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There are plenty of days when living in the Avengers Tower can be very taxing, not least of all because Natasha is the only women living in close proximity to five men, and as much as they are considered heroes when they’re doing their day jobs – at home they’re still men.
After a long day of training some of the SHIELD administrative personnel; even though they sat at a desk filing paperwork for much of the day, they still needed to be able to defend themselves, because alien attacks were unfortunately becoming more and more common, Darcy Lewis had stayed behind and was chatting to Natasha as she finished stretching.
Darcy is almost vibrating with enthusiasm as she speaks, “It must be so cool to be living in the Avengers Tower!”
Natasha favours her with a cool smirk, Darcy was one of the least objectionable people in the room today – and is pretty handy with a taser if what Thor says is true. “I doubt that it’s as ‘cool’ as you seem to think it is.”
Darcy definitely hears the implied quotation marks around the word cool if her widening smile is any indication. “Okay, maybe not cool, but still living with five very attractive specimens of man flesh is like a dream come true.”
Natasha allows herself a small laugh at that particular phrasing. “I’ll give you that they’re pretty to look at, but living with people and learning all their habits tends to make them less attractive, unfortunately.”
“Spill! I think this is information that I desperately need to know,” seeing the blank distrustful look Natasha is sending her way, Darcy continues at an even more rapid pace, “Not that I would ever pass on any information that you choose to share with me, with anybody, except maybe Jane, but then I guess Thor already tells her stuff and she won’t tell anybody else. And it would be good for me to know this stuff so that I can, uhm,... realise that although the Avengers are awesome, they’re still human!” She finishes her argument on a rather high pitched note, and then pauses to suck in a few desperately needed gulps of air.
All her muscles relax, Darcy is most definitely not a threat, and it might be nice to vent to somebody else, because as much as she loves her boys, there are many things about them that irritate her every day. She walks over to one of the benches and starts undoing the tape around her knuckles, motioning to Darcy to sit along with her. Darcy collapses onto the floor near her, contorting her limbs in a way that does not look particularly comfortable, looking for all the world like a toddler at story time.
Where to start, perhaps Tony, because he is the most intentionally annoying. “Well, Stark is as much of a terror as the press makes him out to be, except not in the way that you’d expect. He is not on regular normal people time and he only drags himself from his workshop when Jarvis refuses to give him more coffee. So he comes into the kitchen, paws at the very expensive French coffee press, which he has somehow managed to give a personality that is in love with him, until it gives him coffee, then he wanders out. The problem is that I am convinced he bathes in engine grease so he leaves little grease stains everywhere, and never bothers to clean them up.”
“You should put that shit up on Youtube, you’d be internet famous in minutes.” Darcy says with an awed look on her face. “The world needs to see that.”
“On some days, I am very tempted. Who should I shatter your illusions about next.” She thinks about it for a second, before continuing to talk, “Clint and I have known each other for a long time, and unfortunately that means that he tends to think of me as one of the guys, which is good on most occasions, but not when he’s scratching his balls in front of me and trying to talk about masturbation fantasies.”
Darcy is now struggling to contain her laughter, but seems to have no comments on this fact, “Bruce is easy to live with, except when he gets carried away with the science talk, which always seems to happen when he is busy cooking. Unsurprisingly, gesturing and waving your hands around while you’re supposed to be stirring pasta sauce does not end well. Still, the occasion where he managed to fling a meatball into Thor’s eye almost makes up for it.”
Darcy is still unable to say anything, probably due to the fact that she is laughing so much that she can barely sit up straight. “Thor gets a slight pass because he is an alien, and he brings the most amazing mead I’ve ever tasted.”
“That shit is lethal. He gave a few cups to Jane and I once, and the hangover was a killer” Is all Darcy
managed to get out before she is reduced to holding her stomach and trying to breathe.
“It’s one of the only things that can get Steve even remotely tipsy. He’s worst habit is that he wonders around naked at random times, which is fine, but he tries to get his ‘comrades in arms’ to join him and he is not above pouting to get his way. So Clint and Tony normally give in to him, and then they play videogames and trash talk each other.”
And now Darcy is struggling to contain her laugher again, but manages to stutter out, “What about Steve?”
“Steve is a perfect gentleman, and there’s nothing wrong with that, except that he volunteers to chaperone me when I go on dates.” Natasha leaves it at that, because that really says it all.
Darcy’s eyes go even wider, and she laughs for a good few minutes, while Natasha watches indulgently. Eventually Natasha looks at the clock, it’s Bruce’s turn to cook tonight and she doesn’t want to be late for that. She packs up her things, says goodbye to Darcy, and strides out towards the exit.
Darcy yells after her, “I was right, they’re all total boys, and therefore idiots, but they are fun to live with.”
Natasha smiles to herself, and thinks, yes they are.
And then there are days, days when nothing bad has happened, they haven’t been called out to save the world, and they can just lie in front of the TV watching movies the whole day. Thor and Steve have a lot of pop culture to catch up on, but between Bruce, Tony, Clint, and herself they have a wide enough range of tastes that progress on that front has been really slow. However, every time that Thor or Steve get the casual references inserted into conversation she feels a little proud, even though she’d deny it till her dying day. These are the days that make up for all the other days, and that is enough.