#catrinasl

“I hope you know you’re fixing that. At your own expense, so you’d better have Midgardian currency on you,” she said flatly, raising one eyebrow in their direction. There was no mistaking the mirth in her eyes, though.  She was excited to see them. Whether they destroyed her apartment or not.

“Oh absolutely!” Thor said, pushing his way through the ruined doorframe to drip on her bedroom floor.

“She meant me, mead-for-brains,” Brunnhilde countered with a swat against Thor’s meaty shoulder. “You couldn’t fix your armor with three mirrors in front of you.”

“Perhaps, but I hold the currency, so she was technically talking to both of us,” Thor argued.

Darcy sighed and hopped up, opening the door to her bedroom and shooing both of them out into the kitchen. “You’re dripping on my carpet…”

“Would you rather if we dripped on you?” Thor asked, moving closer to lower his head to Darcy’s.

She thought about kissing him, but bathroom water was running all over his armor, so she shook her head.  “Strip down and take a shower. I’m going to see what I can do about the leaks in the other bathroom…  Make it a quick shower, please. I need to turn off the water.”

“We’re really sorry, Darcy.  We’ll fix it, okay?” Brunnhilde reached out to run her hand up and down Darcy’s arm but stopped before touching her. “I’ll fix it. After the quickest of showers.”

Darcy collapsed on the couch after the two of them disappeared into the bathroom.  Brunnhilde wasn’t kidding, apparently.  Because she and Thor reappeared only minutes later, with the former moving back into the bathroom to tinker with the pipes.

Thor joined Darcy on the sofa, causing it to creak slightly as he settled in beside her.

Darcy leaned her head on his shoulder. “Is there any way you guys could aim for a place that isn’t going to cause major water damage to my apartment?”

“We could, but I’m still getting the hang of Bruce’s teleportation unit…” Thor said with a sigh. “I do apologize for your bathroom, though. Perhaps next time, we’ll take a plane?”

Darcy snuggled into his side, inhaling his scent that was intermingled with her shampoo.  “I don’t really care, honestly. I miss you guys too much.”

Brunnhilde came trudging down the hallway a few minutes later.  She disappeared directly into the bathroom again, emerging with even wetter hair and a clean scent that came from Darcy’s body wash.  “No need to worry. I fixed it. I improved whatever slap job your landlord had done before.”

“I don’t even have to turn off the water?” Darcy asked, impressed. “Wow. I should get you to do all my repairs.”

Brunnhilde was already jumping to her feet when Darcy realized what she’d said and reached out for her hand. “But not now. Now is cuddle time.” She pulled her back on the sofa with herself and Thor.

The latter kept one arm around her waist as she leaned over against Brunnhilde.

“You know… you could simply come live with us in New Asgard,” Thor offered. “We have sturdy plumbing there.”

“Oh really?  That’s a really sexy selling point,” Darcy quipped. “Sturdy plumbing.”

"Yeah, but if I recall, the last time you came in, a number was given to you. My number. My personal number. And as far as I can tell, you've never used said number. So yeah. You've got a lot of nerve showing up here when you ghosted me, Luis."

"Ghosted? Shhhh, no way," Luis babbled, his hand going to his messenger bag for the briefest of moments before he reached up to slide his palm over his forehead. "I never ghosted you. Just never needed to use it."

Scott's eyebrows raised so high, they damn near jumped off his face. He took a step back and then sideways from Luis as if to convey to Darcy that he wasn't to be lumped in with the dead man walking.

Darcy, in her own right, placed both hands on the countertop for support as she peered at the man across from her. "Never needed to use it? Dude, that's cold."

"What's cold? No? No." He shook his head. "It would only have been cold if you--"

He stopped dead mid-sentence, the wheels turning in his head as he undoubtedly ran the events of that day over in his mind.

"Okay, so wait a minute here, Darce…" he began. "So that day, my boy, Scott and me, we came here to use the facilities for some top secret Avengers stuff…"

"Free wifi," Scott muttered under his breath, and Luis didn't even pause before continuing.

"Top secret Avengers wifi because we'd just come from the coffee shop across the street and Scott didn't wanna buy a latte from them in order to get the wifi password, and he had to check his email or something, and I was getting my Minecraft on. You walked up, looking all gorgeous and Darcy-like, and handed me your card, said I could use it if I ever wanted to get together…"

He trailed off and looked back into her eyes. "You meant 'get together' like… together-together, didn't you?"

"Sort of," Darcy said with a shrug. "I mean. I don't wanna twist your arm or anything, but if you have the time…"

"You straight up asked me out and I didn't call you?"

"That's pretty much the gist of it, yeah…" she replied, smirking a little.

Luis pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Listen… listen. I had no idea that's what you were doing. I was face-deep in Enderman City when you gave me that number. I thought it was for a work thing, promise. If I'd have known it was more than that? Darce, I woulda called you before we hit the elevator. Ask Scott." He jutted his thumb over to where Scott was trying to make himself disappear into one of the computers.

"In the hallway, yeah," Scott confirmed. "He never shuts up about you, Darce."

Darcy wrapped both arms around her middle as she peered over at Luis, tried to ascertain if he was telling the truth or not. "In the hallway, huh?" she repeated, eyeing him closely. "Because I don't give my number out to just anyone, Luis. Scott doesn't have my number, do you, Scott?"

"Stop bringing me into this," he said, flailing both hands for a split second. "I don't have Darcy's number, though."

"My digits are special," she said with a nod. "And I gave them to you. I kind of expected you to use them."

It was at that moment that her phone rang in her hand. She glanced down at the screen, frowning at the number. "Hold on a sec…"

She turned her back to them to answer. "Hello?"

"Now you've got my digits," Luis said, a smile apparent in his voice. "And they're special too, so use them wisely. Like to text me things. I'll use yours to let you know what time I'll pick you up for dinner."

"Aww, that's okay, honey bun…" Peter's hand came down on her ass with a loud smack. She tried to keep the surprised look off her face, acting instead like this was just something they did.  

That she alway wore electric blue spandex and teased up her hair and hung on Peter Quill's every word. That they always kept the company of giant crab people.

Okay, so maybe she did kind of hang on his every word, sometimes. He was hella charming and completely clueless to how he affected her, so it was only fair, right?

They absolutely did not hang out with giant crab people all the time, though.

He grinned and shrugged.  "Females, amiright? They're only good for one thing." Darcy had to hide her wince because holy shit would Gamora destroy him for saying something like that. To be fair, Darcy would destroy him too, if she didn't know that it was completely an act and he in no way thought anything of the sort about females.

Peter then winked in the direction of what she took to be one of the female crab people. Darcy almost shuddered when her mandibles started dripping.

She tightened her hold on Peter and swallowed thickly, trying to keep the dumb smile on her face and act natural.  

Act like they were a couple who effed like bunnies every chance they got and definitely NOT a space thief and his stowaway trying to steal some kind of little rock thing from these purple crab people.

His arm tightened protectively around her waist when one of the other crab people started talking.  

"Nah... " he shook his head.  "I don't share, sorry…"

Oh gross… this crab-man wants to share me? Enough is enough…

Darcy reached down into the tiny bag Gamora had packed for her and pulled out the itsy bitsy teeny weeny, yellow-polka-dot machiney… gun that Rocket had modded for her.  

She turned it on the crab people and disengaged from Peter's arms.  "Alright, Listen up, Joe's Crab Shack… unless you wanna find out what Sea Legs are, you need to tell me where this fancy stone is…"

"Darcy, babe. You are so hot right now," Peter whispered.  The sound of his voice made her shiver. But there wasn't much time for that, not with the angry clicking from the crab people.  

There was some shooting after that, but not much.  

And some running, but again… not much.  

And some stone stealing, but only as much as was needed to… you know… steal the stone.  

And more running.  It was maybe becoming much after all. Luckily, they were a stone's throw away from the Milano.  

And Darcy knew that because Peter totally chucked the stone into the docking bay before they boarded themselves.

"That was super hot… are you aware of how incredibly hot you are right now?" Peter asked, hurriedly pulling his lap belt into place and twisting a bunch of knobs.  

"I dunno, Quill. You only said it like a billion times before, during and after the job... "  

"Okay, to put it in some perspective, Darcy… I'm considering renaming my ship the 'Lewis'."  Peter shot her a completely serious look, turning a final knob and starting up the Milano's engine.  

Darcy was red, blue, purple and yellow… Basically all kinds of flustered by that revelation, but she wasn't about to tell Peter that. She'd likely lose some of her cool points if she confessed how much his hand on her ass had done it for her. Not to mention the nickname.  

But that might have been connected to his hand on her ass too. Color her surprised that she was into being called someone's 'honey bun' while they lightly smacked her spandex covered ass, but like she said before… red, blue, purple, yellow…

All kinds of surprised.

But again, that kind of talk could wait until they'd stabilized. Asking the pilot to spank her more might be detrimental to take off.