Disclaimer: I do not own the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But they don't own my dreams...
When Bruce wandered into the lab, he expected to see science, not Tony dipping Darcy while he checked his phone for a text.
But you never really could predict Stark.
"Nope, sorry, Pepper says I can't; not even for a good cause," Tony reported, stashing his phone and setting Foster's assistant upright.
"Aww, please?!" Darcy whined. "Tell her I'll give you right back!"
He shook his head and gallantly kissed her hand. "Sorry, kid; that's all I can do. Ask Banner."
Bruce was definitely sure he wanted to stay out of this, but apparently he was on politeness autopilot, because he said, "Ask Banner what?" before he was aware.
"Bruuuuce," Darcy whined, hopping her way across the lab to him. "Kiss me!" she demanded the second she was within arm's reach.
"K-kiss you?" Bruce repeated, paling.
"Yup," Darcy affirmed, pointing at her lips. "Smack me one, right there." She closed her eyes, expecting smooches, then opened them again after a moment and added, "Please."
Bruce floundered, and Tony's smirk completely unhelpful. "Why?"
Darcy made an unhappy face, then hoisted herself onto a lab bench to explain. "Well, I sort of had a dream last night."
Tony's smirk grew into a grin and he leaned onto the table in front of him and perched his chin on his hands to listen.
"Shut up," Darcy advised his face. This only made him grin wider. "Anyway, it was… a nice dream. The kind of dream that's better to have when you're waking up with someone next to you, so they can…" Her eyes wandered over the lab, presumably looking for appropriate phraseology, but they found Tony instead. She cleared her throat and abandoned the sentence. "And it got me to thinking about the last time I kissed someone, and then I was sad, so now I need you to kiss me because Pepper won't let Tony do it."
Bruce rubbed his forehead, wishing he had stayed in bed.
"Okay, fine," he relented.
Darcy grinned and bounced off the table, immediately resuming her invasion of his space, eyes closed, head tilted, patiently waiting.
He blushed and leaned forward to brush his lips over hers.
"Boo," came the immediate assessment from Tony. Bruce looked over to see him holding a marker sans cap and a whiteboard with a large '3' scrawled on it.
"This is not the Olympic trials of kissing," Darcy chastised.
"It would have been a two, only he got all bashful beforehand," Tony informed them.
"Though would you mind if I offered a little constructive criticism?"
Bruce blinked at her. "What?"
"MOAR, PLZ."
Tony laughed and Bruce could almost hear the internet spelling she surely meant to use.
"More of what?" Clint honestly looked like he hadn't been eavesdropping as he stuck his head into the lab. Bruce figured that he was probably there to pick up those new arrows Tony had promised him.
"Clint, I need someone to kiss me because I had a dream and it reminded me how long it's been since I've really been kissed and a tiny peck doesn't count but I appreciate the sentiment and love you anyway, Bruce."
Clint looked a little blindsided by her quickly delivered wall of text that was only partially addressed to him. "You… need someone to kiss you?" he sussed out.
"Kiss me, Clint."
He looked a little nervous. "Me? Kiss you?"
"What is wrong with you people?" Tony wondered aloud. "She nearly had the kiss of her life a minute ago, but then I remembered—"
"Remembered that you love and cherish an amazing and beautiful woman who could crush you with a whim," Bruce interrupted.
Tony stuck his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. That."
"I'm just a little overwhelmed, okay?" Clint explained. "I'll kiss you, Darcy."
"Really?" she squeaked. "Like, a spicy one?"
Bruce rolled his eyes.
"Uh, sure, why not?"
Darcy bounced over to him, and he brought her to a halt with both hands on her shoulders. This seemed to alert him to the fact that his hands were, in fact, on the end of his arms, but was unhelpful in informing him how they worked as extensions from his body. The second he pulled them away, it was clear that he had no idea how he ought to proceed: with or without them? He considered putting them around her, then thought better of it, pulling them back to possibly resume their position on her shoulders (or maybe on her arms?), but tossed the whole hands/arms plan out the window when he saw she was expectantly peeking out from under one eyelid at him. He leaned forward, clearly intent on completing his task, and she closed it again.
And then several seconds went by, in complete silence.
"It's rude to keep a girl waiting, Clint," she told the empty air before her.
Bruce put his face in his hands, and knew that Tony was trying to keep from laughing when suddenly the day was saved, and Darcy got her kiss.
Darcy made a noise of appreciation, leaning in and wrapping her arms around the waist of the person kissing her. Bruce stayed behind his hands, which was helpful in hiding the redness of his face from Tony.
After a few moments Tony did start laughing, and Darcy stepped away from the kiss.
"Wow, Barton," she said with a smile. "Did you lose some weight recently?"
"What he lost," came the very feminine reply, "was his nerve. As his partner it was only right that I pick up the slack."
Tony waved his whiteboard again, where he had added two zeros behind Bruce's original score. "Encore, encore!" he called.
"Why was he supposed to be kissing you, anyway?" Natasha asked.
"Well, I had this dream…" Darcy began to explain.
Natasha snaked her arm around Darcy's waist and pulled her out of the lab, toward the elevators. "Tell me about this dream," she coaxed.
When they were gone, Bruce waited to see if anyone was going to jump out with a camera to let him know he'd been punked. "Did that really just happen?" he asked.
Tony shrugged. "I fly around in a robot suit I built in my basement and you fight crime with a combination of radiation and some intense emotion; you really think hot girls kissing is the strangest thing in the universe?"
Author's Note: I babble behind the scenes at my blog: iwillwriteyourfic DOT blogspot DOT com SLASH 2016 SLASH 05 SLASH kiss-me DOT html (but here, have a free headcanon: If Tony had had the wherewithal to give Clint a score, he'd just have flipped his whiteboard upside down and turned the 3 into an E for escape!)
