Chapter Text
Darcy’s Soulmark was a bit… unusual. Not the words themselves—though those were certainly odd, too—but the actual 'Mark. Her words were written in the silver of a Romantic Soulmark, but they were outlined in the gold of a Platonic Soulmark. Which… made no sense. Her best guess was that her Soulmate was Ace, but since she wasn’t, that… seemed like poor planning on fate’s part.
The first time someone said Darcy’s words, she was eight years old.
The first time Darcy said someone else’s words in response, she was twenty-four.
Darcy navigated the airport without much trouble, but she almost didn’t see her ride. In fact she didn’t see her ride; she texted the woman she was supposed to be interning with, and followed the sound when she heard, “Jane, someone's texting you... again,” coming from nearby.
A small woman wearing plaid, who had been scribbling on the back of a large piece of cardstock, stuck her pencil into her hair, and started rummaging through her purse. The sign slid from the woman’s lap and came to a stop at Darcy’s feet.
“Darcy Lewis” was spelled out in large letters, but it was surrounded—now—by complex equations. Darcy rolled her eyes, picked it up, and took the few remaining steps to the woman, who she assumed was Doctor Foster.
Darcy shoved the sign at the other woman, whose eyes darted between the poster and Darcy before settling on Darcy’s arms.
“Why are you holding an inflatable dinosaur?” she asked.
“He’s my best friend,” Darcy replied. “Go ahead and judge us if you want; we’re used to prejudice against human/lizard relationships.”
Doctor Foster blinked owlishly up at her. “That’s… you’re one of my Platonics!”
Darcy handed her the dinosaur and rolled up her sleeve, showing her probably!Platonic Soulmate the words written there.
Doctor Foster furrowed her brow. “What…? I’ve never heard of a Soulmark being two different colors, and that isn’t my handwriting.” She poked the letters, and they flickered. Her eyebrows shot up, and she laid her finger more firmly on the writing. When she did so, a ghost of gold, unfamiliar writing superimposed itself over the silver letters. “Interesting.”
Darcy squinted. “Does that…? What does that even say?”
Doctor Foster scowled. “My handwriting’s not that bad.” When Darcy continued to stare at her, she rolled her eyes. “It’s the same words—my first to you.”
“Oh…” Darcy said, finally comprehending. “Wait, so does that mean my Romantic Soulmate is going to say the same thing?”
Doctor Foster shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, but that seems like a reasonable hypothesis. But it might not just be your Romantic.”
Darcy blinked. “You mean…”
She nodded. “With only one Soulmark, there’s no way of telling how many Platonics you might have.”
Darcy let her head fall back and groaned. “And they’re all going to say the same thing.”
Doctor Foster smirked and waggled the dinosaur at her. “Well, if you insist on carrying your ‘best friend’ everywhere, is it really that surprising?”
Darcy shrugged. “Yes. I mean, yeah, I get that a lot—there’s a website, actually, ‘Darcy Lewis: Dino Lady,’ I’m so proud—but… if everyone said ‘why are you holding an inflatable dinosaur?’ when they met me, I’d have to stop giving them to the people who do.”
Doctor Foster shot a surprised look at the dinosaur in her hand. “You mean…?”
“Charles the Dinosaur is yours.” Darcy blinked, then laughed. “Hey, I just realized—your name is Jane, and you ended up with Charles. Cool.”
She frowned for a moment, but then her expression cleared. “Pride and Prejudice?”
“Yep. I’m named after that Darcy, so I try to name my dinos after Austen characters. Particularly P&P.”
She laughed. “I think we’re going to get along just fine. It’s nice to meet you, Darcy Lewis.”
She smiled. “Nice to meet you, too, Doctor Foster.”
“Darcy, we’re Soulmates. You can call me Jane.”
Jane was finally sleeping, so Darcy grabbed a blanket, a thermos of hot chocolate, and Emma the Dinosaur, and headed outside. She just needed to be… away, for a bit. It had, after all, been an… eventful day.
She found a view that didn’t remind her of the dangers she’d faced, but she couldn’t get away from the smell of smoke. Still, she tried to forget, just for a little while, that she could have died.
Or, if she couldn’t forget that, to remember that she was still alive.
She hadn’t been sitting there for very long when someone entered her field of vision.
“Why are you holding an inflatable dinosaur?” a man asked.
“Because she’s going to help me find my Soulmate. Is it you?” she asked without looking at him.
He made an odd choking sound and started coughing; Darcy looked up at him, interested now.
“I, uh…” he said. “Yes? I mean, that’s one of my Platonic ‘Marks. Did I…”
Darcy nodded. “Yeah, you did. C’mere.”
“What?”
She rolled up her sleeve, and held up her arm so he could see her Soulmark. When he looked, he frowned. “That’s not my handwriting.”
“Poke it.”
“What?”
“Poke it!”
“Why?”
“If I’m right, it’ll be pretty obvious. Now poke.”
He poked her arm, but jerked back slightly when, as she’d (mostly) expected, it flashed gold. “What the…”
She held her arm further up, pushing it into his still-outstretched finger. This time, he didn’t jerk away, and they both stared at the place where, once again, the silver words on her arm were overlaid with clumsy gold writing.
“Is that your handwriting?”
“Uh, yeah, it is. How…?”
“Same thing happened with Jane.” She paused and let her arm fall back onto her lap. “Basically, I have no idea how many Platonics I have, but you’re all going to say the same thing to me. All of you. It’s a little ridiculous.”
He snorted and shook his head. “No kidding.”
She smiled a little. “So, Mr. Platonic Soulmate—”
“Clint Barton.”
“So, Clint. I’ve had a long day, and you look like you give good hugs.” She patted the ground beside her.
He huffed a laugh, but obligingly sat and wrapped an arm around her.
She leaned into him and plopped Emma on his lap.
“What…?”
“I always give my dinosaurs to people who say my Words, even when I don’t say theirs back. It’s sort of a tradition. This one is named Emma.”
“Emma? Like Emma Watson?”
“No, like Emma Woodhouse, the Austen heroine.”
He paused for a long moment, and when he spoke, there was an odd note in his voice. “The Gwyneth Paltrow one? With the bow and arrow?”
“That’s the one.”
He shook his head and stole her hot chocolate.
“Hey!”
“If you didn’t obviously not know, me, I’d swear you did that on purpose.”
“What?”
“I’m… somewhat well known for my fondness for medieval weaponry.”
She took a moment to process that, then started to laugh. She laughed until she cried, and then crying turned into sobbing because she almost died, and aliens, and robots, and Soulmate, and it was all just too, too much; she was just the intern, just Darcy, just a nobody caught in the middle of gods, and aliens, and robots, and death, and what was she even supposed to do with her life? How was she supposed to go back to coffee and tumblr and worrying about finals, and—
Clint pulled her into his lap, ran his hand up and down her back in a soothing, repetitive motion, and rocked her slightly. He felt awkward, she could tell, even through her hysterical tears, but he was there and letting her cry all over him and that was enough.
He held her until she drifted off to sleep.