AN: So, while the numbers from last chapter are totally made up (I am way too lazy to look that shit up), the quotes are all legitimate. The first is from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (which you need to read, if you haven't; it's awesome). The second is from Wicked by Gregory Maguire. The third is from Twelfth Night by Shakespeare, and the fourth is from Harry Potter, and you fail at fandom if you don't know that. I honestly recommending reading all of them – the first is like my favorite book of all time, and Wicked is amazing and so much deeper than the musical would have you think.
The first thought Darcy had on waking up was sweet baby Jesus, her hand hurt from clenching Clint's dog tags in her sleep. As she continued to come back to reality, she realized that A) she was actually in her own bed, and B) so was Clint. His arms were like steel bars, holding her to the bed. She shifted slightly, trying to wiggle her way out of his embrace.
He instantly woke up at her movement. Instead of releasing her, he rolled her over until her nose was in his chest. "God, Darce, I'm so glad you're home in one piece," he sighed into her hair, holding her in a tight embrace.
Darcy patted ineffectively at his chest, gasping out, "Clint. Can't. Breathe." He released her, and she sat up and leaned back against the wall. Logically, Darcy knew she needed to explain the whole "family emergency" thing, but it was just so hard to lie to Clint when he was laying next to her, looking all bed-rumpled and sexified. Hell, it was hard to lie to him, period.
He sat up as well, cross-legged on the bed, facing her. "So…does your disappearance have anything to do with Senator Brackenthorn stepping down from the Senatorial race?"
Darcy tried to keep her face neutral, but she couldn't help but momentarily gape like a fish. "I don't know what you're talking about," she lied, trying to sound vaguely puzzled. "I had a family emergency."
Clint stared at her impassively, his face betraying no emotion. "All of your family is in this Tower, Darce," he stated.
Darcy fiddled with his dog tags where they laid against her sternum. After an eternity of moments, she sighed and slumped down. "Yes, it does," she whispered into her chest.
"What happened?" Clint asked, his expression still neutral.
"You saw the email, I'm assuming?" Darcy asked tentatively. At Clint's nod, she continued. "I went to the meet, and I was told an unnamed party wanted access to the Avengers, in exchange for Blair's safety. I agreed, for the time being, then went to find out who the unnamed party was."
"How, without SHIELD's resources?"
Darcy gave him a wry smile. "SHIELD is not the only resource I have."
The impeccably dressed man met her in a quiet coffee shop in Brooklyn. Darcy, in her travel-stained clothes and tangled hair, offered a sharp contrast to his sharp, Rat-pack inspired suit and sleek fedora.
"It's good to see you again, Neal. I heard rumors that you play for the big leagues now," she said with a cheeky grin.
He crossed an ankle over his knee, the moment economical yet elegant, and Darcy caught the glimpse of an ankle monitor before he readjusted the cuff of his pants. "Which is how I got you this information. Don't let Peter know," he said, returning her cheeky grin as he slid an envelope across the table.
"And by being off the grid, the unnamed parties couldn't contact you to make their demands." Clint offered as he switched into Agent mode and analyzed her situation.
"Exactly. So I wandered around the East Coast, reaching out to some of my old contacts."
The platinum blonde thief met Darcy in an abandoned warehouse outside of Philadelphia. "I thought New York was your litter box?" Darcy asked once she reached the meeting place.
"It was starting to stink, so I decided to play elsewhere for a little bit," the woman chuckled. "Plus, I had a craving for cheesesteak."
"An excellent notion," Darcy grinned. "Do you have it?" she asked, suddenly becoming serious.
The other woman nodded, and pulled an envelope out of her catsuit. "I think you'll find this interesting."
Darcy wrinkled her nose. "I don't even want to know where you've been keeping that. But thank you, very much, Fee. You don't know how much I owe you for this."
Felicia peeled the flimsy black mask off her face, and unzipped her catsuit to reveal black leggings and a loose tank top. "Buy me a drink, tell me about your new boy toy, and we'll call it even, Dee."
Darcy shoved the envelope into her bag, where it joined the other incriminating evidence she had accumulated. "That I can do. Plus, I have to show you pictures of my baby girl. She's almost as blonde as you."
"East Coast? But your post cards came from New Mexico and Iowa."
"I collect silly postcards. Mostly I keep them to remind me of the places I've been, but it seemed like a less-traceable way to reach you guys."
"How long did it take you to get the information you needed?"
"About a week. It took another week to set up the meeting with Brackenthorn and the drop off of my insurance policies."
Logan picked up Darcy at a truck stop somewhere around New Haven, and they went to the Institute to plan out her meet with Brackenthorn.
"I don't like it, kid. What if he's got thugs of his own?"
"Logan, they threatened my baby girl. I'm not letting him get away with this."
"At least make sure someone has copies of everything."
"I've already started contacting Natasha. You know she can be trusted."
"Darlin', why aren't you letting SHIELD handle this again?"
"Because someone in SHIELD leaked photos to Brackenthorn. I can't chance this getting back to him."
"I still don't like it, kid. But I think I know a way we can add some more insurance to this meeting…"
"Insurance policies?"
"I sent copies of the information I had to Natasha. I knew she would take care of things on this end."
Clint nodded, and Darcy was grateful he didn't push the fact that it was Natasha and not him. "What happened at the meet?"
Darcy sat on the tailgate of the Town Car, idly tapping a large manila envelope against her palm. It was late at night, and the parking garage in D.C. was all but empty. According to her contacts, the senator's dinner ended an hour ago, which meant that he would be walking out to his car at any minute.
As the footsteps echoed throughout the empty concrete structure, Darcy unsheathed the wicked looking knife that was hidden in the small of her back. Placing it quietly next to her on the trunk of the car, she continued to remove weapons from her person, in total amassing three knives, a matching set of Beretta pistols with four extra clips, a garrote, an array of throwing stars, and a small machete. Placing the items around her, she presented an oddly juxtaposed scene: an innocent looking college girl, clad in an oversized UNM sweatshirt and jeans, surrounded by a small arsenal, and holding photos that could create the next Lewinski political scandal.
Her smile was sharper than the blades next to her as the senator, surrounded by three goons, walked up to his car and saw her sitting there. "Senator Brackenthorn. How lovely to see you again. How have you been?" she said conversationally. Before he could answer, she continued talking, picking up one of the knives and playing with it as she talked. "To be honest, Senator, I don't give a flying fuck how you've been. You threatened my daughter, and I can prove it. So here's what's going to happen: your offer is not only rescinded, but you're also going to step down from the senatorial race and retire to a quiet life far, far away from the city. Or else Elisa and June and Tasya are going to come forward, and I don't think the missus is going to like that. Or your constituents. Do we have an understanding?"
The senator gave her a shaky nod, and Darcy collected her assorted weaponry. Shoving it into her bag, she hopped down off the car. "Awesome. Have a good evening, senator."
As the Town Car drove away, a second Darcy appeared from the shadows. The two women met where the car had been, and the first Darcy shifted into a blue-skinned, red-haired woman. "Thanks, Mystique. I appreciate your help," the second – real – Darcy said.
Mystique nodded, and held out the folder to Darcy. "We do what we must to protect our children, even if it puts us outside the law."
"We met, we chatted. I made some convincing points, and he agreed to my terms. Totes diplomatic." Darcy said with a sly grin.
"Is he still in one piece?" Clint asked, quirking an eyebrow.
Darcy shrugged. "Does it matter?" At Clint's stare, she huffed, "Fine. Yes. He was when I last saw him."
Before Clint could ask any more questions, Blair started crying. Darcy hopped out of the bed, eager to see her daughter. Clint went to get a bottle, and Darcy sat down in the overstuffed rocker with Blair, memorizing every curl on her daughter's head.
"She's changed, even in the two weeks I was gone," Darcy said once Clint came into the nursery. He didn't say anything in response, just watched her feed Blair. Once the baby was fed, Darcy shifted her to her shoulder and walked around the room, burping her. Once that was done, Darcy kept walking, trying to lull Blair back to sleep.
"Why did you run? And why didn't you tell me?" Clint finally asked, emotion creeping in at the end of the questions.
"I just…reacted, Clint. My first instinct was to run; that's what it's always been," she said tiredly. "I run and then eventually I come back, get the info I need, and deal with my problems, all my own. That's my M.O."
"But you have me, now. You have all of us. We would have helped you," he pleaded.
"I know, Clint. I know." Darcy murmured, trying to keep her voice low for the sake of her half-asleep baby.
"Do you, Darce? Because I don't think you realize that we are now a team. You are my partner. We're family, dammit!" he said, his voice rising.
Blair started to fuss at Clint's raised voice. "Shh, Clint." Darcy whispered, rocking Blair some more. After an awkward pause, she said, "You have to understand, Clint, I haven't had any family worth speaking of – or to – since I was twelve. I don't…I don't know how to have someone help me. Or how to even ask for help." Darcy explained, her Southern accent starting to creep in. "I just…if I have a problem, I either take care of it, or run. That's all I know how to do. In this case, I did both." Clint opened his mouth to say more, but Darcy cut him off. "Look, I don't want to argue about this while Blair is with us. I'd rather her first memory not be of her parents fighting, like mine was."
Clint stalked out of the room, and Darcy sunk down in the rocker and silently wept as she tried to get her daughter to fall back asleep.
Clint paced the living room, waiting for Darcy to emerge from the nursery. He didn't know what he felt at the moment, just that he felt too much. There was anger: at Darcy, for disappearing; for Brackenthorn, for creating this mess; and at himself, for not being able to do more. There was guilt: about the anger, about dredging up Darcy's apparently crap childhood. There was fear: that Darcy would leave again and take Blair; that she would leave and not come back. There was gratitude: praise God and Thor and whatever other deity might exist, Darcy had come back. And behind it all was this indescribable, unquantifiable feeling that left him elated and sick to his stomach all at the same time.
After a few minutes of wearing a groove in the carpet, Darcy slipped out of the nursery, gently closing the door behind her. Clint watched her as she cautiously moved to the couch and curled up as far into one corner of it as she could get. Clint stopped pacing and sat down at the other end of the couch, trying not to intimidate her into revealing her secrets.
Clint watched as Darcy played with his dog tags around her neck, and something in him untwisted and cracked open. She seemed to realize what she was playing with, and she gulped. Taking them off her neck, Darcy held the dog tags out to Clint, a white flag across the boundaries of the couch cushions. "Keep them," he said gruffly, his heart in his throat. Nodding, she slipped them back around her neck.
"Steve said your parents were divorced." Clint said, trying to get her to open up.
"Yeah," she nodded. "To be honest, they never should've married in the first place. But Patricia – that's my mom, but I refuse to call her that – got knocked up, and in a conservative Southern town, you get married when that happens. So they did, and then I came along, and ruined Patricia's figure. Six months later, my dad gets an offer to play semi-pro baseball, and she pushed him to take it. My formative years were spent traveling from ballpark to ballpark. When I was five, and needed to start school, they dropped me off with my grandmother and continued traveling. She's the one who raised me. When I was eight, Dad had the opportunity to try out for the Rangers. He made the first draft, but blew out his knee in the second."
"Wait…the Texas Rangers?" Clint asked, trying to remember his sports teams.
"Yeah. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Texas," she said with a slight smile, the drawl fully evident in her voice.
"You've got the accent." Clint said with a smile. The accent is endearing, and makes her seem softer and younger.
"Anyway…" she drawled out, "Patricia couldn't tolerate being married to a small-town electrician, so after six months of screaming matches, they got divorced. Dad got custody and Patricia traded up for a stockbroker." She paused, grabbing a faded quilt off the back of the couch and wrapping up in it.
"What happened next?" Clint asked, curious. He wanted to scoot closer, to hold her hand while she dredged up obviously painful memories, but her body language screamed stay away.
Darcy took a deep, shuddering breath. "My grandmother moved in with me and my dad, and continued to raise me while Dad rewired houses. She died when I was ten, and from then on it was me and my dad. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't bad. I mean, yeah, he hated Patricia, but so did I. We actually got along pretty well; he taught me how to play baseball and we went fishing in the summer."
"So you were a tomboy. That…actually explains a lot." Clint said, smiling at the mental image of a young Darcy, with pigtails and scraped up knees, playing baseball.
Darcy cocked an eyebrow. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
"Good. Definitely good."
She picked at threads in the quilt, and Clint could tell she was hesitant to go to the next chapter of her life story. After a few moments, she looked back up at him and continued. "My dad was killed in a car wreck when I was fourteen, and after that I was sent to live with Patricia, who was on husband number three and living in Virgina. It was…bad. Really really bad."
"Like goth phase bad?" Clint laughed weakly, trying to make a joke.
"Like stabbing your stepbrother with a letter opener because he was trying to rape you bad. Like getting a juvie record for assault bad."
"You mean…" Clint said, too shocked to even contemplate the awfulness of Darcy's mom.
She shrugged. "It was him against me, and Patricia believed him. So I got sent to juvie, where I learned lots of valuable life skills and made some fun new friends. And…yeah. That's pretty much all the major events in my life," Darcy summed up, and Clint noticed the tension in her hands and the way she caved in her shoulders, as if preparing herself for some kind of verbal assault.
Instead of saying anything, he slid across the couch cushions. Placing Darcy between his legs, he wrapped his arms around her quilt-wrapped body, cradling her against her chest. "We are not our parents," he murmured into her hair as she finally broke down and cried. As the tears soaked his shirt, he continued to stroke her back. "You're already so much better than your mother; look at what you did to protect Blair." He continued to murmur encouraging nothings into her hair, and if his eyes were watery, well…she couldn't see them.
After telling her Lifetime-special life story, and crying her eyes out on Clint, Darcy felt marginally better. Pulling back from his chest, she wiped her eyes with her grandmother's quilt. "So…wanna trade slightly less depressing life facts?"
Clint laughed, and tucked her hair behind her ears. Cupping her face between his calloused palms, he leaned down and brushed a feather-light kiss across her lips. Darcy sighed, and murmured "I missed you."
"I missed you too," he murmured back, leaning his forehead against hers. Darcy sniffled, and he leaned back, grabbing the tissues off the coffee table. "I'm 80% deaf in my left ear," he offered after she blew her nose.
"I can drive a tractor."
"I don't like spicy food."
"I ate an entire habanero once, weenie."
He made a face. "I can juggle."
She rolled her eyes. "Not surprising. I'm allergic to penicillin." They traded facts back and forth, until Darcy started yawning. "Look, darlin'," she drawled, her Texas accent in full affect. "I haven't slept in my bed in two weeks, and I'm emotionally drained. Back to bed?"
Darcy fell back asleep almost instantly, but Clint had trouble. He lay there, watching her breathe, his dog tags clutched in her hands, and thought about everything Darcy had told him. He knew her personnel folder was in a locked drawer in Coulson's office, but he was glad he hadn't read it. Hearing the story from her was much different than seeing the rap sheet with no explanations. He knew from personal experience that sometimes, you do things with good intentions but with bad results, and there was no way to erase the past damage – you just had to live with the stigma and hope that the important people understood what really happened.
Clint's phone buzzed, and he reached over Darcy to grab it off the nightstand. It was from Coulson. Avengers debriefing at the Tower at 0800 hours. He glanced at the clock, and it read 3:23 am. Darcy's phone buzzed, and Clint figured she had to be there as well. Might as well try to sleep, for tomorrow's going to come early he thought, snuggling in next to Darcy.
She murmured something in her sleep, and pulled Clint's arm over her midsection. He smiled to himself, and fell asleep not long after that.