caitri | Fic: Under Your Influence (The Way It Works Like Caffeine), Bruce/Darcy, PG

Title: Under Your Influence (The Way It Works Like Caffeine)
Author: caitri
Rating: PG
Pairings: Bruce/Darcy, background Clint/Natasha, Steve/Tony
Word Count: 2,114
Summary: Movieverse. The one where Bruce and Darcy try to have a date. Written for

gadgetorious.
Disclaimer: I know this may come as a shock, but I am not, amazing as it may seem, Joss Whedon, Stan Lee, or Marvel Pictures. Just so you know.

“Um,” Bruce says at first, when he can finally say something that’s not a profane exclamation of one kind or another. “Oh—huh?”

“Keep working it through, big guy,” Darcy says patiently. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Well.” Bruce wants to look at her, he really does. He wants to know if she means it or if, well, if it’s a joke. (If it is a joke, it would be a bad one. He’s not sure who would actually try that—okay, maybe Clint… no, strike that, definitely Clint—but, well, that’s just not safe, is it?) “It’s just not safe, is it?” And shit, that was aloud. “Shit, that was aloud.”

Bruce closes his eyes, because yes, this is his life.

“Yes, it was.” Darcy rocks on her feet slightly. “Relax, Bruce. Geez. I asked you if you wanted to go have coffee some time, not—” She waves her arms about in a way she clearly thinks is illustrative of—something. “So.”

“I don’t think coffee would be a good idea,” Bruce says, and Darcy looks completely crestfallen. “Tea, though,” he continues, because he’s a glutton for punishment and an idiot and also apparently some kind of Humbert Humbert figure, “tea, I could have, with you. If you like. While you have coffee.”

Darcy’s smile spreads across her face slowly, like one of those flowers in a time-lapse video. It unfurls, glorious, and Bruce is so, so, screwed.

~

“You’re kidding, right?” Clint had said when she told him. It was Monday night in Avengers Tower, which meant that Steve and Tony were watching Castle, Natasha was still at Ladies’ Night with Pepper, Thor and Jane were where they always were (don’t ask, just listen carefully before opening doors anywhere), and Bruce was in his lab. That left the pair of them in the Rec Room shooting pool and downing brewskis. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s cut in that, y’know—”

“Absent-minded professor kinda way?” Darcy suggested helpfully. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

Clint continued on as if she hadn’t spoken, gaze completely focused on the eight ball. His intensity would be sexy if it weren’t so damn terrifying most of the time. “—but he’s still a science geek. He and Stark probably play D&D on alternate Wednesdays.” He sunk his target, plus four other balls. Really they didn’t play so much as he shot and she watched.

“Yeah, and you’re probably their Halfling rogue with extra ranks in Search and Acrobatics,” Darcy said without missing a beat. “I bet Natasha lets you backstab her from behind all the time. So what?”

Clint blinked rapidly and actually missed his next shot, and Darcy allowed herself an inner fist-pump. Even in her line of work (research assistant to the Great and Powerful—or, well, at least Jane Foster), it wasn’t every day you got to mess with a super assassin’s mind and come out on top. “Isn’t he, well, a little…mature for you?”

She had to roll her eyes at that as she took her spot at the table. “Ninja, please. You’re my best friend in this place and you want to go for the age thing? I call the orange one.” She missed. “Dammit!”

“He’s older than me,” Clint protested. “In year-years, not to mention brain-years.” It’s really precious how he sometimes thinks he makes sense outside his own head, it really is, and it’s amazing how Natasha has managed to put up with it for years. “Anyways,” he had continued in his own unique brand of logic, “what about Rogers? He’s closer to your age.”

“Give or take a century.” Darcy snorted. “Cap’s hot, but one, he is all about Stark, in case you hadn’t noticed. Which, if not, you need to go back to like, Spy Training U, because fail, man.”

They were all out of balls by then. “Another set?” Clint asked instead.

“Bruce is almost normal.” Darcy collected balls out of the pockets, sliding them into place in the rack. She could feel Clint’s dubiousness, radiating out like whatever-rays. “Aside from the Other Guy, I mean.”

“You’re into normal, now?” Clint was chalking their cues.

“I could give it a shot.”

~

Bruce dithers about what to wear on their date. (He really hasn’t done this in a while.) Yellow shirt, purple shirt. Jeans, khakis. Jacket, no jacket.

“Look at you, big guy,” Tony says when Bruce walks into the common room. (Purple shirt, jeans, no jacket.) “What’s the occasion?”

“Uh?” Bruce says, looking away and rubbing his neck like he’s cool or something. “What occasion?”

Tony was sitting on the couch, but now he’s twisted around, knees on the cushions to look at Bruce with narrowed eyes. “You’re wearing actual cologne.” He sniffs audibly. “Ferragamo, good choice. First date?”

“Um,” says Bruce.

“First date, of course it is. Anyone I know? Must be. Let’s think here.” Tony makes a slight humming noise. “You’re dressed all cas, so someone you know well enough to be comfortable. Purple shirt, good choice, brings out the green in your eyes—what? It’s true, you need to work that. Mid-afternoon means coffee or a movie, but you hate crowds, so, coffee…” His eyes widen. “You’re going out with Darcy.”

Bruce stares at him in silence. “Have I mentioned recently that your reasoning process is kind of terrifying?”

“I’m right, aren’t I.” Tony’s pleased with himself, doesn’t even bother making it a real question. “This is great, this is awesome, I’m proud of you, man.”

Bruce huffs a laugh. “Proud of me? For what?”

Tony climbs over the back of the couch to stand next to him, looking at him evenly in the eyes in that serious way he typically only has when the world’s at stake or when he really means something. (Which is often when the world is at stake, but he’s an Avenger, so.) “You’re—adjusting. To life as it should be lived.” He slaps Bruce’s arm in a teasing way, but the sincerity is completely real. “It’s awesome.”

Bruce gives him a small smile. “I guess.”

~

Darcy had picked a shop a few blocks away—far enough to be out of sight of the Tower, close enough it didn’t necessitate a ride on the subway. Bruce has walked by this place a few times but never gone in; it’s the kind of shop that has luxurious vine plants twined around the wrought iron fencing that marks off the patio seating. Blue neon signage in a cursive font declares it to be the Blue Bird Café.

He pauses just outside, debating. Does he go in, or is he supposed to wait outside? Does he buy tea and if he does should he order for her too? Is that rude?

He tries to remember if this was ever easy, Other Guy or no.

“Hey, Bruce!” He jumps a little, turns around, and there is Darcy looking up at him with this little grin lurking in the corners of her full mouth. “You look kinda tense there, big guy.”

“Ah—hi. Sorry. Trying to remember how this works.” He winces inwardly, but maybe that didn’t come out as pathetically as it sounded because Darcy is grinning at him for real now and is taking his arm.

“First step,” she says as she opens the door. “Go inside.”

They’re seated in the back. The space is small; his knees touch Darcy’s under the wooden round top of their table and sitting on the little chairs makes him feel like Alice in Wonderland. “Honey caramel brown sugar latte with whip,” the waitress says as she sets a large frothy mug in front of Darcy, and a small teapot and cup in front of him, “and chamomile tea.”

“Thank you,” Bruce says, and the woman’s cheerful “No problem,” is half lost as she’s whisking away other beverages to other customers. Darcy is holding her giant mug in both hands, inhaling the steam of its contents with exaggerated (well, he hopes it’s exaggerated, or he might be getting a little jealous, here) delight. “Is there, uh, any actual coffee in that?”

Darcy’s eyes widen comically. “You think I drink coffee for the coffee? Hey!” This last is aimed at an awkward young man who has bumped into their table; Darcy’s mug drops from her hands but is caught by him at the last second. “Wow, thanks.”

“Sorry, my fault—uh, yeah.” The boy is maybe sixteen or seventeen, spikey dark hair and white skin that hasn’t spent enough time outside and lanky limbs that aren’t completely under control yet. “Sorry,” he repeats, and slips away with two other cups in cardboard containers.

“I thought I was a spaz,” Bruce says wonderingly as they watch him go.

“Trust me, you’re not a—”

“THIS IS A HOLD-UP!” And there are two guys with masks and guns.

“—spaz,” Darcy concludes. “Oh boy.”

“No one’s leaving right now, pal,” says one of the robbers, gun trained on the pale boy, who is half out the door.

“I—see that,” the boy says carefully, stepping back inside slowly. He holds the cups up in each hand, a gesture like surrender or maybe just See how I can’t do anything because I’m busy right now?, the quintessential New Yorker body language. “Can we maybe talk about this?”

The second robber pushes his gun close to the boy’s chest. “Money talks.”

“We gotta do something,” Darcy whispers. The air is still in the shop; Bruce swears he can hear nothing but his own heartbeat over the sound of the first robber yelling, of someone crying nearby. He was happy for a second there, normal, and now he’s—angry.

“What’s your problem?” The first robber is in front of him now, gun in his face. “Can’t you see this is a hold-up?”

“Please don’t do that,” Bruce hears himself say dimly, and the robber pulls his arm back for what Bruce knows will be a pistol-whip.

A shot goes off by the door, and Bruce looks over to see the second robber’s face and hands covered in a thick white substance almost like spiderwebbing. The first robber is on his knees in front of Bruce, whimpering with his broken hand in his lap. Bruce idly finishes crushing the gun into a little ball of metal.

The kid is regarding him from the shop’s ceiling, upside down, expression nonplussed. “I saw you on the news,” he says. “I’m a fan!” And then, as if he’s spoken too much, he gives Bruce a slight nod and grin and jumps to the ground, collecting his coffees and running off.

“Was that—?” Darcy asks idly, “because I think it was.”

“Nice to have a new face in town, I guess,” agrees Bruce.

Their drinks are cold by the time the cops have come and the reports have been filled out. Tony and Steve arrive just as the last policeman drifts away. They’re in street clothes, but Steve’s got the oversized backback thing that Tony built to hold his shield slung over his shoulder.

“There was a party and you didn’t invite me? I’m hurt,” Tony says by way of greeting.

“Um,” Bruce says, looking away. “This was kind of meant to—not be—a party.”

“Also known as a party for two.” Darcy takes his arm and Bruce looks down at her in amusement.

“What fun is that?” Clint wants to know, because of course he and Natasha are just magically there like SHIELD has beaming technology now or something. “Or are we crashing?” He turns to Natasha with false—or possibly real, Bruce can’t always tell—confusion. “I think we’re crashing?”

“They wanted to make sure you were alright,” Natasha tells Bruce and Darcy in her calm, nearly expressionless way. “They are,” she tells the others. “We should go. Give them their privacy.”

“Are we interrupting something?” Steve says with genuine innocence.

“YES!” Darcy and Bruce say together. “New plan,” Darcy continues. “It involves a place that is else.”

“Good call,” Bruce says, and lets him lead her away. “Don’t wait up, guys.”

“Did you ever actually get to have any of your tea?” Darcy asks when they are safely out on the street.

“No,” Bruce says, and slides his arm around her waist. She grins at the contact. “I don’t think I need it as much as I thought I do.”

Because the thing is, if he can only turn a little green when he has to, if he can face down robbers and unmasked heroes, and Darcy isn’t bothered? Well, yeah, things are gonna be fine.

Author's Apologies

Peter wasn't supposed to be in this, he just...kind of snuck in. Sorry.