Chapter Text
As much as Darcy Lewis would have loved to pal around with Doctor Jane Foster as an unpaid intern for the rest of her life, that just wasn’t practical. So Darcy pulled up her big girl panties and (finally) finished up her political science degree at Culver. She got a job as an aide to a congressman from Brooklyn, so off to New York she went. She managed to make her way to Manhattan to visit Jane at the newly rechristened Avengers Tower once or twice, but the trip was horrendous. Darcy loved the eclectic feel of Brooklyn, but she hatted the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. It was like no one ever stopped to take a breath. So she persuaded Jane into a biweekly dinner date at an amazing pizza place down the block from her apartment and avoided Manhattan all together.
Now, Darcy was one of the lucky recent graduates who had been able to find a job, but that didn’t mean that the salary was anywhere near adequate. She managed to find a tiny shoebox of an apartment in a building that her neighbors insisted was owned by someone named Hawkguy. Darcy didn’t like to think about the type of whack job that would want to be called Hawkguy. He sounded like a cheap knock off of the Avenger with the bow and arrow.
So Darcy had found her place in life, working ridiculous hours at the congressman’s office before dragging her ass up to her fourth floor walkup and vegging out in front of endless marathons of whatever was next on her Netflix cue. If she had managed to make it to the corner store at some point during the week, there might even be ice cream for her to chow down on.
One night, Darcy passed out in front of her TV while episode after episode of the latest House of Cards season exhausted her laptop battery. She was jolted awake by a shrill and persistent fire alarm. A quick glance at her cell phone showed that it was almost three in the morning. Darcy weighed the fact that she had to be awake in four hours against the possibility that she might die in an apartment fire before deciding that there was no way she was getting back to sleep. She threw her comfiest, oldest sweatshirt on over the clothes she had fallen asleep in and trudged outside.
She stood on the sidewalk outside her building, slightly apart from her neighbors. Darcy was not a morning person (and yes 3:00 am definitely counted as morning). She was pleasantly surprised when she was joined by a rather stocky but well defined man she had never seen before wearing nothing but a pair of boxers with eagles on them. Now that wasn’t something Darcy and her big mouth could notice and not comment on.
“Dude, are you wearing underwear with eagles on them?” she asked.
“They’re hawks,” he said, looking slightly affronted. “Eagles have white feathers on their heads.”
“Those are only bald eagles,” Darcy said. “And I guess the question now is why.”
“They were a gag gift,” he said. “Kind of a play on a nickname.” He scratched his the back of his neck, looking slightly uneasy.
“Wait a minute,” Darcy nearly screamed, making her new companion jump a bit. “Are you that Hawkguy the dude in 4D won’t shut up about?”
“Ugh, how many times do I need to tell him that it’s Hawkeye, not guy,” he said.
“Like the Avenger?” Darcy screeched.
“Yeah, yeah,” the dude (Hawkeye!) said. “No need to yell about it. Most people call me Clint.”
“Well, Clint, am I excited to meet you,” Darcy continued at a slightly more subdued volume. “Jane told me all about those pranks you pull on Stark. Glitter in Dumm-e’s fire extinguisher? Brilliant!”
“Wait, you know Doc Foster?” Clint asked. “Holy shit, you’re the intern aren’t you? Lewis, right?”
“The very same,” Darcy said with a slight bow. “Acclaimed scientist herder and taser of Norse gods.” She gave Clint a very obvious once over. “Funny. Jane never mentioned how jacked you are.”
It was almost too dark to see, but Clint blushed from the roots of his hair to his collarbones. “Yeah, um, she probably has very high standards for muscles now, considering she’s the god of thunder’s main squeeze,” he said.
“And only squeeze” Darcy laughed. “It’s a shame though. I would have made the trek out to the tower more often if I knew I would have run into you.”
“Well, you said you were a fan of the glitter extinguisher,” Clint said, “Why don’t you help me plan out my next prank. I’m thinking something huge that may or may not involve some penis-shaped confetti that I had to special order.”
Darcy’s eye widened in excitement. She stuck her hand out to shake Clint’s. “I have a feeling this is the beginning of something beautiful, Hawkguy.”
“Not you too,” Clint groaned. He shook her hand anyway.