STARK INDUSTRIES JET, EXACT LOCATION REDACTED

Jane was smiling. Of course she was smiling, she was (unknowingly) on her way to her beefcake, and out of the awesome-for-the-first-week-and-shitty-for-all-of-the-rest-of-the-time-spent-there science place. Jane was bursting and beaming and smiling, but Darcy wasn't.

She wasn't sad or angry or anything like that, she was exhausted. Apparently, getting Jane to do things when happy was hard, because she got off task and distracted. Really, she shouldn't have to be so damn happy about leaving a science place.

Darcy had packed quickly - she didn't have much to begin with, just enough shirts and several pairs of jeans and socks. And, she knew that they were about to see Thor, so she may have rushed a bit. It doesn't matter, really.

...

The two have been sitting on the plane, making small talk and eating Stark out-of-jet-and-airway for several hours, when they start to descend. Darcy's not as smart as Jane or Erik, but she's no fool, and she knows that they are not in New York. It's been a while since she flew, but Tromso to New York takes longer than what time they'd spent flying.

They sit for a while - yay! Darcy loves wasting time - and then, another woman, with dark brown hair and glasses comes into the little room Jane and Darcy had settled into. "Hi," she says. "I'm Betty Ross."

Now, when Darcy had been going through her majors, she'd picked some weird science-y one, that was not political science, and had to drop it because she understood one word of every ten spoken. She'd heard of Betty Ross, read her papers, even. A smile curled her lips. The avengers were awesome. And considering of everything.

Awesome.

STARK TOWER'S HANGAR, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

A good day and a half later - which was shocking, considering it was a Stark jet - there were three women, being met by Clint, Tony, Steve, Pepper and Natasha in the hangar.

One had long black hair that was pulled into a rushed pony tail. She was Betty Ross, science beauty and Bruce's... what? Clint wasn't sure what the woman was to Bruce, not really. He didn't know any of the avengers 'side Natasha, so it's not a surprise.

Another - considerably shorter than Betty - had medium length light-brown hair. She was Jane Foster, science beauty and Thor's not-quite-girlfirend-but-definetly-first-other-worldly-kiss.

The last one, Darcy Lewis, the one he'd talked to, was more Betty's height than Jane's, and she was no one that Clint knew of's nothing. Still, she was just as beautiful as the other women, even though she was younger.

Christ, how fucking old is she?

Clint knew she was going to college for something, knew it wasn't astrophyis-something or Norse-god-wrangling-and-tangling-and-tasering.

Anyway.

Pepper was talking. Since when had she started talking? Ugh. Clint was spacing out - again.

"-Jane, Natasha will be escorting you to your room-" Nat and Steve were working to get Jane to her "room" without her coming in any contact with Thor and vise versa. Thor wasn't going to be staying long, so this had to happen fast. "-Darcy, Betty, if you'd stay down here for a moment?"

Betty nods. "Of course," she says with a smile.

"Um," Jane says, completely hesitant to go with two superheroes who she doesn't know. "Is it okay if Darcy comes with me?"

Tony doesn't frown, exactly, but his lips flatten. "Sorry, but no, she's gotta stay down here. Steve doesn't bite - unless you want him to?"

Steve glares hotly at him Tony - they're getting along better now, but they just rub each other the wrong way, in all of the wrong places. "Stark!" Steve snaps.

Jane looks scandalized. "No! Not that - um - it's just - I - Thor -"

"Yeah, I get it," Tony interuppts, "you're hot for Thor, don't worry."

"Is Thor here?" Jane asked.

Natasha, by far the best liar, told her, "no, he's visiting Loki in his cell. The two won't be able to talk when they get to Asgard."

"Loki? He's still here?" Darcy demanded. Betty raised an eyebrow, saying that she wanted to know to.

Clint grinned. "Yeah, he's still here. What makes you think foreign governments are going to let a crazy ass Norse fucker in their country with the shit he just pulled?"

"Claws is right!" Darcy smiled back. "I was wrong, and that is the only time that will ever happen. I should have thought about that."

"'Claws?'" Tony smirked evilly. "Katniss, I think she likes you."

"Is that why you give every one you meet a nickname?" He asked innocently. "I do believe you call Wolverine 'Fuzzy'. You got the hots for him?"

"No," Tony rolled his eyes. "Look, Jane, you got to get up there quick, 'kay? I really need to talk to Jailbate and Betsy." He saw Pepper looking at him, and sighed. "Alright, admittedly not my best. Serieously, though, leave."

"Tony!" Pepper admonished.

"What?"

"Anyway," Steve grins, despite the show of Tony's obvious lack of tact, at Jane. "Care to join us?"

Jane reluctantly goes, and once she, Steve and Natasha are in the elevator and shooting up to the communal floor, Tony deflates. His day had been stressful - the company was whining about Iron Man saving the day, Loki was silently bitching, it took forever to convince Thor and Bruce to spend time with each other in the latter's brand new lab.

"Barton, you wanna talk?" He asks.

Clint raises an eyebrow in the sassiest way he can manage. "I called them and got transportation - so, no, I do not want to talk, asshole."

Pepper sighs. "You'll be seeing Bruce and Thor tonight, at dinner. Until then, you'll be unpacking in your rooms. Betty, Bruce doesn't know that you're here, despite what Agent Barton said to you over email, so if you were going to ask why you couldn't see him now, there's your answer. We're surprising him with you. Any questions?"

"When's dinner?" Darcy questioned immediatly.

Pepper laughed softly. "7:45 or 8:00, it depends on when everyone is free."

"Why didn't Jane have to have this talk?" Betty asks.

Clint took it upon himself to pull away from Stark's face-making-game and answer for Pepper. "We're surprising Thor with her, and Jane with Thor."

Betty smiles a huge, beaming smile. "When I saw what happened on the TV, I thought you would all be arrogant assholes, like Stark."

Said arrogant asshole scowled. "Hey! You're staying in my tower, you can't-"

"Don't worry, you won't be kicked out, no matter what Tony says." Pepper informs Bettty. "You're too valuable to Bruce, whom he is great friends with, and he has a fanboy crush on you and Bruce, anyway, so you're safe from the monster that is New York rent."

"I do not!" Tony states petulantly.

"The rent is too damn high!" Darcy laughs.

Clint nearly cries laughing.

On the elevator, Tony is luckily not there, so it is awkward as all hell. It's just Clint and Darcy, because Tony wanted to talk to Betty about her own lab space - something he would do with Jane as well - and she had to wait for someone to take her to her room, anyway.

"So," Clint starts out, "you got your iPod back?" Obviously, he knows that she did, as he'd spent time looking for it, but there's nothing else he could think of to break the ice than an animated Darcy-iPod-rant.

She glanced up at him. Her eyes were blue, but a darker blue than tesseract, than how his own eyes had been. Clint had looked at himself in the mirror that Loki had, the only mirror, and had been horrified to find bright blue eyes instead of the regular hazel. "Yeah, I did. I forgot to ask who found it so that I could thank them, but you know, it doesn't really matter."

"It doesn't?" He asks, because he found that fucking thing and had to deal with Agent Marius telling him over and over that no, it's not here and we're not a miracle agency, Barton and shit gets lost sometimes. Clint had tried to argue that if Marius was any good at his job, the damn iPod would have been catalogued with everything else, but the guy had nearly kicked him out. Like, almost actually kicked him. "Don't you think that they'd want to be thanked?"

"Well, it can't be that hard to find an Apple product, so no, I don't think that."

Clint paused and looked at her. "I know who found your iPod."

"That's nice."

"You're not even curious?"

"No," she said, looking up from her iPod to him again. "Chances are, I'll never see the person ever, anyway, so there's no point."

Clint tipped his head back and sighed. Was he really about to do this? Yes, yes, he was. "It was me."

She's silent for a moment, looking down at the cat gif displayed on the screen, only slightly marred by the cracks. Then, her head snaps up to stare at him with wide eyes. "What? Claws, are you serious?"

Clint cringed. "If I say yes, will you stop with the flattering nickname?"

"I will never, so you might as well just spit the answer out!"

Clint sighed through his nose. "It took several hours and I got yelled at by some ballsy level three."

She laughed, ice officially broken. "Really, Claws?"

Clint glared at her. "Stop calling me Claws, my name is Clint, not Claws. And, yes, really. The dumb fuck kept telling me that it hadn't been catalogued. He got reassigned and I'll never have to deal with him again."

Darcy opened her mouth to say something, but the elevator doors opened onto the right floor and they stepped out. The walked all the way to nearly the end of the hall before stopping.

"So, here's your room." Clint said, stepping up to a door. "It's got a door connecting to Jane's, but when she moves in with Thor, the door will be locked. I'm across the hall, and two to the left, Cap's in between me and Betty, who's next to him. Bruce and Tony and Pepper are on your other side, and Natasha is across from Jane. Thor's at the end, by the living room. Just... stay in here, entertain yourself."

"When am I gonna see if Tony Stark's AI thing is a myth or not?" She asked, not really listening. Clint's eyes narrowed.

"Hello," Jarvis's smooth british accent said, making Darcy jump, "it's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lewis. I am Jarvis, and I can help you find anything you need, within reason, of course."

"Cool!" Darcy smiled.

"Hey," Clint said, "where's Tony and Pep sleep?"

"You're testing me, Claws, I'm not stupid." He shrugged. "Jarvis?"

"Sir and Miss Potts sleep across the hall from Captain Rogers, Miss Lewis."

"You know you can call me Darcy?" She asked Jarvis, looking around the ceiling.

"My coding insists that I use formal titles, Miss Lewis," he said after a moment.

"Huh," Darcy conceded.

"So, you'll be fine until dinner?" Clint asked.

Darcy raised an eyebrow. "Why do you care?"

Clint quirked an eyebrow. "Can't let my charge die, whether it be of boredom or otherwise."

"Charge?" She shrieked. "I'm not a fucking charge!"

"Shh!" Clint grinned.

"God, Claws!" Darcy sighed. "A fucking charge. How old do I look? Twelve? I'm graduating college, not high school."

"I know," he called over his shoulder, work done. She gave him a weird look. Goddamn spies, she thought.

Dinner that night was breakfast, with pancakes and waffles and eggs and bacon. Steve cooked - he wasn't shit and was actually way better than any of them but Bruce - and it looked great.

"Where is Clint?" Thor asked.

Clint, Betty, Jane and Darcy weren't at the table, but the only one Thor knew was supposed to be there was Clint.

Tony looked up from his StarkPhone. "Jarvis! Where's Katniss?"

"Agent Barton is bringing the presents, sir."

Natasha chuckled. "'Presents,' Stark?"

"Yeah! They're presents, so that's what I'm gonna call them."

Bruce looked between Tony and Natasha. Pepper wasn't joining them that night, and Steve, his other usual conversation-provider was still in the kitchen. "Uh, what do you mean by presents? You didn't get prostitutes, did you?"

Thor frowned and Tony groaned. "Tony, you have been previously informed that I am in relations with lady Jane, yes? She will not like these, ah, 'prostitutes' that you speak of."

"Yeah, Thor," Tony immediatly agreed, "I know. I'm 'in relations' with Pepper, and I didn't get prostitutes, Bruce, Christ. Oh! Hey, one of them's for you, and two are for you, Thor."

Thor frowned again. "Tony, I do not-"

Clint, along with the presents, walked in then. "Steve's night, right?" He asked, coming up to his designated chair next to Natasha and across from Tony and sitting himself in it.

"Yep!" Natasha said with a well placed jab to Clint's ribs.

He hissed. "Hey! Fuck you, my ribs are still sore."

Tony chuckled, turning off his phone and setting it on the table.

However, Bruce and Thor were frozen. "Betty?" Bruce asked.

Hey. This is late, but longer than the last, so there's that. Thanks for reading! :D