Author's Note: Every name in this story references an actual character in either DC or Marvel. I figured I would use them instead of coming up with names.

Weird Connections

Darcy Lewis tugged at the sleeves of her sweater as she made her way through the halls to her locker. It took some weaving around a multitude of teenagers trying to prove themselves better than everyone else, or fighting to stay on top. She hated this school. Maybe she should have stayed in public school. Yeah, so it was boring as hell, but at least the people in power, the jocks and the cheerleaders, had been easy to spot. Not so much here.

Shield High – home of the rich, famous, infamous, genius, and just odd-ball characters like her who managed to land on someone's radar.

She never should have hacked the CIA.

A sigh slipped free as she made it to her locker and began getting her books for her first class. Darcy had not been here a week when she learned that the hallways could be battlegrounds, compete with landmines and sneak attacks. No one screwed around in class because of the adult witnesses but the hallways tended to be free-for-alls. She could not understand, at first, why the teachers did not do something about all of the bullying taking place in the halls, but she figured it out after a couple of major explosions just two weeks into the school year. The reactions of the so-called adults? Telling – very telling.

The teachers took notes.

Sometimes it felt like the stories she used to read about Ancient Sparta – the strong survive and the weak perish. Only here – they got graded on it.

An eruption of sound drew everyone's attention to the far end of the hall. Darcy watched with narrowed eyes as a bubble of chaos seemed to move her way. As it grew closer she began to make out individual voices. A group of guys surrounded someone, tossing about insults and innuendoes. Darcy caught a glimpse of the victim as they passed her. Felicity Smoak – fellow computer geek and one of the certified geniuses of the school. The other girl's face shown bright red already and Darcy could see a light tremble in her fingers.

Darcy rolled her eyes and sniffed. "Damn," she noted, her gaze meeting Felicity's. "I knew some of the guys in this place were stupid, but these guys are off the scale."

The blonde girl's lips curved into a grateful smile, but one of the guys sneered at her. "What did you say, you little-."

"Hey, Savage, I'm just saying," Darcy interrupted with a shrug. "You've got to be a special kind of stupid to pick on her." The brunette nodded at the other girl. "Never mind what some of the guys will do, but the Lance sisters will kick your collective ass." Her eyes made a quick scan of the group, noting those guys who blinked and stepped back from Felicity. "Or do we not recall Sara dumping Wilson in the pool – after breaking his arm? Or hey, maybe we could discuss big sister Laurel's tendency to mess with people's pretty faces, hmm?" A sarcastic smile curved her lips. "Isn't that right, Allerdyce?"

More of the bullies began turning in her direction and Darcy had a moment to consider her life's choices – such as drawing the attention of local predators to herself – when another voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Is there a problem here?" The cool, accented tones sounded drenched in annoyed disdain.

Going to have to mark today in the calendar, Darcy thought. Of all people who might have come to her aid, she would have put the icy Emma Frost somewhere in the bottom two percent. The self-proclaimed Queen Bitch of the school controlled the dance squad with an iron fist and still managed to rule over the popular half of the honors crowd. No one, but no one crossed her – except maybe Charles Xavier or Erik Lehnsherr…and Darcy was getting off topic in her own head.

"Just trying to put a couple of geeks in their place," Savage grinned.

Emma glanced at Felicity before her eyes shifted over to Darcy. One eyebrow flicked up as she turned back to Savage. "You're done here."

"What?" he laughed. "You're taking their side?"

"I take my side," Emma glared. "And my side between brutes and brains is clear – particularly when I intend to see my entire squad pass their midterms." Her narrowed gaze focused on Darcy.

Darcy nodded. "I talked Jane into tutoring Dawn and Amy in physics."

"Tabitha should get an A in her computer class if she'll remember to turn her project in," Felicity added.

"See?" Emma told Savage. Then she tossed back a lock of white-blonde hair. "Don't make me repeat myself."

"Yeah, yeah," the guy grumbled as he walked off, gesturing for the others to follow him.

The dance captain watched for a moment before turning her attention back to the other girls. "Do not make me regret this," she warned them. "Granger, Winton, and Smith better pass."

"We can't make them do the work," Felicity began.

"Leave that to me." A swirl of skirt and hair signaled Emma's departure.

Darcy shrugged as she looked over to her fellow geek. "She knows how to make an exit?"

"And that's putting it mildly," Felicity nodded. She opened her mouth to continue, but closed it as two people all but materialized beside her.

Sara gave a brief nod to Darcy before her focus centered on Felicity. "Word has it someone was bothering you?" she demanded, anger glowing just beneath the surface of her words.

"I'm fine," Felicity assured her most volatile friend.

"That's not what she asked," Laurel pointed out. The older of the Lance sisters remained cool, the perfect foil to her sister's volatility. Darcy once thought the girl too cold to get mad, but Felicity reminded her that ice could burn and be as deadly as fire in the right conditions.

The three of them made the weirdest trio of friends – and that was saying something in this place. The Lance sisters ranked near the top of the school hierarchy thanks to their social standing with the rich crowd. Felicity made it into the school on her smarts, but her mother's job as a cocktail waitress along with her natural reticence in public dropped her into the bottom half. They walked in different circles, lived on opposite sides of town, and shared no classes or extracurricular activities.

And that did not count the entire topic of Oliver Queen.

Laurel's former boyfriend and Sara's on-again, off-again hookup, Oliver Queen took an inordinate amount of interest in the computer genius, but he never pursued it. Rumors flew through the school about all four of them and no one could figure out why the playboy Queen kept his relationship with Felicity platonic.

Watching the Lance sisters close rank around the other girl, Darcy could hazard a guess.

Still – the three girls should not have been friends and yet something bound them together. One day she would figure it out…though it looked like today was not the day as Laurel's measuring gaze turned on her. "Who was bothering Felicity?"

"Savage and Allerdyce's crew," Darcy replied, ignoring Felicity's headshake.

"Darcy," Felicity sighed.

"Nope, no way, genius," she shot back, raising both hands, palms outward. "Don't pull me into this."

"Come on, Felicity," Sara hooked her arm around Felicity's. "We need to get to class."

"You have a free period," Felicity noted as she was pulled down the hall. Laurel kept pace beside them.

"Which is why I'm going to yours."

Darcy smothered a chuckle as the answering sigh echoed back to her. "Weird friendship," she muttered.

"You would know."

She stifled a shriek, but could not repress the small jump in response to the unexpected voice in her left ear. Clint Barton grinned at her as she spun around. "You are such a brat!" she griped, her free hand going out in a half-hearted smack.

"True."

Natasha Romanoff's voice did not surprise her. Where one found Clint, one would find Tasha – it was practically a law of physics in Shield High. Darcy would not call the two students her friends yet, but she held out hope. The two of them tended to ghost through the school, lurking until the perfect moment to scare the hell out of someone.

"And what do you mean I would know?" Darcy demanded as she frowned at Clint.

"Because you've got your own share of weird friends?" he replied.

Tasha nodded. "Jason Todd."

"Okay, leave Jason out of this," she shook her head. "I like Jason."

"He's trouble," Clint pointed out.

Now Darcy rolled her eyes. "Pot, meet Kettle," she muttered.

Tasha gave her a quick smile before she nodded. "Good point."

"Hey!" Clint grumbled at both of them.

"Besides," Darcy continued, "Jason lets me stay in his extra room when Mom brings a guy home." Both of them shifted closer to her. "I'm fine. You know how Mom is." She could almost feel them exchange a glance over her head. "So yeah, leave Jason alone."

"Rogers and Barnes?" Clint tossed out.

"What's so weird about Steve and Bucky?" she demanded.

He lifted brow. "Have you watched ever just watched them?"

"What? The almost telepathic thing they've got?" Darcy poked a finger at his arm as Tasha began to chuckle. "Have you watched the two of you?" She shook her head. "Don't you have psychology with Crane?"

The two of them shrugged and replied in perfect stereo. "He's out today."

"And the creepy twin thing isn't weird at all," she muttered.

"I was about to point out your friendship with us," Tasha replied. Clint chortled as he nodded.

Darcy stuck her nose in the air as they headed down the hall. "Call me weird."