S.H.I.E.L.D. came and took Jane, Darcy and Loki away to an aircraft carrier. Captain America promised to meet them there, but first the team had something to do.

Darcy was brought to the medical bay, while Jane was hauled off somewhere else to be interviewed. The hospital area was full of people hurt much worse than she was, so she was tossed onto a bed and left to her own devices for about forty minutes. She sat cross-legged against the top of the bed twiddling her thumbs, finally closing her eyes after about twenty minutes.

She must have fallen asleep, because she missed the rustle of the curtain getting pulled back. She opened her eyes when the bed dipped under someone else's weight though. Barton was sitting in front of her, looking exhausted. She gave him a tired smile. He returned it, and dropped a white take out box on her lap. Darcy's eyes widened at the smell.

"Thanks." Her voice was rough with sleep. She cleared her throat before opening the box and peering at the ground meat and spices inside. "Wow. Jane and I have been on a strict Poptart only diet the last couple of days. This looks great."

"That can't be healthy."

"We were in Norway. Do you even know what those people eat? Freaking everything was pickled. There were pickled sheep brains in the airport. Sheep brains." Barton's smile got a little bigger.

"You know," Darcy continued. "I'm at a disadvantage here. You know like, everything about me. And I only know your last name. If that's even your real last name. Captain America called you Hawkeye, too."

"Clint Barton. Hawkeye's my codename. And I don't know everything about you, just what I heard about in New Mexico. Spunky girl, armed with a taser."

"Clint. I like it." They sat in silence for a little while after that, while she nibbled at the food.

A doctor and two nurses pushed the curtain open. Clint stood, but Darcy put her hand on his forearm.

"You can stay. They're here to pull glass out of you too, right?" He looked very uncertain.

"You've already seen everything, buddy. Please?" Darcy really didn't want to be alone right now. He nodded and sat back down, further towards the foot of the bed as she swung her feet off the bed. One nurse started pulling glass out of her knees, and the doctor went behind them to examine the cuts in Clint's neck and biceps. The other nurse took their temperatures and blood pressure.

When everything was out of her knees, and they were cleaned and bandaged, the nurse started on her forearms. They weren't as banged up as her knees had been, and when they were done she endured a tetanus shot in her upper arm. Clint kept his eyes forward as her borrowed shirt was tugged up. It was coated in blood, and stuck to her skin, so it took a while to get it off her. The nurse paused when the shirt came up past her bra. Darcy looked sadly at the formerly white t-shirt as it was balled up and tossed on a tray.

"Doctor? You need to look at this." The nurse said. Clint chanced a look and his eyes got a little wider.

"What?" Darcy asked.

The doctor ran his hand lightly over her sternum, frowning.

"Where did all this bruising come from?"

Clint leaned over to get a better look, without her boobs in the way.

"Jesus, did I do that?" He sounded horrified.

Darcy put her hand to the spot they were looking at.

"No, I think this is from Iron Man catching me over his shoulder." She used her pointer fingers to trace out her fall and catch in the air. "I fell off of a hover board and Iron Man caught me flying perpendicular to me."

The doctor probed the area a little more firmly. "I'm not feeling anything broken, and our x-rays are booked solid for the next few hours." He turned to Clint. "You let us know if you think she needs to come back in." Clint nodded, frowning. The cuts on her stomach were cleaned and bandaged, and her ribs were wrapped. Now that the bruises had been brought to her attention, they were starting to ache, and she gratefully accepted the shot of morphine they offered.

They left to get her a bottle of painkillers, and when they came back Clint left a nurse with her while he hunted down a shirt for her. It took him about 15 minutes, and the shirt he came back with was clearly his. Darcy stood and put it on, amused that it fell to mid-thigh on her. The shoulders came down to the middle of her biceps – he had nice, broad shoulders. The stolen shirt was bagged up and passed to her, and she grabbed her food as Clint led her out of the room. He paused when they hit the hallway.

"You mind going to my quarters?" He asked.

"Nope. I'm still hungry, so anywhere's good. Can we let Jane know where I am?"

"Sure." He took a phone out of his pocket and typed quickly on it before nodding to Darcy. He led her down a hall, down an elevator, and down another hall before opening a door and stepping into a tiny room. It was only a bedroom and tiny bathroom, and it was immaculately clean.

"Kinda small." Darcy observed. "I thought you were pretty important here." Clint flashed her a small smile.

"I am. If I weren't I'd be sharing this room with three other guys and there wouldn't be a private bathroom."

"Yikes."

Darcy's head was swimming with the morphine, and Clint settled her on his bed before heading back to the bathroom. She dug in to the food while she waited for him to come back out, moaning as the spices exploded across her tongue.

Clint came back out of the bathroom shirtless and looking a little cleaner. He shook his head at her before opening his closet and taking out a black t-shirt.

"What?" She asked around a mouthful of ground meat.

"We all had some of that before we came aboard, it wasn't moan-worthy."

The drugs were loosening Darcy's tongue, and she swallowed her mouthful of food.

"I was in gymnastics till I was 15. My mom and my coaches were always watching what I ate, especially once we got serious about the Olympics. Now that I can eat whatever the hell I want, it really, I dunno. I enjoy it." Clint was tugging the shirt on, so she couldn't see his face before she went back to eating. If he'd been about to say anything, his ringing phone interrupted it.

"Barton. Uh huh. Yes, I've got her in my quarters, sir." Darcy was ignoring him, until he paused for a long time, before asking, "I'm sorry, what?" She turned to see him reach up and rub his forehead. "Yes sir, I understand." He hung up without saying goodbye and met her eyes.

"Yeah?" She asked.

"You were, ah, caught on film today." He said grimly. "With Iron Man."

"Oh. Oh. Like, without a shirt and hanging on to him?"

"Exactly like that."

"On TV?"

He just nodded. Darcy looked down at her lap sadly.

"I'm out of food." She mourned. Then her head snapped up sharply. "Oh, crap, I'm on TV, I have to call my Mom." Clint passed her his phone, and it took her a couple of tries to get her mother's number right.

"DARCY?!" Her Mom yelled through the phone.

"Mom. Mom." Darcy said, and her Mom started sobbing.

"I'm ok Mom." Darcy just repeated that, over and over until her Mom calmed down a little.

"What the HELL were you doing there? You said you and Foster were going out of the country!"

"Uh. We changed plans at the last minute?" Clint held his hand out, clearly wanting the phone. Darcy put her take out box in his hand instead, holding her index finger up to ask for another minute to deal with her mom. He tossed it into a trashcan and leaned back.

"How could you not tell me?" Her Mom demanded hotly. "Why haven't you been answering your phone?"

Wow, just like her mother to go from happy she was alive to angry at her. Yeesh.

"I lost my phone. I didn't have it on me when… uh… whatever the hell that was started." She gripped the phone tightly, feeling uncomfortable and unsure of how or what to tell her.

Clint leaned over and wrestled the phone from her. "Mrs. Lewis, hello, this is Nurse Barton. Your daughter was lightly injured, and she's going to recover just fine, but she needs her rest and other patients need the phones to call their family members too." He paused and Darcy heard her mother's indignant squawking on the other end of the line. "Alright, Mrs. Lewis, I'm going to pass you back to her to say goodbye." He handed the phone over again.

"Darcy, I'll come get you. I'll be there by morning."

"No Mom, I'll be fine. Don't drive here, please."

"Well what the hell do you want me to do then? Leave you to rot while I waste away worrying about you?"

"I'm not going to rot Mom. I'll call you again when I can."

Her mother hung up without another word, and Darcy handed the phone back with the familiar disappointment that she felt every time she spoke to her Mom weighing her down.

"Thanks." She muttered.

"No problem."

Clint settled onto the floor, back against the wall and legs relaxed straight out in front of him, and Darcy drowsed on the bed, letting the morphine make her problems seem small. She wasn't sure what they were waiting for exactly, but it was really nice to decompress away from the madness outside the door.

At least it was, until alarms started sounding, piercing her mellow, and flashing lights had her squinting. Clint launched himself to his feet, quickly making his way to the bathroom, only to reappear wearing his filthy uniform top.

"Stay here. Keep the phone, call-" He quickly flipped through his contacts and chose one before pressing the phone into Darcy's hand. "this number if you need help. Natasha will take care of you." He fitted a com into his ear and disappeared out the door. Darcy sat on the edge of the bed, ready to move if she had to, nervously looking back and forth from the phone to the door.

When she was looking down at the phone, a flash of green appeared between Darcy and the door. She jumped, looking up in time to see Loki lunging at her. She threw herself back with a loud shriek, mashing her thumb onto the call button before Loki viciously backhanded her right cheek, sending her glasses flying across the covers. The phone tumbled from her grasp, onto the floor and then Loki was straddling her. Her hands came up to protect her face and she curled onto her side. Loki was snarling and growling, and he yanked her hair with both hands to pull her face around to him.

"You ruined everything!" He screamed into her face, spraying spit all over her. He'd clearly come unhinged, and Darcy lashed out at him with her left hand. He took her punch to his nose without flinching or reacting at all, and as he continued to jerk her head around by her hair she pulled air into her lungs with a gasp, and screamed louder than she ever had in her life.

"Shut up!" He shrieked at her. Her hair was released, but then his hands came down and closed over her throat, cutting her scream short. Guttural noises came from her throat as she scrabbled at his hands, trying to hurt him enough to make him let go. It wasn't working, and black spots were dancing in her eyes as he started shaking her back and forth screaming words that she couldn't understand over the roaring in her ears.

As Darcy' s vision started to fade completely to black, he abruptly let go. Her hearing came back to her, and she realized there were other people in the room, all of them yelling. Loki snatched the hair over her forehead into his fist and brought her face up to within inches of his.

"You're going to pay for this." He hissed at her, and then he abruptly disappeared.