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“Dr. Foster, we need you!”
Darcy turned at the call, her eyes looking for Jane. The other other person in the room was a man, and he was looking right at her. He was lean and cut, with oddly bi-tonal hair. “What?” Darcy asked, pulling the lollipop from her mouth. “I can fin--”
“No time!” he said, and zipped across the room. Darcy only had enough time to yelp before he picked her up and took off again. She shrieked, one long and continuous wail, from Jane’s lab to Bruce’s lab, across the length of the twenty-seventh floor.
“What the hell is that noise?” Tony asked, poking his head out of his lab but by the time he’d uttered the question, the speedster was setting Darcy down in Bruce’s lab. Bruce turned, his jaw hanging as Darcy staggered to a lab table and gripped it with white knuckles. “Darcy?” he asked.
“Darcy?” the speedster echoed.
“Yes!” Darcy hissed. “If you’d waited two seconds for me to explain--” Then he was gone again in a burst of silver. She looked at Bruce. “What the hell?”
“We need Jane,” Bruce said, stepping aside and pointing at a computer screen. A swirling vortex in space was imaged on it.
“What is that?” Darcy asked, leaning in.
“We don’t know.” Bruce turned his head to the side as the doppler of an approaching shriek heralded another attempt by the speedster to find Jane.
“Think he’s got the right one this time?” Darcy asked with the air of someone for whom weird is the normal.
Bruce wiggled his hand in a gesture to indicate a 50/50 chance. Darcy thought he was being generous. She was glad she didn’t bet, because the silver-haired man deposited Jane. “Whoa there, I gotcha,” Darcy said as Jane grabbed her arm.
“Darcy?” she gasped.
“I was Jane first,” she said with a smile, turning her friend to see the screen. Jane immediately oriented on the image in front of her, forgetting about everything else. Shaking her head fondly, Darcy turned toward the door, and found the speedster in front of her.
“I’m sorry, beautiful lady,” he told her with a smile. “My desire to touch you overcame my good manners. I should have listened to you.”
“Yes, you should have,” she said, crossing her arms and hoping her smile didn’t show any amusement. “Did you really think that line would work on me?”
“I’d hoped,” he told her, laughing. “May I take you out for coffee to apologize?”
“Only because you offered coffee,” Darcy agreed.
She’d planned to get her cuppa and then flee as quickly as she could, but Pietro was actually charming when he dropped the chauvinist act. Coffee turned into a lively debate about the reforms needed to improve the Solovian situation. He was a polisci nerd, albeit one who’d never had any formal training. He could argue his point eloquently, but more than that, he never got ugly about it. If she won her point, he conceded gracefully. If he won his, he never made it about his ego.
Coffee morphed into dinner, which became several dinners, which became steady dating. She met his sister and began to build a relationship with her. Things were going well, as well as budding relationships in the insanity of the Avengers’ world went.
Something was wrong, though: Darcy didn’t know what it was, but she sensed it. There were moments that Pietro would start to say something, only to stop himself short. Their sex was one-sided: he loved to please her, but preferred no more than kisses in return. He seemed detached from himself in odd ways, and more than once Darcy wondered if he were impotent. It seemed impossible but she couldn’t think of another reason.
It came to a head when she entered the cafeteria and caught Wanda hissing, “You have to tell her, Pietro! She needs to know!”
Pietro saw her first, his blush tainting his cheeks red. Wanda looked chagrined when she followed his gaze, but the frown she turned on her brother was firm. “You know I’m right.” Her piece said, she stalked out of the room.
“I really hope you’re going to say, ‘we need to talk’,” Darcy commented into the awkward silence, “because I really feel like we need to talk.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want my hand forced this way,” Pietro sighed. “Yes, we need to talk, but somewhere private. Will you eat in my room?”
“How ‘bout my office instead?” She managed a smile despite the sinking feeling in her gut. This was big and bad. Pietro looked like a man walking to the gallows. “Same privacy, less intimate awkwardness.”
He nodded, gathering up his tray while she got her food. He followed her to her small, cluttered office, little more than a place to sit and keep an eye on her scientists. She had a desk and a computer, but all she did with the latter was find cat videos and play games.
Darcy shifted a stack of filing to the side so they could put her food down. Pietro opened his mouth and she raised a finger. “Before you start, I just want to remind you: I really, really like you.”
“Yes, that is why I’m afraid to tell you this,” he said softly. “Darcy, it is difficult to say, but I am--” He licked his lips nervously and took a drink of his water. “I am a woman.”
Her nose crinkled. “Bhwhat?” she asked.
“I am what is called transgendered,” Pietro said softly. “I’ve spoken to Dr. Cho, and was scheduled to start the hormone replacement treatments. I just . . .” Her voice trailed off and she looked at the floor. “I couldn’t help but delay when I met you, to give myself time to see if this was real, or not.”
“So, do you want to transition now?” she asked, feeling like she was treading on uneven ground.
“I do,” she said simply, hope shining in her eyes.
“And you want to date me, after, as a woman?” she clarified.
“Before, during, after -- forever,” she told her. She reached for Darcy's hand but stopped. "I know that this is a sudden decision, so take your time.”
“Pietro, I like you , not your penis,” Darcy said, taking her hand. “I find girls sexy, too. I don’t know if this crazy relationship will work, but I’m willing to try.” She grinned and Pietro joined her, leaning over the desk to kiss her.
“That is all I want,” the speedster assured her, squeezing her fingers. “To have you at my side.”