Sliding on the Rainbow

When Darcy was three, her grandfather tried to give her a newborn doll. Howard Stark was an old fashioned man. He had certain expectations, especially when it came to gender roles. It didn't matter that he knew two really badass women (his wife being one of them), he still thought his granddaughter should be playing with dolls.

Darcy had looked at it for a solid minute, doing the eyebrow thing her grandmother taught her, and decided she was too cool for dolls. Instead, she dragged her grandfather to the nearest Toys r' Us and made him buy her a toy tool kit. It was awesome. It was red and yellow and had a hammer and everything.

She never looked back.

When she was five, and most girls were busy playing in Barbie's Dream House, her grandfather offered to build her the best dream house. Instead, she forced the man to work with her dad to build her a Darcy's dream workshop. The room was small, the size of a walk-in closet, off of her bedroom, and had plenty of spare parts and real tools. Her favorite was a sterling silver one that her dad gave her. She never actually used it, but when she designed her first security system at the age of six - it was her way of coping with her grandparents' deaths - the screwdriver, along with a ring from her grandmother, and the handprint from that first newborn doll became the 'keys' to get in.

So yeah, her experience with babies were pretty much disregarding that newborn doll. And only ever taking it out to play when she wanted to get into her inner sanctum.

Therefore, finding out that she was going to be a mother was sort of scary. It was more than scary. It was terrifying, and Darcy wasn't even going to bother denying it. She was confident in her awesome, but the sprog growing in her belly, well, that was definitely unexpected. Darcy was an awesome young woman, she was very well aware of that fact.

But an awesome mom?

She didn't really think so.

What even makes an awesome mom?

Sure, Darcy had Pepper as an example, but first of all, Pepper hadn't become a part of her life until she was eight. Second, she wasn't really her mom, but more of an awesome aunt-slash-babysitter that liked to team up with her against her dad. Which was great, but not something a mom usually did? Or did they? Darcy had no idea.

For the first six years of her life, she had Maria Stark to look to as an example. But she was Darcy's grandmother. And a grandmother was very different than a mom. Darcy knew this for a fact, as she asked her Nana once. It was right after a playdate with a couple of other young girls. They forced five-year-old Darcy into joining a tea party - which she'll admit, she ended up enjoying, but she drew the line at the dolls - and talked about how they were the mommies to the silly dolls. Darcy had asked them how they knew they were a mommy, and they each had replied the same thing. "Because we do what our mommy does." So of course, Nana, being the only adult female figure in Darcy's life, was who she assumed was her mother. Asking her that during their weekly brunch in front of her father and Popop was hilarious in retrospect. But she could still recall holding back tears asking why she didn't have a mommy like the other girls.

Apparently, Darcy did have one, but she had died during childbirth.

For a five-year-old, the little girl was an expert on guilt. She refused to play any games, wore black because JARVIS told her it was the mourning color, and cried whenever she heard the word 'mom' or any variation.

It was a shitty few months. Especially because the little girl's guilt made her father feel guilty too.

Darcy knew now that her dad was eighteen when she was born. That he was already well into his playboy ways and had accidentally gotten her mother pregnant. She may have been unplanned, but Darcy knew that Tony had changed his ways the moment he found out he was going to be a dad. The good behavior continued when he realized he was going to be a single father. And it lasted until a five-year-old felt guilty for 'killing' her mommy.

It was three months into little Darcy's guilt trip that she ran into the first floozy. Well, they were floozies now, but back then the young impressionable girl didn't know what to call them. She had ran into her daddy's room, afraid from a nightmare or other, to find some strange woman in his bed. The woman, whoever she was, screamed, jumped out of the bed, and hid in the bathroom. Darcy, of course, in all her five-year-old wisdom asked if that was her new mommy.

Tony didn't take that very well. And the 'bad' behavior that he had been hiding for those few months stopped once more. Darcy, though, finally realized that her daddy was looking for something she couldn't provide changed her ways. No more feeling guilty about not having a mommy. She had an awesome dad right there.

They were happy again, and Darcy forgot all about not having a mom. Tony was actually a great dad and proved that not having a mom around wasn't really necessary to Darcy's well-being.

She had Nana for a female role-model, and sometimes Auntie Peggy would come around and tell her awesome stories about Captain America that sounded more true than her Popop's stories.

For all the demure, gentle qualities her Nana exuded, Auntie Peggy was the opposite. She was brash, brutal, and honest. The woman looked like a pushover, but she did not take crap from anyone, and everyone knew it.

Auntie Peggy was awesome. The lady didn't stick to social norms, and never forced Darcy to those confinements. When her Popop would insist on the girl wearing a dress, Auntie Peggy would show up with a cute pair of trousers for Darcy to wear. When the older lady found out about the doll incident, she made sure that the little girl got some transformers to play with. They didn't look like dolls, and they transformed! They were her favorite toys besides the tool kit. And yeah, Darcy totally took them apart to figure out how they worked, and she totally didn't get in any trouble for it. Which was great, because the three-year-old Darcy was scared and hid the toys for a week so that no one saw them broken into pieces. And when they were finally found - Darcy was still a little miffed at Dummy for unearthing them in the corner of her daddy's workshop, as punishment she had made the robot a DUNCE hat (that her father still used) - Auntie Peggy laughed, exclaiming how she was just like her daddy and Popop.

Darcy preened in remembrance. For the three-year-old, being compared to her daddy or Popop was everything she could ever ask for. Everyone explained how important being a Stark was. Even though it wasn't her name, Darcy tried really hard to show that she was a Stark in blood.

But her daddy - in a bout of sobriety? Clarity? Deciding to actually listen to Howard for once? - decided that Darcy needed a little more female influence in his life. And for a while, Darcy found herself in the company of her Nana and Auntie a lot more often.

Her Nana was a femme fatale, a woman who you never expected to be as badass as she really was. Her Auntie Peggy was even more badass than you could imagine. Between the two of them, they made sure Darcy had a solid foundation on being one seriously awesome chick. And all before she was five.

So, Darcy had some great material to pull from on the whole 'how to be a mother' front, but still.

She was scared shitless.

Telling people scared Darcy even more. Again, she was awesome, she knew this. But telling people that her awesome self managed to get pregnant after only a few months of actually having sex with her boyfriend wasn't very awesome. All things considered.

It was just her luck really. Date a guy for over a year where they were only in each other's company for maybe a third of that time. Finally have sex, and a few months later manage to get pregnant.

Seriously, just her luck.

And she knew that once her dad got over the shock of the news, the man would laugh in her face. Well, whatever, at least she was twenty-five. And she was totally okay with throwing that back at him. She was freaking out here, and having the man who'd been there for her whole life laugh at her was just not cool. Not cool.

So, she really, really wanted her dad right now. Like, this was life altering, and sure, she tended to disregard what her father said - she started college as a history major, switched to english literature, and then finally settled on political science (her dad wanted her to do something useful like engineering or physics, or god forbid, biology, just something Science!) - but she just wanted the man around to hug. He didn't do hugs often, so when he did, they were magical. And she needed one of her dad's magical hugs right then.

She also needed a drink, but no, she wasn't allowed anymore. And that was going to suck. It was going to be obvious she was preggers when she declined a drink the next time she went out with the team. But whatever. Darcy knew it wasn't good for a growing embryo. And, yes, she was scared, but she wasn't stupid. And the idea of a baby - unplanned, sure, but whatever - was actually sort of exciting. If (more like when) she got over the shock, she knew she was going to become one of those crazy pregnant ladies. Poor Clint.

And fuck. She had to tell Clint. She should tell him before her dad, sure. But did she have to tell Clint first? Because that was a conversation she'd be very happy to avoid for a bit. Like, until she had her head wrapped around the news.

"JARVIS," Darcy finally called out, looking up to the ceiling, even though she knew better. Grabbing the seventh pregnancy test, she wrapped it with toilet paper, and then placed it in a biohazard bag she stole from Bruce's lab with the other six she had taken. "Can we keep this our little secret for now? Like, don't tell my dad because I really should tell Clint first, you know?"

"Of course, Darcy," the soothing British voice replied. Sometimes, she wished she actually had managed to convince her dad to make a robot embodiment to go with the AI, just so she could hug him.

"And, umm, maybe, can you get a hold of Pepper? Like, when she's not busy and far away from dad?"

Sure, she was going to tell Clint before telling her dad. That was only fair, right? But Pepper was practically her mom, or like, the older sister figure who slept with her dad? Babysitter that hooked up with the parent? That sounded best. But really, Pepper was the woman figure she had always ran to as soon as the older woman became a part of her life (especially after the fiasco of finding her dad after getting her menses for the first time), so it only made sense for Darcy to seek her out in this moment of need.

"She is currently in a meeting, but I've notified her to contact you as soon as she's available."

"Thanks J." Taking deep breaths, Darcy started practicing some of the calming techniques Bruce always insisted she learn. At the time, she had scoffed at his face, but now, she wished she paid better attention. All she has is the fake lamaze she has seen on tv to go on.

Relocating to the living room, she collapsed on the couch.

So, she was going to be a mother in a seven or eight months. Now that she was finally calming down, she could speculate who would react worse. Her dad or boyfriend. And fuck, was Clint going to be all gentlemanly and force them to get married?

And it's not like it would be forcing her. Because she had totally thought about it. She didn't have a dream wedding planned out - she was never one of those girls. Although, if she got to wear her Nana's dress, she'd be happy. She only thought about what it would be like to be married. She figured it'd be much the same as it was now, except they'd have different titles and rings to go with it.

Whatever. She won't let the man ask her to marry him if its only because they were having a child. But it'd be pretty cool if he asked and they got married before her dad grew the balls to ask Pepper. Rhodey would finally have to teach her to fly a helicopter if Darcy managed to get married before her father.

Bet he didn't see that coming.

"Darcy?"

She was startled from her thoughts by Pepper's face coming onto the tv. "Hi Pepper."

"Are you okay? JARVIS sounded worried." Pepper's eyes were scanning her all over. Darcy would giggle if she didn't think it would turn into hysterical tears. She was calm before, but now that she was going to have to tell someone, the calm disappeared.

"Pepper? Do you think you could schedule a board meeting or something here in New York?"

"Definitely, I'll be there by tomorrow. But what's wrong?"

"Nothing. Everything." If there was ever a time to want a mother, now was it. Really, if Darcy couldn't have her dad's magical hugs. A hug from Pepper was pretty darn close. "I just really need you right now."