Darcy spent the rest of the day alone, but she wasn't afraid of it anymore. She didn't stare at the couples having their weddings on the beach with any kind of wistfulness.
She'd look and wondered what that was like, but knew that probably wouldn't happen with her.
And maybe she was okay with that.
She went to sleep alone, after another luau.
She didn't see Bruce all day. He was right – it wasn't her job here to look after him. She'd worry about that next week.
When she woke up, she sighed.
Her skin even felt different from all the salt water she was splashing around in, except it made her hair frizzier and crunchy.
She improvised a hair mask by Googling a few things, and then asked room service to send her an avocado and some honey.
She mashed it together, and then slowly began running it through her hair, letting it all sit for about half an hour before washing it out.
It took a while but it was all gone, and she let it dry on across her back and shoulders as she walked off for her late lunch.
It was her fourth day there. She was more than halfway through it all, and going back to the compound was the last thing she wanted to think about.
That and Jane. Whenever she thought of Jane, her stomach twisted and she didn't know what to do.
Anything she told her about the trip, any reaction would be negative.
But it was Jane's choice to leave, and not Darcy's.
She clearly still held that against her, by how she spoke about Darcy being her assistant and not Bruce's.
Darcy focused on bonding with everyone, but deliberately didn't give Steve the opportunity to be alone with her for too long.
It wasn't hard to avoid him. She had plenty of excuses.
"We're gonna go see turtles," Steve announced, when he found Darcy after lunch, her book in her lap while she lay in a hammock.
"Have fun. I'm going shopping later."
"Oh," Steve said.
He seemed surprised for her to decline his invitation. He leaned against one of the trees that supported the hammock and tapped it a few times with his finger.
"Nat's going shopping, too."
Darcy's eyebrows rose. She wasn't sure about being around Natasha for too long. There were a lot of things she'd rather not admit aloud.
Like the fact that she'd slept with Steve and badly wanted to repeat it over and over again despite the fact that she didn't want anything beyond a friendship with him.
If Natasha was as straight a shooter as Darcy presumed the spy to be, she was in big trouble.
"I'll go find her and maybe you two can go together," Steve added, after a pause.
Darcy lowered her sunglasses.
"Is she the type to pry about things?"
"Well, yeah."
Steve admitting that made her stomach flip in panic, but she cleared her throat and pushed her glasses back up again.
"Then I'd rather go alone."
"You know each other," Steve said.
He looked down at her bare legs and then looked away, sighing softly.
Why was he intent on pushing her toward Natasha Romanoff of all people? As far as Darcy knew, they had very little in common.
"Why do you care?"
Darcy shut her book sharply, and got out of the hammock, letting it swing in the wind as she slipped her flip-flops back on.
"I don't," Steve retorted. "Or I shouldn't."
Darcy rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll go talk to her."
Steve's hand dropped from the tree to his side. "Oh. Good."
They caught a shuttle to another island where there were many designer brands, but Darcy was more interested in buying goofy or downright ugly knickknacks for her family and Jane.
She even thought to buy Erik some kind of snow globe if she could find one tacky enough to make him uncomfortable and hide it in a cupboard with his gaudy ones she'd sent from Norway and London.
Thinking of Erik made her think back to Jane, but she shoved the anxiety down and pretended spending time with Black Widow herself wasn't intimidating as fuck.
When he approached Natasha to organize leaving together, Bruce was nowhere to be seen, but she didn't ask about him until an hour into their expedition.
"You see Bruce today?"
"No," Natasha answered, as if she'd been waiting for the question all day. "I think he's in solitary."
Darcy wondered what the hell he was up to if he wasn't leaving his room.
"Did he seem…okay when you saw him last?"
A wicked thought sprang into Darcy's head: More than okay, I bet.
She pushed it aside, studying Natasha's face as they walked.
They both got frappes but Natasha had hardly touched hers. Darcy sipped her own and waited for the spy to tell her to mind her own business.
It would be understandable if she did.
"He's never been one to excel in public," Natasha admitted.
She shrugged one shoulder and looked into a shop window, tilting her head.
"I keep forgetting that he hates being touched," Darcy admitted. "I don't think I'm right for him."
"Same," Natasha murmured.
They looked at each other.
"Darcy, listen," Natasha began.
Oh, no. Darcy looked away, blushing. She knew they were going to go where she didn't want to. It was only matter of time before she'd be lying through her teeth.
"I don't want to talk about it," Darcy said abruptly, her voice low. "Whatever you have to say about anything."
The redhead looked confused. "Why not?"
Darcy let out a half laugh. "Uh, because it makes me feel weird?"
"Do I make you feel weird?"
"Yes," Darcy said, looking her in the eye.
There was a beat, and then Natasha ducked into the store they were passing and Darcy stayed outside, her stomach twisting.
Natasha returned, a bag in one hand.
"I got the boots."
"Oh," Darcy said, and she blushed. "I'm sorry."
"It's fine," Natasha said. "Not my place. It's a habit."
"Being nosy is considered a habit, now?" Darcy asked, and Natasha smiled briefly, shrugging.
They kept walking, and Darcy wondered why the hell she didn't just say what she was thinking.
"It's hard, being alone."
Natasha looked her way, and Darcy felt her eyes sting.
"Since Jane left, you mean?" Natasha asked.
Darcy nodded, and sniffed loudly. She wasn't going to cry. It wasn't Natasha's responsibility to make her feel better.
"I used to think I was better being alone," Natasha said.
She swung her bag a little as they walked.
"But not anymore?"
She wondered what code Natasha cracked, because Darcy wasn't sure what she wanted.
If she was friends from now on with everyone she'd been meeting the past few days, life would feel fuller.
She would feel less apart from the world.
But it didn't matter if those bonds were made if Bruce decided she wasn't the right person for the job, and threw her out.
And finding other people to be around apart from relying solely on Jane felt like a betrayal.
Admitting that to herself, that she still felt that level of loyalty to Jane, made Darcy feel like a child.
"Over a year ago, when Steve and I met Sam, that's when I stopped being so defensive."
The mention of Steve made Darcy deliberately not look Natasha in the eye.
"For me it's about reality," Darcy said.
She swallowed.
"Thor really screwed everything up. Even though it changed my life. And I'm happy it did, just –"
Darcy let out a breath.
"I learned quickly that people get hurt, and people can't always keep promises."
Darcy knew she was risking a lot admitting all this.
Natasha's face was unreadable.
"You can hurt people, too, Darcy. These things don't just happen to people."
Darcy narrowed her eyes slightly.
"You're saying it was all Jane's fault that all that shit happened - ?"
"I'm saying," Natasha added. "That we all have choices."
Darcy let that sink in, but eventually shook her head.
"None of this life ever felt like choice."
Natasha nodded, and Darcy felt more at ease.
She wasn't getting her head bitten off.
They spent the rest of their time together not talking too much about anything heavy.
When they returned to the hotel, Natasha told her she might see her at the luau.
Darcy noticed she made no mention of Bruce.
Feeling closer to the spy, Darcy decided to check on Bruce.
If he needed anything, she could help.
If he let her.
She knocked on his front door, but there was no reply.
Darcy looked over her shoulder at the sunset, and saw Sam and Steve laughing in the distance and drinking beers.
Kylie stood with them, and Darcy felt her stomach drop.
She turned away, her hands suddenly sweaty, but she knocked again.
Nothing.
She kept knocking until finally, she heard movement inside, and Bruce appeared, whipping the door open.
"Bruce."
It wasn't the time to call him boss. He looked dishevelled, his shirt rumpled and his face unshaven.
He turned and Darcy followed him, wringing her hands and then crossing her arms.
"You okay?"
"Who's asking?" he grunted.
Was he drunk?
Darcy knew he wasn't the type to indulge too often because he could potentially transform.
She didn't smell alcohol.
"Me. And Natasha," she answered.
She looked at the mess surrounding her. His suitcase looked like it exploded, with shirts and shorts strewn all over the room. Coffee mugs covered almost every surface except for the TV, which was on a news channel, but Bruce didn't seem to be taking it in.
His glasses were on his pillow, and his toothbrush was on the floor – which Darcy accidently stood on before moving aside and keeping close to the doorway.
"I'm feeling super," Bruce said, his voice flat. "As always."
"Do you want a bigger room?"
"No," he snapped. He shot her a look.
His jaw tightened. "So Nat sent you."
"No. I wanted to see you. Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm suffocating here."
"So go home. I can organize –"
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "No."
Darcy didn't mean to, but she huffed loud enough for him to hear.
He bristled at the sound.
She knew she'd gone too far.
"Why bother being here when you're not having fun, Bruce?"
Darcy threw her arms up as she said this, and Bruce stalked over to the TV and changed it over.
"Nat."
"Why aren't you with her now?"
"Because she's figuring out what I already told her, that we won't work out."
Darcy didn't know what to say. She could argue, she could try to convince him he was wrong.
Would she even believe herself if she contradicted him?
"Just tell me if you need anything."
She turned and left, and saw outside that Kylie was still beside Steve and laughing with him.
Darcy chose to kick him out of her room two nights ago.
She chose this.
She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palm.
She did it long enough for her to focus on something else besides how happy Steve looked beside Kylie.
Darcy skipped the luau, sitting alone in her room with a bottle of champagne and her emails open.
Jane had sent nothing else.
Maybe she was waiting for Darcy to engage.
It happened twice, actually.
She sent it off and drained her third glass. She wasn't drunk, but that glass should push her past the tipsy, sluggish stage into sleepiness.
She slipped out of her room and walked down to the beach, barefoot.
Thor and Jane didn't work out.
Bruce and Natasha were crumbling apart and they barely got started.
She waded out, wiping her face, pretending she wasn't crying.
Things fall apart, and she needed to accept that. It wasn't a hard pill to swallow if everyone else had helped her already to learn that.
She could imagine Jane already emailing back a reply:
He will hurt you.
Kylie in Steve's arms, the two of them in bed. That was all her mind would let her see.
Being jealous when she didn't know Steve that well was sad on her part.
She needed thicker skin.
"Hey!"
She turned, and saw Sam at the shore.
"You're kind of far out, Lewis."
She swam back toward him, stepping onto the sand.
He looked genuinely concerned.
"I got something to ask you."
"What is it?" Darcy's voice was hoarse from her tears.
She hoped her eyes weren't red. If anyone asked, she'd blame the salt water.
She dreaded whatever Sam was going to say.
Darcy looked down at her flip-flops on the sand and realized she'd forgotten her towel.
"You know Kylie? Is she in your surfing class?"
"What about her?"
She tried not to sound too affected by anything he said, but her heart was beating faster and she could feel herself quickly sobering up.
"Just wondering what you think about her."
"For Steve?"
Sam opened his mouth, tilting his head to the side.
"No. For me. Why, has he said he's interested?"
Darcy flopped on the sand, stretching her legs and feigning boredom.
"No. But Kylie thinks you're both cute."
"So she'll have to decide if we both ask her out."
Sam just rolled his eyes a little. "I know where that ends if Steve and me are after the same girl."
Darcy flicked a bit of sand of her leg.
"Does he seem interested to you?"
Sam shrugged. "He's kind of guarded when it comes to dating. Didn't even tell me about proposing to Sharon until after they broke up."
Darcy froze, her hand in the air.
"What?"
She forgot she was meant to be nonchalant, because most likely Sam hadn't heard anything about what happened between Steve and her.
She took a breath, and realized Sam was staring down at her.
"You didn't know that, huh?" he said, and Darcy just blinked a few times, shaking her head.
He looked toward the water.
"Like I said – guarded."
"Sharon said no?"
She asked because – well, why? Why was she trying to decipher this? What was she doing?
"She said yes."
Darcy got up.
She was so shaken she knew she couldn't do or say anything without giving everything away.
"News to me."
Her voice was faint, but he seemed to hear her.
She said goodnight and fled to her room.
She finished the rest of the champagne, her TV blasting the Discovery Channel with no new messages from Jane.
