There's a Monster On Your Six, Dear

by Tarafina

Rookie SHIELD Agent, Darcy Lewis has just realized that monsters are real… Of course, that might've been good information to know before her team was eaten. Thankfully, a couple of monster-hunting brothers show up to help her out.

Title: There's a Monster On Your Six, Dear (And Your Tazer Won't Help)
Category: Thor/Supernatural
Genre: Humor/Romance
Ship(s): Darcy/Dean Winchester
Rating: Teen | PG-13
Prompt: Day #4 - Trip | Darcy Lewis Crossover Week
Warning(s): Coarse Language, Sexually Suggestive
Word Count: 6,578
Summary: Rookie SHIELD Agent, Darcy Lewis has just realized that monsters are real… Of course, that might've been good information to know before her team was eaten. Thankfully, a couple of monster-hunting brothers show up to help her out.

There's A Monster On Your Six, Dear (And Your Tazer Won't Help)
-1/1-

Darcy threw her tazer down on the ground of the dusty, dully lit supplies room she was hiding out it, and cursed that her favorite weapon went out on her now, of all times. She pulled her gun from her leather hip holster, but the weight was unfamiliar, foreign. She'd been training, but she just didn't feel like this was the right weapon for her. Still, if push came to shove, she was willing to shoot her way out if she had to.

Damn it, nobody was ever going to let her live this down! Coulson sent her out on her first recon mission with a small group of soldiers, all of whom were either missing or dead, and now this… thing was just playing with her. This wasn't their regular enemy; and that was saying something considering the bizarre myriad of things that had come at them over the years. From militarized assholes like HYDRA to doom bots to Loki and the Chitauri; the weird, unusual, and completely bizarre weren't out of the norm, and it seemed the surreal was coming out in droves of late.

Which was why she shouldn't have been so surprised to find out ghosts and ghouls and everything her mom told her wasn't hiding in her closet was actually real. And they were so friggin' unprepared it was laughable, which of course led her to laughter, only it was hysterical and it bubbled out on a high-pitched squeak.

Would bullets even work on this thing? She wasn't sure. It wasn't exactly in the SHIELD handbook or leaflets or the daily warning memos to be on the lookout for this or that. She'd never seen anything like this and she wasn't sure she wanted to again.

Reinforcements hadn't been called. The guy with the radio was eaten. She was quick to pipe up with, "Why the hell do we only have one radio?" (which, hello rude, she could've at least shown some regret over Tom getting eaten, but… y'know, priorities) To which she got the evil SHIELD glare that they all mimicked at the same time, like some freaky Agent Smith shit. And it reminded her once again that she wasn't so sure she fit in with this gang. Sure, she felt like she was going in the right direction when she was back at Stark Tower, but that was because she was hanging out with the Avengers and making sure Jane was eating. When she was out in the field with anybody besides Natasha, Barton or Coulson, she sometimes wondered if being an agent was right for her.

Darcy wasn't the made-of-stone type; she still cried during Disney movies.

And also this way too tight bodysuit was just weird… and uncomfortable. Sure, it made moving around easy, but she preferred her worn jeans and wool sweaters.

She heard movement suddenly and her head turned, eyes darting. She checked her gun despite knowing it would have a full magazine; she hadn't taken a single shot since she'd been issued it back at headquarters. While she didn't care for the gun itself, she did like the holster Coulson had gifted her; mostly because it was signed on the inside with all of the Avengers signatures and Jane's lopsided smiley face.

But what came around wasn't a big bad monster… It was just two dudes. Two really handsome dudes.

"What the actual fuck?" she complained, lowering her gun slightly. "What are you doing here? This place was locked down and sealed, by government order!" She stamped a foot. "I will have your asses in gitmo for this, Jesus Christ!"

They exchanged a look and then stared at her suspiciously.

"Uh, you don't exactly scream government official there, sweetheart…" the short of the two said, pursing his lips and eyed her up and down.

The taller one raised his chin, brows furrowed. "You're kind of young," he said. "Do you have ID?"

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours," she snarked, glaring. Popping her hip out defiantly, she stated, "I'm here under Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division. It was reported to us that there was suspicious behavior occurring on these premises and we took it under advisement."

"So they sent out their rookie to see what was going on?" The shorter, and in her opinion more attractive, man snorted and popped an eyebrow up at his partner. "You were just sent on a suicide mission, sweetheart."

"It's Darcy." She frowned, rolling her eyes and correcting, "Agent Lewis." Her eyes moved away from him to the hallway behind them. "And I've figured out the mission is a bust, asshole. My whole team's been eaten or dragged off; I didn't show up, white steed at my back, to save the day by my lonesome."

"Yeah, well, our superiors obviously didn't know that the Supreme Headquarters Spy… thing was taking over, so we were ordered to come in and check it out," he told her, standing a little taller.

"SHIELD," she told him. "And are you really trying to tell me that you work for the government right now?"

He smirked. "'Bout as believable as you, doncha think?"

"Uh no, considering my history and how I got to be an agent, I'm gonna say that my reason for working for them makes sense…" She pointed between them, her eyes wide, "Two Abercrombie models picking up a badge and playing heroes is a little less likely…" She frowned. "Not that most of the heroes I've worked with aren't lady-wood material, but still… extenuating circumstances."

He blinked at her, biting his lip. "Yeah, I don't know if there was a compliment in there…" he admitted before shaking his head. "Anyway, I'm Agent Donald Roeser, and this is Agent Eric Bloom," he said, motioning between them, digging into the pocket of his worn, leather jacket.

She hummed, eyebrow raised. "Blue Oyster Cult; nice try, Lips. Better luck next time." She waved a finger around and then looked to the taller of them. "What's Moose got for the fake identities circle?"

His mouth opened and then just hung there as his eyes narrowed, coming up blank. "Uh…"

"Right. Yeah." She rolled her eyes. "I'll take you into custody later; right now I need to find a way to kill the Boogeyman…" Her eyes cut away. "And possibly have him brought back to base for weird, scienc-y experimental stuff that—" Her nose wrinkled. "—I really don't want to know about, so…" She motioned to the door. "Why don't you two crouch in a corner somewhere, pray to whatever deity butters your muffin, and mama's gonna go hunting." She started for the door.

"Whoa!" The shorter man (so-called Donald) stepped in front of her, hands up. "Listen, so we're not exactly packing real ID's, you caught us off guard," he admitted, shrugging. "But that thing out there isn't going anywhere just because you point a pretty face and a gun at it." He stared down at her seriously, his handsome face taking on a decidedly dangerous look. "This isn't child's play…" He shook his head. "I don't care who you work for, if you've never taken one of these mothers on before, then you don't know what you're getting yourself into."

Darcy stretched to her full height and stared at him head-on. "If the next words out of your mouth are that you can't let me go after this thing… I'm going to taze you in the balls."

His eyes moved to the left to her abandoned tazer on the floor. "Gonna be a little hard, sweeth—"

"One way or another, sweetheart, I'm going to shoot you," she said, her gun directed at his junk. "Get out. Of my. Way."

He swallowed tightly, but his face never changed, and finally he told her, "I can't do that."

"Chivalry is overrated," she warned.

He laughed hollowly. "Oh, I know… But there's enough blood on my hands, I can't let you go out there and get killed." He shook his head. "Take your shot if you have to, but Sammy here will take you out just as fast."

She caught sight of Sammy moving in behind her, body tensed for a fight.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked back at the stubborn man in front of her. She ground her teeth. "Plan B… We fight it together."

He opened his mouth to argue, she could see it on his face.

"I'm trained. I have a gun. Three is better than two." She smirked. "Which I'm sure you know personally."

His lips twitched and he looked at her for a long moment. "You sure you want to do this?"

"I've survived this long… And running home with my tail between my legs isn't an option… If you knew who I worked with, you'd understand that." She turned her head slightly. "Call your puppy off."

Sammy and "Donald" exchanged a series of looks, plus a few hand gestures. She watched as Sammy looked frustrated, disagreeable, before finally just exasperatedly resigned.

Darcy flicked the safety back on her gun.

"So what's the plan?" she asked him, tucking her gun back in its holster. "I've got a full magazine and two back-ups. My tazer's down, but I have a knife… And a snarky mouth that occasionally runs off on tangents when I'm nervous, but I'm about 95% sure that isn't going to help anyone out."

He snorted but gave her a nod. "I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam…"

She looked over at the taller man, who was tucking away his own gun in the back of his jeans, obviously ready to take her out if she went for Dean as she'd bluffed.

"And you two, what? Just like skipping under the red tape to get your Scooby on searching for government secrets or…?"

Sam shook his head. "We were called in for a hunt; we got word there was something going on up here. But this isn't…" He frowned. "This isn't what the government probably has their eye on… We're talking Grimm's worst, not MIB."

"Duly noted, I'll pass it on to the higher-ups," she muttered. "Look, bad is bad in my book. This… thing, whatever it is, just took out an entire team of SHIELD agents… I might not've liked most of them, or even known most of their names beyond Agent, but we don't take that lightly…" She shrugged. "And also I think a giant monster's head would look awesome mounted in my living room over the fake fireplace."

Eyebrows hiked, Dean looked to his brother. "I like this chick."

"You like every chick," Sam sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, but this one's got spunk!"

"And ears," Darcy complained. "Now can we get this guy, already? I'd really like to get out of this cat-suit… And my contacts are starting to itch."

Back to business, they gave her a sharp nod.

Less than an hour later, Darcy stood holding an empty gun (it might not have killed the thing, but it certainly worked well as a distraction piece), a bloody, dripping knife in her opposite hand, and wearing half the monster's innards; which, when she thought about it, probably meant she was wearing porridge a la her team.

"So… There's no chance this stuff will infect me, right?" she wondered, waving a slimy hand.

"No." Sam paused, brows furrowed, and then turned his darting eyes up in thought, as if scanning his brain library to make sure. "No!" he said, nodding, looking a little more pleased and sure of himself.

"Good. 'Cause that would be a topper on an already crap day," she muttered.

On the bright side, she wasn't the only one wearing their prey. The Winchester brothers, as they'd properly introduced themselves, were just as slimed as she was, which, unfortunately, didn't take away from just how attractive she realized they were. Previously, running on adrenaline, it had just been a minor detail she'd collected and filed away as she considered her situation as the massive amounts of paperwork Coulson was going to weigh her down with. But now that the danger has passed, she was paying close attention to the fact that holy shit, they were good looking.

"So, Agent?" Dean said, cocking an eyebrow at her. "You wanna get a shower and a beer?"

She snorted. "Why do I get the feeling both of those suggestions involved you?"

He grinned, and the lines that fanned out from his eyes made him even more handsome, even if he was wearing blood and gore like it was far too normal for him. "What can I say?" He smirked. "Go green, save water."

She laughed. "I'll pass… But I'd appreciate it if either of you had a phone on you so I can call in my superiors, have them swoop in and clean up this mess, lock down the site a little better and hopefully concoct a good story for the when, why and how of what the hell just happened." Her eyebrows hiked. "They're talented enough that even I might believe their story and forget all of this even happened… Mental Clorox just isn't going to cut it here."

"Trust me, you're not going to forget," Sam told her, frowning apologetically as he handed over his phone for her to use, which she took, tucking her gun away. "Something like this sticks with you…" His eyes darted back to the condemned building. "Especially if your whole team was served up on a platter."

She shuddered. "Yeah, I don't imagine I'll be forgetting that…" She looked down at herself and poked something lumpy on her knee. "Agent Erins had broccoli with dinner…"

"You're taking this surprisingly well," Dean said, eyeing her.

"Yeah, well, taze a God, kill a monster…" She weighed her hands back and forth before noticing her dripping knife and sheepishly putting it on her hip under a strap. "They're somewhere in the same area, right?"

"When you say God…?" Sam trailed off, eyebrow raised.

"Uh, it's probably classified…" She chewed her lip. "I thought I got that verbal diarrhea thing under control… Must be the adrenaline high."

"Probably not cool for a super agent to be telling state secrets," Dean mused.

"Yeah, well…" She grinned. "I'm not your average agent."

He nodded. "Noticed. And backed up by the fact that you were the only one to live through the attack." He gave her a thumbs-up. "That's gotta be a promotion, right?"

She snorted, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, somehow I doubt it… I'll be lucky if they don't mind-wipe me and send me away to live on a funny farm."

Sam actually looked a little concerned for her.

"Oh, don't worry." She waved a dismissive hand. "I mean, they could try, but I'm totes best friends with an astrophysicist who's banging a God who really likes me…" She tipped her head. "Plus, I'm the only one who makes good pop tarts without burning them."

Dean's brows furrowed. "Yeah, fresh pop tarts, definitely makes you a real winner."

She grinned at him. "Flattered you think so." She started toward the black SUV her and the team had rolled up in, making her call as she went, using a few choice passwords to let them know that she was the only one alive and left on site, that the target had been destroyed, and that she would wait for them where she was. Hanging up, she went to the back of the SUV, popped the trunk and searched through for her duffel bag. She snapped open a compartment on the floor and reached inside for the First Aid and clean-up kit.

She glanced over when the two brothers followed her and handed Sam back his phone. "You guys live around here, you need a ride somewhere?" she wondered, before unzipping her suit and shoving it down to her hips, giving them a clear view of bare skin and a polka-dot bra.

Sam's eyes widened before he turned his head abruptly and coughed, scratching at his temple and using his hand to block his vision.

He reminded her so much of Steve for a second that she chuckled under her breath.

"Really? I'm covered in monster goop, some of which is my digested team; this couldn't get any less sexual."

Grabbing up a pack of wipes, she started cleaning up. It wasn't a shower, but SHIELD protocol was to stay on site until reinforcements arrived. She used a couple bottles of water and her packed shampoo to wash her hair before tying it back up and wiped herself down before grabbing out a pair of her favorite jeans and a wool sweater.

She cocked an eyebrow at Dean, who hadn't bothered to give her any privacy.

"So how'd you get hooked up with this SHIELD thing anyway?" he wondered.

"I was a poli-sci major in college," she told him, yanking her sweater on before she shimmied out of the tight confines of her suit pants. She wiped her legs down before pulling on her jeans and buttoning them, zipping while she shrugged. "Went out to the desert to intern for an astrophysicist, one thing led to another, government intervened, and then it was part 'knowing too much' and part 'knowing the right people,' or wrong people I guess, if I think about it too deep…" She stared off before shaking her head. "Anyway, it was either keep fetching coffee and manning the pop tarts or take the training program and become an agent…" She frowned. "Not the worst decision I made – that was definitely that time I challenged Tony Stark to a drinking contest…"

"Tony Stark." Sam turned around, apparently no longer concerned with whether she was wearing clothes. "As in Iron Man, Tony Stark?"

She nodded; that was no secret, he'd announced it himself, she didn't think it was a big deal to talk about it.

"You know him?"

"I live with him," she said, shrugging. "Or well, a few floors down from him," she amended. "I'm one of the lucky ones; I'm not in SHIELD housing, because of my ties to the astrophysicist, so I'm on the floor just under the Avengers…" She shrugged. "Sounds like fun, y'know being under the Avengers… But really, it's just loud and there's a lot of stuff being broken and burned and shot at…"

Dean punched Sam in the arm, but said to Darcy, "You're shitting me!"

She smiled. "I shit you not. We have our own in-house fire department pretty much entirely because of them… Tony sets everything on fire… And Hawkeye has way too many exploding arrows. And not once, not twice, but six times Jane has set her toaster on fire…" She waved a dismissive hand. "Partly, I think, because she keeps breaking it open for parts and then Thor tries to cook something with it, and it's just a whole thing…"

Dean's hand kept slapping at Sam in excitement, who frowned, rolling his eyes at his brother's antics.

"Don't mind him; he's just a big kid."

And then Dean stopped suddenly, staring at her very seriously. "Do you know Batman?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "No… Sorry to break it to you, but Batman is not real."

"Lies!" he exclaimed, pointing at her.

"Not lies." She shrugged. "I work for a top secret government organization that banks itself on its superheroes… Bruce Wayne would be right up our alley, but Batman isn't real…" Her eyebrows hiked. "I checked."

His face fell, eyes darting across the ground, looking like someone had just kicked his little monster-hunting puppy. "This sucks."

She reached out and patted his arm, wrinkling her nose when she got goop back on her hand and wiping it on a clean part of his sleeve. "Sorry to burst your bubble, big guy."

"Yeah, but… Even if he was real…" He eyed her suspiciously. "It'd probably be classified, right? Like…" He laughed, looking hopeful. "You wouldn't even be able to tell me!"

She stared at him a long second and then Sam, who shrugged at her, looking amused and endeared by his brother. She made an executive decision and told Dean, "You're right. If he was real…" She raised her eyebrows meaningfully, "I would be under gag-order never to reveal that he is very real and working underground, carefully disguised."

He broke out in a grin, nodding his head happily. "Awesome."

Sam closed his eyes and sighed, before finally giving Darcy a smile. Somehow managing to say 'sorry for my brother and his weirdness' without using any words.

She shrugged back at him. "So, if you don't mind me asking, how is it you guys know about this stuff?" She looked between them. "I mean, I would've emptied my gun on that thing and then become its midnight snack, but you two seemed to know exactly what it was and how to kill it."

"Uh, well, we were raised to," Sam said, nodding.

"Yeah, while other kids were livin' the apple pie life, me and Sammy were learning how to shoot," Dean told her, looking somewhere between a smile and a frown.

"Well, that sounds…" Her eyes darted away. "I don't know. As a kid, I probably would've thought it was cool to shoot things, but at the same time…" She shook her head. "I mean, I've got my fingers in way too many classified files to count and lemme tell you, there are some things I wish I could shove back in the vault and un-know."

Dean gave a humorless laugh, his eyebrows flashing. "With you there, sister."

She shrugged. "Can't be all bad though, right? I mean, you're out here saving lives and working with your brother…" She motioned between them. "Gotta be good to have someone to watch your back."

"Has its days, I guess."

Sam eyed the back of her truck and wondered, looking apologetic, "You think we could borrow some of that water?" He motioned at his face. "It's starting to dry."

"Oh, sure!" She grabbed out two bottles in each hand with her fingers and handed them over.

Shamelessly, she watched as water sluiced down their skin and dripped down beneath their shirts. Freshly scrubbed, they were looking even more handsome, despite the fact that their clothes were still gooped to hell.

"Uh, I've got spare clothes…" She shrugged. "I mean, my team's not going to use them and they're mostly just SHIELD suits, but still…"

"It's okay. We've got clothes in the car…" Sam half-smiled. "I just wasn't sure if you wanted us to wait until your back-up got here…" He looked down the dark road warily. "We probably won't stick around for a meet-and-greet, but at least until they're in sight…"

She grinned. "I just helped you take out a monster twice your size, and you're still trying to treat me like a damsel in distress." She arched an eyebrow. "I don't know if I should be flattered in some weird, archaic, hot-for-hero kind of way, or just offended that my mad skills didn't impress you enough."

"I liked your skills," Dean told her, smirking.

She snorted. "You should. I worked my ass off for those! Literally." She looked over her shoulder. "I used to have more cushion, but I had to cut out the pop tart diet and work on my muscle definition."

His head cocked to one side as he took her in. "I'm likin' the whole package from this view."

"Yeah, well…" She smiled down at her cleavage. "Some things you just can't get rid of. Good genes is one of them."

Sam looked amused, shaking his head. "I'm going to pull the car around," he decided.

Dean nodded, handing over the keys, focused on Darcy. "So what are you doin' after the suits come in to clean house?" he wondered.

"Besides filling out way too much paperwork…?" She turned her eyes up in thought. "Well, probably running a background check on you… Which reminds me, I get the feeling that this whole business you two are running, apparently out of the trunk of your car, isn't exactly legit." She raised an eyebrow. "Am I going to have to redact everything you two did in there and just take all the glory for myself?"

He rocked back on his heels. "Uh, well… Funny thing…" He laughed under his breath. "There's a good chance your records will say we're dead… And that we rob graves and murder people, including police officials…" He offered a smile, eyebrows hiked. "But Scout's Honor, most of that ain't true."

Her eyes narrowed. "My money's on the grave-robbing being just a little bit right…"

"More like, dig 'em up and set 'em on fire, but uh…" He shrugged. "It's a thing, y'know, kills the spirit and stuff."

"Right…" she drawled, nodding slowly. "And you two being dead would be…?"

"Helpful mostly. If we're dead, they're not hunting us, so that's a bonus."

She shrugged. "Can't argue there."

"Look, the thing is, with this job, not a whole lot of people get what we're doing… And we've run into a few badges that just didn't want to hear it; they weren't equipped for the monster-in-the-closet thing and proof wasn't always possible. Or necessary." He frowned. "Truth is, I don't really care if everybody thinks we're crazy… Long as they leave us to it, keep out of our way, we'll keep doin' what we need to and everybody'll be a lot safer."

She stared at him a long moment. "I think there's a soft heart under that chiseled mug, Winchester…" She smiled. "Guess it's one of those requirements for being a hero."

He laughed. "Yeah, well, you'd know better than me."

"I live with a bunch of rowdy, occasionally egotistical, heroes, each with their own baggage cart of issues… Half the time they don't see it either, when they look in the mirror. That engrained sense of duty that picks them up off the ground when all they want to do is stay down…" She looked him over. "You're a little more human, and you might not hunt down baddies on the same scale as them, but you're a hero." She nodded. "I don't think anybody who spends his whole life growing up saving the world with just his brother and a sawed off can be anything else."

Slowly, his charming smirk faded away and he just nodded, reaching up to drag his hand over his mouth. "It's not always fish in a barrel, y'know?" He nodded, looking haunted. "We've lost a lot of people; friends… family." He cleared his throat. "And back there…" He motioned a thumb behind him. "That mother was a hard one to put down, but not the worst I've seen…" He stared at her sincerely. "I don't really know you or what you do or what your job at this SHIELD thing is, but… You handled yourself in there, Darcy. And I don't see that too often."

"Well, I mostly just shot at it and snarked off when I got freaked out that it was going to eat my face off."

His lips twitched with amusement. "Yeah, but you never ran… Hell, you didn't even know us, and you stuck around to make sure we didn't get turned into a snack too… You had a clear way out, but you never flinched." He licked his lips and nodded at her. "Your team, and I know you said you didn't know 'em too well, but maybe the next one… They, uh, they're gonna be lucky to have you."

She smiled, her heart warming at his words "Careful, I might just swoon a little, and then you'd catch me and I don't have another spare set of clothes for when I'm slimed again."

He laughed. "Yeah, well, I get the feeling you'd look good in my clothes…" he offered, returning to his suggestive smirk once more.

"If I didn't have half of SHIELD coming in any second now and a week's worth of paperwork to file on how the hell all of this went down, I'd take you up on that… With the condition that you buy me a beer and our pillow talk involves things of a less slimy nature."

"Maybe next time," he said, nodding, his eyes falling for a moment. He held his hands up in a what-can-you-do gesture. "No guarantees on when we'll run into each other, but I wouldn't be surprised if we crossed paths again."

She held a hand out. "It's a date!"

Chuckling, he took her hand, squeezing, and gave it a shake.

Darcy was momentarily distracted by how rough his hand was; how big and warm and strong it felt, encompassing her own. A tingle ran down her spine and warmth bloomed low in her belly. Under different circumstances, she imagined she and Dean would meet in a bar, leave the bad business at the door, bond over jukebox music, snark each other off, and then spend a night in a motel room enjoying each other. But seeing as life was not so forgivable, their circumstances weren't exactly the norm. And it seemed like she was going to have to leave things up to happenstance.

Or…

Impatient as ever, she decided that waiting on fate to bring them together was going to take too long. So instead she crossed the space between them, lifted up onto her tip toes, and stared up into his pleasantly surprised hazel eyes, their lips just an inch apart before he leaned down and closed the distance.

Dean smelled like salt, sweat, and leather; he tasted like warm whiskey. She briefly wrinkled her nose, sad that her favorite warm sweater was getting gooped, but that was quickly replaced with a hum of approval as his body pressed hard against her own. He was stocky, wide-shoulders, tapered waist, and firm, everywhere. Her hands settled on his sides before sliding around, beneath his jacket, to smooth up his back, over his black shirt, gripping the fabric, feeling the stretch of his muscles. His fingers slid through her wet hair, tangled it around long digits, and tugged, pulling her hair back as he nipped and kissed her chin. And then his lips were slanting across hers once more, his tongue tracing the seam before sliding inside to flick at the back of her teeth, to drag across the roof of her mouth.

One of his hands slid down her back, fingertips along her spine, making her arch up. As it slid under and cupped her ass through her jeans, she grinned and reacted with both of hers falling to cup him back and pull him in tight. Their hips ground together and he laughed against her mouth, biting her lower lip.

Her eyes opened and for a moment all she could see were the freckles on the bridge of his nose and his long, spiked lashes; his brow was furrowed and she followed the arch of his eyebrows with her eyes. Damn, he was beautiful. She brought a hand up to press her palm against his cheek, feeling the rasp of faint whiskers there, and slid it down and around, nails scraping along the nape of his neck.

His hand squeezed and kneaded at her ass, fingers flared out to feel the seam of her jeans, and while she couldn't get any closer, she wanted to. She wanted to skip the debrief and Coulson's judging eyes and Barton and Natasha looking her over, picking apart her story, telling her what they would've done differently. She wanted to skip the paperwork and the ride back home, to where Jane and the team would be worried and interested in hearing every detail all over again. Instead, she wanted to take this guy up on his offer of a beer and a shower and then a nice long spin in his bed.

She wanted to strip off the leather jacket and the jeans and the heavy boots and see if the rest of Dean tasted as good as he smelled. She wanted to walk every rigged muscle with her fingers and make him laugh, make him smile, make those wrinkles fan out from his eyes again, just hours of playful sex that would take the haunted look out of his eyes and erase, for a time, the memory of her team members being swallowed whole and regurgitated on her.

But, alas, she would have to let fate do some of the work.

She could hear the chopper coming; it broke in through the buzz of attraction ringing in her ears and she whined as she pulled back from his lips, which were full, pink, and fan-fucking-tastic. Those lips were wasted on a man, seriously!

Licking her lips, she looked up, spotting the search light in the distance. "And that would be my boss," she said, giving Dean's ass one last squeeze before she drew her hand back. Her fingers released his hair and slid around his neck, thumb dragging, and finally patted his chest before landing on her own hip. "I guess I'll see you when I see you."

"Yeah," he said, his voice a little thick. "Uh…" He glanced up at the incoming helicopter. "You sure you're good with leaving me and Sam out of the report?" he wondered, eyebrows furrowed.

"Hey, they keep enough secrets; I wouldn't mind having one of my own." She shrugged. "You guys helped me out back there and y'know, I might not understand all of what's going on, but a monster's a monster and a hero's a hero." She half-smiled at him. "So you do what you do and I'll keep it quiet on my end." She pointed a finger at him. "Just don't let me find out you're a real serial killer or something, because then I really will taze and arrest you, all while adding you to my list of Bad Decisions; Men Edition.

He snorted, ducking his head a little and scratching his fingers through his hair. "All right. I'll keep that in mind."

Sam flashed the car headlights at him twice and he gave a nod, shuffling his feet for a second.

"It's okay," she told him. "For all the jokes I make about who I work for, my boss is six shades of awesome. He'll watch my back." She pointed behind her with a thumb. "But if you don't want to be stuck in interrogation for way too long, you should probably get out of here."

He took a deep breath, but finally leaned down and gave her one last lingering kiss, smirking when she nipped at his lip. "I'll see ya around," he said, making it sound like a promise.

She smiled over her shoulder, watching him walk to his car, waving at his brother to move over so he could have the driver's seat.

The Impala he drove did a sharp U-ey before heading off down the dark road, far out of sight. Darcy watched the tail lights until the chopper landed behind her, kicking up a mini wind storm. She turned, pushing her wet hair out of her face, which had come loose because of Dean's hand and was now swinging around, landing stinging slaps against her skin. She ducked her head and started toward them at a job, not at all surprised when it was exactly who she expected; Clint, Natasha and Phil all hopped to the ground and met her in the middle.

"Explain," Coulson said, loud enough to be heard over the chopper, which finally cut its engines.

"So, monsters? Totally real. And I'm not talking in the metaphorical, evil-doer, bad mojo of the soul kind of way." She waved her hand. "Bring a camera, because this thing is something straight out of a sci-fi movie."

They marched behind her, asking questions as they went.

"The team?" Coulson wondered.

"Gone."

"All of them?"

Her eyed widened for emphasis. "All of them."

"And you took this thing out all on your lonesome, Darce?" Clint asked, half-smiling. "Proud of you, kid."

She grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.

"You're not injured," Natasha said, eyeing her up and down, brows furrowed.

"Only mentally scarred to the nines," she said on a sigh.

"Welcome to the club," Clint snorted.

Hours later, after they'd cleared out the SUV and had a clean-up team roll in to erase any evidence, Darcy caught a ride back on the chopper with them, and was mid-yawn when Coulson sat her down after she'd been debriefed properly, a stack of papers at his elbow.

"Coffee," she told him. "Mainlined; just hook me up to an IV."

His lips twitched. "Congratulations, Darcy," he told her, patting the stack. "You survived."

She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, tell me again tomorrow."

He rested a hand on her shoulder before he left the room. "You did well. Not just anybody could take something like this on and make it through."

"Yeah, well… I'm sure we'll find out just who has the cahones, because I'm tellin' you now, Son of Coul, I don't think that's the only monster we need to be on the look-out for."

He gave her a faint smile. "Maybe," he offered. "Or maybe the Winchester brothers and their fellow hunters have that market cornered for the time being."

Darcy went stock still and very slowly looked up at him. "You, uh…"

"Know about them?" His eyebrow arched. "Are you surprised?"

"When I think about it, not really," she admitted, but frowned. "You didn't call me on it, when I didn't mention them, back at the site or when I debriefed."

"Some secrets really are worth keeping secret…" He nodded. "Now, if things get out of hand and that circle of people can't handle it, then I will bring it to the attention of certain people. But until then…" He stared at her. "This stays between us."

She saluted him, a little lost for words.

"Good." He nodded toward her paperwork. "Have a good night, Agent."

She snorted. "Oh, it'll be one for the history books," she muttered.

He chuckled under his breath as he left and Darcy let out a long sigh as she sat back and stared at what was sure to be hours of her time. She could already feel her eyes going crossed and a headache forming, but as she picked up a pen and twirled it in her finger, twisting and turning her seat side to side, she thought back to the feeling of accomplishment when they laid out the monster for good. She remembered pushing that fear down and doing what had to be done. She remembered the surprised and proud look on Coulson's face when he realized that, while he'd lost an entire team of good agents, Darcy had lived and fought and won.

And she remembered Dean and his warm lips, his fingers in her hair and on her back and happy to wander to lower. She remembered the feeling of his body pressed in close to hers and the promise in his voice that he'd see her again.

Fate was a tricky bitch, she might not cross paths with the hunter any time soon, but all the same, she felt like she'd learned something in fighting alongside him and his brother. And she had something to look forward to, should she ever be sent out to investigate something weird again.

Patience was a virtue she didn't have. But anticipation was always fun.

[End.]