Prompt: This is the first time I'm living on my own and my parents decided to spontaneously drop by in a few hours to see how I'm doing pls let me borrow some cleaning supplies and food so that my parents will believe I'm a functioning, responsible adult who totally cleans and doesn't just have condiments and eggs in my fridge AU
Characters: Darcy Lewis, Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski
Tags: Humor, Friendship, Implied Torture, Crossover

After the events of London, Darcy follows Jane back to the States where they eventually part ways. Jane has bigger projects and better funding to really get her work off the ground, and Darcy has college to occupy her time. Of course, she only has college to worry about after signing more than half her free will away to SHIELD once again (that agency was nothing but secrets atop of secrets and she couldn't wait to distance herself from them), but go back to college she does.

But then HYDRA happens and SHIELD falls, and there is no telling who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. Darcy apparently trusts the wrong people and ends up kidnapped for her work with Doctor Foster. She doesn't have any valuable information for them, but that doesn't stop the torture techniques they apply to get what they want.

Thor and Tony end up being her saviors two weeks after her initial disappearance, and things aren't quite the same for her. She is a touch jumpy and slowly starts to pull away from the superhero squad, and even just thinking about job hunting stresses her out. She can only live so long with a roommate before they realize she isn't all right in the head, and there is no way in hell she's throwing in the towel to move back in with her parents.

But then Darcy's problems are all solved by the wonderful Pepper Potts fairly quickly.

After dodging Jane's calls one too many times and letting her roommate answer the door when Jane visits, the woman in question feels an immense amount of guilt when she sees just how not well Darcy is coping. Darcy had then reluctantly escorted Jane to her room, and after a couple minutes of questioning on Jane's part everything just came out in one big snot fest. And two days later, Pepper Potts is on Darcy's doorstep. Having felt guilty and wanting to do something, Jane talked to Pepper and Pepper came up with a solution for getting Darcy out of the city. A new job with the branch of Stark Industries in Los Angeles.

Darcy agrees after learning where and just what her would-be job entails, and is quite shocked to find out SI will be paying for her three bedroom home in quite the family neighborhood where she has no reason to be paranoid.

It's her first time living on her own, but after spending some time to get used to the peace and quiet and the friendliness of her neighborhood, Darcy finds she quite likes it.

Darcy's just tugged on her most worn-in shirt and a pair of leggings, sighing happily as she lets her hair down after a long day of work. There's piping hot Chinese noodles sitting on her rather cluttered coffee table and she can't wait to dig in.

Grabbing a beer from the fridge, she grimaces at it's nearly empty state before kicking the door shut and heading into her living room. She flicks aside a few articles of clothing and plops down on the sofa, she then placing a pillow in her lap. Popping open her beer, she takes a hearty gulp before placing it on the coffee table and grabbing up her noodles to place on her pillowed lap. Then quickly scrolling through her list of recorded TV shows, she decides on catching up with How To Get Away with Murder while getting her grub on.

Twenty minutes in, however, her phone rings. Normally she'd screen all calls during her down time unless they were from SI, but after seeing Mom flash across her screen, Darcy happily pauses her show and sets aside her food. It's been years since she's seen her parents and now that she's in a good place, well she's only too happy to talk to her mother.

"Mom. Hey!" She greets, sipping her beer to quickly wash down the noodles.

"Darcy-Lou," her mother greets. "How are you, my little love?"

"Doing good, Mom. Just got home from work not too long ago, so I'm eating some dinner and binge watching How To Get Away With Murder."

"Oh, how I love that show. Can you believe they killed off-"

"Spoilers, Mother!" Darcy's quick to chastise. "I'm still way behind. The only ones who I know survived the fire so far is Michaela and Oliver."

"Things just keep getting juicier from there."

"Mhm. I'm sure they do." Darcy takes a quick bite of food before quickly chewing to keep the conversation going. "But as much as I love this surprise phone call, I'm pretty sure you didn't call to talk about a TV show."

"Oh. Right!" Her mother laughs. "Guess who's in the city?" She singsongs.

The beer bottle freezes halfway to Darcy's mouth, her eyes widening as realization sets in. "Mom-"

"Yes, me! And your Father. We would have been in sooner, but your Father needed a nap. We'll be there in a few hours, darling. I so can't wait to see you. It's been too long."

"Oh. That's.. wonderful." And it is, it really is, but panic is slowly starting to set in as Darcy glances around her rather messy home. "I can't wait to see the both of you."

"Mhm. Well I must go now. I need to unpack the rest of our bags before I start dinner for your Father. We'll be there as soon as we can."

"Okay, Mom. See you soon. Love you."

Darcy waits until she hears her Mother say the same and then she's quickly tossing her phone aside and scarfing down the rest of her food.

She rushes around her house to throw away any lingering food containers and tosses articles of clothing into a pile to throw into the washer as soon as she can. Any lingering dishes in the sink are scraped clean of any food before being placed in the dishwasher, and then Darcy opens up the cabinets for some cleaning supplies.

Only there are none. The cabinet is empty and she can't even remember when the last time it was that she gave her home a real good scrub down.

"Aw, crap."

Darcy searches high and low for anything to spruce up her home, but she finds nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only other chore she can do is sweep and vacuum, and then come back to worrying about how she's going to dust and scrub down her counters, and getting her rooms smelling like she's an actual adult who takes care of her responsibilities.

She can go to the store to finish up making her home presentable and look like it's actually lived in, but she's wasted too much time already and shopping will only take even longer. There's only one option left, an option she's not really comfortable with, but the slamming of a car door has her immediately looking out her window and coming to an immediate conclusion. She can totally do this. She has to.

Darcy hurries to the living room, quickly backpedaling into the kitchen to grab a cupcake from a container that she had gotten just that day. Then returning back to her living room, Darcy slips her feet into a pair of sneakers before exiting her home.

Next door, her neighbor is grabbing up bag after bag of what she guesses are groceries and she easily jogs across her lawn only to jump over the small hedges that separate their lawns.

"Hey, um, Hale!" She yells. But he's already looking at her, arms laden with bags and eyebrows either raised in shock or amusement. She can't really tell and she doesn't really care, not really. She just prays that he's uber nice and understands her predicament.

"Can I help you?" He asks, slowly closing the trunk of his vehicle.

She smiles sheepishly. "Hi. Yes. Um, my name's Darcy and I know I should have introduced myself properly months ago when I first moved in.. but, uh, I have a huge favor to ask of you and I really hope it's not too forward of me."

So far, so good. Hale- er, Derek- looks as if he's just really amused by her. And yes, though he doesn't properly know her, she knows pretty much everyone who lives up and down her block thanks to Pepper Potts putting together files of all her neighbors. It was to make her feel comfortable after the whole ordeal with HYDRA and Darcy's thanked her profusely for it, but she was pretty sure Tony and/or Nat had a hand in putting together the files of her neighbors' every day lives.

Eventually, Derek gives her a brief nod. "Sure. As long as it's reasonable. After all, we are basically strangers still."

"I'm really sorry about that," she blurts. "I'm kind of a.. a home body, I guess. Stupid traumatic thing that I've been pushing down and trying to forget and yeah," she babbles, completely missing the brief frown that mars his face. "I kept meaning to introduce myself to everyone around here, but I never got around to it and now that something's come up.. I really need the help."

His amusement fades and is oddly replaced by worry. "Are you in trouble?" Darcy takes note of the sudden change in the man's aura, noticing how alert he suddenly seems, but she files that away for another day. Dude was weird, but there are more important things at stake here.

"Not really," she shrugs. "It's just that this is the first time I'm living on my own and my parents decided to spontaneously drop by in a couple of hours to see how I'm doing. Please.. PLEASE let me borrow some cleaning supplies and food, so that my parents will believe I'm a functioning, responsible adult who totally cleans and doesn't just have condiments and eggs in my fridge. I promise to return everything and reimburse you for whatever I end up using!" Now, Derek's just gaping and as Darcy shifts from foot to foot in nervousness, she remembers the cupcake in her hands. Promptly holding the treat up at eye level, she smiles as sweetly as she can. "There are more treats like this in it for you if you say yes. These are store bought, but if you prefer homemade I can do that, too. It'd just have to wait until my parents leave."

"How- how do you not have food?" He finally asks.

"I work a lot," she slowly frowns. "And I buy take-out. All my household chores tend to just get pushed to the back burner. I have the money to reimburse you, if that's what you're worried about. I work at Stark Industries. It's just I forget to do.. adult.. people.. things. Sometimes."

Darcy's prepared to plead her case some more when Derek starts chuckling, his rough chuckles then turning into full blown laughter. She waits him out and when he's finally calm enough, he says, "Normally I'd have sent you on your way, because according to several people I'm a cranky ol' bastard, but my boyfriend's been watching and listening since you've jumped the hedges and I'm pretty sure he's game to help you out if his smile is anything to go by."

Derek gestures over Darcy's shoulder and sure enough, she finds Derek's boyfriend Stiles standing by their front door with a bucket of what she can only guess is cleaning supplies in hand.

When his presence has been noticed, Stiles practically runs down the sidewalk to meet them in the driveway. "Sorry about my Sourwolf here," Stiles says, absentmindedly patting Derek's pec. "But we'd love to help you out." Darcy's only a little intimidated by the man's manic grin, he pushing the bucket into her arms while simultaneously taking the cupcake from her. "You take that, I'll take this and Derek will bring some groceries. I'll help you out after I order Derek a pizza for dinner tonight, and then I want to know what it's like to work at Stark Industries. That Potts woman is a dream boat."

Darcy startles herself when a laugh bubbles out from between her lips, she then shaking her head in amusement. "I, uh, yeah. I can do that. And the pizza and beer is on me tonight for you guys agreeing. I'm Darcy, by the way, and it really is great to finally meet you guys."

Stiles smirks. "Likewise."