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2 – Bruce

Natasha turned up at the Tower a few hours after Darcy's arrival, just as Darcy, with Clint's assistance, was finishing her unpacking in the suite of rooms (more than she'd ever hoped for, with fancy appliances, beautiful furniture and plenty of space) she had been given on the same floor as Jane.

"You know, Dr Foster thinks you two are dating," Natasha told them, almost conversationally, as she settled down into her seat.

Darcy choked on her drink.

Clint fell sideways from his perch on the arm of the couch.

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" Darcy asked in horror once she had finished coughing.

"Dr Foster is under the impression that the two of you are romantically involved."

"Ewwwwwwwww."

"Real mature, Darce," Clint said.

"You are my uncle. I repeat – ewwww."

Clint glanced up at the ceiling and frowned.

"Don't worry," Darcy told him, "JARVIS and I are buddies. He promised anything in my apartment, or yours or Nat's, will stay private from everyone else unless it endangers somebody. Isn't that right, J?"

"Correct, Miss Lewis," JARVIS sounded almost fond, considering he was a computer system.

Making friends with an AI barely minutes after her arrival had not been on Darcy's to-do list, but JARVIS was awesome and Darcy would use all the advantages she could get to keep her private business as private as possible in a place where there were eyes (and spies) everywhere.

"I'm surprised you haven't told anyone yet," Natasha said to Darcy, "not even Dr Foster."

Darcy shrugged, "haven't got around to it yet. I thought about it in New Mexico, but she was so angry with SHIELD that I decided it was best to keep quiet for the moment."

"It might be interesting to see how long it takes them to guess," Natasha mused, the look on her face a little too innocent to be quite real.

Clint snorted, "you're such a troll, Nat … but fine, a hundred bucks says Stark will, in under a month, ask JARVIS for access to our private conversations, get refused and then crack and just ask one of us for the truth."

Darcy grinned. "I will take your bet. Tony Stark definitely won't want to admit defeat by asking us straight out. Dr Banner doesn't strike me as the type to care that much about interpersonal dynamics and Jane will be too distracted by the lab and all her new toys to ask me about Clint. What is Captain Rogers like?"

Clint shrugged, "kind of seems like he could be an earnest, super-polite and slightly awkward boy-scout type, but I'm fairly sure he's got hidden depths. Might turn out to be an even bigger troll than Nat."

They both turned to Natasha, who tilted her head in contemplation, "I say that none of them will ever get round to asking. They'll all just assume that what they think is correct and continue happily on with their particular assumption. Then something will happen that will force one of us to explain the truth and they'll all kick themselves for not seeing it before."

"Well then," Darcy grinned, "guess we'll find out who's right. Clint says Stark, I say … Captain Rogers, and Nat says none of them."

It would certainly be an interesting few months ahead.

Bruce just wanted to be left alone in his lab to get on with his work.

He didn't particularly want to be part of the Avengers. Didn't want to pay attention to the daily media debates about whether he was a hero or a monster. Didn't even really want to be in this Tower with so many vulnerable people being put in danger simply because of his presence.

Tony was surprisingly persuasive, though, and the lab space was more than he'd ever dreamed of.

And if there was one thing Bruce really did love, it was his work.

And so he meditated and drank lots of chamomile and mint teas and tried not to react when Tony poked him with things in the hopes of getting a reaction.

He avoided the common areas, kept to himself and attempted to remain as calm as possible.

Still, he couldn't help but meet the Tower's newest lab manager, Darcy Lewis.

-x-x-x-

Bruce had never been in Clint's rooms before and couldn't help glancing around the living space a little.

The furniture was fairly basic, but there was a pop of colour on one of the walls, which had been painted a deep purple colour.

There were three photographs on a shelf. The first was Clint and Darcy sitting next to each other, beaming up at the camera, a picture he thought came from a movie night a few weeks previously. The second was a candid shot of Natasha – she was mostly facing away from the camera but her distinctive hair and side profile were clear. The third seemed older, a younger Clint with his arm around a dark-haired girl, in a homemade frame decorated with purple glitter that had World's Best Uncle written on it.

He paused at the third photograph, wondering why the girl seemed so familiar, but then he just shrugged and decided he must be thinking of her similarities to Clint.

Moving away from the photographs, Bruce noticed a number of knitted scarves and hats scattered throughout the room.

"Yeah, sorry about the mess," Clint mumbled as he rummaged through the cupboards to try and find a clean mug, "Darce tends to just leave them all over the place. Give it another month or two and I'll probably be able to open a store if I want."

"It's fine," Bruce said, "I know I'm intruding. I just wanted to talk to you about the incident."

"Ahh," Clint nodded, "I should have known that was what this was about. No offence, but you don't tend to leave your lab much."

The incident, as Bruce referred to it, had occurred six days previously.

Darcy has begun to help in both his and Tony's labs, as well as Jane's. She was remarkably good at getting Tony out of the lab, even managing to get him to sign things, and Pepper considered her an absolute godsend.

Bruce had to admit he enjoyed her presence too. She helped organise his lab without being intrusive, left food for him to eat when he got caught up with work, and chatted cheerfully with him whenever she visited.

Of course, all it had taken was a frustrating day of research that didn't seem to be going anywhere, a couple of anti-Hulk articles he'd read and a minor explosion in the lab to bring the Hulk to the surface at the exact moment Darcy was bringing him lunch.

In the grand scheme of things, it hadn't been a particularly serious incident. He'd only started to go a little green, not fully Hulked-out, and Darcy had managed to keep him calm for long enough that she could get out of the danger zone and call for backup.

Still, it made sense that the whole thing would have worried Clint. Neither Darcy nor the archer had ever explicitly said they were dating, but it seemed the most logical explanation considering how often they were seen together, clearly comfortable with each other, and the clear signs in Clint's apartment that Darcy spent a lot of time there. Sure, Clint had to be ten or fifteen years older than Darcy, but they were both adults and Bruce didn't think it was his place to interfere.

"I just came to say that I can tell Darcy to stop coming to the lab, if you would be more comfortable with that. She insisted she didn't care about what happened, but I was concerned she might have been trying to spare my feelings."

Clint sighed, but he didn't seem angry, "look, man, I like you, really. Dr Bruce Banner is a pretty cool guy, even if most of the science stuff is beyond me, and the Hulk did a heck of a lot of good when we were fighting Loki and his alien army. I'm pretty sure Tony is gonna keep that 'Hulk Smash' imprint of Loki in his penthouse for the rest of eternity. Sure, I'm not too thrilled that Darce was up close and personal with your alter-ego, but she's a grown woman and she makes her own decisions."

"Besides," he added after a moment's pause, shooting Bruce a lopsided grin, "she'd kick my ass if I tried to tell her who she could hang out with."

"She's certainly … tenacious," Bruce agreed.

Rather a whirlwind, to be honest. Not the sort of company that Bruce usually sought out, but Darcy really was exceptional at organising his lab, and she seemed to have a good sense of when to talk to him and when to back off and leave him in peace – Tony could certainly take some lessons from her.

Clint smiled, his expression a soft one that Bruce rarely saw on the archer's face, "Darcy is definitely something special."

There was real affection in his voice. Whatever might be said about the age difference, Bruce thought it was obvious that Clint truly cared about Darcy.

"I better go," Bruce said, "I promised Dr Foster that I'd look at some calculations with her."

"Yeah, you don't want to mess with Jane on a science bender," Clint said, the rueful look on his face suggesting he had got on the wrong side of the petite scientist at some point.

As Bruce headed out of the door, he looked again at the photographs on the shelf, his gaze drawn to the one of Clint and his niece.

There really was something so familiar about that girl.

He just couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter.