#sarastark

“The what???” Clint asked rushing up to the stairs. What had he actually agreed to coming here for? He’d been watching last year’s puppy bowl (he was really behind on his dvr, okay?) when Darcy had invited him to go to a haunted house the weekend before Halloween. And he knew there were details he’d missed while the little husky puppy intercepted the ball from the golden retriever but…this was a pretty big detail.

“You didn’t listen to me at all did you?” Darcy asked, but she didn’t look so mad about it. “This is the house that Rita from HR and Todd from product development bought together to fix up. And then found a sealed up cupboard with a body inside.”

“That’s horrific,” Clint breathed.

“It’s super fucking weird,” Darcy agreed. “Annnd they are super weird energy readings all over the house. Which is why I am here. Tony wants to nerd out over them…remotely. And you are here to hold my hand while I do that. In case I get scared. Except, you look really pale now so maybe I should just-“

“No, no, I’m good,” Clint said, trying to decide if it was his twitchy reflection moving in the window or… “Lead the way.”

“You sure? I can do this alone, or I could call, like, Buck-“

“No, I’m totally good,” Clint said, whipping back to stare at her. He caught her biting away a smile. Damn it. He shouldn’t have fallen for the Bucky thing. It’s just…this wasn’t exactly the date he thought she’d been asking him out on.

Not that she would have needed to ask him out on a date if he’d ever managed to ask her out on - oh, shit she was walking into the house. The dark, creepy, bodies in secret cupboards in the walls house.

“So we don’t have to like…stay the night or anything?” Clint asked. He shuffled around looking for a good, secure spot to stand in but the damn place was like a maze, full of shadowy little corners and twisting halls. And Darcy was just wandering around with a flashlight in one hand and some kind of Stark scanner beeping mildly in the other. Clint was of the personal opinion that flashlights made dark spaces creepier.

“Not unless something goes horribly awry,” Darcy said, dropping her voice and waggling her eyebrows at him. She paused and the flashlight drooped in her hand, illuminating a bit of wall that been scraped away to reveal the bones of the building. “Aw, hey. You’re really freaked out, aren’t you?”

“I’m not freaked out. Who’s freaked out? You’re freaked out,” Clint said, leaning against a wall only to jump away again when he discovered that it had a tough and glossy texture. “Oh ew, no. Leather wallpaper. Darce this place has skin on the walls.”

“Eww,” she said and joined him, scanning the wall. The tech ‘blooped’ ominously and Clint edged to stand behind her. She glanced over her shoulder at him and raised her eyebrow.

“I’m not…scared,” he said. “I’m just…a little superstitious, maybe.”

“Maybe,” she agreed, smiling.

“Thought I was gonna get to hold your hand,” he said.

“Oh, yeah, here take this,” she said, passing him the flashlight and then leaving her hand outstretched for him to take.

He weighed the flashlight in his hand. It was nice and heavy, it would do as a bludgeon in a pinch. Not that it was likely to work on a ghost. Darcy’s hand in his was warm, light, and felt strangely safer.

“The best readings will probably be upstairs in the room with the cupboard. Let’s grab those and then Tony can come down here for the rest if he likes them so much,” Darcy said, heading up to the wide, winding staircase leading up to the second floor.

“Ehnnn,” said Clint. But he followed the lead of her hand, squeezing it a little tighter in his and shining the light ahead of them.

There was a creak in the hall of the second story and Darcy and Clint both paused on the staircase. Then a door slammed, the whole house shuddering in the bang and Darcy squeaked and jumped on the step.

“Aww, ghost, no,” Clint whispered.

“New plan,” Darcy whispered, shuffling down to share the step with Clint, pressing into his side. He slid his finger up to her wrist and felt her pulse hammering there. “We run out the front door, out to the car, go back to the base, and you hold my hand while we watch kids movies.”

The was another longer, deeper creak from above.

“On three,” Clint whispered.

“Nope, now!” Darcy said, and they bolted down the stairs and out the front door as the house groaned around them.

“You wanna order pizza?” Clint shouted over the sounds of the house as they jumped down the front stairs all at once.

“Pizza is good,” Darcy said voice high as she ran back to the car. She stopped at the passenger side door, eyes narrowed, and the shutters of the haunted house rattled behind them. “You better work up the nerve to make out with me tonight Barton.”

Clint blinked for a moment and then jumped as the front door started snapping open and shut with loud ‘cracks!’

“Darcy I’ll make out with you at the stop light two blocks away as long as you get in the car and we get the hell out of here.”

“Deal,” she said, grinning toothily.

"If you put Foggy on the list, who's going to go with you on dates and sleep with you?" Claire teased. "Unless you're finally going to take Luke and I up on our invitation…"  

"You're still dead to her too, Claire, remember?" Foggy said, jamming his phone in his pocket and standing up to cross the floor to the bed.  "Now that you're awake, I actually do have to go, Darce. I'll be back after my meeting, but I'm pretty sure you'll be sprung by then..." He bent slightly to kiss her forehead.

She tilted up to meet his lips with her own, her hands cupping his face and holding him close for a much longer kiss than he likely thought he was getting.  

He broke it off grudgingly, sighing and pressing his forehead to hers briefly. "You coming back to my place after Claire lets you leave?"  

Darcy nodded.  "Doesn't mean we're back together, though…"  

He shook his head. "Of course not.  You want pad thai? I'll pick some up on the way home?"  

"Yes please," Darcy said softly, settling back into the pillows of her hospital bed. "Get some OJ too, you never have any."

Claire scoffed to herself, peeling back a page of Darcy's chart.  

"What was that?" Darcy asked, sniffing. "Must have been a ghost because Claire's dead to me."  

"Marry her already, Fog…" Claire said in lieu of responding to Darcy.

"I'm trying," Foggy replied, kissing Darcy's forehead once.