The rain outside had been pissing down in buckets since before Darcy ducked into the café. She’d been relieved to get away from the university, away from the classroom, the lab, and her office. It was never her intention to teach, but the Blip had opened up a lot of jobs in the college fields, and well, with Jane and Erik gone for five years, Darcy needed the gig. A girl had to eat, after all; and pay bills and rent and for all those double chocolate mocha Frappuccinos that got her through her doctoral dissertation.
“I think I live at this café now, Jimmy. It hasn’t stopped raining since before I got here, and every cab I see keeps driving right past people trying to get them to stop,” she complained to the video chat on her cellphone.
“Sucks, D. I could have someone swing by to get you,” Jimmy Woo offered.
“I might take you up on that. Just glad I’m not stuck up at the college through this,” Darcy replied, her eyes still glued to the sidewalk outside through the window.
“I’m telling you, come to work full-time at S.W.O.R.D. No more students or papers to deal with. There’s still bureaucracy, but it’s different. You’ll get much better pay, and you don’t have to fight for tenure,” Jimmy coaxed. He’d been trying to Woo her to S.W.O.R.D., even though he was still pushing papers and cases around at the FBI, though he was hoping for his own chance at the organization enough like S.H.I.E.L.D. that he should be a shoe-in for a place.
Darcy scrunched her nose then reached for her drink, but that drink of cold-cold coffee (that she hadn’t ordered to be cold) was too nasty to finish.
“Eh. Maybe. I don’t know. We’ll see,” she said. Again. Exactly what she’d told him the last time. “Oh hey wait,” she told the video Jimmy on her phone and squinted at up the street at a familiar looking blond, hunched in the rain, only
only the rain wasn’t falling on him. The guy wasn’t drenched at all.
“I gotta go, Jimmy. I see a friend outside. I’ll talk atchya later! Bye!”
She ended the video call and shoved her cellphone in to the pocket of her jeans before yanking her jacket back on. Shouldering her satchel, she grabbed up her trash and tossed it on the way out the door.
“Thor – hey!” Darcy called out, waving her hand in front of her face.
She was pretty loud. He’d have to hear her, but he didn’t look up until he was practically bowling right over her. Then his head tilted, and those blue-blue eyes met Darcy’s big Bambi ones.
“Darcy!” Thor exclaimed, his voice a little sad and tired over his excitement to see a familiar face.
When she opened her arms to give him a hug, Thor practically fell into her, scooping her into the circle of his arms and lifting her off the ground to bear hug her as tight as he could get away with without crushing her. He buried his face in Darcy’s neck and just breathed in her vanilla shampoo and lotion, his shoulders drooping a little as if this relaxed him for the first time in weeks.
“Hey, big guy. What’s up? Haven’t seen you since right after the Blip. You kinda disappeared while everyone was chaotic celebrating,” Darcy said and just held onto Thor’s linebacker shoulders while she dangled above the wet sidewalk. For the moment, she remained in the dry spot Thor created around him, and that was kinda nice.
Maybe she could get him to walk her home this way so she wouldn’t even have to catch a cab or take up Jimmy’s offer to have someone pick her up.
Reluctantly, Thor eased Darcy down to her feet but held onto her so she kept her balance. He heaved out the biggest world on his shoulders sigh, face dropping to his feet before he looked out at the traffic. Like the gentleman he’d always seemed to be to Darcy, he moved them closer to a building with a big awning where they could stand and not get splashed.
“Yeah. I mean, after the big battle with Thanos and his army, everything just...moved on, I guess. Tony got fixed up in Wakanda, we all went back to his and Loki’s cabin, and then after Steve took the stones back to their rightful times, we all just got back to our lives. I went off with the Guardians for a while, tried to help Quill find his girlfriend. Eventually, I came back. Here I am,” he explained, glossing over all the details since the last time they’d seen each other.
Darcy listened, looked up at him the whole time, caught the lines at the corners of his eyes as if he was aging like a human. She knew that wasn’t the case – she didn’t think that was the case. Shit, that wasn’t the case, was it? Darcy hated to think of a world without this big golden teddy bear in it.
“You look tired, buddy. Maybe kinda sad. You wanna talk about it? We could get something to eat. My treat. You’d just have to keep this rain off us till we got to a restaurant.” She stroked one hand down his arm and punctuated her offer by squeezing his hand.
Thor nodded before he squeezed her hand back and answered, “Yeah. I think I’d like that.”
And when he smiled at her, a little bit of his sunshine personality drifted back into the world.
Dinner lasted four hours. After three different appetizers, consuming their own entrées, and sharing the largest, sweetest, chocolate-est dessert on the menu, Darcy covered the check. They’d covered every conversation topic under the sun that could concern the two of them, laughing at so many of the stories they each told. In all of that, Darcy forgot all about her frustrations with academia and the looming offer to work permanently with S.W.O.R.D., and Thor felt a lightness in his body and bones that he hadn’t felt since before his failed coronation.
They’d even talked, albeit a little awkwardly, about Jane and Bruce’s budding relationship, though Thor did express his happiness for them. He felt they were much better suited to one another than he and Jane had ever been, and while there was still that pang in his chest where maybe he missed his ex-girlfriend, he confessed to Darcy that he was looking forward to getting to know her as a friend and watching her relationship with Bruce grow.
Eventually, they had to leave. The staff wanted to go home, and Avenger or not, they didn’t hesitate to politely usher their last remaining guests out the door.
It was still pouring as hard outside as it had been earlier.
Neither wanted to go home.
Well, Darcy wanted to go home, but she didn’t want to walk (too many blocks away), and she needed to find a place to duck into to so her phone didn’t get soaked while she arranged for an Uber.
Thor just didn’t want to go home, which at this point was either to crash on Steve and Bucky’s couch or find his way out to Tony and Loki’s place, and that was really far.
He snapped out of the return of his funk when he felt Darcy slip her hand into his to squeeze his fingers.
“You’ve got that heavy feeling again, big guy. You gonna be okay?” she asked. Thor couldn’t get over how much she’d matured and eased into this calm person compared to how she used to be when they met.
“Eventually. Just trying to figure out where I’m heading next. I think I was just away from here for too long. With Quill and his people. It’ll just take a bit to figure out where I fit in,” Thor answered. He breathed out a soft chuckle. “I know I could find my way to the compound since Tony had it rebuilt, but that’s a ways out.”
He shrugged and gazed down into those warm beryl pools of understanding and felt a tug he hadn’t in a long time.
Darcy stared at Thor, waiting to see if he’d ask. Of course, he didn’t; he’d grown beyond assuming and demanding. She tugged on his hand so he’d keep looking at her.
“Crash on my couch then,” she threw out as if it was the very next thought he should’ve had.
“I...couldn’t. Put you out like that. It would...make your boyfriend uncomfortable,” Thor hedged, though hope leapt up into his chest when that tug became a pull.
She reached her free hand up – and up and up – and rapped lightly on his forehead.
“Hello in there. Weren’t you paying attention over our food marathon, handsome? No boyfriend. No girlfriend, no boyfriend, no roommate. Just little ol' me kicking around in a one-room halfway up an ancient building. Seriously. Come pass out at my place. You can get to your brother’s tomorrow if you want. Or the compound. I’ll drive you myself,” Darcy proposed.
As her hand started to lower from his face, Thor grasped it and pressed his lips to her palm, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Whoa,” Darcy murmured when the warmth of that kiss sizzled right down to her boot-covered toes. She licked her lips, and her heart did its own drum solo in her chest. “Is that...um. A...a...is that a yes?”
Thor nodded and cupped her cheek.
“You are beautiful, Darcy Lewis, and you have been a refuge for a weary lost wanderer tonight. This is in no way thought to be repayment for your kindness or all the food you paid for tonight. I just...well, I want to do this, and I hope that you aren’t upset by it. Please don’t mace me like you did years ago,” he told her.
“What...what are you going to...oh...oh.”
Darcy’s confusion ended the moment Thor’s lips covered hers, soft at first, just a closed mouth kiss that sent that balminess over her skin once more. As it began to ease over her hips, Thor coaxed her lips to part to him, and he deepened the kiss until the warmth stoked right up to a full-fledged blaze inside her veins. Sounds of pleasure escaped them both, and Darcy found herself wrapped in his arms again. Her own wound around his shoulders, and she stood on her toes to press closer to him. Without worrying about the traffic or stares or even the rain, they let go of any worries and just kissed and kissed, and Thor became so distracted that the rain fell on them now, soaking right through their clothes.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works