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Darcy Lewis was on a mission for SHIELD. It sounded all official and cool when put like that, but really, she was on a mission to find some goddamned Christmas M&Ms.
Look, all she wanted was to make cookies for the holiday party tonight— that promised to be a total disaster she couldn’t wait to see– but someone had eaten all the M&Ms she‘d bought. And, of course all the nearby stores were out. Typical. Those were ridiculously hard to find past mid-December, and there are only four days before Christmas.
So there she was, M&M-less, but up one vaguely guilty Thunder God with a chocolate stained mouth.
Then Clint Barton went sticking his nose places it didn’t belong and interrupting her totally entitled anger at Thor’s snack-grabby hands.
See Clint, philistine that he is, said, “Why don’t you just get some regular M&Ms and pick out the red and green ones, if you care that much?”
Thor was immediately and loudly in favor of that idea, probably assuming he’d get to eat all the other ones. But Darcy wasn’t giving him anymore chocolate. She does not want to know if space alien gods can get a sugar high; it was too early in the day for that shit. That should be limited to after cocktail hour so at least Darcy wouldn’t have to remember it. Of course, when Darcy pointed out the probable over-ingestion of sugar, Thor had just gotten all down and started to declare a quest to make it up to her. Which, whatever, she wasn’t actually that mad. She knew better than to leave anything sweet where Thor could get at it. That man had no fear of cavities. If space alien gods even get cavities. The fact that this was a thing Darcy had to contemplate said a lot about her life, she thought.
But it’s the principle of the matter, and Darcy wanted her damn M&Ms.
There was really only one thing for it.
xXx
Okay, so there were two things for it, since Coulson vetoed her plan to have some flown in from wherever the fuck was closest.
She hadn’t even asked, he had just sent her a very straightforward, not even if Stark paid for it, text right after she had started googling M&M factories. That man was scary sometimes. She’s pretty sure he didn’t actually have her phone bugged, though; she’d made Tony check—repeatedly.
Fine, she hadn’t really thought they would approve that anyway, and that’s why she had a plan B.
Except now Plan B was out, too.
How was she to know she didn’t have a high enough security clearance with SHIELD to take vehicles off-base?
Not that that was going to stop her; she’d just make Clint drive. And wasn’t that a kick in the teeth? She didn’t have clearance, but Robin Hood did. Look, as Darcy kept having to point out, Jane was the one that ran over Thor with a car twice; Darcy was totally a responsible driver. Sadly, this argument had done nothing to get her vehicle access. She blamed Coulson. And possibly Tony, if Tony had told anyone about that time with the racecars but, seriously? Darcy was competitive and Tony was worse. There really wasn’t another outcome to expect from that outing.
So, Darcy and Clint headed out on their mission– no, Darcy will not stop calling it that, so Clint could stop side-eyeing her whenever she did. Like Thor didn’t call everything quests. Seriously, who even does that? —and Clint attempted to crush Darcy’s soul in three parts.
First, he volunteered the bag of peanut Christmas M&Ms in his room for her use, which was so fucking not the point. Also, Jane was kind of randomly allergic and Darcy did not want to invite anaphylactic shock to this party either.
Second, he found the absolute worst radio station ever and refused to let Darcy change it even when she threatened to just shriek over it the whole time.
Third, he started singing along. There was no way he gets to that level of off-key and screeching without doing it on purpose. It’s just not possible.
In conclusion, Clint Barton was a dick and she would be getting revenge for this. Especially since she managed to get a decent recording on her cell and hello, that was definitely getting passed around in the office memo come Monday. They’d see who was laughing then.
She was starting to regret signing out the car. This was why taxis were her friend, even if she would still have been stuck with a security detail—probably Clint—after that last kidnapping mess. Besides, Darcy had declared a road-trip and had dismissed all of New York City in the next breath for having failed to keep her well-stocked with the appropriately merry M&Ms. So now she’s stuck in a car with Clint for at least an hour, traffic willing.
Oh well, it had gotten her out of HQ, and that’s really a bigger part of this outing. The party was already shaping up to be a clusterfuck of massive proportions, even worse than that time with those slime things when Thor had let the tigers out of the zoo. Tony had insisted on helping plan this shindig, since he’s technically the host, and so he’s making a nuisance of himself. Not that anyone expected anything different there, but then there was Thor.
Okay, see, the thing about Thor was—he was basically a big lovable golden retriever and sure, there were things that he was smart about, but there was this overwhelming sense of him having more enthusiasm than forethought.
Thor had been all into learning all their “strange Midgardian customs,” especially when he could use them as an excuse to eat a lot and break shit. Thanksgiving and piñatas were his new favorite things. Or she should say they had been his new favorite things, up until they had started rolling out the Christmas merch next to the pumpkins. Then there was the peppermint schnapps, the candy canes, and the mistletoe.
Yeah. Thor had recently discovered mistletoe, and man had he made good use of it. Darcy definitely wasn’t complaining, but then they had realized how non-discriminatory Thor was being with his application of it when he had laid one on Fury.
It was really a strategic retreat on her part and a benevolent act to bring Clint along.
“I totally saved your ass,” she informed him.
He gave her assertion no notice and just kept singing, “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day, you ga-“
“Please, for the love of all that is sacred, stop!” Darcy finally broke down. “Jeez, how many stupid versions of that song are there?”
Clint shrugged. “That’s at least five so far, each progressively more autotuned.”
Darcy wasn’t even sure autotune could be blamed for the majority of that hot mess. It certainly wasn’t helping anything, unless that goal was to make you imagine things like Sesame Street on speed, because in that case: goal fucking accomplished.
“Techno Christmas carols, sounds like there’s a possibility of cool to it, but actually sounds like screeching death. Got it. Can scratch that off my Christmas list.” Darcy muttered, slouching back in her seat.
“Oh, so I should take your present back then?” Clint deadpanned. Well, snarked, because Clint had the absolute worst poker face. (“Just with you”, Jane had pointed out once, but Darcy wasn’t touching that, okay? Jane had a stupid alien god for a boyfriend who kissed her hand and publicly declared their courtship on national TV. She didn’t get to count.)
“Only if you don’t want to find out how it feels to be tased,” she threw back. Okay, her poker face was not the strongest either. She knew it; he knows it, but no one mentioned that from legitimate fear of her taser. Not if they’re smart, at least.
Clint took both his hands off the wheel to spread them in surrender, because he was a huge dork, seriously. Then he finally switched the station to something less soul crushing, so that was two points for Darcy.
She’s going to wear him down into letting her hook up her iPod by the time they headed back. Darcy was persistent. It had taken her long enough to pressure Coulson into returning it. Clint’s stubborn control of the radio was small beans compared to that.
xXx
They finally found the M&M’s in some stupid highway convenience store the Clint frequents because his life is weird enough the he can frequent convenience stores. She thought that only truckers did that.
Clint shrugged her off when she questioned it, saying “I do whatever SHIELD needs me too,” like that was in any way an answer.
Darcy gathered up the remaining five bags from the shelves, determined to keep them well hidden from Thor. Clint grabbed them both a cherry Icee before they headed back. She figured that Fury had either calmed down or killed everyone, and the party was supposed to start soon anyway.
“Mission accomplished.” She couldn’t resist saying it out loud, just to hear Clint groan.
xXx
Darcy hooked her iPod up to the stereo for the ride home in a stealth attack Clint didn’t see coming. Sure, he pretended like he just let her, but Darcy knew she had some serious stealth moves.
She wasn’t going to point that out, though.
xXx
The good, and somewhat disappointing, news was that Fury hadn’t killed anyone. Apparently the guy was willing to let some things go, provided they were never spoken of again.
Darcy snorted; yeah, like that was going to happen. Tony was going to be rolling in that precious memory for at least the next few months, if not longer. Definitely longer, if he had managed to snag a pic.
Even if it had sounded like a bad joke with a disastrous punch line – a scientist with a very green anger management problem, a 1940s war hero, a space alien, a couple of government agents, and a genius in a metal suit all sat down for a Christmas party— she was actually having a pretty fun time so far.
There was eggnog with enough brandy in it to knock even Thor on his ass, eventually, no crazyass super villains had tried to take over the world in a couple of days, she had finally gotten her M&Ms, and she was getting the rest of the week off. Life was pretty damn sweet from where she was sitting.
Well, minus the fact that Dr. Banner was starting to look a little twitchy. Steve had him stringing together popcorn and cranberries to decorate the tree with and she guessed the guy had poked his fingers a few too many times with that needle. Not to mention that, with Natasha busy in some sort of crazy darts competition with Clint, Tony got control of the speaker system and cranked the volume before Pepper dragged him away.
If Banner started going green, Darcy was definitely out of here. No amount of eggnog would make up for the carnage of a Hulk-Out. Unless it was just because Hulk wants to join in the festivities. Dude can be kind of okay like that, for a Gamma monster. In any case, it’s not like Banner had had accidental Hulk-outs since she’d been around, so it was probably a non-issue.
Surprisingly, even the mistletoe had survived up to this point. She noticed Thor was still enjoying it to the full extent, judging by the way he was currently cozied up to Jane in the corner. Darcy’s favorite part of that was the giant reindeer antlers he was sporting. It had been one of her more inspired ideas to give him those, if she said so herself.
xXx
Darcy didn’t end up making the cookies. She burned most of them every year anyway, but hey! They had appropriately festive M&Ms for snacking on. And later, when the arts and crafts were abandoned in favor of an impromptu and mostly incorrect game of poker, they used the M&Ms in place of chips, since everyone agreed that Tony wasn’t allowed to play with actual monetary stakes anymore.
xXx
All in all, it had been a pretty successful day. Darcy had found her M&Ms, Tony had gotten a memory to cherish forever at Fury’s expense, and no one had been injured. They didn’t even set fire to anything. That was pretty unprecedented for the Avengers.
The evening had kind of devolved into a movie marathon that started with an ill-advised drinking game where you took a shot every time anyone said Christmas, but no one had really wanted blood poisoning, so it was mostly just Tony and Thor playing after the first ten minutes. Now everyone was mostly sacked out and snoring the great snores of the deeply hung-over- come-morning.
Darcy was never going to get over how much Tony drooled. It was actually disgusting. But hey, he’s drooling all over Steve, so at least she wasn’t dealing with it. Seriously, how does Pepper ever sleep with that?
Natasha had long since faded into the shadows; she may or may not be around somewhere, Darcy had no idea. Most likely, she had snuck off to sleep in an actual bed, since Natasha seemed to be the only one to regularly use her brain and do sensible things like that. Jane had passed out halfway on top of a table in the truly exhausted slump of a scientist, before Thor had put his chivalrous face on and carried her off.
Anyway, Darcy was still riding the sugar high of kicking everyone’s ass at poker before she had ate all her chips and had to bow out, so she was wide awake. So it was pretty much just her and Clint – dude either couldn’t turn off his creepy SHIELD watch mode, or he was really into Rudolph, who knew.
The movie finally ended but, Darcy wasn’t ready to sleep. Neither was Clint, judging by the way he’d been throwing popcorn at her for the last ten minutes because he was five, seriously. Even though she might have started it by lobbing a candy cane at him earlier, but that was just because she wanted him to hand her another pillow.
Darcy stood and stretched out the kinks her spine from spending so long curled up on the floor. She could feel Clint watching the movement, already used to his whole constant vigilance style of statue awareness, so she finished her stretching and jerked her head toward the door. Sure enough, Clint unfolded from his semi-perched position on the couch arm to follow her as she headed out onto the roof. The roof had been kind of their thing ever since New Mexico.
Staring out at the sky here was less about the stars and more about the lights of the city; Avengers tower provided an amazing view of that, at least.
“You have to admit, as much of an affront to everyone’s concept of overcompensating as this tower is, it does kind of make you feel like king of the world to stand up here,” She said, shooting a small smile Clint’s way. The smile kind of froze in place when she met his eyes.
Clint just looked at her for a long moment and then started slowly leaning in, and fuck that waiting bullshit, she yanked him down the rest of the way with a hand on his shirt collar until they’re lips met. It wasn’t nearly as smooth as she was aiming for but Clint’s chapped lips against hers still felt every bit as perfect as she’d thought, so no complaints here.
She rocked back on her heels for a moment, grinning up at him and saying “about fucking time” before letting him pull her back in for another kiss.
The best part was that they couldn’t even blame it on the mistletoe since they had gotten rid of it when Tony had pulled a hissy fit of jealousy after Thor had tried to put the mack on Pepper and everyone had decided it needed to go. Plus no one really wanted mono and there’d been far too much kissing going on.
Darcy could easily be persuaded into a little bit more kissing, though, with the right person.