Chapter Text
Clint sat down heavily in the chair in front of her. He looked at her, his large eyes doleful. “Nat,” he pleaded, “You know I've gotta do it. Laura watched an entire city, the city I was inside of fighting for my life no less, fly up into the sky... and fall back to Earth. She's a patient woman, but... she's not a masochist.”
“No,” Natasha demurred, “I suppose not.” She looked at him coolly. “Is this really just about her and the kids though, Clint?”
“Oh, c'mon. You'd probably be trying to do the same, if Bruce had stuck around long enough to let you sucker him into it.”
She huffed quietly to herself. When she met his gaze, she confessed, “I tried. I asked him to leave with me.”
“And?” Clint asked.
“Just... too complicated, I think. On both sides. Maybe some day.”
“Why don't you get out anyway? Thought you were a strong, independent woman. Thought you didn't need a man to tell you what to do.” He grinned, but when she gave him a sharp sideways glance, he raised his hands in surrender. “Have it your way.”
“Clint, what I meant before was, are you sure this isn't about Maximoff?”
It was Clint's turn to look defensive. He snapped, “What could I have done, Nat? He took a bullet. It happens in war.”
“You know I know that, Hawkeye,” she argued, “Do you?”
“You know what I know? I know why Banner wouldn't leave with you, Nat. Because he knows, deep down, just like you do, that you'll never leave this life. Not for good. It's what you are.” He was looking to hurt her now, to strike at the very heart of her like she did to him whenever she was disappointed, but of course like always he was met merely with a mask of cool disregard.
“Is that how you want to leave things with us, Clint? After everything we've been through?”
He stood, his head hanging, and sighed. “Of course not. Get over here and give me a goodbye hug, wish me a happy retirement. You know, like how friends do.”
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and he squeezed her gently before releasing her. “Take care of yourself,” she whispered.
“You too. Don't work too hard, huh?”
She nodded, stepped back, and watched him walk out the front door of Tony Stark's Avenger compound. She managed a small smile when he looked back to wave at her. They'd had a good run, Black Widow and Hawkeye. Wiped a lot of red from the ledger.
*
“Darcy Anne! Are you still asleep up there? Come on, I could really use your help down here!”
Darcy opened one eye blearily and blindly groped around for her glasses on the night stand beside her bed. She switched on the lamp and rolled over onto her back, looking towards the foot of her bed and out through the large picture window situated across the guest room. The sleepy, tree-lined avenue in front of the house was golden in the late afternoon light.
She'd been dreaming of him again, of course. Over a year later and there he still was. He was like a damn glitch in the machinery of her mind, and try as she might to fall asleep concentrating on fence-jumping sheep or Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, she almost inevitably woke up with her limbs tingling, cunt throbbing and the ghostly sensation of his mouth on her.
She blinked owlishly, trying to guess how long she'd been napping. She'd arrived at her mom's house around eleven thirty, had spent maybe an hour sitting at their large mahogany dining-room table awkwardly drinking coffee and catching up, then had retreated to their extra bedroom to pass out around one or so. It was... maybe five o'clock?
She rolled over to the night stand again, and opened her beat-up old flip phone. Four fifteen. Darcy frowned, disoriented by the three hours of sleep, the vivid dreams and the unsettling sensation of waking up in a strange place.
“DARCY!”
“Okay, mom, sorry! I'm coming!” she shouted, still making no move to get out of the exceptionally comfortable bed. Everything in Harold's house was like this, comfortable and tasteful and expensive. She ran her hands along the thousand count sheets, allowing her mind one more minute to linger in the world of her dream.
Then, practically feeling her mom's annoyance projecting at her from the kitchen, she pushed herself up and out of the lux bedding. Turning back she whispered to the bedding, “Don't worry my pretties, I'll be back soon enough for you.”
*
“So, who's going to start? Harry? What are you thankful for?” Her mom was two glasses of wine into the evening and seemed to be in good enough spirits. Darcy was barely listening, consumed with the Thanksgiving meal in front of her. She speared a piece of turkey, dragging through it the gravy and mashed potatoes before lifting it to her mouth and moaning exaggeratedly.
“Potatoes good, Darcy?” Harold grinned at her from his place at the head of the elegantly decorated table. “Mashed 'em myself. Your mom likes to put me to work in her kitchen.”
Darcy smiled politely with her mouth closed, still savoring the taste of home-made gravy. Her eyes returned to the plate in front of her. Her mom tried again, “Okay, I'll go first. I'm thankful my baby has finally decided to take a break from her big important job making Facebook posts and grace us with her-”
“Elaine.” Harold had turned sharply at her mom's words, resting his hand on top of hers and attempting to head off the fight she was so clearly spoiling to have.
“I'm thankful I finished the semester with a four point oh GPA and that I'm almost finished all my grad school applications,” her step-brother Sean offered from across the table from Darcy, where he'd been silently shoveling food into his mouth for the last three minutes. He was already on his second helping. Nobody Darcy had ever known in her life could put away food like Sean could, yet as she sat there taking in the sharp clavicles visible from underneath his sweater, his thin arms, bony elbows, and long, delicate fingers, Darcy could not for the life of her say where those calories were going.
“Where are you applying, Sean?” she asked.
“Columbia, U Penn, Harvard, Darmouth and Brown,” he listed, shoveling a truly astronomical forkful of stuffing into his mouth.
“And he's going to have his pick of the litter, aren't you Sean? I'm thankful for how dedicated and smart you are. That's what I'm thankful for, your ambition,” her mom said waspishly, managing the elegant feat of complimenting her step-son and getting an under-handed jab in at her daughter in one breath.
Darcy looked down at her plate again, feeling her appetite waning. Do not cry, she thought. Don't you dare cry.
“I'm grateful Darcy is here too, Elaine, and I'm grateful that things are going so well for her in D.C. And... I suppose I'm grateful for how well this quarter has been going for us. And that I still have a few months of freedom left before tax season really starts up and I'm buried in paperwork,” her step-dad grinned, taking a sip of his beer and sighing contentedly. “You, Darce?”
Darcy looked around the table, at a loss for what to say. These people, her supposed family, didn't know her friends. They didn't know Jane. They sure as hell didn't know Bucky, except maybe from the news, which... would not exactly endear them to him. “I'm grateful we're all healthy and happy?” she tried, knowing it was trite and bullshit to boot.
“Are we?” Her mother's head tilted as she turned to her with a moue of irritation on her face that pulled the edges of her mouth downward, wine glass swinging loosely from her hand.
“Yeah, mom. We are,” she lied.
*
Later, sitting on the plush leather couch in their tastefully appointed living room, Sean shook his head at the program they were watching. “Crazy,” he said quietly.
Darcy turned from My 600 Lb Life and looked at him skeptically. “What, that the producers at TLC can sleep at night?”
“No,” he shook his head, “That these people can come back from this kind of life. It's... I think it's inspiring. I've been thinking, maybe, I'd like to do that.”
Her brow furrowed. “Gain, like, five hundred and fifty pounds?”
Sean tittered. “No, idiot,” he said again, his sharp elbow jerking out towards Darcy as he pointed at the TV, “The surgery. Surgery like that. You can make a lot of money. But... also, you help people. Help give them back to themselves.”
The turn of phrase struck Darcy, a vision of Bucky's elegant cursive conjuring in her mind, and she turned her head back to the television. She swallowed and closed her eyes. When she opened them Sean was watching her uneasily, but he quickly slid his face back towards the television, pretending like he hadn't been.
“That's a really cool idea, beanpole,” she mumbled, her voice thick with emotion.
*
“Heading back already?” Her mom was standing just inside the doorway of the bedroom, hovering, wringing her hands. “It's only Sunday. I thought you said you were taking tomorrow off. I told my book club you'd come, we do lunch and drinks on Mondays. I know you haven't read our book, it's Obama's autobiography by the way and I think there's a lot you could learn from it, but... well, I've told them a lot about you, Darcy Anne. They're excited to meet you.”
Darcy looked up from the duffel bag she'd been stuffing clothes into. “I... I can't, mom. It's just... I have a lot of stuff to take care of back home,” she lied, again, for the umpteenth time.
Her mom's mouth turned down and for one minute they looked at each other in tense silence. Elaine glanced away first, pulling one of Darcy's sweaters off the nearby lounge chair and folding it slowly. “I know you don't like it here, you know. I know you don't like Harry. I know you don't like this beautiful house or our lovely neighborhood,” she paused, scoffing, “Although for the life of me I can't figure out why.”
“No, mom, I like Harry. I like Sean, too. He's really smart, isn't he? They're both nice. This house is nice and South Charleston is nice. Everything here is nice, really, and...and... I'm sorry. I am. Each time I come here I promise myself I'm gonna try harder. Every time I think I'm gonna figure out how to just relax here. But I just feel... I'm an outsider here, mom. This is your home, your life.”
“It could be your's too, girlie. If you'd let them, Harry and Sean both-”
“I know, no, I know,” Darcy interrupted hastily, trying to head off an argument they'd already had too many times, “They're so generous. They're really great, seriously. It's just...” She looked up at her mom desperately from where she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, willing her to just understand for once. The expression on her mother's face shifted and she crossed the room, then crouched by her daughter, handing her the sweater before leaning back to sit against the end of the bed. She stretched her legs out in front of her.
“They're not Dad,” her mom said quietly.
“No,” she swallowed, unable to stop the tears from welling in her eyes.
“Oh, Darcy Anne,” her mom choked out. “I know it. Your father and I, there was no love lost between us by the time we split up. But Good Lord in the Heavens above did that man adore you. His little girl.” She reached out her hand, brushed a stray piece of hair out of Darcy's face. “It hasn't been easy, has it?” she asked quietly.
Darcy said nothing; the tears were falling freely down her cheeks, over her jaw, and down her neck. She turned her face away, then felt her mother's hand reach out to touch her shoulder, sliding along her neck and pulling her in. She went willingly, embracing the woman for the first time in years as she allowed herself this moment to weep into her shoulder like she had when she was a child.
“It's been a tough couple years, Mom,” she confided, shaking, unable to give the reasons but even at that very simple confession feeling something within her that had been tightly wound, loosen, and then give way. Her mom pet the back of her head gently.
“I know, honey,” she answered.
*
Harry sat quietly beside her, hands at ten and two on the wheel, while he waited for the light to change. He seemed to be lost in his thoughts but turned his head and smiled tightly at her before turning his attention back to the road, accelerating the car when the light turned green. The silence had settled over them as soon as they'd left the driveway, after she'd ribbed Sean good-naturedly, hugged her mom for a full minute, then thrown her bags onto the back seat. When they pulled into the parking lot of the bus station, he cleared his throat.
“We're, uh, we're glad you came to visit Darcy. Sorry you had to cut the visit short, but glad you could make it. Your mother... I just think she worries. But she doesn't mean anything by it, I don't think.”
She nodded, eyes focused on the row of idling buses in front of them. “I know. It's okay. We talked about it, a little, while I was packing.”
He nodded, looking relieved, and twisted his body to grab something from his back pocket.
“Well look, my data plan just turned over last week which means that I got to upgrade my phone. I've got this old StarkPhone, it's not the latest model or anything but I noticed somehow you're still using that prehistoric relic-”
“I had a smart phone, but... it broke,” she said, remembering the pieces of black plastic and glass scattered across a street in London, knocked out of her hand during a moment of chaos.
“Well, I want you to take this one, okay?” In his hand was a slightly used, but otherwise unmarred phone. Darcy admired the smooth glass front, accepting it from Harry and relishing the cool weight of it in her hand. She looked at him curiously, the question sticking in her throat for lack of knowing how to ask it tactfully.
“I, yeah... I didn't give it to you in front of your mom. She, hah, she accuses me of trying to buy your favor sometimes.” He grinned self-deprecatingly. “That's not what this is. It's just an old phone. And... okay, maybe a little bit of trying to win you over.”
Darcy smiled back at him, rolled the phone in her hand before tucking it away in the pocket of her coat. The olive branch had been extended, she thought, as she looked at Harry's friendly, slightly pudgy, face... and it was probably about time she extend one back.
“Mission accomplished. I'm team Harry and Elaine all the way,” she teased gently, thinking maybe she'd accept her mom's invitation to come back for Christmas after all.