Title: Shotgun Wedding
Rating: PG-13/T
Originally posted: July 2013
Originally written for: a challenge at Avland on Livejournal
Characters/Pairings: Bruce/Darcy, Tony, The Avengers
Notes: AU post-Battle of New York

It was supposed to have been their wedding day. The last place Darcy Lewis expected to spend it was in the hospital. This was distinctly not in those daydreams she had as a child. Maybe she had never been a traditional girl, but even Darcy had plans for her wedding. She supposed it was just normal to want a big white dress, a hundred guests, flowers and balloons. Of course, this was long before she fell in love with a superhero.

Letting a guy like him into her life, it had its complications, but he got into her heart so easily. There was just no way Darcy could help but allow him to become all she wanted and needed. It wasn't as if she didn't have all the information from the start. Being as close as she was to the Avengers initiative these days, Darcy was privy to secrets few would ever guess. She was well aware that loving Bruce Banner meant dealing with The Other Guy too, and she never really worried about it.

Maybe that wasn't strictly true. Obviously the thought crossed her mind that being close to a man with such an extraordinary alter-ego would have its downsides. Still, she worked past her worries. She just had to be with the guy.

Bruce was pretty romantic when you got past the shyness. He could do candy and flowers as good as anybody, but Darcy knew he feared becoming too attached to her. His worries were for her safety, but also for her future. It was no life being tied to a guy with his issues, as he put it. She just shrugged her shoulders, told him every guy she ever dated had issues. Maybe not the same kind he had, but it was all relative. She loved him, and he was a dope if he didn't realise it. She proved it on the leap year when she asked him to be her husband.

Now here was their big day, and everything had gone pretty crappy. One minute they were saying 'I do' and sharing a kiss, the next someone started to fire from above. Steve yelled for everyone to take cover, as he and Tony sprang into action, with the team immediately falling in behind. Bruce grabbed Darcy's hand, pulling her to safety. Neither of them noticed that a stray bullet had ricocheted and struck her.

"Damn!" she had cursed as she spotted an ever-growing red patch on her ivory gown.

That was when the switch flipped in Bruce's brain. The Other Guy burst forth, yelled obscenities becoming a roar. He leapt up at the snipers above them, and Darcy passed out. She remembered nothing from that moment until this, coming to in a hospital bed with an ache in her thigh and an IV in her arm. Some wedding day this had turned out to be.

"Hey," her husband's voice said, as he gently grasped her hand. "How're you feeling?"

"Pissed off," she replied. "We should be feeding each other cake and listening to Tony sing bad karaoke right about now," she noted, taking in how dark it was outside. "I had plans for tonight too," she said with a look that almost caused the good doctor to blush.

"We'll get to all those plans, I promise," Bruce assured her. "I'm just glad you're okay."

"I'm guessing the butt-plugs that ruined our big day were after all of you guys, huh?" his new wife checked, knowing she was right from the way Bruce couldn't meet her eyes, proving he felt stupidly guilty. "Hey, it's okay," she assured him, making him look at her. "I knew what I was getting into when we started this whole thing. Just so long as the ass that put the hole in me is..."

"He is. They all are," Bruce told her, almost too seriously.

"Good," she nodded. "Then this Mrs Banner is just fine," she promised with a genuine smile.

"Ah, the happy couple," said Tony as he strolled into the room then, shattering any potentially romantic moment. "I ran into a very amiable nurse in the hall," he started to explain, "She said, given the circumstances, we could bend the limited visitor rules on this occasion," he waggled his eyebrows, then let out a whistle.

The Avengers team came piling into the room then, laden down with buffet snacks from biscuits to sandwiches, plus a whole stack of gifts too.

A wedding reception in a hospital room was not something Darcy ever expected, and Bruce looked just about as shocked as she felt. Still, theirs was never going to be a conventional marriage, they were both very aware of that, and they wouldn't have things any other way.