"Get up." The voice startles her enough that she nearly chokes on her pile of ice cream. It's not a request or a suggestion at all, not even a smidge of room for negotiation or wiggling implied. She glances up from her sugar, looking noncommittally for the spyssassin Avenger, and then simply goes back to shoving a huge scoop pf the frozen delight into her mouth when she sees no one directly in her line of sight. An irritated clearing of a throat comes from behind her, and she swirls around on her chair. Her eyes widen as she finally meets the unamused gaze of the resident lethal redheaded Russian. Then Darcy does something that she knows hell will rain payback fire down on her for by actually attempting to ignore an actual facts assassin right out of Russia, but she still does it anyways. She swivels right back around to stuff her face with more ice cream. The caffeine from her morning dose of Chai latté has not kicked in yet, which is the reason for the sugar intake, and she still feels like a lump of squishy laziness.
Fuck, is all Darcy can think, remembering the very determined look in Nat's eyes. Yep, I am so totally fucked, and not in that good way.
"Get up. We're leaving," the woman behind her repeats, and Darcy inwardly groans. Not another training session!
Only about a month of living at the Avengers and Co.™ part of the Tower had passed before the gorgeous Black freaking Widow had barged into the labs and dragged both astrophysicist and assistant to the training center. She'd said something about living with the Avengers putting too big of a target on their backs and self-defense. Of course, neither Jane nor Darcy had had a death wish or were idiots and didn't put up even a slight bit of resistance. Thus, began the twice a week training sessions with the Black Widow.
At first, the sessions had started out consisting mostly of lots and lots and fucktons of running on a treadmill. "To build up stamina" had been the only explanation offered. Then, about a month later, when the Widow, "call me Nat or Natasha" was finally satisfied that the pair had built up an "adequate enough endurance and metabolism that you might actually be able to outrun most bastards" (Nat's words), she started teaching them different ways of getting out of the various holds she locks that some asshole could potentially put them in. They also worked on picking locks with bobby pins and other such things that help with escaping from asshole goons or your regular old asshole, like hotwiring a car and being super-duper loud enough to be noticed. Now, Darcy and Jane are still totally civilians, but at least they aren't helpless little civilians anymore. Self-rescuing princesses for the fucking win!
Lately, though, the training sessions have been limited to only once a week, and Darcy just had one a couple days ago! Damnit! Couldn't a girl eat her ice cream in peace anymore? Resigned to whatever fate Nat has in store, Darcy slumps, shoots her food one last longing glance, and turns to face her friend. Then she does a delighted but confused, double take. Nat's in normal, civilian clothes! Not even exercise get up! Yes! Thank you, deity in the sky looking for her that she's pretty sure isn't Odin! Even if you sucked before during Suck It!
"Get up. We're leaving. Put on some clothes you feel comfortable getting dirty in, if your current clothes aren't already that. Meet me down at the garage in ten minutes." Then she's gone, leaving Darcy in awed fear and confusion.
Darcy lets out a long, calm breath and looks sadly at the remaining pile of ice cream still in her bowl. She whines a bit before deciding it's all astound safer, smarter, and more likely trip keep her alive if she just does what Nat wants and puts her treat back into the fridge, confident that even if some smartass idiot (read: Clint or Pietro or even Steven, that troll) decides to eat her shit, she'll just stick laxatives in their next week of meals. After all, is payback a bitch? Well, when she wants to be, Darcy Lewis can be the Bitch, especially when someone eats her shit without asking, the resident Russian assassins being the exception of course. (She's not dumb enough to get between them and food.)
Anyway, ten minutes later sees Darcy marching into the garage in comfy as fuck brightly colored leggings, a lightweight tee, and Doc Martens, exactly on time and a Chai in hand. (What? She'd had time! Fuck off, judgy mcjudgies!) Leaning against the side of a really expensive dark blue car, like her entire college tuition expensive, is Nat, just like Darcy knew she'd be. With a nod at each other, they slip into the vehicle, Nat obviously driving since Darcy has no idea where the fuck they're going.
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), traffic feels like being "seriously a snail is faster than us!" slow, even with Nat at the wheel, so it takes them nearly an hour to get to a place she's pretty sure would've only taken half that if traffic was being cooperative. When they finally park, they only have to walk for about a minute before they're in front of a place with a bright blue sign declaring "Jessica Blue's Hues," a bright blues paint splatter dotting the "i" and in place of an apostrophe.
Inside, they're greeted by a hodgepodge of a room. Paintings line the walls in bright colors. Along one side a bar with wine and other alcohol lines the wall. A couple of rows of tables with small easels face one side of the room, which Darcy guesses is more than likely the "front" of the room. Surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly since she's The Badass Motherfucking Black Widow (yeah, Darcy will never get over that), Nat seems right at home as she waltzes in. A bright smile lights up Darcy's face at the sight of the room. It's loud and colorful and just plain ass awesome. Darcy loves it.
A kind, excited middle-aged woman walks up to them with a smile. "Hello, Natalie, how are you today? I was thinking we could do a lake picture today. Does that sound alright?"
"Hello, Jessica, I'm doing alright. Of course, that sounds great," the redhead answers with a tiny hint of a smile.
"I see you brought a friend," Jessica states as she turns towards Darcy. She sticks out a hand. "Hello, I'm Jessica Blue."
Darcy grabs her outstretched hand and shakes it firmly with a beam of her own.
"This is Darcy," Nat informs her. Jessica nods.
"It's lovely to meet you, Darcy. Now, why don't you two grab a seat in front of an easel while I grab my stuff?"
Once everything has been properly set out for the three of them, Jessica shows them an example of the finished product. It's a gorgeous moonlit scene of a cherry blossom tree overlooking a crystalesque lake. It also intimidates the fuck out of Darcy, who kinda really only knows how to make stick figures and strangely realistic looking eyes. Good thing Nat brought along a nice bottle of wine expensive enough that Darcy is pretty sure it cost more than the same amount as one whole semester at Culver because there aren't even lines to trace on the canvas. Taking a nice healthy gulp of the fancy ass wine, she gives the other two women fucking beaming smile of confidence. If Nat believes in her (she brought her after all, right?), then she can totally do this! Right? Right!
The first thing Jessica has them do is paint the entire canvas black. Then they're working on the moon drawing circles and shit. Then they're filling it in. Then they're doing the lake water. And before she realizes it, she only has the tree left! And she's only had like a glass and a half of wine! Fuck yeah! It even looks pretty decent too!
By the time they're done, Darcy feels pretty good about herself and no longer feels like a lump of lazy. In fact, despite the lovely wine running and flowing through her veins, she doesn't feel too drowsy. As she stares at the finished product of her painting, she can't really help the bright upward curve of her lips lighting up her face. It doesn't look like shit! In fact, it looks all fancy and professional—okay, maybe not professional, but like really, really good. She looks over to compare hers to Nat's and she's pleased with the results. Sure, they're not exactly alike, but that's to be expected since no two people are gonna do something the exact same way, but they both look really good. Honestly, she feels pretty proud of herself. Her painting doesn't look perfectly like the example, but it's a damn close second.
All in all, Darcy likes hers enough to actually be really, really fucking proud of it.
As they're driving home, a warm fuzzy feeling bubbles up inside her tummy, one that she hasn't felt in months and had almost forgotten what it feels like. It's the feeling of unweighted happiness, without the normal shadow of tiredness, pain, and just overall exhaustion that normally hides behind her good, positive emotions. It's light and kinda and bright and beaming. Sure, the whole light feels could be attributed to the alcohol in her system, but she's pretty sure it's not that. She's pretty sure this feeling blossoming and growing in her confused soul is just awesomeshit, good old-fashioned happiness.
"Darcy," Nat's voice pushes through the happy haze of her mind. She turns to look at her friend with a soft look to listen. "I'm not going to make you try and talk about what happened at dinner that night, but I'm not going to let you think that you were invisible to us, to me. We noticed; I noticed. You are noticed. You may not be who you used to be, but none of us are, птичка (little bird). You may not have a vocal cord, Darcy, you have a voice. You are heard. You are loved. Most of all, you are noticed. Do not forget that," Nat says. "You may not be the person you were before you lost your voice, but that's alright. We're not asking you to be. We're not even asking that you know exactly who you are. It's okay that you're still trying to figure it out. Just, please, don't think you have to do it, anything, alone. We're here."
At first, her voice surprises Darcy enough that she doesn't really hear the words and the meaning behind them so much as she hears the voice washing over her, soft and sort of scratchy, maybe even a refined rough, in the way only Nat's voice is. Then the words sink in, and Darcy is touched, so fucking touched. Her breaths become stuttered a little as her chest heaves and shutters. Tears have begun to trickle down her cheeks in little streams, good tears. She doesn't really understand why her body is reacting this way, but then she thinks it's because her soul has decided that it couldn't be constrained to just a smile and is showing itself in the only other way it can right now, in joyful droplets of liquid. Natasha never really says much, but she always knows what to say to reach Darcy.
The rests of the way back to the Tower, Darcy glows with joy. It's still only early afternoon, and shit will fuck up the rest of the day for all she knows, but now, right now, nothing can mess with her time with Nat. It is theirs and it is untainted and it is good and it is so, so amazing.