"So, I hear you've been hanging out with Stark."

Jane tried to drop it casually into conversation, but considering the fact that there was absolutely no segue and that Jane was trying far too hard to look nonchalant, Darcy wasn't buying it.

They sat across from each other at the only clear desk in the lab. It was the only clear desk because it was reserved for meal times and desperate naps. If Darcy hadn't vetoed its use for anything else it would no doubt be covered in bits of their madness—namely a lot of papers and spare parts.

"Sometimes," she hedged. "I've been fixing DUM-E, mostly."

"Stark can't do that?"

"I don't mind," Darcy admitted, poking at her food with her fork. "I'm making some modifications."

"Of course you are. I'm sure Stark'll love that."

"He needs a little more grey hair if you ask me."

"I thought you two didn't like each other," Jane asked. She dropped her fork on to her plate, abandoning all pretence of disinterest. "What happened?"

Darcy shrugged slightly and made a face. "We hugged it out. Turns out he's a big hugger."

Jane rolled her eyes. "Seriously, what happened?"

"Nothing, really." Darcy stabbed a piece of chicken and popped it into her mouth, the spices bursting on her tongue. "He invited me to work on DUM-E. And then ordered more shawarma than either of us could ever eat. I think he has a hard on for the stuff."

"Have I had shawarma?" Jane asked, cocking her head slightly to the side.

Darcy grinned. "Not yet, but we can put it on the list."

Jane hummed in agreement and picked up her fork again, swirling it in the rice noodles on her plate. Jane walked through life with her head either in a book, or in the clouds, and it was amazing the number of things she didn't know about, despite being a certified genius. The day she'd asked Darcy what the hell 'halal' meant and why was it on every damn take-out menu was the day Darcy decided expanding Jane's world one culinary delight at a time was her new purpose in life. Even Steve had looked at her favourite astrophysicist as if she'd lived under a rock and that man had been asleep for the majority of the Western world's lessons in cultural sensitivity.

Suddenly, a mushroom landed on Darcy's plate and she cocked an eyebrow at Jane.

"What?" Jane asked defensively. "I don't like those ones. They look like little penises."

Darcy looked back down at the long, thin mushroom and burst into laughter. Unbidden, the thought of Thor—all muscles and huge proportions—with a penis the size of the mushroom on her plate blossomed into her mind. She dropped her fork and clapped a hand over her mouth, trying simultaneously not to spray Singapore noodles* all over the desk or choke on them.

"It's not that funny," Jane said, eyeing her as if she'd lost it.

"If you think that that's what a penis looks like you've got bigger problems than I can solve," Darcy said, hand in front of her mouth.

Jane narrowed her eyes and threw another mushroom on to Darcy's plate.

"Oh shut up. I've seen plenty of penises."

xXx

Reaching deep into the little robot's body, Darcy plugged one last wire in. Instantly, little LED lights within the body and without started blinking, and the whole thing gave a shudder. She withdrew her hand, careful not to cut it on the sharp edges of DUM-E's innards, and waited for his system to boot up.

A testament to Stark's machinery, it didn't take him long. His arm extended and the claw swivelled, like a person rotating their wrist after long disuse. Then his cameras noticed her sitting on the floor before him and he turned, making that familiar chirruping sound of his. Darcy was surprised to feel her eyes tear up, just a tad, at the familiarity of it.

She reached out for his claw and he met her halfway, gripping her fingers gently with the rubber coated tips.

"You silly boy," she told him. "You're lucky you're a robot, or you could have gotten seriously hurt."

He seemed to pause for a second, taking in her words, and then he responded by shaking her hand up and down. She took it for a nod, since he didn't really have a head.

"Promise me, you'll stay away from the pool from now on?"

DUM-E chirruped happily and shook her hand once more. Darcy smiled and disengaged her fingers. "Good. Now I have a very serious question for you."

The claw swivelled to one side, much like a dog cocking its head.

"How do you feel about having a voice?"

DUM-E chirruped at her, and the sound ended on a high note, giving it a distinctly questioning tone. It was the only sound he was capable of making, but Darcy had been adding a few things here and there as she put him back together. All that was left to do was upload the sound bites to his system and let him sort through them. She picked up a portable hard drive from where she'd left it on the floor and held it up to him.

"Three terabytes of audio, my friend. Whatcha think?"

She'd pulled everything from both her and Jane's personal computers; music, movies, audio lectures on obscure forms of science—those belonged solely to Jane—and ran them through a program that broke them up into their individual words and sounds, making each one a file. All DUM-E had to do was learn what each file was and how to use them. She'd totally ripped the idea off of Michael Bay, à la Bumblebee, but whatever.

DUM-E reached out for the hard drive, taking it from her hand and promptly attempted to put it inside the open panel on his body. Darcy laughed and took it back from him.

"It doesn't quite work like that," she told him. She reached for a few cords and pulled her laptop closer. "We need some reinforcements."

She hooked him up to the laptop, and the laptop up to the hard drive, to begin the transfer of data. His LED lights began to blink rapidly as the transfer began and DUM-E let out a little trill that sounded almost exactly like maniacal laughter.

"I see you've fixed the robot."

Darcy's heart jumped into her throat and she twisted around to find the Black Widow standing a few feet behind her, dressed in her black cat suit, a bruise blooming on her left cheekbone.

"Jesus," Darcy muttered on an exhale. "You just scared a solid year off of my lifespan."

"Are you hiding from someone?" the Widow asked, arching a neat, red eyebrow.

"Stark. Sort of."

The Widow looked around pointedly, taking in the chaotic mess that was Stark's personal workshop, and then arched the other eyebrow.

"I know, I know." Darcy held up a hand. "I'm in his workshop. But he's not here, is he?"

The other woman nodded her head once in agreement, and then asked, "Why are you hiding from Stark?"

Darcy smirked at her. She wasn't afraid to tell Agent Romanov what she was up to. Darcy was willing to bet that she was the kind of woman unopposed to a harmless prank that would drive Stark up the wall.

"DUM-E is about to become the brand new owner of an audio database," Darcy told her, pointing at the laptop on the floor between her legs.

Romanov's lips twitched ever so slightly. "Are you sure this is wise?"

Darcy shrugged, completely unrepentant. "Stark could use a few more grey hairs," she said, repeating her earlier words to Jane.

The Widow cocked her head. "That robot," she pointed at DUM-E, "follows you around a lot more than it does Stark."

Darcy looked at DUM-E, who swivelled his claw towards her and chirruped as if he were agreeing. His little LEDs continued to blink furiously at her.

"Er…well…" Darcy bit her lip and looked up at the Widow, who was definitely smiling even if it was a tiny one. "Oops?"

"Indeed," she agreed, humour in her tone. She glanced around the room once more, her demeanour shifting subtly as she did, becoming more focused. "Do you know where I might locate Stark?"

"Sir is in his personal rooms, Agent Romanov," JARVIS chimed in.

The Widow nodded, to herself or to JARVIS, Darcy wasn't sure. "Please ask him to meet me in the conference room. I have information to share with him."

"As you wish, Agent Romanov."

With another nod to Darcy, and a wry look at DUM-E, Romanov turned on her heel and headed for the door. Just on the threshold, however, she paused and turned back to Darcy.

"Have you been keeping up with your practice?" she asked, making Darcy look up from her computer screen again.

"Huh? Oh. Sort of," Darcy said, a blush rising up into her neck. She hadn't really. There'd been so much going on she hadn't even thought of it. "I haven't really had the time."

The Widow gave her a look that clearly said 'Excuses' and Darcy's blush intensified. "Make time. Your life is important," she said simply.

Her eyes met Darcy's across the room for a heartbeat, and then she walked out of the workshop, her words bouncing around inside Darcy's head.

xXx

She'd been aimlessly cleaning up her apartment, something that didn't really need to be done since Stark had a service that came in and did all the cleaning for her—with her permission, of course. Jane had opted out of that, more out of shame for her slovenly ways than any need for privacy, or at least that was Darcy's best guess, because Jane hated cleaning. Darcy did too, for that matter, but when she was putting off doing something she absolutely dreaded—namely conceding to Jean Grey's demands—she'd gladly clean the toilet with a toothbrush if it got her off the hook.

Her bookshelves had just been reorganised when she'd spotted her old spiral bound notebook. It was one of the few she'd kept from college. She had been pretty damn proud of that notebook, a lot of time and effort had gone in to making what basically equated to an entire course's worth of information, including diagrams.

Instantly, she thought of Steve, and how he lacked the kind of basic science knowledge that most high school graduates had. Her notebook went above and beyond that, sure, and maybe he'd have to look some things up but Darcy didn't doubt that Steve was an intelligent man, he was the leader of their little rag-tag group of superheroes after all, he was the one with the strategies.

She plucked the notebook off of her bookcase and went to go find him, knowing exactly where he would be found.

Sure enough, when she turned down the now familiar corner en route to James' hospital room she found Steve sitting in one of the chairs along the wall, a book in his hands. He looked like the adult who had been relegated to the kiddie table at Thanksgiving dinner; the chairs were definitely not designed for super soldiers.

"You want to learn you some knowledge?" Darcy asked, making Steve look up from the novel he was currently engrossed in.

"What?" He frowned at her, no doubt put off by her terrible grammar.

She held up a thick spiral bound notebook. It was one of those 5 subject monstrosities but in reality it only held 2 subjects and it was still bursting at the seams with extra papers and articles.

"In college I took a couple of interest courses," she told him, dropping the notebook on the little table beside him with a light fwap sound. "These are my exam study notes for Basic Human Anatomy and Pathology 1. They won't make you a doctor or anything, but it's more current than what I imagine you learned in school."

Steve closed his book and put it down on the table, reaching out for her notebook and sliding it towards him. "We didn't really learn much in the way of science in school," he told her, opening the bright blue cover of the notebook to peer at the first page of notes, which was about identifying the different planes and regions of the body. "Maybe they did in older grades, but I dropped out pretty young."

Darcy's eyebrows went up and she slid herself into the seat next to him. "Captain America is a drop out?"

He shrugged slightly, not meeting her eyes. "I needed money more than I needed an education."

Darcy felt a trickle of shame creep up her spine. She'd forgotten that Steve had grown up in poverty, the kind that meant putting food on the table was far more important than learning your letters. She reached out and put a hand on his clothed arm.

"I'm sorry," she told him earnestly. Sorry that she'd teased him about it, sorry that it had been a necessity.

He smiled slightly, glancing up at her real quick, but his body was still tense and stiff as his eyes flipped ahead and skimmed through her notes, taking in the pictures that she had painstakingly printed off and pasted into her notes so that she could draw arrows to definitions and circle things.

"Bucky was always interested in stuff like this," he told her. "He always wanted to know how things worked, whether it was the engine of a car, or a person's eye. He was curious about that kind of stuff."

His tone was wistful, and Darcy was sharply reminded that even though Steve had found his best friend, he didn't really have him back. As far as she knew, Steve hadn't actually gone into the room since their disastrous interlude. She looked around her, at the bank of chairs and the shitty little table with old magazines on it, and the complete lack of other human beings. It was incredibly depressing.

"Well, then you should get to reading," she told him, grabbing the pages and flipping back to the beginning. "So you can teach him."

When he looked up at her again his smile was more genuine and it made her heart lighter to see it. She hadn't known him before he and Sam burst into the Tower with James' slung between them but she could easily believe that the shadows in his eyes were not new companions. He had a heavy weight on his soul, she could see that much. He may have been strong, but a body could only take so much. She squeezed his arm reassuringly and smiled back.

"Let me know if you have any questions? I have a couple textbooks for reference if you need them, but these are some pretty banging notes if I do say so myself."

He nodded, eyes back on the page. "I do have one question," he said, a slight frown between his brows.

"Already?"

He made a humming sound, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully before looking up at her. "Penmanship isn't taught in schools anymore, is it?" he asked, glancing pointedly at her loose, loopy scrawl.

"Hey!" Darcy punched his arm, to absolutely no effect. Steve laughed, leaning away from her slightly.

"Was that supposed to hurt?"

"You keep saying shit like that and I'm going to start calling you a golden oldie, like Stark," Darcy grumbled. Standing up, she got a good look at his blond hair and its perfectly straight part. Impulsively, she reached out and savagely ruffled his hair as fast as she could. She pulled away before the minimal contact with his scalp could form a connection.

"HEY!"

Darcy darted back, laughing. "Mess with the bull, get the horns, Steve!"

He brought a hand up, trying to smooth down his hair, but it was pretty useless, as she had mussed it up well and good. He glared at her from under his arm.

"That's how it's gonna be, is it?" he asked, a little bit of that Brooklyn accent coming out.

"Not my fault you're so protective of your hair, pretty boy," Darcy teased, a gloating smirk on her face.

"Oh yeah?" Steve moved faster than her eyes could track, and before she could do anything about it, her notebook was on the chair beside his and he was darting towards her.

She let out a yelp of surprise and turned to run, but it was completely in vain. She felt his arm close around her chest, pinning her arms to her sides, and then there was a set of knuckles rubbing furiously in her hair.

Darcy's yelp turned into a shriek as Steve gave her a 'noogie', cackling like an insane person all the while. She jerked in his grip, but he had her pinned to his chest, and she wasn't wearing her gloves so she couldn't grab his hands. She tried letting her knees go limp in the hope that he'd drop her, but this was Captain America she'd challenged, he held her up like she weighed absolutely nothing and continued to ravage her hair while she screeched incoherently and flailed about.

She was just beginning to feel the inkling of a connection between his knuckles and her scalp, little bursts of amusement and happiness, when he abruptly let her go, his laughter falling silent.

"Jesus Christ, Steve!" she growled, hands reaching up to her hair and wincing at the mess that she felt. She pulled her pony tail out and turned to tell him that this meant war when she realised exactly why he'd let her go so quickly.

Standing in the doorway of his room, his eyes darting about wildly, was James.

She froze, glancing quickly at Steve, and then back to James. He held his hands out to his sides slightly, fingers relaxed, but Darcy recognised this stance from her time with the Widow. He would fly into action the second either of them gave him an excuse. His eyes continued to flick about, never staying on one thing for too long.

Darcy glanced at Steve again, but he was frozen in place, his arm positioned as if he still held her, and his eyes locked on his friend. She didn't know if Captain America had ever frozen up before, but there was a first time for everything. Swallowing, Darcy took a breath.

"James?"

His head snapped towards her, his eyes zeroing in on her face. The intensity in them slammed into her, and she unconsciously took a step back from him. He noticed it; his eyes glancing down to her feet, and then back up to her face.

"Becca," he said. The word was sharp, short, and without the inflection at the end that would indicate a question.

Slowly, Darcy shook her head. "My name is Darcy."

He frowned at her then. It was an expression more of anger than confusion, and it made her want to take another step back, but before she could respond, Steve spoke up.

"Becca is…she's gone, Buck." The grief was thick in his voice, the regret, and suddenly Darcy didn't want to know who 'Becca' had been.

James turned his attention to Steve, mistrust written all over his face. Steve must have seen it too, because he elaborated.

"She had a heart attack, in '63," Steve told him. "She's buried next to your parents, in Brooklyn Heights."

James turned his head and shook it slightly, as if he couldn't believe what Steve had said. "You're a liar," he rasped, his voice scratchy and deep. "You're a liar!" he repeated, louder this time. His hands went up to his head, gripping his skull as if he wanted to rip it apart. "YOU'RE A LIAR!" he screamed it this time. "STOP LYING TO ME!" He turned, shaking his head violently, and his body seemed to curl in on itself, the doorframe being the only thing holding him up.

Steve stepped forward, his hand out as if to reach for his friend. "Bucky, I'm so sor—"

James lashed out before Steve even had a chance to touch him, his metal arm knocking away Steve's hand with enough force to break a normal person's bones. In the same swift move, James slammed the heel of his right hand straight into Steve's chest, throwing him backwards and on to the floor.

The sight of Steve flying through the air for the second time in as many days lit a fire under Darcy's ass and before she could think about what she was doing, she was throwing herself between the two super soldiers.

"STOP!" she yelled, skidding to a stop over Steve's prone form, both hands held up as James advanced.

To her immense surprise, he listened. He stopped dead in his tracks for a second, his eyes blazing hatred and his chest heaving, and then, as if a switch had been flicked, he seemed to crumple from within. His hands came up to his head again and he stepped back, stumbling as he went.

"Miss Darcy, should I call the appropriate personnel?"

James' entire body twitched at the sound of JARVIS' voice, and he spun in a circle, looking for the source of the sound. His hands remained clenched to the sides of his head as he turned again and slowly backed up towards a wall.

"No!" Steve's voice came from behind her, slightly wheezy but mostly all right. "We'll handle it, JARVIS."

Wisely, JARVIS didn't speak again, but Darcy had no doubt that he was monitoring the situation. She turned her attention back on James, who had squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head slightly from side to side. His lips moved rapidly, repeating the same words as if he were praying, or chanting, but Darcy was too far away to hear what it was that he said.

"James?" she called softly, slowly stepping forward. "Steve and I are here to help you, James. Do you remember us?"

He didn't answer her, not that she really expected one. Behind her, Steve stood up and she held up a hand to him without taking her eyes off James. Steve seemed to set him off, and the last thing they needed was another scene reminiscent of that hospital room. Jean Grey had said that he'd recognised her voice, and Darcy hoped to capitalise on that.

"James, I know everything must be confusing right now, but you're in a safe place. No one here wants to hurt you." She crept closer, feeling as if she approached a rabid dog, something likely to pounce without warning. She crouched, as slowly as she could, and as she knelt in front of him she finally heard what he was whispering to himself.

"He's a liar. He's a liar. He's a liar. He's a liar." It was whispered like a furious mantra. Darcy glanced back at Steve, knowing that his enhanced hearing meant that he could most likely hear. Judging by the heart wrenching expression on his face, Darcy figured he got the message, loud and clear.

"Who is a liar, James?" Darcy asked, turning back to him.

He looked up at her, his eyes still burning with emotion. "Him," he said earnestly, as if the emphasis would help her understand.

"Do you mean Steve?" Darcy turned to glance at Steve quickly, and then looked back at James. He followed her gaze, glancing at Steve, but there was no recognition in his gaze.

"No. Him."

Darcy, frowning, opened her mouth to ask James just who the hell this 'him' was if it wasn't Steve, when a memory popped into her mind. It wasn't really her memory, though, it belonged to James.

"Do you mean the blond man?" she asked softly. "The older one, in the suit?"

James looked at her sharply. "You know him," he said, more statement than question, and there was a hardness to his voice that set Darcy on edge.

"No," she told him quickly, shaking her head slightly. "I saw him in your mind. Do you remember?"

"You're in my mind?" he echoed, and this time there was a note of panic in his voice.

"No!" Darcy said, louder than she meant to. James recoiled from her and Darcy bit back a curse. She was fucking everything up, left, right, and center. "No," she repeated, softer this time. "I'm not in your mind right now, James. I can only do that if I touch your skin with my skin."

She held up a hand, and wiggled her fingers slightly, but made it clear that she had no intentions of touching him. He eyed her hand as if it were a live bomb, but Darcy knew that if she were ever to gain his trust she had to be honest with him from the get-go.

"I'm a mutant, James. Do you know what that means?"

Slowly, he nodded his head 'yes', still eyeing her and her hand with distrust. She dropped it to her lap and sat down in front of him.

"My…gifts, I guess you could call them, are telepathic and telekinetic. When I touch someone's skin with my own, I can hear their thoughts, and feel their emotions. And when I focus on an object, I can move it a bit," Darcy told him. "I'm supposed to be training in this area, but if we're being completely honest, I'm not exactly a fan of my instructor. She's a bit of a bitch."

James continued to eye her as she spoke, but his arms relaxed and slowly his hands came down from his head.

"She, and Steve," Darcy gestured behind her, but James' eyes remained focused on her face, "think that I can help you with my powers. What do you think of that?"

She knew she was speaking to him as if he were a child, or a bit touched in the head, but at the moment she didn't know how else to talk to him. His emotional stability seemed to be non-existent, and she had no idea how much of the situation he understood. He didn't seem to remember meeting her before, or Steve. One second he was enraged, the next he was terrified. How else could she speak to him other than slowly, softly, and in small sentences?

At his lack of a response, Darcy continued on blithely, "Well, you don't have to decide right away. We have plenty of time," she told him, even though she wasn't exactly sure that was true. How long did they have? Were they on a timeline? She knew that Hydra was still an issue on the Avengers' radar, though it didn't seem to be a collective effort. She assumed that the Widow was still active, considering the way she had shown up in Stark's work shop looking like she'd just had a scuffle, and Darcy knew that Barton had been dispatched somewhere, but as far as she'd heard they were the only two active in the field. Thor was on Asgard, Banner was in Africa putting his training and his inability to contract Ebola to good use, Steve was in the Tower, and Stark was…being Stark. Where James fit into the equation, and when, was an unknown for her.

"What do you say to going back to your room?" she asked him, trying to inject a little pep into her voice.

Instantly, he shook his head and scooted a little farther away from her, and the doorway. Darcy couldn't see why being in his room was such a bad idea, but she wasn't about to argue the point with the man. She looked back at Steve and gave him a look as if to say 'What now?' but he was of little help as he just spread his hands, his eyes going back to his friend.

Darcy sighed softly and turned back to James. He watched her silently from behind the curtain of his long, greasy hair. He needed a wash, and probably a cut, but those were down at the bottom of his priority list no doubt.

"Well, if we're going to sit out here we may as well get as comfortable as we can," she said to both of them. Turning on the linoleum, she scooted back until she was leaning against the wall under the window that allowed a view into his room. James, only a few inches away, continued to watch her. She was casting about for something to say, something to engage him with, when she spotted Steve's book and her notebook on the floor in front of the overturned chair. Apparently Steve had knocked into it when he went careening through the air thanks to the super assassin to her right.

Darcy focused her thoughts on the little paperback book and tried to block out the rest of the world. She imagined the feel of its slightly wrinkled cover under her fingers, the softness of the edges of the pages, and the yellow colour of the paper that told her it was an old edition. The book twitched, and then it began to slide across the floor toward her and James.

He noticed the movement almost instantly, and when it began its journey toward them, he shifted slightly to the right, evading the book's trajectory, but he didn't leap up and attack for which Darcy was grateful. In hindsight, she probably should have warned him about what she was about to do. When the book stopped beside her, she picked it up and grinned at him.

"How about a little—" she glanced at the cover "—Tolkien?"

James didn't say anything, but he also didn't move any farther away from her. He just continued to watch her, his knees drawn up to his chest and his hands holding tightly to his legs, more like a frightened boy than a deadly assassin. Darcy spared Steve another glance, but he was just as non-responsive as his friend and therefore of little use. With a mental shrug and a silent applaud to Steve's choice in literature, Darcy cracked open the book and began reading from the beginning.

"Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, nine for Mortal Men doomed to die…" **

As she read, Steve sat down against the opposite wall, a few feet away from her and James but Darcy didn't pay him a lot of attention. She focused on the book, one she hadn't read in many years, and tried not to let the miniscule shifts of James' body beside her distract her from the flow of her reading.

She read while James' head began to droop forward, and his hands loosened their grip on his knees, and even then she continued to read until her voice grew hoarse and no amount of swallowing would relieve the dry itch. Her butt had gone numb several chapters before, and her eyes burned with tiredness, but no one had ended up bleeding, even if Steve had taken a bit of a tumble, so Darcy considered it a success.

"James," she whispered softly, swallowing against the raspiness of her voice. He looked up at her, his face relaxed and unguarded for once. It struck her in that moment that, even with the massive scruff and the unwashed hair, the man was handsome. She smiled gently and closed the book. "We need to go to bed, James. We can't stay out in the hall all night."

He glanced around him, as if only just realising that he was sitting in the hallway of a hospital on the cold linoleum floor, and slowly he nodded. Darcy felt a rush of relief as he did, and she eased forward to her knees and then slowly to her feet. Her butt began to tingle as blood flow resumed, but she tried to ignore the sensation. She stepped back slightly, so as not to crowd him, and said,

"C'mon, James. I know that floor ain't comfortable."

He didn't smile, but she didn't expect him to. He did, however, pick himself up off the floor in a swift, smooth movement, as if he hadn't just spent the past couple of hours sitting in one position. Without further prompt, he walked past her, giving her a wide berth, and slipped into his room as if it were no big deal. She watched as he turned to his bed and slipped into it, lying flat on his back, his eyes on the ceiling.

Darcy blinked, slightly unnerved by his actions. He seemed so…obedient. It was completely at odds with his earlier behaviour. She looked to Steve for guidance, but he wasn't looking at her, or at James. Instead, he was staring hard at the floor in front of him, a deep frown between his brows.

"Steve?" Darcy took a tentative step toward him. He glanced up at her, and the hardness in his eyes startled her. She hadn't seen the like of it since that day in her hospital room when he'd grabbed her. She was about to ask him what was wrong when he broke eye contact and stood up. She took an automatic step back, his bulk required a lot more room than the average person, and when he met her eyes again the hardness was gone, replaced with a familiar sadness. Without a word, he reached out, gently squeezed her shoulder, and then walked away.

Darcy watched him go; standing there in the middle of the hall, holding his book in her hands, she wondered what, exactly, she had just missed.

* Because I know I'll hear about it from someone: Singapore noodles do not usually include this type of mushroom (at least not that I've seen) but call it artistic liberty. I wanted to make a reference to Thor's penis. Because why the hell not.

** Kudos to Tolkien. Not mine, etc, etc.