#200 snippets

[reprehensiblewombat]

Untitled Snippet 113

Darcy had a thought. A very… odd and stupid thought. Where was Natasha? Darcy hadn’t seen her. But, then again, once she and Captain Rogers locked eyes, Tony Stark himself could be singing karaoke on the bar and she wouldn’t have noticed.

[reprehensiblewombat]

Untitled Snippet 76

“I think it’s silly,” Steve said.

“What is?” Natasha asked.

“The idea that dying your hair blond is enough of a disguise.”

“The red hair is my signature,” Natasha explained, tossing her newly frosty locks back over her shoulder.

“Surely people notice other features besides your hair,” Steve muttered, suddenly realizing he didn’t want to be having this conversation.

Because Natasha Romanoff was looking at him the way she looked at marks. A puzzle. A puzzle that could be solved. “Like what?” she said lightly.

“Like your nose,” Steve said.

Natasha looked startled and then she snorted. “My nose?”

“It’s true!” 

“Are you saying that, if you were given a line up of only noses, you’d be able to tell which was mine?” Natasha said.

Steve looked at the other woman a moment, debated, then made a decision and grabbed his sketchbook. “That one is your nose,” he said, pulling out a study of noses. Maybe he could pass this whole conversation off as a guy who drew a lot of portraits, instead of a guy who spend too much time studying the face of Natasha Romanoff.

“That doesn’t count,” Natasha said, though her eyes looked over the page with  interest. “Did you draw these?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know exactly what nose belongs to which person. It doesn’t count,” Natasha said.

“Your nose is very distinctive,” Steve repeated. “Your mouth is also distinctive, but I have a feeling you knew that already.” Then he blushed. Damn it, Rogers, he thought. Should have quit while you were ahead.

Natasha pursed her lips. Yes. She knew that already. “So, you’re saying I should have grown a beard, like you?” 

“At least it hides the shape of my face better,” Steve muttered. 

[reprehensiblewombat]

Untitled Snippet 88

What ended up happening was a video conference with the Black Widow. Who was… extremely overqualified.

“Clint tells me you need a date to a wedding,” the Widow said without preamble.

“Hello. My name is Darcy, what’s yours?” Darcy asked, perhaps a bit too pointedly.

The corners of the Black Widow’s lips curved up in something that could have been a smile. “Hello. My name’s Natasha. Clint tells me you need a date to a wedding.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Natasha. I do need a date to a wedding, but, no offense, you’re a bit overqualified for the job.”

[reprehensiblewombat]

Untitled Snippet 70

She pulled out her cell phone and called Dean. She was not stupid enough to think she could handle this on her own.

"Hello?" It was Sam’s voice. Dean must be driving.

"Heya, Sam," she said with false cheer.

"Darcy?" he asked. She could hear Dean in the background. ("Darcy? Darcy Lewis? What's wrong?") "Hold on," Sam said. "I'm gonna put you on speaker."

"I'm in a little over my head," she said, crossing the Wal-Mart parking lot into the store. Despite how much she hated the chain’s politics, she felt a little safer. After all, nothing interesting ever happened in a Wal-Mart, so that meant nothing terrifying happened here either, right?

"What's after you?" Dean asked.

"Not a what. It's not a supernatural problem. It's… Hydra. The Nazis, not the many-headed beast."

"What?" Sam asked. "The Nazis?"

"The Nazis Captain America was fighting a few weeks ago," Dean asked, both angry and incredulous. "That Hydra?"

"One and the same," she said. "I think. I'm not entirely sure what happened. I'm staying in a dumpy motel with the Winter Soldier-"

"The Winter Soldier!" Dean exclaimed, but she ignored him,

"Hydra's really after him. I can run for a while, but… this is a little beyond what I'm used to." She hurried through the store picking up several pairs of regular clothes for the Soldier, plus deodorant, a comb, toothbrush, and toothpaste. She reminded herself to ask his name when she got back.

"Where are you?" Sam asked. "We'll come get you."

"Don't come in guns blazing," she said. "The Soldier, he's not exactly all there. I think he's a good guy underneath it all, but if you spook him he won't react well. I'm in Ilinois," she said, giving him the name of the town and the name of the motel.

"We can be there in a few days," Dean said.

"I'll stay for three," Darcy told him while she checked out. "I think that's probably pushing it. If you're not here by then, I'm heading out."

"I'll make it in two," Dean assured her, then hung up. She hung up and walked back to the motel with her parcels. It was easier to walk into the hotel the second time, knowing, whatever happened next, Sam and Dean were on their way. After all they’d faced, a few Nazis and a few somewhat-enhanced humans couldn’t be that hard to deal with. Right?

Right?

[reprehensiblewombat]

Untitled Snippet 50

“It’s okay, kid,” Parker said, putting her arm around Emma. “I can teach you how to pick locks.”

“I know how to pick locks,” Emma said. “I don’t know how to crack a safe, though.”

“Oh, I can teach you that!” Parker said, grinning.

“No,” Eliot said. “No, we are not corrupting a straight.”

“Aw, come on,” Hardison said. “It’d be good for her.”

“Which ‘her’ are you referring to?” Emma asked. “Me,” Parker said. “They’re talking about me.”

[reprehensiblewombat]

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“They asked me out,” Darcy said before she sat down at their usual table and accepting the Tupperware container Sharon wordlessly held out to her. 

“Yes!” Clint said, a big smile on his face.

Their lunch group included two master assassins, one former SHIELD Special Service agent, one brilliant lab assistant and whatever scientists said brilliant lab assistant could wrangle into coming to lunch with her. (Zero today, apparently.) Out of all these very accomplished people, Sharon was the only one with any kind of cooking ability. Darcy could use a toaster, Natasha could boil water, and Clint could order takeout, but Sharon could actually cook. And bake, even. She didn’t very often because she hated cleaning up the mess it generated, but they’d come up with a sort of trade. Sharon would make delicious lunches for everyone. They would enjoy these lunches and then take care of the dishes, including Sharon’s. 

Sharon still had to clean up the cooking stuff, but even a little help made the chore a lot less odious. 

They used these lunches to talk shit about... basically everyone they knew.

Natasha frowned. “Together or separately?” 

Darcy sighed. “Separately.” 

Around the table, everyone groaned. “No!” Clint said, his smile utterly gone.

[reprehensiblewombat]

Untitled Snippet 112

Character development. In plays, it happened within three hours. In real life, it took a lot bloody longer. But Sophie could not fail to appreciate that it happened at all.

Still, Sophie worried what would happen if they took a job in their current state. Something was going on between Hardison and Parker, and, for some strange reason, Eliot was freaking out about it.

“Eliot doesn’t freak out,” Nate said when she tried to explain it to him.

“Yes he does,” Sophie said. “Everyone freaks out. He just tries not to be obvious about it.”

“I don’t freak out,” Nate said.

Sophie hadn’t deigned to dignify such a bald faced lie with a response.

[reprehensiblewombat]

Untitled Snippet 67

(pre-Ragnarok/ canon divergence around ragnarok: ie, instead of confronting Loki directly, Thor goes to Midgard to ask the Avengers for help)

When Thor came back from Asgard, he was distraught and confused and reluctant to go to the Avengers for help. But, thankfully, he did disclose the nature of his problem with Jane, who convinced him to talk to some of the Avengers, and, equally thankfully, allowed Darcy to be in on the meeting. (Her soulmates were putty in her hands, mwahahahaha!)

“Loki’s alive and ruling Asgard?” Steve asked, looking more than a little ashen.

Thor nodded solemnly. “As Odin. And he’s deeply entrenched in the position. I’m afraid any attempts to oust him will start a civil war.”

A small shiver ran around the room as everyone present tried not to remember how badly their own civil war went. They certainly understood.

“Sounds like a job for a spy,” Bucky said, looking at Natasha.

She shook her head. “He knows me. He knows everything about me. I was able to use that to my advantage once, but that sort of move doesn’t work a second time.”

People avoided looking at Bucky, the other Soviet trained assassin at the table. But he wasn’t really a spy and he wasn’t really ready to go back into that world anyway. Darcy slipped her hand in his, and she knew Steve was doing the same on their soulmate’s other side. No one would make him do anything he didn’t want to do. Ever again.

Darcy cleared her throat, and suddenly all eyes were on her. “I might know some people.” Everyone was frowning, especially Natasha and Maria, the latter of whom had probably done an extensive background check on Darcy. “Not a spy,” she clarified. “A… well,“ she hesitated. How was she going to explain this? But she figured it wouldn’t matter. There were murderers at this table, and Alec had never done anything so bad as that. “Um, they call themselves Leverage Inc.”