It comes to no surprise that Darcy is home alone on Saturday night. The week at S.H.l.E.L.D had been hectic, as usual. She'd spent much of her Friday morning and afternoon copying and correcting expense reports with her favorite blue and red pens, which continued well into the night because some people still didn't know the difference between out of pocket and company charge account. The stack had been gargantuan, and Darcy had plowed through the work day and soon discovered that the crisis of HR's payroll errors when nearly every agent on their floor came storming over at one point or another during the day to use Coulson, and by extension Darcy as a sounding board for their complaints. Not that anything could be done, and they really should be taking this up with HR, or their supervisor, whom was unfortunately out in medical leave, which awarded Darcy the sight of Coulson putting out twice as many fires during the day than he normally handled, however her amused expression disappeared when Coulson gracefully cruised out of his office at 5 o'clock on the dot with a sideways glance at her still rather large pile of paperwork.
"Remember Ms. Lewis, expense reports are due in accounting no later than 8:15 Monday morning," he said quickly before strolling quickly down the hallway before he could be accosted by any more sorry agents.
Darcy's mood instantly darkened, fucking dick. "You have a good weekend too, Phil!" she shouted after him. It would serve him right to get verbally assaulted at least two more times on his way out of the building now.
So that was how Darcy spent her Friday night (much to Jane's disappointment), in, correcting and re-creating horribly fucked up reports. She had passed out around 5 am after a rousing round of infomercial surfing with a bowl of fruity cereal, and woke once again later that morning at 11, and decided to fuck it. She showered, and put on her comfiest clothes, made herself a cheese quesadilla and slurped frozen not-strong-enough margarita mix out of the container as she went to work once again, not stopping until she heard a rather sudden and startling BANG! BANG! BANG! on her door hours after the sun had set below the buildings.
Frustrated, and slightly nauseous from the sugary alcohol and singular cheese filled tortilla, she opened her apartment door to find Barton standing before her with his giddy shit-eating grin, and the fact that she could tell the difference between the moods behind them made her feel even more dopey. She brushed past it like he did to her and raised an eyebrow expectantly. "Of course, Barton, make yourself at home."
"I thought we were past the last names bit, Darce, with you snoring on my couch and being my gaming buddy and all," he commented easily shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking around on his heels.
"We would, if you would fill out your damn reports correctly and hand them to me in a timely fashion," she glared. It did not get past her notice that as she gleefully watched another unnamed agent swinging his arms around in exasperation inside Coulson's office yesterday that a scribbled and purpled penned piece of paper found its way to the top of her NEEDS HELP MEOW pile.
"Yesterday afternoon is timely, they aren't due until next Friday," he shrugged.
"No, they are due this Monday," she groaned again and nodded over to the piles that were stacked along her coffee table.
Clint raised his eyebrows in disbelief, "Yeesh," he turned back to her, grinning. "So what are you doing tonight?"
She gaped at him flabbergasted. She started gesturing wildly to the work she still had to do, "Obviously!" she shouted.
"Meet me in the common room in five, you look like you need a bit of a distraction," he eyed her up and down.
She barely had the time to feel self-conscious about her favorite bumming it clothes before he was back through her doorway calling out to her through the closing door.
"Make sure you wear something tactical!" in a tone that was far too alluring for her own good, and she frowned and could only worry about what he meant by that.
Eight minutes later she was wearing her most awesome boots that Natasha had approved for all matters of ass-kickery, which she might need if Barton was going to keep annoying her while she had a deadline, and an outfit that had gotten her through more than one training session with the Cap, Thor and Widow, who had deemed her proficient enough with a taser, and scrappy enough to incapacitate any attacker without totes fucking up and hurting herself.
Barton was obviously up to something, he was too excitable and had physically dragged Darcy down the hallway to the elevator where he entered a code for a floor that she'd never seen and rocked restlessly until the doors opened again.
"Coulson's not going to need a replacement assistant is he? Jane's not going to have to try and, like, identifying me by my toes nails, right?" Darcy asked slightly concerned because the area that they had stepped into was sterile, and freaky, and way too much like the underground level of the Xavier Mansion she had toured with Jane from that one time that Wolverine had out-snarked at Tony and offered to show the girls around (Darcy was pretty sure that Tony would die without Jane to talk geeky shop with, because while he loved torturing Bruce, Jane was pretty to look at.) because you never knew when the next alien crisis was going to occur and the X-Men had offered to help with the Avengers more 'precious' assets.
Clint let out a bark of a laugh and led her through a doorway, steering her over to a table, outfitting her with Stark Tech looking vest with sensors, those funny little bracelets that Tony uses for some of his suits, (which truthfully Darcy gets a little excited about), and these funny see-through glasses. Barton had been, funnily, already dressed in such additions when he came to see her, which Darcy only takes notice of now. He leads them through another door and down a set of steps into a giant arena.
It's dark inside, but obviously made of the same material as the white hallway, and it looks a little like the Danger Room.
"Jarvis," Clint calls out, "can you please prepare the room?" he asks and pulls Darcy next to his side and the floors shift and elevate, walls move closer and further, and Darcy is more than a little concerned when she feels the cool lightweight of plastic pushed into her hand.
"You're not going to put me through one of your exercises are you?" because up until this point she had no idea what she was doing down here, but if it's running through an Avengers scenario she is not going to be pleased.
"Run the sim," he calls out to Jarvis with a wicked grin aimed in Darcy's direction, and she glares.
"Barton, what the fuck-"
The room gets darker, not that it wasn't possible and then there's noise, a fog horn and by the time she looks around, the platform next to her looks like a transported and a tattered Nazi flag is stuck by some couches in the middle of two sweeping sets of stairs. "Kino der Toten?" she calls out, more excited than she intended and looks over to where Barton was, but is now vacant.
Now Darcy is stoked, because hell, this is a giant human simulation of her favorite zombie mini-game, but then she remembers that she's not particularly good at Zombies, but she enjoys it all the same, and then she hears it, the tear of wood, the groans of the undead and she whirls with that piece of plastic, which through her glasses looks to be a handgun.
"You totes would be the only person who could effectively use a bow against zombies!" Darcy scoffs later and they sit hip to hip in the cafeteria, basking in the bright morning sun and after-glow of hours of zombie mayhem.
Clint grins through a mouthful of sugary oatmeal and nudges her with his shoulder, "I seem to remember you being quite relieved about the explosive bolts," he teases.
"Yes well, I just glad that whoever you conned into writing up this program you made, made the feels of being a zombie buffet akin to being mauled by affectionate puppies," she replies and sinks her teeth through a piece of buttery toast.
"Yeah well, I can't be having you too freaked out by the hordes of the undead animations, I need you for Thursday's game," he winked at her playfully and pushed some of his bacon in her direction.
She snatched a piece without a second thought and grinned as she chewed through it, thinking of how awesome it had actually been while playing a simulation. Granted she wasn't any better at it than she normally did, but she felt like she may have improved on her aim a bit, making her confident that she would never miss another taser shot again.
"We should do that again sometime," she said what she thought.
"You have fun?" Clint grinned at her.
"Yeah," she admitted nonplussed.
"When exactly was the last time that you had fun, Lewis?" Clint asked.
She could have been upset about his use of her last name, but for some reason the way that it rolled off of his tongue made her ladybits go all tingly. She sighed and bristled, boldly laying her heavy head on his shoulder. "It's been quite a while," she admitted reluctantly.
"Well maybe we should have some fun more often then," he said, his tone soft.
She yawned and nodded, "Yeah, just as long as you stop interrupting me while I'm working," she frowned.
Darcy woke with a jolt. Shit, that fucking paper work is due on Monday, was her first thought, followed shortly by: What fucking time is it? as she scrambled to find her glasses.
Her bedside alarm told her that it was just after 4 am, Monday morning.
"Shit, mother fucking cunt, shit, shit, fuck, shit!" she hissed as she shuffled sleepily, but panicked out into her living room where she discovered one, rather large, but neat pile of expense reports on her coffee table. She sank into the couch and looked suspiciously at the work before her. It was correct, all of it, page after page, report after fucking report, it was all correct, neat, and error free in alphabetical order sitting right in front of her!
"What in the name of Thor's dad?" she asked pushing her askew glasses into place, looking around in bewilderment.
There was an odd piece of paper propped up on her brewing coffee pot and she moved over to it steadily. In neat, capital letters that matched those on some of the forms she saw:
Best. Zombies. Partner. Ever.
We should do fun again, how's your Tuesday looking?
And it was signed Clint, with an arrow running through his name, which made Darcy giggle terribly because she signed her notes with a heart, and god damn it if he didn't just fucking Cupid her ass.