So, originally this one was much longer (25 pages versus 6), but I decided to cut it between two prompts. Namely because the second half didn't so much fit with 'Blood' as it did with 'Mission'. Mission will be up second and probably today, I just need to edit it. Anyway, hope this is amusing.

Enjoy,

Illusinia

Prompt: blood

From: avengers-tables .livejournal under 50-word prompt (yes, I do intent to use all 50 words)

Pairings: Clint/Darcy

"What. The. Fuck." Darcy's incredulous voice echos around the bathroom like an omen.

Clint winces from where he's sitting on the edge of the counter, attempting to clean away some of the dried blood still clinging to his arm. The bullet wound isn't that bad, he's certainly had worse. From the way Darcy is looking at him however, it feels like what he considers a minor injury is more akin to arterial spray.

"How the fuck did you get shot?" continues Darcy as she sets down the messenger bag on her shoulder and moves to examine his arm.

It takes a lot of effort not to wince when she touches the area around his injury. Bruising around bullet wounds is a lot worse than most people realize. "It's nothing Darce." Calming tones are usually very effective. When your girlfriend doesn't give you the same glare-of-doom in response that your boss does when you've done something stupid. Dear god, how often do Phil and Darcy interact if he's already teaching her his facial expressions?

"That isn't nothing," corrects Darcy as she grabs the towel from him and continues cleaning the blood off his arm without touching the stitches. "I call that bodily harm and reiterate my previous question: how the fuck did you get shot?"

For a moment, Clint considers how to answer that. Really, it isn't his fault this time. Well, it is because he completely trusted the intel that logistics gave him without confirming it visually. Then again, he had been in the process of being chased by angry HYDRA agents at that exact moment. Accurate intel would have been nice. Still, things happen in the field and shit goes sideways. He isn't dead, which goes a long way in the long run (and is probably more important than pretty much anything else). Too bad with Darcy lying isn't an option: somehow she always knows when he isn't telling the entire truth and stares at him until he is completely truthful.

"Things got a little hairy out there, that's all," attempts Clint. Complete truth, but Darcy still gives him the 'you're leaving something out' look that he dreads. Seriously, is she related to Phil? No one should be able to give him that look and make him feel like a chastised school kid besides his boss. "We had some bad intel and didn't know it in enough time to completely adjust. Everyone's alive though, so stop worrying."

Her response isn't what he expects.

"Again? Seriously?" The incredulous tone is back, even if it's carried on a disbelieving groan. "I don't believe this. What the fuck kind of dumbasses are they hiring to run their logistics sector for your command base? I know Phil heads tactics and that he's more than competent, so what's everyone else's excuse?"

Clint blinks at her for a moment, then furrows his eyebrows. "'Again'? Darce, how do you know this has happened before?"

Darcy rolls her eyes. "I work for Phil, remember? I've read your mission jackets, both briefings and debriefings. I know how many times shit has gone down due to crap intel in the last few months. It's bullshit and it's stopping now."

He doesn't even have a chance to get a word in before she's stormed out the door and into the hallway. For a small girl, she moves incredibly fast. Luckily he's fast too, darting out of the bathroom and into the hallway after her before the rag he's been using to clean his arm hits the floor.

"Darce, wait!" calls Clint, trying to catch up with her. He catches sight of her turning a corner ahead. "Darcy!"

She never looks back and when he goes running around the corner, somehow she's disappeared in a completely Coulson-the-ninja-robot-boss move that has Clint wondering if there's any way to minimize the amount of time his girlfriend and boss spend together. Seriously, he's seen how hard they both work so when has Phil had the time to teach her any of this stuff? Maybe the whole 'related' joke that Tony keeps making isn't that far from the mark. The thought alone makes Clint snort. Right, Coulson with a daughter like Darcy? Not possible.

Taking a moment, he considers where she might be headed. She's pissed about their intel, which means it's pretty much limited to the current command team or Fury. He really hopes she won't go to Fury. That would be messy, either for her or the current command team. Possibly both, though Clint would put his money on the command team. Fury seems to actually like Darcy, for reasons no one can comprehend save maybe Phil who Clint still swears is sleeping with their one-eyed boss. No matter how often Darcy rolls her eyes and repeatedly tells him Phil is as straight as one of his arrows.

Opting to check in with the command team first, he scurries in the general direction of their offices. It takes him less than five minutes to reach them and, to his horror, no one has seen Darcy. Or any sign of her. Steve is there of course, giving a lecture to some kid who looks a little bored. It's the same guy who's been heading the logistics team responsible for all briefing information as well as guiding and supporting them in the field, be that with information or transportation. Every single time the guy insists it isn't his fault too, which rubs Clint the wrong way in so many ways it's not funny but he isn't actually in a position to do anything about it. Largely because they don't have an immediate replacement for the guy. He has heard rumors that someone is being trained to take his place, though.

"Steve!" calls Clint as he jogs towards the super-soldier while dodging people with pads of paper, maps, and notes of all kinds. "Hey, have you seen Darcy?"

Steve's brow furrows a little before he seems to remember who Clint's talking about. Clint has to remind himself that not everyone knows Darcy particularly well. Largely because she works so much and when she is at home there's almost always at least an hour or two where she spends time alone. According to her, it's necessary to maintain her sanity. It also means that the other Avengers shy of Tony (who often prods her into drinking adventures) and himself don't see her unless she's with Coulson. Which only happens when Coulson comes to see them and needs her to tag along.

"You mean the brunette woman who works for Coulson, correct?" asks Steve kindly, clearly embarrassed by his lack of memory of Darcy.

His heart drops a little into his stomach, out of dread more than anything else. "Yeah, Darcy Lewis."

"I haven't seen her, no," assures Steve, though the furrow is back. "Why? Is something wrong?"

Clint groans, a hand coming up to rub at his eyes. "Possibly. Probably. We may or may not be hiding a body later. Or bodies. It depends on how many people end up dead."

The alarmed expression that crosses Steve's face would have been hilarious under any other circumstances. Namely, if Clint was joking. Seriously, he's a little worried for the physical and mental health of any member of the logistics team right now. Darcy angry is a scary sight he's had the good fortune to only witness once.

Noting that Steve looks ready to call 911, Clint quickly continues. "I don't mean literally. Well, I hope not literally. With Darcy its a little hard to tell sometimes but best guess is that she won't commit any permanent bodily harm."

Steve doesn't really look convinced. Or pacified. "Should we send out an alert?"

"No," assures Clint quickly as he starts towards the door, moving backwards. "Like I said, she won't actually murder anyone. Maim perhaps, but not murder. She's not the murdering type. I'll just keep looking for her."

For a moment, he thinks he might actually get away without Captain America following him around to hunt for his pissed off girlfriend. Mostly that's for Steve's sake. When pissed, Darcy can curse in some creative ways that have made him blush. Steve's brain would probably implode from the images. Tony swears some of the stuff she's threatened can't be done. Clint doesn't want to find out if that's true or not.

However, any hopes of escaping without forming a miniature search party go down in flames when Steve starts to follow Clint out of the room. "This will go faster if we search together. I'll get the other Avengers on this as well."

Clint groans and shakes his head, reaching up to cover the communicator while subtly removing it from Steve's hands. "Seriously Steve, don't worry about it. I'll go find her. She's probably bitching to Coulson about our logistics head being a moron or something." A look of horror crosses Steve's face that Clint knows he'd be mimicking if he wasn't aware of how much Coulson seemed to like Darcy. Their relationship tended to make him more than a little nervous.

Shrugging to throw off some of his tension, he offered Steve a smirk and pointed out: "At least its not Fury. Well," pausing, Clint considered his words, "actually, she could be bitching at Fury. Shit. I'd better go find her."

He takes off again for the door, hearing Steve groan behind him before following as well. "Does she usually do things like this?"

"When pissed? Yeah," confirms Clint with a grimace.

Steve shakes his head slowly. "What set her off like this?"

Clint winces. "My injury."

"Really?" asks Steve with wide eyes. "It's not good that you were hurt but this seems a bit over the top."

"I don't think it was the actual injury so much as the fact that bad intel was part of the reason I got hurt," explains Clint. "She knows we've had issues with that in the past few months, apparently this was just the last straw."

Steve shakes his head with a sigh, holding out his hand towards Clint as they kept walking. "I need my communicator back. If we're going to save your girlfriend, we'll need more help than just us."

Darcy. Is. Pissed. Beyond pissed. The behavior from the logistics team was unacceptable. And someone is going to hear about it.

Storming down the hallway, she made her way towards the one person she knew who could do something. Logistics needed to be revamped, otherwise someone was going to get killed and then she'd have to find a place to hide a body or six. Clint would help her of course, but she didn't want to drag him in if she didn't have to. Tony on the other hand...

"Ma'am? You can go in now," offers a dark-haired woman positioned at a desk next to a single office door.

Darcy nods and gives her dad the best scowl possible as she walks into his office. Agent Phil Coulson just shoots her a raised eyebrow in return.

"Miss Lewis, how may I help you?" asks Phil calmly, eying the former intern as she shuts the door behind her. Once the click of the door fades, he hits a button under his desk top then moves to lean against the front of it. "Darcy, what's wrong? I know that glare and it's the one that usually leads to an attempted murder charge."

Darcy huffs but smiles a little. "That never happened."

"Yet," corrects Phil easily as he motions for Darcy to take a seat in front of his desk. "Now, what has you in such an amazing mood today?"

"Clint," growls Darcy as she flops into the chair. She can see her father debating if he needs to replace his best agent or not and continues quickly. "He got hurt during this last mission because of bad intel. Again. Dad, this needs to stop before someone gets seriously hurt or killed."

Phil sighs, nodding as he folds his arms across his chest. "I agree, but we don't have anyone to take over."

"Yeah, you do," corrects Darcy. "You've been training me to do this job since you and Fury cooked up the idea of the Avengers. I know what to do, all that's holding me back is the field clearance which I don't actually need to do this job." He still looks unhappy which prompts Darcy to continue quickly. "Look Dad, I'm one course off from completing the field training set so I can take the qualifiers. That class is the hand-to-hand one which we've already established I can pass without taking it, so it's like I'm already ready to take the qualifiers. Plus, the Avengers are an active team with an incompetent logistics head and a lot of dangerous missions. Someone is going to potentially die if we don't get that dumbass out of there and I'm his replacement."

"Let me talk with Director Fury," compromises Phil as he picks up his headset to dial Fury's office. "If he agrees with your assessment, then I'll allow for the change to occur. Fair?"

Darcy nods. "Fair. But if he says no, I want to know why."

"Always," assures Phil as the ringer goes silent on the phone, replaced by a deep male voice. "Hello, Director Fury?"

Clint rounds the corner of the hall, heading towards Coulson's office with Steve hot on his tail. All of the Avengers are on the look-out for Darcy, after he finished reminding them what she looked like. Which really amounted to reminding Bruce because Natasha had spent time with the brunette, Thor recalled who Darcy was very well (it's hard to forget a girl who tasers a god), and Tony is always attempting to drag her out drinking.

What led them to Coulson's office was Natasha's off-handed reminder that he was in charge of the command team which worked in conjunction the logistics team and he was the one who handled the logistics team's staff. Clint just hoped his boss/handler would be kind enough to not murder his girlfriend for speaking out of turn. Even if he liked Darcy, there was a good chance he wouldn't like being griped at about something that was already a known problem.

The sight that greeted Clint as they reached the office isn't what he's expecting. Nor is it what Steve's expecting either, because the super-soldier runs smack into Clint without uttering a word. Clint just drags him back around the corner, peeking back at the office from his hiding place in confusion.

Darcy is standing just outside the door of the office with Fury, speaking to Coulson and looking far less angry than she had before. Fury doesn't look unhappy either. In fact, the man is wearing that pleased smirk that qualifies as a smile for him. Even Coulson seems happy with whatever happened.

Clint ducks back out of sight and shakes his head. What the hell did his girlfriend do to make both Fury and Coulson look pleased? Handed them all of the most wanted individuals on S.H.I.E.L.D's hit list with a big bow attached? No, then Fury would be throwing a party. He glances around the corner again then ducks back once more and hisses at Steve 'Act casual'.

Steve looks confused but Clint covers for both of them (at least he thinks he did) by pretending to laugh at something the super-soldier said. Of course, Steve is still confused but Darcy doesn't say anything as she rounds the corner. Instead, she reaches out and catches Clint's hand after making eye contact with him so he doesn't flip her. Like he accidentally did when she ran to catch up with him on the sidewalk once.

"Hey Clint, what's so funny?" She cocks her head to the side as she speaks, giving him the confused puppy look she does so well.

Clint smiles and uses their joined hands to pull her closer. "Hey Darce, Steve was just telling me about some girl he was talking with the other day."

"Oh?" Her eyes slide to Steve, who squirms almost immediately under her gaze. Huh. Okay, either Steve is a really good liar (unlikely) or some girl had actually approached him (entirely possible). Clint files the information away to pursue at another time as Darcy continues. "That's great Steve." Her eyes slide back to him, tugging a little on his hand. "Now if you'll excuse us, we need to finish getting Clint's arm cleaned up."

"Sure," agrees Clint as she tugs him down the hallway and away from the office. "Later Steve!"

Steve just nods, apparently too embarrassed to respond. Yeah, Clint's definitely going to quiz him later. For now, however, he has an attractive brunette looking to play nurse with him. An invitation he never turns down.