Work Text:
The international sports community is not as diverse or as far flung as one might think. Screw that, it was an incestuous, elitist group of athletes, coaches and assorted hangers on who knew far too bloody much about each other, and Darcy would know, she’s been part of this madness for two games now.
Darcy hadn’t meant to be an official sports hanger on, Jane would primly inform her that she was an important part of the Team USA coaching staff, but Darcy was well aware that the only reason she was here was that Jane sucked at eating without her and was kind of a big thing in sports science. All Darcy had was a degree in political science and an internship that never ended.
Darcy had been a little star struck at the idea of working with sports stars until she met the first lot they were training. There was nothing star worthy about table tennis players. Even after eight years she couldn’t help but snicker a little when they got all serious about proper bat grip.
Not everyone was a crazy table tennis player though, Jane was the top and she got all the stars as well.
Tony was an asshole.
A billionaire playboy who decided that business was boring and sports sounded more entertaining. He’d thrown the team sports out straight away (he didn’t play well with others) and after dabbling a little in track and field had settled for a sport where he could use his engineering skills – the single scull. He was the only rower in the world who raced a scull he had both designed and built himself, something he liked to remind the other competitors of frequently. Tony was the unofficial face of the team, by sheer fact of being the only one of them any good with the media. He was a self-absorbed, arrogant, asshole…and Darcy can’t help but like him. He’d invited some of the more interesting members of the team to stay in his (gigantic phallic) tower during the run up to the games and had saved Darcy from cheap hotel hell by asking her to stay as well. Some of the non-invited members had grumbled but to be fair Darcy wouldn’t have invited the handball team either.
While Tony might be the unofficial face of team USA the official face was the incredibly appropriate and ‘awww gosh’ captain of the American team, Steve Rogers. You couldn’t not like Steve, he was all old timey manners and fair play. Even the media couldn’t be rude to him, they kept sending different and more ball busting reporters who completely failed at any form of busting in the face of Steve’s sweetness. Steve has qualified this games in the discus, a sport he is spectacularly good at, but not the one he competed in last games, that had been in modern pentathlon and he had won the gold. The fans of the modern pentathlon (all five of them) were devastated but it’s not Steve’s fault he’s good at everything and wanted some variety.
The one Jane is most enamoured by is Thor. Seriously, one name, he’s Scandinavian royalty and through some complicated banishment, disinheritment, reinheritment thing he’s an American citizen. Whatever his background he’s apparently the next big thing in the hammer throw though none of them are allowed to touch his training hammer and he’s named the damn thing (Mjolnir – Darcy calls it Mjo). He gets extra points for calling her Lady Darcy and keeping all his loud, energetic sex in the far bedroom, also for not actually needing much help in sports sciency ways and so screwing Jane in the office in the middle of the day so she gets all sleepy and Darcy can put her to bed once and a while.
Darcy was actually a little frightened of the sole gymnast in their group. Most gymnasts are neurotic, twitchy little creatures, Natasha turned it the other way and made everyone around her twitchy and neurotic. It wasn’t that they thought she was going to hurt them (though she could) it was just that she had a very shady past and all the rumours said she was a deserter from Russian intelligence (the way the Russian team had eyed her at the Beijing games Darcy was leaning towards believing it).She also had some strange form of mind meld with the archer of their little group (something no one was going to ask about because while they thought Natasha had been KGB, they knew Clint had started in the special forces).
Clint’s ability with the bow had apparently earned him the nickname of Hawkeye. It was very good that Darcy hadn’t known this before being friends with him because she had laughed in his face when she found out about it and she likes to keep blatant mockery amongst her nearest and dearest. He opened himself up though, his training costume was a vibrant shade of purple and he totally thought it suited him. He and Natasha had met somewhere classified doing something classified for someone classified but he didn’t quite manage to inspire the fear Natasha did, he was more like the fratboy who stole all your beer and then vomited in the kitchen sink (if you were lucky). He was the best though and in the Olympics that was actually all that mattered.
The last member of their little impromptu training camp was Bruce Banner, a mild mannered scientist type who spent most of his time in India or Peru or Mali or wherever poor people needed healthcare and who had to be chased up in whatever third world country he’d found himself in for meets. He was the least obvious weightlifter in the world until he walked out to the weight and let rip with a rage filled growl. They called him The Hulk and Darcy wasn’t completely sure that he didn’t have a split personality. The fact that this wasn’t completely off putting was something Darcy was putting down to the ridiculous nature of the people she worked with and totally not the fact that he was very cute when he smiled.
At all.