enough said, Darcylovedher.
They all treated Darcy like a weird set of almost older siblings after Thor had introduced Darcy as his 'lightning sister'. They smiled when she made snarky comments, complimented her 'victory in felling Thor', and stood as an honor guard when they'd had to leave back to Asgard. She was sure there was some sort of cultural significance she was missing in all of it, but they had come and gone so fast that Darcy didn't have time to dwell.
Vicious golden retrievers with swords, all of them.
Now what hadn't been in the plans was to feel some sort of positive feelings for the government cronies who had the fucking nerve to steal her iPod.
Agent Coulson and the birdman - Hawkeye.
She had found that while being huge dicks for stealing Jane's life work and her only source of good music, they had an unparalleled sense of humor brought out by Darcy's incessant sarcasm and then later, by her shitty tequila. (Liquor was her love language and it didn't surprise her at all that her abhorrent taste in alcohol endeared her to assholes and agents alike).
After a drunken heart-to-heart about Hawkeyes Tri-Match with Agent Coulsen and a fiery redhead he refused to name, Darcy made a snap decision (and a slurred public announcement) that she Officially liked them too.
Internally, she liked the way Coulsen stared at Clint when the man wasn't looking, and the apparent absolute trust that the secret agent had for him in return. She liked the natural protective edge they had for each other, evident in the way they stood and spoke, and how they faced the world together. She liked the visible love in the tilt of their lips when they spoke about their unnamed third. (Who also, was apparently an even bigger badass than Sif. Darcy didn't believe it for a second, and had 20 bucks in the hanging for that garbage bet.)
By the time Thor had been called home and left Jane in tears in the middle of a dying town, Darcy had been ready to call the SHIELD agents tentative friends.
Clint fist-bumped her as the spy agency packed up to leave and then grinned. "You know, you got a good voice. That song - I know a couple of people who've been there before too."
Darcy froze. The blood in her cheeks fled, and the New Mexican heat was leached from her bones. "What?" she asked faintly.
Clint tapped his earpiece. "Had to bug the place early on -" He rubbed the back of his head, fully aware of the unfurling naked panic on her face, and cleared his voice. "I mean, it wasn't on purpose, but yeah- we heard you."
He fingered the edge of his bow. "Part of the routine workup."
Darcy quickly scanned the agents working to pack up their temporary base. "How many?" she asked. Who had been eavesdropping basically on her most personal self?
She'd never performed her songs in any public vicinity ever. She'd barely plucked up the courage to sing in front of Thor in front of their campfire and he was basically family in Darcy's books now.
The fact that some random IT agents and apparently Clint had heard her struggle through her own songs was a violation against a part of her that was intimately private. It made her feel sick. Every time she swapped lyrics or rewrote a note in the asylum of her rented bedroom, it confessed a little bit more of her story. Miniscule pieces of her soul that she didn't share with anyone, not even Jane.
And it was probably recorded somewhere in a SHIELD database for forever.
Clint looked uncomfortable at her question. "Uh - everyone?" he said. "Drew in Comms. pulled up something and showed the rest of the ground tea- are you okay?"
Darcy had taken a step back, and Clint lifted his hands like he was going to catch her. "I mean everyone loved it!" he rushed out. "Didn't see such a throaty sound coming out of a thing like you, bu-"
"Oh fuck," Darcy shook her head.
Clint stepped forwards and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. The leather of his gloves was soft against her thin t-shirt and the smell of something like sandalwood filled her nose. The unrelenting midday sun was bright against the curves of his biceps, and it drew her eyes instead of his, the man had some biceps.
Nothing like Thor's - but still, damn.
"You want me to wipe it?" Clint said leaning down and looking at her seriously.
Darcy froze.
She held his eyes, gauging the sincerity behind his words. She nodded cautiously. The two rows of script down her back seemed to shiver down her spine, and she swallowed. "It's just -"
"Naw, I get it," Clint interrupted. He let go of her shoulder, and touched his SHIELD vest, right over his heart. "Some things... SHIELD shouldn't get to keep on people." The corners of his eyes lifted with his smile, and Darcy realized just how blue they were behind his tan skin. "I'll get it taken down for you."
Her eyes widened. "I mean - you have no idea, thank you, but I just... why do you care?"
"Eh," he shrugged a shoulder, and the serious air around him disappeared. "Just remember us little guys when you get big, alright?"
The corners of her mouth lifted despite herself. "Yeah sure, absolutely. I'll do that for you." She met his eyes."Thank you."
He squinted under the sun as they started back to her rented motel. "I meant it about your song. It's really good."
Darcy tucked a curl behind her ear. "Thanks, I think. It's weird having anyone else hear. It's... me."
"Our Third thinks it's got potential."
Her eyes widened. "Your Third's heard it too?"
Clint put a hand to his chest. "I keep no secrets from them Darc, and she's got an ear for music. You should think about it."
Darcy thought about the two lines of script down her back instead. One for each soulmate she was destined to meet. "What's it like, knowing them both?" she asked before she could catch herself.
Clint side-eyed her. Whatever he saw written across her face must have meant something to him because he scanned their surroundings once before popping out his earpiece and turning to her. "It's terrifying," he announced. "Exhilarating. Fucking awful at times. Hopeful. But they're always worth it at the end of the day." He patted a spot over his heart again where Darcy assumed one of his Words was.
Darcy recognized the devotion in his eyes, and her own aching loneliness slid up her spine and wrapped around her ribs. She looked away at the expanse of desert around them.
"You found them yet?" he followed up.
It was Darcy's turn to side-eye him. "Is this gonna go in my folder?"
"I'm already deleting SHIELD files for you, give me a little credit."
Darcy identified the deflection. "Said the fucking spy. What a joke."
Clint burst into laughter, the hot sun glinting off his teeth and blonde hair."Ey, I got one for you."
"What?"
"A joke. You'll like it, it's about music."
"No."
"What's a golf club's favorite type of music?"
Oh fuck. "What."
"Swing."
He laughed at his own lame-ass joke, and Darcy decided right there that he was not a tentative friend, he was best friend material.
Darcy wrapped an arm around him like they'd done it their whole lives, and led them back towards Jane and Selvig. "If I do ever get big off of music, I'll make you my manager and your one job will be to tell shitty jokes all day. Count on it." She held out her pinky to him and he laughed before hooking his around hers.
That was the day that Darcy became friends with not only a god but one of SHIELD's best spies.
And honestly, that was the beginning of the end.
Two weeks later, after prodding from a depressed Jane and random text messages from Clint, Darcy released her first YouTube video