A/N: Well, I've been trying for a while to think of a good way to pair up T'challa with Darcy, until I finally hit on this last night and frantically scribbled it down!
Happy reading, and I'll see you in the new year, my friends!
The first time a tabloid paired her with an Avenger, Darcy laughed. So did Tony, said Avenger, who had brought the offending article to her attention, throwing it casually on top of her keyboard, eyebrows dancing.
"You're taking this well," he remarked, after they'd both wiped the tears of mirth from their eyes.
"Anything else about me in a tabloid? Yeah," she told him, "I'd be pissed. But this? Nah."
"Mind if I ask why?"
"If I tell you, you'll just get Jarvis to find out, won't you?"
"No, he's got this annoying thing called morals. Don't know how, because I didn't program them," he finished in a slightly louder voice.
"But you did give me extensive self-improvement protocols, sir," Jarvis chimed in.
"Yeah, yeah," Tony waved his hand. "Point is, no, I wouldn't go snooping."
"Huh," said Darcy, staring at him until he squirmed. She shrugged. "It's my soulmark."
"What?"
"It's-the words are pretty clear, actually, look," she pushed her shirt up to show him, and he gasped theatrically and shielded his face. Darcy rolled her eyes.
"Dude, they're on my waist. You can look; Pepper won't kill you."
He slowly lowered his hands and inspected the neat penmanship encircling her waist.
"So that's why you never wear a bikini," he finally said.
"No, Tony," Darcy sighed. "I don't wear a bikini because there is an appalling lack of support for the girls."
"But you'd look great," he said, with a purposefully lecherous wink.
"Aaaaaand it's time for you to leave," Darcy said firmly.
"Wha-that was a compliment!" Tony protested.
"Uh-huh," she said, twirling her finger at him meaningfully. Tony grumbled under his breath, but went to leave, although, just before the doorway, he whirled around, squinted at her for a second, and then left.
(Two weeks later, Darcy got the prototype for a Stark Industries extra-support bikini top, that, after she tried it on in the privacy of her room, she had to admit was perfect. Tony was unbearably smug.)
The rest of the team, as their time came up, had varying reactions.
Steve was incredibly embarrassed and offered to never go out alone with her again.
"You think we require a chaperone on our dates, Steve?" she teased him, and he blushed an even darker red, so then she felt bad, and had to reassure him that everything was fine.
Thor was very confused, because he'd been nothing but open about his soulmate being Jane, and then he got upset, and the result of that was him storming down to the office of the tabloid responsible, and loudly demanding that they print a retraction.
They did, of course. It wasn't wise to upset an alien prince. Thor's lecture also had the happy result of halting any further press attention for a few weeks, which was nice.
Clint and Natasha were next. Together. As in, the tabloids speculated that all three of them were each other's soulmates.
"Sorry, милый," Natasha told her. "We love you, but we don't have a third."
"Love you too, Nat," Darcy said, giving her a hug. Clint was too busy laughing his ass off the couch.
Bruce wouldn't have even known about it if Tony hadn't tossed the paper at him gleefully.
"Is this…" Bruce said slowly, in a puzzled tone, after reading the article that featured a very nice picture of Darcy and Bruce getting coffee and tea at a hipster café, "supposed to make me angry?"
Tony threw up his arms and proclaimed him to be 'no fun' as he stalked off. Once he was out of earshot, Bruce and Darcy broke into laughter.
"His face!" they both gasped hysterically.
Bucky just frowned.
"They botherin' you, doll?" he asked, in a gruff tone that told Darcy if they were bothering her, nobody would ever find the bodies.
"Uh, no, it's all right, dude. Not a big deal," she'd stammered, feeling slightly flattered by the gesture.
He nodded, and then disappeared, like the freaky super-spyssassin he was.
Sam was last, and he told her he'd been feeling almost left out. Then he very seriously asked her if she needed therapy.
(Darcy did take him up on that; he was an excellent therapist.)
By this point, Darcy was exhausted by it all, and seriously thinking about telling Bucky that yes, this was bothering her, and maybe he didn't have to kill the reporters, just maim, or injure them. Paparazzi were always following her around, even when she was by herself. She wasn't even a superhero, damnit.
She groaned, flopping her head back on the sofa cushion in the Avengers common room. This was so not funny anymore. She was seriously hoping that she'd meet her soulmate for real before the media paired her with all the Avengers. There was still Vision, Wanda, and Pietro that she hadn't been speculated to be with.
"Hey, Lewis!"
Darcy didn't lift her head, just craned her neck back a little more and looked at Tony upside-down. There were a lot of people with him. All the Avengers, and some people she didn't know.
Oh, shoot. Were they doing a tour today? She flipped around on the sofa to face them properly. There was a girl and a man standing next to Tony. (Mmmmm, yeah, that was a man, Darcy thought.)
"T'challa, meet Darcy," Tony said, addressing the man next to him. "Darcy, T'challa, king of Wakanda. Darcy's our… what exactly do you do around here, Lewis?"
"Everything for you, Tony," Darcy told him, with false sweetness, covering up her mild internal freak-out about meeting an actual king of a country.
T'challa laughed. "It is a pleasure, Miss Lewis," he said, and then added, in a slightly lower tone, with a twinkle in his eye, "So, will you tell me which of them is actually your soulmate? There seem to be conflicting reports."
Darcy stared at him, because she honestly couldn't believe her ears, until she realized she'd sorta left him hanging there, the smile starting to fade from his face. He looked like he might apologize. (Tony was sniggering behind him, the jerk.)
"I think you are," Darcy blurted.
T'challa's smile returned full force.
"I know," he said.