Darcy has literally tried everything. And not that she's above counting sheep but that hasn't worked since Darcy realized that all of the girls she grew up with in that small town were sheep, which was old and clichéd and she much preferred thinking of them getting tangled up in an electrical fence. While yes, morbid, it's not like she would actual advocate the death of her pre-teen classmates, but her imagination was pretty twisted. She's tried the herbal tea recommended by Dr. Banner, who obviously knows what he's talking about, and while the chamomile is calming it's doing nothing to lure her to the land of nod. She's done some of Natasha's stretches, including the one that reminds her of her college yoga class that puts her hanging upside down off the edge of her bed but she feels the creep of a headache come on faster than drowsiness. Darcy even tries a playlist of Pepper's, recommended by JARVIS, for when Pepper needs some Zen after one of Tony's more annoying days, and yes, the steady drums are awesome and take her once again back to her college yoga class which just makes her want to move through some Sun Salutations, which will do nothing but keep her awake longer.
And there is no way that she'll go back to self-medication, or even any, because she's been there, done that, and had way to many strange phone conversations with her then boyfriend, which she doesn't entirely recall all that was said. Reading only lasts for about 5 minutes before she's too bored and has been reading the same sentence over and over again without comprehending it and knows that it's a lost cause. So she flops and sighs once again, slightly angry with herself for spending that extra half hour under the shower, since the hot water never runs out, and getting in some quality time with her brand new battery-operated-boyfriend, which hell, she's a bit proud to be the owner of a shiny new Rabbit that she's been dying to try. And in the back of her mind she remembers a friend of hers, that she worked retail in for a few months during the summer she stayed in town during college, who warned her that: while the Rabbit is an amazing piece of machinery, it's like super-intense and can only be used sparingly, and Darcy is peeved because she didn't think it would be a Thing, but her clit is seriously sore and she feels like she got rode hard and put away wet, which she totally did, but apparently not in the good way.
So she spends some time browsing random pictures online, which kills another hour before she has to drag herself away before this becomes a seriously bad habit and lays down with her head uncomfortably propped on a lumpy pillow and pulls out her iPhone to clean off her most useless apps before she comes across one she hasn't seen since her last semester she spent on campus before Thor and definitely before Jane. It's a little tiny controller icon and she smirks faintly at the memory, TwitchTV is this gamer-thing. She used to pass out on her ex's couch when he would spend hours being a douche and ignoring her in favor of the latest first-person shooter. And she would loathe admitting that when she wasn't passing out on his couch she used the app to listen to other live streams in order to rock her off to sleep. She boots it up and after a few false starts, because the app is damn twitchy, she finds a Call of Duty stream that happens to be killing zombies, and she has to say that the mini-game was probably the only thing that she would ever play, because seriously, zombies, but it's moderately entertaining and the streamers aren't twelve year old boys calling everyone gay and tea bagging the corpses.
Three of the players talk with frequency, calling out strategies and laughing about their work day, because they're obviously friends, but the fourth guy only says something every few minutes and it's "crawler" "dogs" "monkey bomb" and by the time he says "teleporter" she realizes that there's an echo. And then she recognizes the voice, and she's up out of bed, shuffling quickly into slippers and scurrying out of her room and into the dimly lit hallway with the emergency low-lighting and she's tapping faster and faster on the door next door, and Clint Barton is opening it up looking frustrated, a headset half-skewed off of his neck and a wireless controller in one hand. He hasn't even said a greeting before Darcy has pushed pasted him and into his living quarters stomping over to the TV and holding up her phone to inform him, "You do realize that the guys you're playing with are streaming right?" she asks looking to him expectantly.
He's boggled at her lady balls and just shuts his door tightly, "Yeah, they're old corps buddies," he says nonchalantly before moving back to the couch, thankful that he stayed above the theater floor.
Darcy nods and closes out of the app, "Oh," she says smartly as she leans back and sits next to him on the couch. Watching zombies was always more fun than campaign mode in her opinion.
In the morning Darcy wakes up to the smell of hot coffee and tangled up in a blanket on an unfamiliar couch.
"You snore," Barton says from the kitchen where he's leaned on the counter with two mugs in front of him and that shit-eating grin on his face.
Darcy groans and spares a look out the windows, the few trees that she can see around Manhattan are half-bloomed and covered in pollen, "well, 'tis the season." She shuffles off to his bathroom because it's in the same place as hers is, and empties her bladder and steals some of his mouthwash, but doesn't bother to fix her hair because the guy let her fall asleep on his couch. She greets him back in the kitchen and steals the fuller cup of steaming hot liquid from near his elbow and raises an eyebrow in gratitude.
"So when I said I was next door if you needed a hand," he began, glancing at her bra-less chest through her light tee shirt.
"Yeah, thanks for that, it was just what I needed to fall asleep," she quickly drinks the rest of her cup, even though it scalds her tongue and presses a quick peck to his cheek before making a hasty escape.
And when she finds herself at the used game store later that afternoon after the grind at S.H.I.E.L.D. slows to a halt for the night, she doesn't let herself smirk and think that Barton has any influence over the fact that she's caving and buying one of these consoles. But when she sets it up and makes her account she doesn't suppress the guffaw at having a friend request from SureShot, with the message to practice because he wants to recruit her to his zombie killing squad, and she thanks JARVIS through her laughter.