Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Tony nursed a scotch. The last three months had been crazy. Five, really, but he was concentrating on the three immediately preceding one of his top three least favorite phone calls. The second, in fact, only surpassed by the police making their 1991 call to inform him of his parents' car accident. 

Pepper's Dear John phone call. 

Strike that, Pepper's Dear John voicemail.

The whiskey stones floated through swilled scotch and clinked on the glass as he looked out of his private plane's window. Rarely was he early, though, equally rarely was there another person due to snag a ride home that he was waiting on. 

He hadn't deleted the voicemail. He pressed play to hear his crimes repeated in that high voice he knew so well. 

"FRIDAY just informed me that you left the country again. Again , Tony! I haven't seen you in months, even when you're here you're not, you're downstairs in the workshop." 

She took a deep breath on the recording. At first he thought it was sorrow but somewhere between the tenth and thirtieth listen he'd heard the anger so thinly veiled that it was a wonder he ever missed it in the first place even as her voice restarted so quiet.

"I know you have a suit, Tony. The case is missing. I know you have it with you. You promised no more Iron Man. You said you were done and I believed you. Like an idiot."

He looked at the metal case beside him. Small, unassuming, and, despite what she thought, only for emergencies. 

"I thought about giving you another ultimatum but then I realized you would never pick me. Because if you really wanted me, you'd be here. Or at least tell me when you leave the fucking country."

His scars pulled. Heartbreaking, wasn't it? Only in his case Cho had fixed it too well. Glue and sutures holding it together until he healed but it was still fragmented and all he could do for the pain was take another sip of his drink. 

"I'll be moved out of the penthouse when you get back. I'm not your PA anymore. That's what you need, Tony, a PA who puts up with your nonsense and your nightmares is at your beck and call and I can't do it anymore, Tony. I can't." 

Pepper wasn't wrong. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't be trusted around her. Physically fixed heart, sure, but his brain was still a little broken. He tried to protect the world and it blew up spectacularly in his face. Then he tried to protect her and that blew up spectacularly in his face, too. 

"I sweartagod, Jane—" an unfamiliar voice played over the familiar one, regardless of the unfamiliar being obviously further away. He clicked off the oft-heard voicemail.

"Just give me a few more minutes…" that voice was more familiar to Tony. Jane Foster, he'd just hired her to help fit out the astrophysics labs. The other one was a lab partner, probably, trying to goad the woman onto the plane that was due to leave about twenty minutes ago. Luckily he was full of self loathing and scotch and he didn't have anything to go home to. Plus, he was usually the late one, the pilot was probably confused.

"Foster! I am not carrying this science thing to give you more time to get distracted by more science!" Okay, not a lab partner, then. "I made you that breakfast burrito from scratch so you'd have something not sugar- or caffeine-based in your system, if you don't eat that delicious portable protein right-freaking-now I will drop your little science-baby so hard it'll screw down, go through straight to the center of the planet and melt, hear me?" Her voice had gotten more stern and snappish, but somehow it was more 'threatening mother' than 'bullish drill Sergeant' despite her harsh words. 

"But—" Doctor Foster whined. 

"'But' me one more time and I drop it, Foster!" The other voice, apparently coming from a person named Darcy, snarled. Tony looked out of the window again.  There she was, the owner of that voice: a clearly struggling dark haired woman with thick framed glasses, jeans and a loose mauve sweater bunching oddly under the weight of not only the black duffle bag hanging off her shoulder but the oversized-overstuffed pack on her back and what looked to be a large, heavy CPU held with all her strength. She trudged toward the airstairs with a remnant of that snarl still clinging to her lips, more of less sheep-dogging the other woman ahead of her.  Jane Foster, the straight haired woman he'd met and offered employment to just yesterday looking hurriedly worried as she eyed the CPU and unceremoniously shoved a breakfast burrito into her mouth like she was attempting to win a speed-eating contest. He smirked at the sight of the determined dark-haired woman still managing to corral her lab-coated companion to keep moving even as Foster looked as if she was part chipmunk. They disappeared from sight and he managed to school his features, at least a little, though general amusement tended to be his default.

Both walked on to the plane. Foster looked like she hadn't slept, only the remnant of scrambled egg on her lips from that breakfast burrito to suggest she'd ever eaten anything in her life. The woman behind her loaded like a pack mule. Black duffle at her right side, blue carryon by her left side, a backpack on her back and big metal tower CPU object being clung to so hard there were white knuckles and obvious strain. The CPU dropped with a heady thunk but no more than necessary, and then a scraping noise as it was stowed on a nearby table, leaving her packmule's hands available. She was Brunette. Short. Curvy. From far away he could only see the glasses but now with only about 10 feet between them he could see the framed big blue eyes. She barely took note of him as she ushered Doctor Foster to a set of seats and a table on the private jet.

"Who's this?" Tony gestured behind her, surprising Foster's loosely-termed 'muscle' into a little jump and probably heart palpitations.

"Ohfuckme." The unnamed voice said as she calmed down from shock. Her eyes looked to her side and narrowed at Foster, her voice dropping to a pissed-off loud-whisper, "You didn't say Tony Freaking Stark was going to be on your plane, Janey."

"It's his plane," Doctor Foster said, returning the death stare and enunciating in a clipped manner before she looked more neutrally back at Tony Stark. "She's—" Doctor Foster obviously scrambled, "—my specialty equipment." The words tumbled out of her mouth quickly. The curvaceous one let out a huff of indingance bringing Doctor Foster's eyes back to her. Jane threw her hands up in supplication. "What? It was either that or Emotional Support animal."

"And I do not look great in vests." Her friend's irritated face fell into one of complete understanding as she immediately acquiesced. Jane shook her head a little sadly. 

"You really don't." Doctor Foster seemed to say with pity, though neither of them seemed too sad. Darcy took a few steps closer to where he was seated and extended her hand toward him.

"I'm Doctor Foster's intern-slash-best-friend, Darcy Lewis."  He looked at the hand but didn't shake it. 

"I don't shake hands." Tony said and Darcy retracted the offered hand without argument and stepped back, going straight for the mess of stuff already unpacked and thrown haphazardly on the table, but Doctor Foster looked slighted ready to defend her bff's presence. 

"You said I say what I need and I get it. I need her." Jane said almost threateningly. It was like being barked at by a chihuahua, mean and scary but very likely ineffectual. Darcy snorted with amusement at the display. "She knows what else I need."

Tony grunted, trying to make it clear that he neither cared nor needed to know.

 "Set the basics with FRIDAY. She'll hook up to your laptop so you can adjust things for Foster." He pulled down the mask before he could see the welcoming smile on Darcy's face completely melt away.

There was a barely audible huff, half amused, half exhausted before he heard her say "Thanks, Mr Stark."

"Don't call me that." Tony said automatically as he adjusted himself into the back of his chair, leaning it back and making himself comfortable.

"Fun guy." Darcy said under her breath as she got closer to Jane and helped her set up her laptops on the little table of the private jet.

"Yeah, well, he's actually paying for me to do research and its not automatically owned by SHIELD, so…" Jane sat down and barely looked at her as the computers booted up. 

"Gotcha. He is not the jack-booted research thieves. He is all that is good in this world. Rainbows and puppies and reruns of TNG and therefore wonderful." Behind them, an eaves-dropping Tony half-smirked at her phrasing. He started relaxing further when the brunettes whisper smuck through the fog of his sleep. "Okay, Janey, you're all set up here. I'll be just over there, out of your annoyance-radius setting up your protocols if you need something."

"Thanks, Darce." Doctor Foster's voice almost pouted. "I don't know how I'm going to do this without you." 

"With proper funding and qualified assistants." Darcy said with a bit of a smirk in her voice. "I'll call all the time and hopefully, after I hook up to this FRIDAY thing, everything else will be taken care of. You won't even notice I'm gone."

Quiet didn't last long before typing and muttering became background noise.

He fell asleep. 

He shook himself awake, his heart pounded in his ears and the light assaulted him from the edges of the mask. He tore it off and contended with the light instead of the deep dark void of space-slash-facemask. 

Your nonsense and your nightmares. 

He looked round to ground himself. Out the window there were clouds, Doctor Foster was typing and muttering to herself at the table by the front of the plane and behind him on the left came a soft mutter of her assistant. He looked at his watch. It had been less than an hour.

That was about par.

He opened the laptop before him and looked at his screen. He quickly got absorbed into calculations and schematics. His eyes ran over the numbers and letters stacked across his screen as he reached into one of the bowls beside him and tossed a few fresh blueberries into his mouth idly. 

Eventually around the 500th line of code his fingers hit the bottom of the bowl beside him. He quickly looked over, it being one of four snack bowls brought to the empty seat beside him. He devoured the bowl of cashews before positively inhaling the chocolate covered coffee beans and topping it off with the frequently maligned yogurt covered raisins. It wasn't until there was nothing in all four bowls that he stopped. Tony was sated, well sated, and the liquor in his gut didn't seem so acrid. He missed that feeling, honestly it had been over a week since he'd eaten that much without a good dose of libation between courses. Until a thin shadow of a woman with her blue uniform came over and collected the four white bowls with a probably very attractive smile. He didn't react to the flirtatious smile as much as point with a small wave at the empty bowls. "Who ordered these?"

She gestured behind her and back a few rows to the now typing intern jiving to god knows what on her headphones. "The PA did." 

The flight attendant tried to twinkle at him again and he wasn't sad to say she was easily dismissed with a wave of his hand.

He narrowed his eyes as she looked at her laptop screen and continued dancing in her seat to the music on her headphones, occasionally mumbling into what is probably a crappy microphone on the cord of her earbuds. She had a white bowl, too, but its contents were not easily identified as he watched the unknown woman bounce between mouthing along to her music, instructing FRIDAY, and snagging pieces of whatever snack she had in that bowl into her mouth.

Interesting. 

With a few quick taps on his PDA, the text version of the little snack-provider's life sat at his fingertips. His eyes dashed over the information.

Born in Indiana. Parents, two, deceased. Youngest of a big family, blahblah.

Her education was good. Good grades in school for the most part, not a prodigy, but definitely the smart version of normal. She had been accepted by the political science program at Culver. Weird choice for an assistant to an astrophysicist, but she did say best friend in her own job title. The fact that she was 6 credits away from graduating a few years ago but there was no update.

Huh.

He clicked the next option. Embarrassing pictures posted by her friends on various social media sites. A bunch of people with similar features, probably a family photo. Some very old, some recent. She hadn't ever stopped doing embarrassing things or making faces at the camera. He smiled. He had several files like this on himself. Some people didn't, they learned to be poised and erase traces of any tomfoolery. Pepper's voice rang through his head, Your nonsense.

Another set of files popped onto his screen. Old SHIELD files. It would take even FRIDAY a hot second to break the encryptions and dig through to unredact the files. The size of the file was hefty for what it was: There seemed to be quite a few. Not as many files as his own, of course, but definitely bigger than any other civilian's. Which was… interesting again. How would a goofy girl in her twenties get a file that large on old SHIELD's database? There weren't any clues on her social media or background that insinuated anything more than a slightly higher than average IQ and a smart mouth.

He squinted his eyes at the screen as a shadow approached him and his ice was suddenly swapped out for more scotch.

When that shadow again left him, he found himself turning in such a way, sinking back into the plush seat behind him at a new angle in order to see the dark-haired PA mumble more into the microphone on the cord of her technologically ancient earbuds. Curiously, he pressed the button on the side of his own earpiece to hear her.

"And make sure to have trauma counselors on hand and hazard pay coz the first six weeks of Jane breaking in a new assistant those will be needed or there will be some major litigious shenanigans." Her body language was lax but the matter-of-fact tone belied how adept she was at her job. "In fact, maybe look into adding that for everyone's contracts, Scientists are some crazy peeps even when they're not Avengers. It'd make so many things easier with the government, I swear."

"We already offer trauma counselors, Miss Lewis." The AI said over the earbuds.

"Just call me Darcy." She said like it was nothing.

"Mode of Address corrected, Miss Darcy." 

Darcy's reaction to that was immediate; her face did an exaggerated grimace. "Ew, no. I'm not an old lady, a kindergarten teacher, or a dominatrix. Just call me Darcy."

"I cannot countermand my basic programming, Miss Lewis."

"You do it for Stark." Darcy noted aloud.

"The Boss is The Boss." The AI sounded like she'd shrug if she had a body. Darcy rolled her eyes and looked mildly irritated at that answer. 

"FRIDAY. C'mon, girl, you've got I in that AI. Don't mess with your root code. Lewis-comma-Darcy: preferences, mode of address, I'll accept Lewis or Darcy or Ruler of the Universe, but none of that Miss Lewis crap." Darcy paused for a breath. "Or Ma'am." She shuddered at the thought. Tony's mouth twitched a smirk. "Now save and…" She held her breath as she hoped everything worked as she thought it might.

"Yes, Darcy."  

Pure Victory hit Darcy's face and she almost beamed with joy, infecting him with the glee of her unbridled triumph.  "Aces, FRIDAY my gal, you're simply aces."

"What are you teaching my AI?" 

"Shit!" Darcy yelped as she jumped a little. Apparently not his steps down the narrow walkway or his approach were heard, Stark seemingly popped into the seat across the little table from her like magic. A magic smarmy rich guy giving her questioning looks. He couldn't help but smirk at her reaction to his surprising her. Darcy put a hand on her chest and huffed a bit as she quickly regulated her breathing. "I thought everybody was sleeping!"

"I don't sleep." Tony shrugged.

Darcy looked at him, her eyes very penetrating as they assessed his face. "Can't isn't don't."

"That grammar is horrible." Tony said instantly as he changed the subject, "What were you teaching my AI?"

"Uh, preferences?" She gave him an uh-duh face and a shrug, "Am I not supposed to?"

"No, it's fine. That was just…" Tony scrambled for a euphemism that straddled dumb luck and pure genius. "... unique logic."

"I have to function around…" Darcy gestured across the plane with an amused smirk. Tony turned a bit to see Doctor Foster, now sleeping with one hand on her keyboard and her face squashed on the table she was using. He turned back around as Darcy started speaking again. "I just started talking to people in their own language, which tends to do the trick."

"Uh huh." He accepted that answer immediately. "Why did you give me food?"

"It's an eight hour flight and you had serious hangry face." Darcy answered honestly before grinning and nodding in the direction of a door. "That galley is stocked . Do you live on this thing?"

"Sometimes. I didn't ask you to feed me." He answered honestly then changed the subject twice now, Darcy was beginning to suspect a pattern.

"And I didn't, I put bowls next to you. You fed you." She returned. "Very real difference there. Minimal cajoling. You seemed like a snacker."

"Why?"

"Hangry people suck. If you're going to be an ass I didn't want to let you have an excuse other than your personality.'' Darcy said as the words tumbled out of her mouth without a filter. 

"I don't use excuses." He said with a smirk. 

"At least you're honest." Darcy shrugged.

"I never said that," Tony said flippantly.

"No, but somehow it came through anyway." Darcy grinned. 

"Usually I like flattery but right now… No, I still like flattery, go on. Tell me more nice things about me." He rested his chin on his hand and smirked.

Darcy snorted, barely appraising the smug billionaire."There's a weight limit on planes, I don't need to feed your ego, it might be a safety issue" 

Tony straightened his posture infinitesimally for dramatic effect, "I was the second coming of Star Trek the Next Generation a little bit ago."

"Of course you heard that." She said with a laugh in her voice.

He raised an eyebrow. "Little nerdy, isn't it?"

"You try coming from a family of Trekkies and not love TNG." Darcy guffawed. Tony shrugged 

"I always liked Babylon 5 more." Tony said, proving without a trashy tabloid he was, in fact, the world's biggest troll.

"Ugh, gross." Darcy grimaced, "You're lucky you're rich, obviously you don't have much else going for you."

"Ouch, that'd hurt if I weren't this rich, attractive and on my own private plane." Tony paused. "Which you are using." He tapped the table slightly as if to remind her where she was. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Yes, Stark, thank you for saving me fifteen hundred dollars of credit card debt and two more weeks on Hoth."  Darcy said, sounding one hundred percent sincere the whole way through. "And not sending me on an impromptu skydiving trip." 

"A Star Trek reference followed by a Star Wars reference?" Tony's eyebrow rose, "Isn't that sacrilege?"

"My best friend is an actual rocket scientist and I've met an alien." Darcy scoffed. "I think I'm in the clear when it comes to the Trek-Wars."

"So what's your deal with SHIELD?" Tony asked. Talking to this little smarm monster was surprisingly easy, he didn't necessarily want to stop.

"Deal?" She blinked.

He wagged his finger for a moment before putting it back under his chin. "You called them jack-booted thieves earlier."

"Jack-booted research thieves." Darcy corrected with a semi-stern finger shake, "Learn to eavesdrop better." She shrugged. "They stole Jane's research long enough to copy the files. Speaking of, hey FRIDAY?" She looked toward her open lap top and barely waited for an acknowledgment, "Jane's info will all be encrypted to hell and back, right?"

"Her files aren't going anywhere unless otherwise designated, Darcy." The speakers around the room informed her. "Do you want them to go somewhere?"

"No. 'To hell and back.' It's a thing. Meaning through the worst, like in this case, completely and totally locked down." Darcy explained fairly quickly. 

"Of course, Darcy."

"Sweet." She grinned and shut her open laptop before continuing like nothing had ever interrupted her flow. "I mean technically there's no proof they did copy the files, and they gave it all back and pushed her to research harder , but they've been hot on her heels to recruit her and cock-blocking any other avenues for grants. Plus I saw the online info leak. Half of those mofos were, in fact, jack-booted. Not to mention that they pulled crap with Erik."

"Erik?" The name didn't immediately bring anyone to mind. 

"Erik Selvig. He works for you." Darcy nodded. At Tony's lack of immediate recognition-face, she had no problem narrowing it down. "Got possessed by Thor's brother and can't think through his pants."

"Ah," That did it, it all came together and he saw that face in his head. Tony nodded. "I forgot Selvig worked with Foster."

"He's a friend. He went to consult with SHIELD, then… New York …" She swallowed but didn't let the unsaid linger. "A year later I had to smuggle him out of a janky healthcare facility in England so he could science us out of the whole England thing."

"I vaguely remember that." Tony wracked his brain for as many details as he could remember.

"Convergence, space alien elves, a small chunk of England getting wrecked, semi-sentient possessing goo... it was a whole thing." Darcy synopsised for him with a hand wave. "But once Erik had something to do, it tamed the crazies.  So I get to thank you for that, too. Employing Erik and Jane." Darcy's mouth curled at the sides slightly. "And, ya know, saving the world a couple times or something."

Those words felt hollow. Tony's smile fell and he took another sip from his glass as he once again put on the air of flippancy. "That last time was my fault"

"Meh," Darcy shrugged. Her nonchalance made his eyebrow raise. She rolled slightly over and kicked him gently with one of her shoeless feet. "Einstein wasn't trying to make a bomb, we still love his weird ass." Darcy said, matter of factly. It was soothing, slightly, but only tugged at the edges of his guilt. Darcy's whole hand flicked the top of his hair. "And you have better hair than that guy."

"Mmhmf." Tony grunted with an eye roll.

Darcy's eyes narrowed and she looked him over for a second, like he had said something more with his grunt-eye roll combination. She seemed to look straight through him. He was not a fan of that. His normal reaction was to be standoffish or change the subject, but he didn't have a chance to change the subject, she piped up.

"Wanna watch a shitty movie?" 

Relief flooded him immediately, his face betrayed his surprise, but he shrugged again. "Yeah sure."

Darcy opened her laptop and offered him an earbud as she turned it so they both could see the screen. Tony snorted a laugh and pointed with his scotch toward the back of the plane towards a lounge area with a television monitor up on the wall and shiny tan sofa beneath it. She automatically shrugged and stood, walking over to the area he indicated with him right behind her. She grabbed her laptop with one hand and her drink with the other as she followed him to the twenty or so feet to the lounging couch.

Tony leaned up against the wall and motioned her to sit. She passed him, but paused and raised an eyebrow and smirked at the man behind her. "Am I going to get hepatitis sitting there?" 

He narrowed his eyes with a returned smirk. "It's clean."

Darcy sat happily, easily getting comfortable on the leather sofa. She put one foot under the other leg's thigh, lap top plopping on her lap and drink still in her hand. She stretched her arms on the back of the long couch and looked up to the wall-mounted screen above her. Darcy looked at Tony. "Can you even watch a movie on that thing?"

Everything began moving around her, like she was getting the spins. Her initial reaction was to cling to the sofa in surprise but a quick, panicked glance at Tony saw his genuine smirk as he watched the scene. It took a moment to realize that a section of floor had moved like a lazy susan and stopped at the ends of the sofa she was sitting on. The rotating stopped smoothly and she was now fully facing the large television on the wall. He flicked another switch as soon as the spinning stopped, behind the sofa a partition slowly started scrolling up out of the floor and down from the ceiling. The room darkened to movie theater-like lighting. Darcy, a bit awed, narrowed her eyes at his self-satisfied smirk.

"Show off." She said with a smile. "Do I want to know what the last two buttons do?" She waggled her fingers at the two remaining retro toggles he hadn't yet flipped. Tony smirked and he was about to open his mouth with a finger poised to flip the next one when Darcy cut him off, "You know what? Nevermind. Don't tell me." He shut his mouth but his hand twitched at the switches. "— Or show me " That waggly finger turned toward him in a kind of weirdly joking manner and cringed dramatically. "FRIDAY can you hook up the TV to my laptop?"

"It's ready, Darcy." 

"Eeexcellent," she seemed a touch malevolent there. Darcy twiddled her fingers before setting them down on her keyboard and typing a few things, inevitably queueing up her choice of movie. Tony flagged down one of the flight attendants.

"We'll take more drinks and…" he looked at the brunette just to the left of him.

"Popcorn!" Darcy nodded and tossed him a thumbs up as she took a sip of her drink. 

Tony looked back at the flight attendant. "Ms. Lewis and I need popcorn."

He sat down with a flop on the sofa a few feet from Darcy as she raised her voice and tried to aim it at the open door area. "Thank you!" Tony looked at her oddly. Darcy shrugged. "It doesn't hurt to be polite." 

"I pay them." He stated flatly.

"They handle your food." Darcy instantly reminded him. Tony smirked.

"Point taken." In no time at all the woman was back, women, really, there were two of them now, one with a ceramic bowl of popped kernels and another woman holding filled glassware.

"Thank you." Tony said, managing to sound genuine then he pointedly looked at Darcy. Both other women left as he grabbed the bowl from the table near him and placed it smack between them so they could both reach it easily. 

"Ready?" Darcy grinned widely. It was gorgeous and a little scary.

"What movie are we watching?" He asked as the credits started up. It looked old, older than her, anyhow, maybe younger than him. 

"Donno." She grinned.

"Have I mentioned I don't like surprises?" 

"Maybe," Darcy shrugged, her lips still smarmily upturned. "I wasn't listening."

Her grin was infectious. 

The plane's wheels skid to a stop and the ladder was slid over to the doors. Happy ascended the ladder as the door was opened from the inside. Two women talking over what looked to be a table covered in various portable instruments. Happy was in charge of tower security, or trying to be, and he was more than acquainted with the picture of Tony's newest employee, Dr. Foster. He looked around but saw the separating wall. He grabbed Tony's luggage -he knew those by sight- and started back toward the door as the two others talk-argued.

"Dr. Foster," Happy said with his arms loaded with Tony's bags. "Your equipment is being loaded into the moving van, they'll take you to the tower."

Tony came out of the back room holding a feminine chunky purple sweater. The doctor nodded a thanks as the dark haired one crossed the plane to Tony to take the purple sweater from him. 

"You forgot your sweater."

"Thanks, Stark." She smiled in a lazy way and took the sweater.  She slung it over her arm and seemed to smile familiarly. Relaxed. Happy rolled his eyes, while they'd kept the break up quiet, Pepper and Tony's break-up was bound to get to the media. It was even money on whether or not Tony was going to slip back into his old ways. From the way Tony and this other woman were looking at each other, that bet was over. 

"I'm going to go help Janey now." She said like a goodbye.

"We have movers for that." Tony said like he was enticing her for round two.

"Don't expect them to get much done." She half snorted, "Jane is picky."

"I am not! I just don't trust the uneducated!" Dr. Foster inserted as she closed down the last of her mobile work-station, seeming to toddled her head and pause. "Except you."

"Ah, to be seen." Darcy smiled a little jokingly. She saw Jane glare at a flight attendant who dared touch her equipment and nearly start snarling. "I better go. There's a 70-30 chance Jane will cause one of your employees to lose a hand." She shrugged and sighed before offering a hand to Tony. "It's been real, Stark."

Tony took the other woman's hand and shook it with a slow, brilliant grin before sliding on his tinted glasses. "Definitely an interesting afternoon, Lewis."

Happy rolled his eyes and left the airplane to load the car, Tony behind him.

Chapter Text

Hours ago his body had switched to autopilot, soldering a circuit board was second nature. He usually farmed out such banal, low tech steps out to the less important minions somewhere below his penthouse, but sleep isn't forthcoming he thought maybe something so basic might lull him off to sleep. Either that or plan b, drinking until he passed out: given that his scotch glass was still depressingly untouched, something in him just wasn't interested in going that route tonight. Not after such an eventful afternoon on the flight. Plus, it would probably take more alcohol than his usual given that he had actually eaten today. Unlike… he couldn't remember when. Weeks? Months. Before Pepper's voicemail, probably. 

Tony wasn't joking when he said it had been an interesting afternoon. He hadn't shot the shit with anybody except Rhodey in Forever, even with Rhodes involved it was… nearly forever. And here this little, stacked intern kept him fed and entertained for seven hours without having sex with him. Was this what growth was like?  

The circuit board took a break. His hands wanted to do something else as he tapped on the holotable.

SHIELD had had files on her. She was apparently there in New Mexico when Thor landed. Tony narrowed his eyes; He'd seen that file before, that footage. She hadn't stuck out. Then again, giant fire-shooting suits of armor and big red capes tended to draw the eye.

The Irish accent of FRIDAY came in through his earpiece. "There are four cell phone recordings of the incident, some one of her approximate body mass is present 75 percent of it." 

"She wasn't just a bit player, then." Tony said to himself. His voice raised a bit, "Time-sync and give me a timeline."

It took a minute to collate, but as soon as it was done the classified video footage started playing, a grey hatted and slightly younger but clearly her constantly ran on the periphery of shots. It was clearly only 4 cell phones of footage of the destructive metal man being fought by what looked like a surfer dude. It was 106 seconds, more if you considered her running out of any camera's range and returning, it was probably 4 minutes for her as she seemingly ran away —and towards— the giant, alien, killer suit of armor. The quality waned and waxed per crappy cell phone footage, but. He paused it.

"What is she doing?" He asked idly. He squinted his eyes and took his eyes from a pinched in stance and opened them wider on her blurry and hunched form, her dark jacket clearly stretched around something, her back slightly curved as she huddled, expanding the picture only pixelated the image more but… 

He sat back as he realized:  It was a puppy. She was saving puppies.

Tony snorted a laugh watching the enlarged image play as she ran with the animal crammed in her coat, keeping it safe.

FRIDAY spoke again. "I am trying to recreate some of her speech based on her lip movements in some of the videos with higher resolution, boss. Would you like to see it in subtitles?"

He grunted a quiet affirmative noise and waited the requisite seconds for his tech to catch up. It was not accurate, and possibly autocorrected as Darcy previously had not used any water fowl as interjections during their nearly seven hour conversation. 

…she's swearing and naming the puppies and shoving them at fleeing people as she ran back into a building —that was still on fire, beside a fire-throwing giant — and got another puppy. The last bit of video caught her corralling costumed people into a van like a sheep dog before jumping in the driver's seat.

The next bit was soundless. It was obviously some kind of security camera. She was with Dr Foster in a fairly sterile looking room with equipment that looked like the same stuff they'd just moved off the plane. She typed fast with a weird expression on her face, a cross between concentration, constipation, and irritation. The whole time Doctor Foster seemed to be giving two blonde guys the time of day. Darcy finally stopped and her eyes narrowed and turned on them as she turned the screen. He could see it now. Multiple shots of the same thing. His spine tingled as he recognized the Battle of New York. As he got over the initial reaction to it, the situation before him clicked: She hacked her way into SHIELD footage?

The next one was hard to keep up with. Things seemed to randomly appear like bad cuts in a movie.  There was Doctor Selvig, so he knew where it was without an extra thought. The convergence in England. He's seen that footage, too. He only paid attention to Point Break and the scientists, and of course he had read about the collected data. He sipped his scotch. Again it was patched together from multiple CCTVs: her running, zapping, being bait, kissing a younger guy, tasing someone in dark clothes… the highlight of her footage seemed to be when she was lying on the ground and lamenting life while people were still fleeing randomly around her. She laid back and just blinked at the sky, her mouth moving just enough to assume it was a little mumble. 

The subtitles there were clear below her: 

[Duck my life, really.]

He almost shot his good scotch out of his nose. 

She was funny. Hilarious, even. And obviously good at her job. There was more, further in her past, details missed or skipped in the amalgam of more current information, but somehow it mattered less. For now. (He'd probably watch later.)

He didn't even blink as he watched the clip again, Duck my life still amusing the shit out of him. "FRIDAY is Lewis still here?" As he spoke he saw that there were a series of audio files from various calls into the SHIELD switchboard, 128 audio files. 

"Miss Lewis is on floor 5 with Doctor Foster."

"Take me there." He pushed himself away from his work desk and went toward his elevator. "And download video and audio files and send them to my personal servers."

He heard them talking almost as soon as he got out of his elevator. He wouldn't be able to see them until the junction of the T hallway, but he could hear them just fine. Darcy's voice was more than a little distinctive at this point.

He didn't spy around the main hall, but he did just watch. They were dragging the large hand truck filled with heavy ass equipment: Two slight women probably dragging a thousand pounds of tech from the van, up the freight elevator, and to her lap. Passing other labs and an open door break room. They were sweaty. They were moving like they were sore. This is obviously not the first trip they had made with the heavy dolly. 

"— in the land of superheroes." There was a loud gripe from Darcy. He missed the first part of the sentence,  but her voice was unmistakable: Darcy Lewis complaining sounded remarkably like Darcy Lewis snarking, but with a harder edge to it. "Or the movers that your new boss pays for. In the Avengers Headquarters! We could have superhero movers, Jane! Or at least those very helpful beefy guys down on level one who very rightly pointed out that we two indoor types are moving our fifth - fifth!- load of tech to the fifty-seventh freaking floor!"

"Its not fifty-seven," Jane rolled her eyes at the exaggeration. "Funny how they didn't say anything those other four times." Jane grunted beside her. Their feet were slowly and methodically moving in tandem as their arms pulled the handle bar of a very heavy trailer full of tech.

A very inelegant huff-slash-pffft noise escaped from Darcy's mouth. "Like you'd have let them touch your stuff anyway."

"It might have helped if we hadn't gotten lost." Jane griped, "Twice."

"Well you said we didn't have time for a tour and pissed off the guy at the kiosk. I'm totally taking a self-guided tour right after this." Darcy noted. Her limbs ached in a there's-no-way-you're-done-with-this-shit kinda way. She groaned, "Maybe not right after this. I might need some rum. And a nap. I am not made for manual labor. I'm tired and I'm sore and tired."

"It would have been better if you slept on the plane like I did," Jane said with a modicum of pride. A modicum that immediately made Darcy scoff as they kept rolling the heavy cart.

"You didn't sleep, you passed out from exhaustion because you existed solely on coffee and poptarts for three days prior." Darcy said with her eyes rolling hard.

"Tomato-tomato." Jane said, leaving tomato pronounced the same way twice like a psychopath. The rolling cart was heavy and they had to use their entire body weights to get the damn thing moving again, and then it took a good old fashioned stare-down to get a couple of lab-coated goons to get out of their way. As soon as Darcy had stared holes into their heads and they had passed each other, she continued speaking.

"Besides, is it bad I kinda had a blast with Tony?" Darcy asked with a minor eyebrow raise. The lab-coated goons stiffened and slowed a little behind them. Jane looked at Darcy, very confused but desperate to ignore the fact that she was sweating and tired.

"I know. Don't think I didn't hear. You and Tony were very loud." Was it just her or did the labs start opening their doors? Well, it was around lunch time. She ignored it. Scientists were weird.

Darcy stopped pulling as hard, almost putting her strength into her vehemence instead of pulling. "The flight was like seven hours, Jane! What was I supposed to do! He was there, he was bored, I was there, I was bored…"

"Oh, Darcy." Jane admonished, horrified that she was using that excuse.

Darcy scoffed and pulled harder."If you're in a room with the Tony Stark and you don't do something stupid, what are you even doing with your life?"

"...Science?" Jane said with a slow turn in through the open double doors to her assigned and very spacious lab.

Tony caught up to them when they fully pulled into Foster's new lab. They were too wrapped up in themselves or exhausted to really see or care that he was now very visible and listening to their conversation. He leaned against the frame of the open double doors and blatantly crossed his arms as he listened. 

"I see all those lectures on a work-life balance have gotten through to you," Darcy groused. They finally stopped moving the dolley laden with heavy metal equipment. Darcy threw herself on a wheeled, black desk chair and slacked her body in exhaustion while Jane actually leaned on the dolly's pull bar, letting it hold her up instead of relying on her body. Both took deep breaths.

Breathlessly, Jane replied. "Those lectures were just about sex and you know it." 

Darcy pointed at the vague area she'd left Jane in as her neck leaned back over the top of the chair. She waggled her finger in the direction of Jane's voice.

"Shut up, Foster, you loved it," Darcy rolled her eyes fondly, and breathed out a huff. "and don't lie, some of those pointers totally helped you out during your Norse Worship era."  

Jane snorted, but didn't argue. She straightened out her body again, mumbling something about not getting any data for the last nine hours and twenty-seven minutes and Darcy rolled her eyes as she was reminded for the umpteenth time this afternoon that her bestie was a freaking crazy person. Darcy took that cue to stand back up, too, and immediately started taking very damn heavy machines off the trolley and putting them vaguely the same setup as they'd had in Trömso, Puente Antiguo, and London at her Mom's. As Darcy put it down with a groan, Jane started connecting and booting up the machine. Darcy moved back to the dolley and picked up another heavy ass chunk of metal, grumbling something about inequity of lab moving, unpaid physical labor, and Foster's stupid spaghetti arms.

"Don't make fun of my arms again!" Foster scolded  in a slightly affronted manner, "They're sciencey!" 

"Stark does science, too and his arms were decidedly not sciency. Yowza." Darcy said provocatively as she waggled her eyebrows. She definitely hadn't noticed him calmly standing there, and that was hilarious. Tony puffed up a bit at the semi-eavesdropped praise. He was doing nothing to draw attention to or hide himself.

"Yet, instead of engaging with those arms, you convinced him to watch a bunch of culty musicals with you for hours!" Jane scoffed.

Darcy laughed at the thought; Yup, she did that. Darcy tilted a pallet truck with a big thing on it to move it towards where it was supposed to head. She shook her head in disbelief and chuckled a breath. "I won't be surprised if he sobers up and presents both of us with NDAs for that." 

"Yeah that might happen." Tony piped in from the doorway. He watched both of them stiffen and do a miniature jump where they were.

"Holyfuck," left Darcy's mouth in a surprised breath, the tilted palate truck in her hands hiccuping its position as she re-gripped it and looked at him with a death glare.

"Yes I am." Tony smirked, his arms crossed as he leaned against the door frame.

Darcy snorted a laugh as she caught her breath, "Ass." She let down the palate truck where the large metal-and-glass thing was going to go. She didn't even turn to him to say it but the smirk was in her voice as sure as a snarky comment was in his. "And how long have you been there?"

"Oh, sometime around lamenting the lack of superhero movers." He said smarmily. Darcy blushed but only for a second.

"Or at least some beef-tastic arms." Darcy leaned into her slight embarrassment, narrowed her eyes on his arms and shook her head in an admonishing manner. "But don't bother offering, it's all here now."

"You two didn't exactly stop talking for me to slip in." Tony tilted his head and looked at her over the top of his slightly tinted glasses. "You done here?"

"Gimme a sec." Darcy waved him off, but he didn't move. She made sure to pace herself as she went between the machines: She sauntered around to plug a few things in, pressed the power buttons and heard the tell-tale whir of the fans booting up and cooling the freaking million electronic dealies around the room. Darcy didn't acknowledge the fact that technically that pace was a bit faster than the one she usually used in her button-pressing assistantship. 

 "Welp. They're all powered up. I'll hop on the connection and scan everything to make sure it works tomorrow. Am I done here?" Darcy put her hands on her hips and turned to Jane.

…who was already staring at data and therefore unreachable to anything not a string of data. Darcy smiled a little and shook her head fondly as she recognized Severe Science Face on her resident crazy lady. This wasn't the first time, but, as a pang hit her square in the chest at the sight,  it was damn near the last.  She hesitated. 

"I have rum." Tony shrugged with a nonchalant face as he looked at Darcy out of the corner of his eye. 

Any of Darcy's hesitation disappeared as she turned to Tony and nodded eagerly. "Then I am done here."

"What do you want first, rum or tour?" He waved his hands to the hallway.

She huffed with her smile, snagged her bag and walked up to him. "And they say you don't listen."

"Sorry, what? I wasn't listening." He said with a shrug. "That was a vote for both, right?"

Darcy laughed at him and pulled him up from the door frame, turning him around and pointing him to the hallway. He smirked and let her direct him, but with a second thought she had aimed the both of them toward the regular elevator. Tony took her wrist quickly and turned in the opposite direction, headed toward his private elevator, pulling her willingly along.

"Express elevator," he answered the unasked question waiting to break out of her face, his arm giving hers an insistent tug as he dragged her along. "This way, come on."

The private express elevator didn't feel like it moved before it opened on his floor. The fact that this elevator opened directly into his living room seemed like overkill, really, but it was his main home now. It wasn't intended to be but he'd always allowed for the possibility. There were blissfully few half-empty boxes scattered around the walls and tables from the movers, but the space was clean and open and well lit. The sheer size of the place floored Darcy: Marble floors, while sofa, fully stocked kitchen and a hallway that lead to more. Her eyes nearly bulged for a moment as her awe was mumbled under her breath. Tony couldn't help smirking, it was like seeing something awesome through someone else's eyes, and he hadn't even shown her the good stuff yet. He reigned in his enjoyment milliseconds before she managed to do the same. He pointed with both hands toward the wet bar across from one of the seating areas.

"Living area," he pointed at the room they had entered and kept walking. Darcy trailed behind him as she looked at the absolutely massive room. Tony pointed to a doorway with a large table easily seen through it, "—Dining area—" his hand pointed to a large state of the art kitchen over a half wall, "—Probably a kitchen—" his hand swung towards a hallway "—Few bedrooms." He shrugged as he managed to cross to the wetbar and then pointed down the opposite way to another hallway. "That way's an office or two and another bed, probably." 

"Nice tour." Darcy snorted a laugh as she walked into the spacious living area. She noted a few half-opened boxes near the exit. "Get a shipment of boxes?"

"Yup." Tony answered succinctly, gesturing to the bar. "What do you want?"

"The good stuff?" Darcy said, recognizing the deflection for what it was. 

"Like I'd have any other kind." He held up and ice cube with some tongs, "Rocks?"

"Gimme." Darcy made grabby hands for a moment and Tony smirked as he dropped the icecube into the glass and handed it to her. Before he picked up his own and walked around to the front of the bar. She smiled her gratitude and Tony nodded as the two of them quickly and gently clinked their glasses. 

She immediately downed it. Darcy's throat tingled with a burn and even her breath felt a little raspy but it was surprisingly smooth. However, apparently Tony wasn't used to people doing shots with his good rum. He snorted at the sight. 

"Good?" He smirked.

"Not sure, lemme try again." Darcy held her glass out teasingly. Tony didn't hesitate to take it and refill it, this time leaving the bottle on the top of the bar.

"Be nice to this one." He handed it back with one of his near-patented single raised Stark Eyebrow (™).

Darcy narrowed her eyes at him teasingly and took another sip of her drink. "I could get used to this 'drinking during office hours' thing."

"It's after eight pm." Tony said matter-of-factly. "I know my work ethics are a bit open for interpretation but I think I was told that typical work days end sooner than this."

"Janey's still in the lab thus it is still a work hour." Darcy shrugged. "You know what I mean, you don't exactly seem the type to live a nine to five either, Iron Man ." She said his moniker pointedly and grinned a buy. He half shrugged and raised his eyebrows for a second to admit she was right.

"That was a kind of unceremonious send off. No tears between besties?" He said as he leaned back against the bar. 

"Hardly," Darcy smiled, her smile was almost genuine but there was a tightness to it. The idea made her sad, he could tell, he was familiar with emotional deflection even though her voice remained bright. "It'll be waterfalls, flash-floods, monsoons ; all will drown in salty tears, there will be no survivors." She sipped her drink quickly. "Tomorrow, though. I'll be back here in the morning for an equipment double check and the official good-bye. Tonight she has data to obsess over."

Darcy randomly squatted down and poked at the contents of a random box for a second. 

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Are you done being nosey?"

"Nope. I've gotta get my kicks somehow." Darcy said as she stood back up. She nudged the heavy box of books with her foot across the room towards a bookshelf, giving up when there were a few feet left but that was still way closer than it had been.

"Auditioning to be my maid?" His Stark Eyebrow raised again, slathering everything in charm and smarm. "I might have an outfit around here somewhere "

"Pfft, might." Darcy laughed a bit, knowing there was a higher likelihood of that being true in his rooms than in pretty much anyone else's, except maybe Hugh Hefner's. "I'm not a maid, I'm an instigator. Like I instigate you to take care of your damn self."

He snorted and refilled her glass again. 

"Packed boxes, sofa, fireplace, big TV, fully stocked wet bar… random golf cart…" Darcy noted the pulled in red vehicle, its shiny red paint reflecting off the marble floor. She looked at him and took another drink, "...you don't actually like being here."

"Why would you think that?" 

"It's the whole needs thing. Sustenance," she shook her glass a bit, "socialization," she nodded her head slightly, "safety — which is kinda implied," she admitted, "but stimulation…" Darcy sipped down as she scanned the room quickly. "...Which I don't see." She simply shrugged a little. "I just expected you to be the type to be constantly waist deep in awesome tech."

At the words awesome tech Tony smirked appreciatively and filled her drink a little more in agreement. She grinned at her now seemingly untouched drink.

"I honestly expected you to sleep in the place you do all your…" Darcy took another sip and swallowed, looking around the large room without seeing what she expected "tinkering."

"Tinkering?" He looked a little insulted or a little curious.

"Electrical and mechanical engineer who invents stuff and doesn't technically have a job description on the SI database?" She paused either for him to refute it or simply for dramatic pause. "Tinkering is totally your word."

"You're right, I'm rarely here." Tony grunted. "It's all down in my workshop."

Realization dawned over her face. "I'm guessing fewer people see that than this."

"Expecting to be one of the few?" Tony swirled his drink.

"Super nope." Darcy said quickly. He would have balked but her bluntness was refreshing by comparison to the various levels of antagonism and sycophantism that were around him.  "I am expecting a better tour of the building after we're properly hydrated, though." Darcy took a quick sip and let the liquid sit in her mouth for a couple seconds and looked at him as he studied her. "But right now, it's time for food." 

Damn she was bossy. "Is that a request or an instruction?"

"Both?" Darcy blinked then suddenly flashed a brilliant, innocent smile.

"Hm." Tony said, only having known her a day he knew better and remained unmoved by the faux innocence. "You don't usually warn me."

"I thought you'd be more amenable to an actual meal after a half a day with a full stomach. Snacks are all well and good but a meal with a friend?"

"A friend?" He raised an eyebrow at her again. "You're drunk."

"Definitely on my way," Darcy snorted, taking a quick drink from her glass and emptying it. " Fine . I'm a… temporary acquaintance who only sort of makes fun of you. To your face."

He grabbed the bottle and refilled her now empty glass. "And drinks all my rum."

That forced a genuine grin out of her. "That's what friends are for."

"There's Thai food in the commissary," Tony led, his voice almost gaining a taunting quality. "Chef's dedicated to authenticity."

"Ugh, I could go for some good Thai." She tried to drink from her empty glass. Food would do her good. 

"Hold this," Tony instructed as he took her empty glass and gave her his still full one. She sipped it. He raised his voice, "FRIDAY. Thai for two, ASAP. Eta?"

"Delivery in 37 minutes, Boss."

"37 minutes." Tony made a face and looked like the words tasted horrible in his mouth.

"You really have zero patience, don't you?" Darcy smiled as he poured more rum into the empty glass.

"I'd disagree but it would take too long." He handed her the refilled glass and took his back. "Ever think of it as you being too patient?"

"Oh I'm super not." Darcy laughed, "Just less crazy than you , apparently."

He snorted. "I think people in my tax bracket call it eccentric."

"Call it what you want, crazy is crazy. Foie Gras is liver, aioli is mayonnaise, and… damn I'm hungry. 37 minutes you said?" Tony nodded at Darcy's question. She raised an eyebrow looking at the golf cart and then back to him with as devious a smile as he'd ever seen. "How much of that is delivery time?"

Tony smiled wickedly. 

Happy was not amused. It had been a long day. He had checked in three new science teams, a medical team, had an embarrassing security breach that turned out to be a cadre of squirrels (for his own sanity, Happy swore Tony would never find out about that one). Not to mention just before he checked out for the night when he suddenly had an inbox full of his specially filtered Tony-involved incidents.

…Of course.

The first, a report from lab 15 of a Hostile Work environment and HR situation ("baudy and lewd exchange") in the hallway followed by a similar complaint ("sexually charged shouting") from 10. 

Dr. Foster (security tag #F-466) and Overnight Pass 26628 were dragging items through the hall. Heavy stuff, on dollies, they were a little shiny and disheveled. He recognized Overnight Pass 26628 as the girl on the jet coming in.

Doctor Foster rolled her eyes on the screen. "I know. Don't think I didn't hear. You and Tony were very loud." 

"The flight was like 7 hours, Jane!" Overnight Pass 26628 was loud. "What was I supposed to do! He was there, he was bored, I was there, I was bored…"

Sadly, not the first time he'd heard that about Tony on security feed. Or in person. Or in passing. Once in a magazine next to the grocery check out. Happy sighed as Doctor Foster shared his sentiment and his semi disappointed face.

"Oh, Darcy." 

"If you're in a room with the Tony Stark and you don't do something stupid, what are you even doing with your life?"

A sigh rooted in his soul. Of course Tony would. It was Tony. He was untethered from Ms. Potts and reverted more than he'd like; it had taken some time but Old Tony had obviously returned. He clicked over to the next incident forwarded to him.

The video started muted. 

A golf cart with two passengers whipped around a corner and zoomed through a hallway and out of the range of the camera. 

He tapped the screen and the video paused. 

Happy didn't really have to check even though everything was a blur in the video, the image was clear when he paused: dark-haired male with yellow tinted glasses and a familiar smirk driving a gold and hot-rod red golf cart inside a building with a glass in his left hand. With a woman.

He widened his fingers on the screen and, because it was a Stark Property, at least the resolution was great enough for the faces. Both confirmed. Tony and Overnight Pass 26628.

Happy sighed the undisputed king of all sighs and tapped again, replaying the footage this time with volume.

The female voice was jovial and only a little drunk. "Isn't this drunk driving?"

"This thing has a 10 mile per hour maximum speed," Tony's normal cockiness oozed through. "I'm pretty sure that's considered motorized drunk jogging with bumpers and intelligent breaks."

"...Why do I think this isn't your first time with scotch on a golf cart?" She had a laugh and what sounded like a bucket of sarcasm in her voice. At least she had half a brain, though that wasn't really an indicator of anything. Happy immediately recalled eight incidents pre-2007, this being being the first reported incident in years. 

Tony laughed. 

Happy puzzled at that sound: it wasn't odd, really, except that lately it felt rarer these days to hear a genuine laugh like that. That sound was severely less rare before the great schism months ago. Pepper. And now with this random woman? 

Happy rolled his eyes at the thought of Tony's potential spiral back into his playboy ways: it was hitting more and more likely.

"I'm not the one who almost fell out of the golf cart—"

"You were taking the corners so fast!" She let out a hearty laugh and put her arms up like she was on a roller coaster as they rounded another corner and the image switched to another camera's view of the two joyriders. The arm holding the scotch flew around her waist as he took another corner at full speed, tossing her around and pulling her closer to him.

"Don't worry, I won't let you fall, Lewis." Tony winked.

Happy face-palmed: this didn't bode well.

Chapter Text

Tony groggily opened his eyes. They were dry, so was his throat, but at least he was in bed. He didn't fully recognize this bed as his yet, it had been weeks since he stopped living with Pep and he'd only used the thing maybe half a dozen times. He grunted and sat up. Slung his legs over the side of the bed to sit and looked at the emptiness behind him. 

Well. At least there's that. 

And he was fully dressed, besides.

He turned back and stretched. And reached over to grab the bottle of water off the side-table. It took half of the bottle to even register that he hadn't put it there. 

Darcy.

He looked at the table again, knowing that, before yesterday, it was empty. That bottled water was there and a bottle of aspirin (he immediately took 2), the side-table's drawer was open slightly and revealed a bag of spicy almonds in it. And he was in a bed, alone, and damn if he didn't feel rested.

As if reading his mind, Friday spoke up quietly. 

“You were asleep for six hours, fifty-seven minutes and 13 seconds, Boss.”

He grunted an acknowledgement and stood. It wasn't hard to hear an echo of a soft snore of another breather somewhere in this place.

Six hours of sleep. Nearly seven. New, epic even, even for alcohol-induced naps. At his worst he'd get three hours before a jolt or a nightmare set in and sleep would once again be hard-fought and replaced with work. One afternoon with Darcy Lewis —who, according to her record, had previously been the caretaker to a few scientists (people who generally replaced sleep with work)— and he slept for more than three hours. And there she was, fully clothed, on one of the guest beds with her legs inelegantly curled like an inebriated angel with a small amount of drool and his aviator sunglasses that she'd managed to snag at some point that night sitting crookedly on her face. 

He remembered a flash of last night, Darcy looking around and smiling at the sheer awesomeness that was his workshop with those glasses on. He knew she took them from him at some point, but he either didn't notice or didn't care. She slurped noodles from her Thai food. A noodle whipped her lips as she sucked it in and gave a high-five to Dum-E's grasper arm, “Sustenance, Safety, Stimulation!” and the grin. 

And Socialization, apparently.  

It was pretty good socialization, he had to hand it to her.

Darcy hadn't balked at his brash or crude saying or his (according to HR and Pep) "lawsuit-worthy" sexual harassment. Instead she'd rolled her eyes and given as good as she got without actually giving . It was all talk, jokes, — they hadn't so much as had a prolonged hug; he would say it was platonic ribbing if it weren't for the fact that he'd still hit that. 

But he didn't. He didn't feel the need to. She was entertaining enough without it. 

Maybe that wasn't a thing he should let go of.

Darcy groaned a little as consciousness crept in and the who-what-when-where-whys of the night weren't coming up immediately and that usually meant drinking. She was asleep on her stomach, which was rare, on a comfy thing —bed hopefully— but not hers: waking up in unfamiliar territory was sadly not completely unheard of. Jane's propensity for random sciencing locales but the fact that the luxury was a pretty dubious thing was new: comfortable in the extreme, the buttery soft fabric beneath her fingers, ridiculously comfortable temperature, and the vaguely familiar smell of alcohol and dude.

Her eyes went from closed to the size of saucers in comprehension and a tiny bit of panic at that last part:

And. Dude.

She forced herself up on her elbows and looked around, fancy, clean, huge floor to ceiling windows with the sun coming in, and wow did he know how to pick out a good view. Darcy groaned at herself and fully face planted into one of the cloud-fluffy pillows in slight mortification and a teeny bit of hangover. The memories were there, but fuzzy and quick— rum, cart, rum, food, run, workshop, at some point back to the penthouse apparently— Then there was a snicker from across the room, because of course there was.

The who-what-when-where-whys all instantly came back to her with that smarmy-ass chuckle at her expense.

Darcy rolled her soon-to-suffocate-on-heavenly-pillows face towards the voice and stared: there he was, Tony freaking Stark, all t-shirt and jeans and charm and leaning on the door frame again, staring at her probably pathetic form all collapsed on one of his fine beds, smirking and not looking at all hungover, the ass. 

"What time is it?" Darcy's throat was filled with frogs and asphalt.

"Four," Tony said after a quick look at his watch. Darcy's eyes bugged a bit as she unsuccessfully tried to do simple math. "P-M." He added, making that simple math easier but the realization of the late hour kinda worse. "We did salute the sunrise with whiskey and middle fingers." Tony smirked. Darcy had a lazy sleep-drunk smile at that. 

Her grin got bigger for a second and she rolled her tired body to a sitting position. 

"Jane's probably still working. I should get her to shove some food in her face and fight her until she goes to bed." She paused and her nose tickled, a weight settling on her chest. Darcy pouted, "Aww. This will be the last time I do that. Damn you, booze-induced emotions."

"There, there,” Tony deadpanned from the doorway.

"Mine is a sad life." She sighed a sarcastic sigh, crushing down those sneaky feels. "I need coffee first. The Jane battle is best fought while hopped up on legal stimulants."

 Tony smirked at her, his perpetual face towards her apparently, before speaking out loud as he pushed off the door frame and walked into the penthouse at large. "FRIDAY, two large coffees, jet fuel strength."

Darcy got to her feet as she heard a vague lilting voice from above, probably answering him. She was still dressed, but after quickly making sure that her ample assets were still where they were supposed to be and not playing early-morning peek-a-boob (the tata version of peek-a-boo), she padded barefoot after him into a very open air kitchen. 

There was a big ass machine (but really, in Tony's place, what wasn't a big-ass machine?) built into a wall in the kitchen. There were lights and buttons and a display, and two fancy tumblers the size of small children under a spout one after the other. Complicated and high-tech though it was, the fact that it was a coffee maker suddenly made it all the more awesome. The stream of dark liquid never looked so enticing. He gestured for her to hit buttons, watching her eyes widened over the high-tech batista machine ready and willing to pop out customized deliciousness on-call. Options like sugar and cream and flavoring and whiskey (it was Tony's machine, after all) dripped into the cups accordingly and Darcy took her dark khaki colored life-giving elixir (she lattéd that shit up) and sipped it. There may have been groaning as soon as it passed her lips, she'd never admit to it.

"Thanks, Stark." Darcy smiled. "Best parting gift ev-er."

Tony grunted, something crunching in his hand, expression or emotion. He covered it up with a sort of bored curiosity as Darcy closed her eyes and smelled her coffee. "What's on the agenda today?" 

"Nada, I wasn't even supposed to be in the country until tomorrow." Darcy said, keeping her eyes closed and gripping her large coffee like a life preserver. She sipped it and reveled in its deliciousness. "I'm off to my apartment and roommates and job searching, joy of joys."

"That'll be a quick job search." Tony rolled his eyes. Darcy's brow squished and she looked confused, obviously more intent on using her mouth for caffeine inhalation than taking the moment to ask why he thought that, but the eyebrow conveyed it properly. "I'm sure Stark Industries would hire you on."

"Ha!" Darcy swallowed quickly as to not spray him down with the life-giving elixir as she popped a genuinely amused laugh. "Underqualified is my SI watchword. I was told by your HR peeps, multiple times, and I'm kinda quoting here, that Jane and I are not special and we do not get to bend the rules to please ourselves, end quote. They need swift kicks in asses. B-t-dubs, can you point that department out to me again? I might need to stop there.” She blinked, “for reasons completely unrelated to said ass kicking, obvs." Darcy smiled innocently (or as innocently as she was capable, anyway). Tony snorted at the concept and honestly weighed the mental cost/benefit analysis of telling her where the office was and having FRIDAY record the interaction with HR, then inevitably incurring the HR paperwork for it. 

"They're not nice, but they weren't wrong… however I am special and I do get to bend the rules." Tony gloated with a slightly mocking statement.

"Which would be eighteen flavors of awesome, but I can't let you do that. They were kinda right, I'm massively underqualified to be a lab assistant in general, much less here." Darcy seemed like she was actively trying not to be bothered, an emotional action he could empathize with. "And Janey needs to adjust to other people." She rationalized. Darcy sighed, "It's not like I wanted to be an assistant forever, anyway. Who goes to college with that dream in their heads?" She seemed to get her nonchalance back and grinned. "Anyway, FRIDAY's got it covered in the event that Jane's new science lackeys fail. Gotta hand it to you, she's a well oiled machine."

"I don't need oil, Darcy." The AI chimed in as if still listening to the conversation. She probably was, Darcy had no idea how creeped out by that she should be. Not very, she figured.

"It's a figure of speech, FRI-Babe, not literal." She said to the ceiling with a dismissive smile. "It's an idiom meaning that you do an awesome job. At least, like, fifty-seven percent of the stuff I say is a reference, sarcasm, aphorism, or made up statistic." She sipped and gestured to Tony. "Not that you'd be used to that at all."

"Whatever you say, Darcy."

"Ha!" Darcy barked a laugh, clearly having fun with his AI.

"Work for me." Tony blurted. His mind was running at its normal speed and his mouth seemed to have even less filter on it than usual. 

Darcy snorted into her coffee. "Are you still drunk? Did you hear me about the underqualified thing?"

"You'd get to go to some sweet events. All you can drink." He smirked and looked at her sputtering face. "Eat, too, probably."

"Nice side-step of the drunk question, drunkie." Darcy chuckled. "I'm pretty sure I just explained that Stark Industries —"

Tony interrupted. "No. For me. I need an assistant." Darcy's jaw dropped and her brain forgot how to word. Tony shrugged, "This summer is full of meetings and events and I haven't had a personal assistant since the last one I had turned out to be a SHIELD agent." 

"Well, I'm certainly safe there." Darcy sputtered a laugh. "Agents are all Black Window-y and graceful. Between that eight hour flight and drunken cart ride, you've known me long enough to see that poise does not even visit this dojo."

"Not really a requirement for me." He waved off. Tony tilted his head. "How did you know it was Nat?"

"What?" Darcy blinked: It was hard to keep up with his brain.

Tony's eyebrow lifted, but he covered his surprise in a layer of amusement. "How did you know my last PA was the Black Window?"

"I didn't. She was just an example of a SHIELD agent whose hotness kinda makes one ignore a little dubious behavior." Darcy's eyes widened, "Wow, the fucking Widow? Really?"

"Well technically she worked for Pepper and SI." Tony noted before adding "and SHIELD."

"Still. Nice." Darcy shrugged. "Still don't see how that would work, though, as SI has deemed me too plebe-ish."

Tony shrugged. "This would be working for me, not SI."

"Those aren't the same thing?" Her eyebrows squished together in confusion  

"Yes and no, more no than yes." Tony said flippantly, carefully looking away from her. "They are Stark Industries, I'm the Stark. I'm in them but they are not in me." She chortled at the description. He went on to wave his hand idly. "And your plebe-ishness amuses me."

"A high compliment for peasants everywhere." She nodded her thanks and pointed her fancy tumbler of coffee at him before she tilted it back to her lips. 

Tony sensed that she wasn't convinced, "I'd pay you fifty thousand dollars for three months."

Darcy almost spat her coffee out, but didn't, opting to half-choke on the scalding deliciousness instead. "What?"

"Okay you drive a hard bargain, eighty." He said boredly. "You can stay here, I have the room." Tony quickly glanced at her slightly-stained, sleep-rumpled, moving day clothing combination of old, stsined and hole-y clothing. "And you'll need to shop, not that I don't appreciate the t-shirt jeans combo day-to-day, but there might be parties. I'll toss a new wardrobe in as a signing bonus."

"Waitwaitwait," Darcy blinked a few times and shook her head to try to get the obvious hallucinations out of her ears. "Are you bribing me?"

"Probably." He shrugged. "Is it working?"

She looked at him as if he were stupid. "Pretty sure being bribed into a job is an employment red flag, Tony."

"You need a job, I need a minion—" He explained

"Scary job description," she commented with a roll of her eyes.

Tony ignored that but obviously heard it, "—it's win-win." 

"Tony," Darcy started saying, trying to explain how very bad an idea this was.

"And from what Pepper said in her break up voicemail, apparently I need a PA more than a girlfriend." He said with a straight face. He was almost proud he was able to say it without a hint of guilt or bitterness in his voice that he knew was there.

"Shit, back up. Break up voicemail?" Darcy's eyes nearly bulged out of her skull for a second and her heart actually felt a little crushed to hear that. It wasn't the first time he did the one-two punch of honesty and subject change but that one made her balk. She seemed incensed on his behalf, as if the guilt and bitterness came out of her instead of him. "What the actual fuck?"

"Yup." Tony admitted, his face betraying no pain as he quickly changed subjects affecting as nonchalant posture as possible, slouching, picking his nails, not looking directly at her. "You'd basically do all the things you already do for Foster but I'm guessing she goes to fewer networking events disguised as parties. Or vise-versa. Both of which you would attend with me." 

Darcy blinked, watching the smile twitch under that smarmy freaking smirk. Her eyes darted around like she was reading something in mid air, maybe trying to engage her brain in searching for a plausible excuse to not accept his offer.

"Shit." Darcy breathed the swear. Tony's spine stiffened slightly, seeing her rampant reading of invisible words and she looked at him a little puzzled. His stomach twisted a little as she stayed quiet, not that he'd ever admit it, as he waited for a semi-professional rejection. But then Darcy loosened a little and almost smiled to herself. "Shit."

 "What?" He asked, making sure to take a sip from his green smoothie to make him less emotionally involved in the situation.

"Well," Darcy started counting on her fingers, "You're giving me a temp job, new clothes, a place to live, and a sweet paycheck," she blinked at him. "Will you be needing my first born?" Her hand closed and she shook her first finger at him. "—I warn you, it has to be named after one of my brothers since I lost a bet when I was 12."

"You can keep your spawn." Tony snorted. "That's all part and parcel of the Stark experience." 

"Please. I've read the tabloids, the Stark experience is something else entirely." Darcy rolled her eyes with a grin. "Seriously, though, Tony." Her bright, sarcastic smile faded to an anxious one. Watching her face change did something unpleasant to his stomach. "Why me?"

"It might have something to do with the first straight six hours of sleep I've had in three weeks. Or the full stomach. Or the random organization you did while we were drinking. Or the fact that you logicked my AI into submission within twenty minutes of being induced to her. Or—" He flipped the screen of his phone towards her and let a video play: a dash-cam version of the desert at night, the very corner of which seemed to have caught a woman in a knit cap, a flash of light, a zap noise, and a huge, seemingly drunk blonde guy going down like a ton of bricks. Darcy looked at Tony, who sported a huge grin. "—because you're the girl who tased Thor." The pride in his voice nearly matched the slow-growing grin on her face. "Anyone who does that deserves a job, Spark."

"Spark?" Darcy looked away from the screen and into his eyes, half snorting a laugh at the new nickname. 

"Taser, electricity, rhymes with awesome; Spark. Fits." Tony shrugged quickly before returning to his spiel. "You're smart, fun, easy on the eyes, used to crazy, and, despite knowing you for a short time… you're my friend, apparently." 

"Apparently," Darcy quietly repeated with a laugh. The complement to her looks hadn't been missed and she was working like hell to keep a blush from claiming her pale skin. 

"I could do worse as assistants go." He shrugged and both of them took a beat, letting the idea settle and sink in. They both sat without saying anything for a moment, almost having a stare-off of stubborn wills. "And people keep trying to hand me things," he shuddered, "I should fill the position."

"So this is your interview process?" Darcy snickered after a moment, breaking the contest.

"Screened your executive decision making, sarcasm, food and booze choices..." He nodded, "Points off for your movie choices, though."

"Come on! Three different songs about sex!" Darcy reasoned vehemently. "You can't tell me you won't have the song 'Do It for Your Country' in your head next time you see the Captain-America-Disapproves-Of-You face."

"Lewis," Tony cringed so hard his abs ached. He took a good swallow of his drink to distract from the smile at the fact that he couldn't disagree about the potential of that happening.

"It's okay, I'll be your subordinate: I'll hum it for you." Darcy grinned, the song from Grease 2 reverberating from her throat.

Tony's eyebrows lifted a touch. So did the ends of his mouth. "So you'll take the job?"

"Eff yes!" Darcy nodded with an enthusiastic smile. "—Until September. By then you'll be able to find a real PA, though, right?"

He waved off the question. Any sort of finality made him itch. "That's 6 months away, I'll have to give you a raise."

She sputtered and swiped her hands through the air to get him to stop that train of thought. "I'll tell you if I need a raise. Eighty-K is an insane amount for an intern-y thing."

"You're right. New title. Assistant? Personal assistant? You can't be my gal Friday… Aid? Gopher?'' He started to waggled his eyebrows. "Beck-and-Call Girl?"

Her sigh and eye roll combination told the tale of her soul barely hanging on to her body at that. " Please don't tell me you just called me a Call Girl." Darcy said with faux exasperation. "For this much money my brothers are already going to think I'm hooking." 

"Cheap hooker. If I double your pay, do you think we could work in some light spanking?" Tony said with a joky drawl.

Darcy snorted, "Light." She looked up toward the ceiling as she took a bite from the twizzler flopping between her fingers. "Hey FRIDAY, you probably did a whole background check on me, pull up that time I allegedly assaulted that guy who propositioned me through employment."

"I'm afraid I don't have anything like that in my files yet, Darcy," the voice from the ceiling stated. Darcy grew a giant grin and looked at Tony.

"Hear that?" Darcy waggled her eyebrows, "Yet."

Darcy loudly thunked down a full tumbler of coffee, watching the noise or smell or heat immediately pull Jane out of her dead-eyed stare at the ticker-tape of data. Her hand flew to the large tumbler and brought it to her lips greedily as she sucked it down like the life-giving elixir it was. Darcy just crossed her arms slightly, her own coffee refilled and still glued to her hand, and watched Jane slowly come back to join the non-science-zombie folk.

A few sips in Jane was finally coherent enough to blink a few times at Darcy. "Time is it?" 

"Bit after 4:30 PM." Darcy said with only a slight check to her watch. 

"Tomorrow?" Jane asked as Darcy nodded. Jane looked at her coffee with a sad face and looked back at her intern. "Decaf?"

"Unleaded, yup, it's really good." Darcy nodded. She looked critically over the other woman. "Did you even eat?"

Jane made a noise that was probably a no. Then her stomach growled and confirmed it.

"Slept?" Darcy turned Jane's face to hers by the chin and looked into Jane's vacant, red-rimmed eyes. They weren't completely bloodshot or simmering with rage, so not the worst. Darcy looked at her watch again and tried to calculate where on her Jane Tiredness scale they were. She twirled Jane's swivel chair away from the desk with Jane's tired reflexes a little too slow to stop it.  "Up and at'em, Janey. Let's set a good impression for your new minions tomorrow. Protein, sleep, shower."

"Where did you go?" Jane blinked as she was pulled up to standing. The fact that there was time passage outside of her own hyperfixation finally catching up to her. "What did you do?"

"I was here, I did what I said I would." Darcy shrugged,  "Rum and a tour. Really good rum."

"How was the tour?" Jane blinked sleepily. 

"I don't remember." Darcy shrugged and Jane slowed down, looking at her friend skeptically. Darcy stared back. "It was really good rum, Janey."

"Oh." Jane's eyes narrowed and Darcy suddenly knew how that ticker tape felt. "Are you hungover?"

"I'm not not hungover." Darcy simply stated as she sipped more coffee and pushed the thinner woman towards the lab door and closed it securely behind her. "Lights and locks, FRI-Babe."

Through the thick window they saw the lights turn off and a heavy thunk viscerally shook as the electromagnetic lock slid into place. Jane grumbled. Darcy put her hands on the thinner woman and directed her the opposite way Tony had, to the general elevators.

"How's my apartment?" Jane asked as they approached the people-who-aren't-Stark elevator.

"No idea, it probably has a bed in it, at least a sofa. Let's find out." Darcy said as she corralled Jane in. "To exit level please, FRI."

"Of course, Darcy." FRIDAY responded from the ceiling speakers.

Jane seemed like she was distracted just enough by the AI but she wasn't. The subject snapped like a rubber band in her head as the willowy doctor looked back at her friend. "Darcy?"

"Hm?" Darcy hummed.

"Where did you sleep?" Jane narrowed her eyes and watched her friend. Against all attempts to keep it from happening, it appeared that Jane had developed a Darcy Obfuscation Scale, damnit. Being stuck in a tiny space where she couldn't serendipitously distract Jane wasn't exactly working in her favor. The elevator dinged and the doors opened to the lobby.

“At Tony's.” Jane's jaw dropped as Darcy dragged Jane by the arm out the glass double doors. 

“What?— But— you-” Jane stuttered as Darcy loaded her on a weird tram thing that reminded her a lot of Disneyland, but shorter, like having a white tented golf-cart limo. One tap of the driver's shoulder and they were off, wind making it just hard enough to hear much less talk. 

Luckily Jane's apartment was on the first floor near the outer wall so it was quick to get to once they entered the building... unluckily it was a significant space away from where they were (okay, that was probably a good thing, seeing as they tended to go boom, but less lucky when dragging one hundred and some pounds of dead-on-her feet scientist).

"Now put your hand on the plaque thing.'' Darcy gestured to the gray square beside the door. Jane was still immobile, her mouth hanging open and eyes still unblinking as they looked at Darcy. Darcy lifted Jane's hand to the panel and light outlined her hand and blinked from red to green and the door clicked open. Darcy gestured to the open door but Jane was still staring at her, unmoving.

"Darcy!" Jane shouted. Darcy blinked. "Seriously, Darce? You had sex with Stark?"

Darcy snorted and shoved her friend into the apartment and closed the door behind her as Jane just stared at her with a slack jaw. Jane just looked at her expectantly. "No, Jane, Jesus! For fucks sake, Foster, Tony's got the half a floor of this big damn building and he owns the compound. He has a couple dozen spare rooms or so. I think someone said something about sleeping with your boss tending to end badly."

"I was right when I said that, though." Jane looked around her new place. It was undecorated, but Darcy speculated it would stay that way. The movers had been allowed to touch that stuff, thank god, and Stark's movers did not skimp: Jane's personal books were already on the shelf and the Darcy-knitted throws were already in place. Jane didn't seem off put or anything, basically shrugging at it all because she was too tired to properly give two shits about her living space. Which was pretty normal for her. “And why does he get to live in the building?! This one is so far .”

“No idea, but he's Tony Stark, so,” Darcy shrugged at her best friend's tired-hungry whining. She put her hands on Jane's shoulders and directed her to a small ovular dining table with four chairs and shoved her into one of them. Jane's eyes followed Darcy as she wandered into the kitchen and started opening the cabinets in a quick search for the only two food staples she made sure Jane's employment contract included a steady stream. Finding them, grabbed two boxes out of the cabinet: pop tarts and protein bars. Darcy handed Jane a protein bar. 

"Wait, your boss? I thought you were under qualified to work at Stark Industries?" Jane asked as she plopped into a chair at a small dining table, shoveling bits of protein bar into her face. 

 "For SI, yes. For you, sure. But for Stark directly…" Darcy shrugged, sitting down at the opposite end and opening the foil packet of pop tarts between them, snapping off bits and eating them. "I guess no?" 

"What?" Jane shook her head in disbelief as she absently cracked off and ate a chunk of pop-tart. "How? And what?"

Darcy's shrugging muscles were protesting at how very much she just did not know. "His personal assistant, I guess?"

"There's no way that's entry level." Jane snapped off another hunk of pop-tart. "I'm pretty sure you need dual doctorates in psychology and pharmacology at least."

"I think the only qualification he needed was my excellent personality." Darcy grinned sarcastically.

"Yes, he's known for liking people with big… personalities." Jane's eyes darted pointedly to Darcy's chest. Jane scooted her chair to the side and she got ready to stand and head to the bathroom. "I'll get the condoms." 

"Hey!" Darcy thwapped her friend's arm.

"I'm serious," Jane deadpanned. Her poker face was crap but her sarcastic deadpan was on point. "The pill alone does nothing in the face of the penicillin-resistant genital warts he probably has—"

"Jane." Darcy rolled her eyes as Jane headed to the doorway of the bathroom for her nightly ablutions.

"I'm teasing, sort of." Jane lectured blandly, her voice echoing off the tile walls.

"I'm not sleeping with him, just working for him." Darcy said 

"Okay, but then you're totally going to do it." Jane stuck her head into the hallway and gave Darcy a flat look as she removed the toothbrush from her mouth, brandishing it about as she said her words. "You two bantered so hard you forgot I was there."

"I was fully aware you were there," Darcy huffed.

"—You extolled the arms!" Jane said emphatically, pointing the foamy bristles at her. "You love arms."

"What's the Scandinavian word for hypocrite?" Darcy said with a faux thoughtful face. Jane crimped her nose and stuck her tongue out at the joke, sticking her head back into the bathroom to finish up. Darcy threw out the foil packet from their bonding snack. 

"Tony just needs a PA to handle his day-to-day. Like food and sleep and I'm guessing science binges." She shrugged. "It's like a humanitarian calling. It'll be like inaterning for you but with more alcohol and swanky parties and eye candy and being paid a crazy stupid amount."

"Yes, I see," Jane nodded mechanically as she went from the bathroom into one of the bedrooms, " very selfless."

 "Hey," Darcy admonished, "Those who can afford Netflix should not throw stones."

"But we share my log in!" Jane huffed impotently as she came out wearing a too-big nightshirt. "Really though, do you want me to kick Stark's ass?" Asked the 100-lb scientist drowning in the XL Tweety Bird nightshirt. "He gets fresh with his PAs. I mean, I only have one example but it's a pretty big example. He could take advantage."

"Ahh you protectin mah virtue, Mah Deah Docktah Fostah?" Darcy asked in an exaggerated southern belle accent as she batted her eyelashes. Jane snorted. Darcy shrugged, her voice back to normal. "The only thing Tony is taking advantage of is the upcoming hole in my employment. If you think about it, how lonely is the poor guy that part of his qualifications for me to work for him was being 'kind of his friend' after 24 hours?" Jane's face crumpled a little at the thought.  "Besides, I highly doubt I'm the Tony Stark's speed. He likes the leggy competent type and I'm a Hobbit who doesn't qualify to work at the coffee cart."

"Hey, watch what you say about my best friend or I'll portal you back to the Shire." Jane threatened emphatically. "You are very qualified, best intern I've ever had."

Darcy rolled her eyes. "Only intern you've ever had." 

"I had Ian!" Jane exclaimed as Darcy's eyes narrowed.

"I thought we agreed never to mention that ever again?" She cringed. "And technically he was my intern."

"The point is, you're good at taking care of easily distractible science-humans. Uniquely qualified, even." Jane said, in a rare sign of acceptance of her science-mania. 

"And?" Darcy pouted her lip slightly. 

Jane's eyes rolled. "And your feet are slightly less hairy than a Hobbit's."

"Thank you." Darcy smiled.

"You're welcome." Jane nodded automatically. "Not that it really matters if you keep him at bay for like, what, six months?" Her eyebrows lifted. "It's only six months, right? Weren't you... you know... in the fall…"

Darcy cut Jane off with a quick wave of her hand. "Yes, probably, but don't jinx it. He is paying me a freaking obscene amount of money to work here, I get to have free room and board, I get to shop on his dime for clothes or whatever, and he knows I g-t-f-o in the fall." Darcy pointed at Jane, "Everything's coming up Darcy, let's not mess with possible jinxes."

Jane shook her head. "I don't believe in jinxes." 

"All the same." Darcy narrowed her eyes and waggled her pointed finger.  

Jane laughed and turned her big doe eyes on her unsuspecting friend. "Tuck me in?"

"Really?" Darcy blinked a few times. "You hate it when I do that."

"I have to savor it!" Jane said with huge buggy puppy eyes, "You might never placate me again!"

"Oh, sweety, we're besties! I'll always placate you." Darcy said as saccharinely and soothingly as possible. Jane barely rolled her eyes and climbed onto her bed and under the covers. Darcy went about rolling the blankets under Jane the way her brothers always had done to her, effectively swaddling Jane in a blanket burrito trap. "Plus I start tomorrow, as soon as I get established we can have another six months of potential Lewis-Foster shenanigans."

"We don't have Lewis-Foster shenanigans, " Jane said innocently as she yawned.

Darcy rolled her eyes. As Sciencey as she was, Jane loved stirring shit way more than she let on. "Fine, Foster-Lewis shenanigans, credit junkie."

"I do love a good Foster-Lewis shenanigan." Jane smirked tiredly as her best friend tucked her blanket under her. Jane's eyes suddenly widened for a moment. "Oh my god. You're totally going to send me lewd emails, aren't you?"

Darcy snickered."If I thought you'd check your own email? Yes, ma'am. However I am not stupid, I will choose my weapons more carefully." Her eyebrows waggled. "Can I use your shower? I have to go get my stuff and I'm still too hungover for regular human interaction."

Jane snored.

Ah, memories.

Chapter Text

When Darcy left Jane's new place she managed to walk her way back to the research building rather than wait for the tram-thing. 

That decision was dumb.

Hung over Darcy did not want to do that walk again. Last time she had a sleepy scientist to blame for a slow and shitty pace, but this time there was no such creature except a hangover. True, her hangover was mitigated by fantastic coffee and a great water pressure shower, but there was no magic at play, it still existed. Walking was dumb. Fresh air was dumb. Those birds? Dumb. Couldn't they have those moving sidewalks? Or coffee carts stationed in between the buildings in case you needed a caffeine fix when walking through this freaking giant super-hero base turned theme park? Or at least not be a little hungover? Okay, that last one didn't really have a cure other than a time machine to stop someone from over-drinking, but still.

She stood in front of the Stark elevator, It looked like the wall, kind of, with minimal moldings and no buttons. There was a voice in her head (Stark) sneakily gloating about sneaky camouflage but she knew what to look for thanks to the one on Jane's research floor. 

“Er, FRIDAY?” she asked quietly. It wasn't a whole ton quieter than she had been, though she was kind of sure she had run the gamut of loud around FRIDAY by now alcohol was not a great mitigator of volume). She cleared her throat and went ahead and spoke at a normal volume.

“FRIDAY?” Again, no response,  but now with the added bonus of the lady behind the desk giving her the eye. Darcy cringed and set off to the other side of the room towards the Desklady.

Two beefy-looking guys in security uniforms stood on either end of a long-ass reception desk that was probably usually manned by three people. It was after 5, this lady was probably ready to bow out or just started the evening shift.

“Hey, I need to get back upstairs,” Darcy said and congenital as possible, a nice smile on her face.

“Name?” was deadpanned back to her. Smile meant nothing, gotcha.

“Lewis, Darcy Lewis.” She let that get typed in quickly before she said more. “FRIDAY would vouch for me but I can't seem to get her working.” Darcy shrugged and looked up at the ceiling while the person at the desk read something on the monitor in front of her. 

“I'm sorry, I don't see a Darcy Lewis.”

“Oh, I'm new.” Darcy smiled again, genuinely happy this time. She had a job. With perks. That could potentially be a cake walk. With a celebrity, which was weird. Weirder that the celeb was a friend. Also all the other stuff.

“Then you need to go see Human Resources.” Deadpan Lady seemed a bit more congenial, but not a ton. Plus. She said those words, so, gross. 

“No, please.” Darcy almost groaned: Those two words were the bane of her existence. “Really, I just need to get back up—”

“HR is on the entire sixth floor of the Admin building.” The receptionist quickly scribbled on something and handed a scrap of paper to Darcy.

General resignation took over her soul as she looked at the slip of paper, it was actually a map of the full campus compound with the right building circled. Darcy snorted as something flashed in her memory. “Oh yeah, I remember going there now.” 

She sighed as she smirked at the vague recognition she had along the route: Hangover was abating, but the walk wasn't nearly as fun without a golf cart and some rum. Or at least the rum. Maybe Tony, too. She'd have to talk to him about this absurd freaking walk, he could afford some damn automated walkways.

Normal elevators were excruciatingly slow, she noticed on the way down from Jane's lab but she figured she was just being silly or nostalgic or something, but no, it was a freaking eternity to get to floor seven. 

“Name?”

“Lewis comma Darcy.” Darcy said, giving the lady behind the desk a smile and a pause while those nimble fingers went all clickity-clack on the keyboard. The lady's face pinched as she looked at the screen and Darcy spoke up, “Oh, I might not be in there, I was just hired. I'm just trying to get back up to Mr. Stark's place in the research building?"

“Sorry,” the HR lady said with zero chance she was actually sorry. She looked at Darcy thinly veiled contempt. “I need your employee ID to get above floor seven.”

“Okay, but I don't have one yet.” Darcy smiled calmly. “I just need to go get my bag, I left it next to the wet bar.”

“ Of course you did.” a sigh happened and eyes rolled: Darcy strained to keep the wtf from her face as she saw it. “That doesn't work here.”

“That?”

“The Leave Behind. We've had several of his…” she looked at her flatly, “ladies… try that before.” Darcy could barely comprehend why that would get tossed at her but the rob up this lady's ass was making it perfectly clear. “I'm sure you'll get your things over-nighted to your place of residence.”

“Yeah, well that'll be super easy because I work here now. ” Darcy emphasized. Seeing as a high percentage of employees lived on or near the grounds it was a mega-duh against this woman. 

“According to our records you've applied for three positions and we've chosen other, actually qualified candidates," there was faux-pity on this woman's face and it was starting to chafe.

“True, but I was hired anyway,” Darcy shrugged with a placid smile, getting a little smarmy to this sand-in-her-clam HR lady. “Hired by Tony Stark, by the way, not you.”

“I'm sure you think that,” Bitchqueen nodded with all the tension present in her hair. “Obviously your talents in personal management” —bitch actually used quotation fingers around the word personal— “have been put to good use, but you'll have to forgive me if I find that here at the Stark Industries Human Resources department, we don't sanction that kind of contract work.” 

Darcys jaw dropped. Did the HR twiglet here just call her a whore? What?

HR bitch did come hither fingers, but not to Darcy, oh no: to a man behind her in the same security uniform she had seen on the guys in the research building. For some weird-ass reason it made her want to laugh. 

“Awesome. You called the popo? Awesome.” She laughed sardonically as the big guy stood beside her. 

“Please escort this…” HR bitch gestured, “... madam to security. Mister Hogan will involve the proper authorities.”

Darcy sighed, apparently HR was not going to be helpful in this situation.  Or any situation, because screw HR. Screw HR hard. The uniformed guy hasn't even gotten a chance to say anything before she gestured back toward the office's exit. “Lead the way, my man.”

At least this time there was a golf cart —standard issue, way less cool than Tony's— as he escorted her from the Admin/Humanities building to the security building more centrally located. She could help but sigh and roll her eyes a lot; she could think of a better way to get what she needed, but unless she could get her hands on an internet connected laptop she wouldn't be able to get anywhere.  Stealing one was plan B, but if Security Dude or anyone in the security office was as helpful as HR bitch, plan B looked more and more likely. 

Johnstone walkied in from Admin. He was bringing a distraught person in for questioning, with possible need to be extradited from the compound. Which was fun. He liked escorting people from the grounds, it simultaneously pointed out how necessary his security implementations were and yet how little they tended to be followed. By Tony. And sometimes the labs. But usually Tony.

And sure enough, Johnstone walked respectfully beside a fairly resigned looking brunette who was smiling politely but obviously flustered. Her eyes lit up when she recognized him.

“I remember you! The guy on the plane! Thank freaking gods.” Darcy was so relieved there was no way it wasn't written all over her face as she relaxed. Plan B got pushed off. “Can you call Tony? I can't seem to get back up there.” She barely stopped, “I'm Darcy, by the way, Darcy Lewis,” she looked at his while security tag quickly, “Nice to meet you, Happy Hogan.”

It took him less than a second to recognize Overnight Pass 26628. Her admin privileges and clearances would have expired at 5pm. It wouldn't have gotten her to Tony's floor unless he was with her in the first place, much less alone, regardless of privileges. 

“We really hit it off, I mean you saw us on the plane—” 

That was a memory. And on last night's footage. Her shirt was not inside out on the footage and yet now it was, she looked fully debauched. His eyes almost rolled, but that would have damaged his standing of authority so he held his eyeballs still.

“—So he asked me to stick around and I said yes—”

Happy's eyes widened. That could mean a lot of things with Tony.

“Honestly I don't think I even have a title yet but I had to take care of some things but when I was done he was gone and FRIDAY can't let me up and He told me to move in already but I can't even get back in for a decent bra.” Darcy sighed, word vomit just spewing out of her, “it's in my bag right next to the wet bar because I put it down before we started mainlining rum.”

Happy nodded at the words as his mind clicked: Rum. Wetbar. It was all coming together. He sighed. “What Mister Stark says when he's drunk—”

“No, hungover, probably, not drunk. Well,” she thought back “not drunk drunk.” She blinked. “Oh gods, what if he was drunk?”

Darcy paled at the thought. She might have been on the verge of panicking. Might. She did put all of her eggs in one basket. She was, as the Bitchqueen of Human Resources put it, the least qualified candidate for freaking anything on this tech campus. And now the main security guy, who seemed to know Tony pretty well if the plane was any implication, was question the validity of this whole freaking thing —

The minor panicky downward spiral must have shown on her face because suddenly Happy looked freaked out. She wanted to laugh. He seemed like the kind of guy who could go three rounds with a bear or, ya know, be Iron Man's personal freaking security— but here he was balking at the internal panic of a lady? Kind of hilarious. 

“You know what, I'll call Mister Stark.” Happy flustered. He pulled the small cell phone out of his inner jacket pocket and hit only two buttons to call Tony on his cell. Happy couldn't help but exhale a massive sigh before Tony picked up.

“Happy, what's up?” 

Happy made sure to present his professional voice as the Lewis girl looked forcibly nonchalant. “There is a Miss Lewis here trying to get access to your floor and I need to —” 

“Verified.” Tony didn't even let him finish “Anything else?”

Happy took a deep, cleansing breath through his nose. “That's not how it works, Tony.”

“Fine,” Tony replied. “Put me on speaker.”

"Fine. Hold on," Happy grumbled, hitting the speaker button of the phone. Well, trying. And missing. Darcy watched him try — and succeed! — on his second try but apparently that wasn't fast enough for Tony. Suddenly Tony popped up on the television screen behind him. The background wasn't his place or his lab here at the compound, but somewhere else, possibly public us the people walking in the background meant anything. Happy jumped in surprise as he saw the smirking billionaire but rolled his eyes and hung up the now-useless phone. He shook his head at his boss on the screen and mumbled. "That's just unprofessional."

Tony addressed Darcy like she'd been the one to call. "Hey, Spark. What's up?"

At the sight of him she had no idea why she panicked at all. 

"In the hour since I've seen you?" Darcy raised a brow and Tony snorted, "Not much, but FRIDAY won't talk to me and no one will let me back in to get my bag." She shrugged before gesturing at Happy. "This guy is just doing his job."

"Happy, Darcy Lewis, Darce, Happy Hogan," he introduced them with a wave of his hand. His eyes looked elsewhere again, distracted by something else on his monitor for a few seconds. He looked back into the office, toward Happy. "Let her up."

"I need to give her clearance and assess her identity." Happy turned toward the screen in full lecture mode. Tony's smirk only got bigger as he turned his back entirely on the short brunette.

"She had been cleared by SHIELD—" Tony started but was interrupted by Darcy snorting and putting up in finger quotes as she mouthed 'cleared.' Tony's grin grew as he spoke without pause. "— and targeted by Hydra." Tony's head bobbled like it was no big deal but each of them knew those words carried weight. He raised a single eyebrow at Happy. "That enough?" 

Happy pointed backwards toward her pajamaed self behind him. "She could be an imposter."

"Fine." He bobbled his head as he turned his focus back on the small brunette, "Lewis, what's the first thing you said to me."

"Dude, I can't remember, I talk a lot—" Darcy groused. There was a little Stark Smirk that looked a wee bit too shit-eating for its own good. 

"You can do it," Tony urged.

Darcy thought back for half a moment. "I'm Jane Foster's intern-slash-bestie?"

"Before that." He made a little gesture for her to think back. His grin became a menace, a goddamn menace .

"Seriously?" She looked at him incredulously. He looked at her over his tinted aviators with that stupid grin and knowing stupid eyes and waited. "You're such a dick." His smirk flickered more strongly. Darcy gave in and looked at him with a deadpan, in annoyed stare. "I said 'Oh fuck me.'" She narrowed her eyes at the screen as he smirked harder, the smarmy little shit.

Tony's feeling of triumph was damn near palpable. "That's my Spark."

"Ass," Darcy rolled her eyes with an annoyed face but a grin in her voice. 

"You like it." Smug Tony smugged.

She cheerfully flicked him off.

Happy cleared his throat and they both looked at him nonchalantly. Honestly Darcy had only half forgotten he was in the room but wasn't sure much would have changed if she had.

"Just give her clearance to my rooms and access to FRIDAY and get used to each other." Tony waved his hand magnanimously. "She's sticking around for a while.” The Stark Smirk was back and it made Happy want to roll his eyes. “See you at the dinner tonight?"

“I should say yes, right?” Darcy smarmed. “Tell me what time and I'll be ready.”

“Six,” he said it definitely but looked like he was lying.

Darcy nodded, “Then I'll be ready at six thirty.”

“And I'll be there at seven.” Tony finished, Darcy snorted and Happy just watched the two with scrutiny. 

“Ass,” she grinned, leaving that as her salutation towards the screen and she scooted her chair back and stood up and walked a few steps away. “FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Darcy?”

Darcy internally fist-pumped that FRIDAY was back. “We got a job to do, let's go! Back to Tony's, please.” 

“I will highlight a route for you to take back.”

“ So much better than a map,” Darcy remarked to herself with a smile. She waved to Happy as she headed out to follow the lights along the hallways. “Nice to meet you, Happy.”

The brunette left and the door clicked shut behind her, Happy let out an exhausted exhale. It was his job and Tony kept stepping into it, like the Killian incident meant nothing.

He was used to Tony slightly poking holes in his security, just not this badly. Not in a while. Not since Pepper. But that was over and apparently everything was backsliding. Everything.

"Tony…"

The big head on the television screen didn't even let him try to complete the inevitable. "You worry too much. You'll get wrinkles. Is that good for your heart?"

"You just met her." He pointed out the obvious. Not that the obvious hadn't already occurred to Tony, but sometimes his friend just needed things pointed out to him. 

"I spent seven hours talking to her initially, in that seven hours FRIDAY burrowed into her phone and her laptop files and retrieved her records from six state authorities, seven countries and SHIELD." Tony said with a shrug and a small chuckle, "Funny stuff, I'll forward it." 

"I barely had time to do a normal background check on her,” Happy grumbled.

"She has a killer recipe for white chocolate macadamia nut cookies."

“Right. Keyword being killer. You're having a complete unknown have access to what is the equivalent of a very high appointment in SI!” He almost scolded his friend.  

"She was part of Point Break's initial touch-down team. She'd already been cleared by Coulson who sent it up to Fury himself, apparently. She and her old boss were a worryingly high priority on the Project Insite hit list." Tony emphasized again. "She's clean."

Happy sighed. Tony wasn't going to budge. That was pretty compelling as evidence goes, but also, fighting with Tony was just like talking to a brick wall. Maybe Pepper would be able to talk to him. Maybe. Also… he tilted his head as he thought, "…white chocolate macadamia?"

"And oatmeal cranberry." Tony said, tempting Happy with a few of his favorite flavor combinations before ending the call without a goodbye.

He sighed.

FRIDAY lead her back to the right building but this time her shouting at walls didn't need to happen, the wall-door slid right open and in she went, turning arou d and leaning on yhe back of this two person tiny elevator. One of the security guys apparently knew it was there, nodding at her while the desk lady, who very much didn't know of it existence apparently, sat there with a jaw so lax Darcy could count her molars. The doors slid shut on Darcy’s smug I'm-not-crazy smile and movement started.

She deflated, her posture relaxing. This was a motherfucking ordeal , but she already felt calmer, more centered. She tilted her head up to the ceiling and rested the crown of her head on the back wall.

“Still there, FRIDAY?”  

“Yes, Darcy.” The chirpy Irish voice affirmed. 

“Just checking.” She smiled, mildly acknowledgeing that FRIDAY wasn’t actually in the ceiling so she didnt have to aim her voice there. She stretched her neck and relaxed again. “You're way too helpful to go away like that. Did you just need to go offline for a bit or what?”

“I'm afraid your overnight pass granted you access to all the building's amenities until 5 PM, after 5 PM your clearances were revoked.”

“So you couldn't respond anymore,” Darcy nodded, understanding. “But now it's going to last a while, right? My access or whatever?” She was trying to gauge things, it would do to become dependent, true, but less so when she was starting out with zero knowledge and had the ultimate textbook/teacher/cheat code to start her off. 

“Until the Boss sets an end parameter, yes, Darcy.” Relief flooded her at the lilting Irish confirmation as the door slid open.

She pushed off the wall of the express elevator and right into the living room.

“Awesome. Okay, I'm trying to set up as much as I can without bothering anyone else.”  Darcy rummaged through her bag and pulled out her laptop. It felt a tinge out of place here in the land of chrome and glass and amazing up-to-date tech, but it was hers. She opened it and it dinged and she typed in the password. “Can you help me set up?” 

“What would you like, Darcy?”

“Do I have an SI email yet?” Darcy asked while opening a browser 

“No, would you like me to put in a request with IT?”

“That’d be great, FRIDAY, thanks.” She narrowed her eyes at the general screen for the SI employee website before she realized it was a little useless. “Can I get access to Tony's calendar?”

“You don't have clearance for his full calendar, but your clearance level gives you access to all of his social events.”

“No work events?” Her brow furrowed, what the heck on her lips. “Uh, I guess that's fine?” She wasn't sure, “I mean I'm cool if I have to RSVP to the singles’ pavilion on the lido deck, but I kinda need to know his work schedule to work around it.”

“Sorry, Darcy.”

“No big, really. I'll figure it out.” Darcy shrugged. She could hack it, or try to. She got into SHIELD's surveillance for a while when the whole Loki thing was going down in NYC. Granted, they were kinda distracted at the time. Was it technically okay to hack to get the information needed for the job? If she asked FRIDAY that as a hypothetical would she even be able to answer or would she be forced to report it? Probably best not to ask, at least not until she managed to get a privacy protocol going that was unassailable. She sighed out a breath that blew past her lips like a motorboat and smiled at the ceiling. “Just send the laptop a list of his invites and I'll go through that. I'm guessing he hasn't RSVPed to any of them one way or the other?”

“That was a good guess.” FRIDAY replied.

Was it Darcy or was the AI getting a personality? Probably not, it was probably just a projected one, but dude it was hilarious when FRIDAY seemed snarky. She snorted.

“Then list 'em up for me, please.” She pushed back on her rolly chair and spun a little for fun as the list populated wirelessly. It wasn't instant or anything: FRIDAY definitely had the power to do it, but her laptop wasn't up to her speed. Maybe she could afford an upgrade now that she had a paying gig. Crap.

“Hey FRIDAY? The dinner tonight that Stark just mentioned, is there a dress code?”

“The restaurant's dress code is cocktail.”

“Not that Tony will follow it,” she snorted again. He didn't seem the type to care much, but in the –holy crap— two days they'd knows each other he already seemed like the type who enjoyed standing out that way, but he would be good-looking in that weird way where it looked like his clothes were taken off a clean-ish hobo but somehow were tailored for him. 

Not that she'd noticed that. 

…Stop thinking of New Boss Butt. Bad, Darcy.

“Okay.” She said, redirecting her brain. The list finished populating on her computer and she quickly reordered them according to date and time. There it was, tonight's dinner. Social event, then, an award presentation of some kind. Tony must not be getting anything because she had a sneaking suspicion that while he loved getting complimented by outside sources, he didn't actually give too many shits about actually receiving the awards. She could be wrong though. She only had two days and some tabloids to go off of, anyway.

Darcy nodded to herself while quickly sorting through events, there were ones that vaguely sounded fun, and ones that seemed like maybe he should go, and more than a few that seemed like he'd probably rather be waterboarded than attend, but she should check. Plus she needed to get ready for the dinner at some point. She stiffened. Shit. She hadn't realize her shirt was on inside out, well, that explained some things. Also getting dressed in the dark was, apparently, dumb.

“Where can I shop for something cocktail appropriate by tonight?” Darcy cringed and looked up, “I kinda only brought t-shirts.”

A screen on the wall behind her laptop popped up with scrolling images of dresses like she was internet shopping.  She just flicked her finger like tindr to scroll though the frankly gorgeous and horribly appropriate dresses. She almost drooled.

“I'm pretty sure the shipping wouldn't be fast enough.” Darcy mumbled, honestly disappointed a little.

“These are all available locally, I can get them here in an hour.” FRIDAY sounded cheerful. “There are also three designer shoe stores and six high-end lingerie boutiques that the Boss has pre-approved, though that protocol has not been enacted in a while.”

“Ha! I think I'll skip the lingerie, thanks.” Darcy chuckled. She got the vague idea that maybe this wasn't Tony's electronic butler’s first time dealing with a lady needing clothes. “How will I—”

“Your clearances give you access to the Stark Guest Account to pay for it.” FRIDAY confirmed, "There's a few hundred thousand still in the kitty since his last overnight guest."

Darcy wrinkled her nose, “Why does that bank account feel like it's kinda slutty?”

“I don't know what you mean, Darcy.” If an AI could sound sarcastic, this one did it. Darcy actually laughed. 

“Okay, awesome.” Darcy grinned, her finger poking one of the dresses on the screen and getting a view and the specifications of it. Black and knee length and embellished on top: it was really pretty, a great all-arounder for when all this glitzy nonsense was over in a few months. “Well this dress is fine, it has some pretty close measurements.” She shrugged, the dress shrinking away, probably ordered by the fantastic AI. “Now onto shoes.”

Chapter Text

“Tony—” Happy managed to hustle between him and his elevator. Tony didn't really care, they were already late, he was already dressed, any delay wasn't much skin off his back, much less with a harried looking Happy hustling to gain his attention (which was mildly amusing and one of his favorite parts of the day).

“Hey Happy.” He said, hands in his trouser pockets. 

“About Ms. Lewis—”  He hesitated but didn't beat around the bush. Tony could repress a smirk just hearing her name. 

“She's fun, isn't she?” 

“Yeah she seems like a hoot for the two minutes I got to talk to her.” Happy said flatly. Tony detected sarcasm.

“About as long as it took for her to verbally hack my AI.” He grew a full-on grin at the memory, “a few minutes is all it takes.”

“She did what?”

“It was entertaining to watch,” Tony said as confirmation. “Three sentences and she was in on preferences and sliding through.”

“It's a security breach, Tony!” Happy half scolded, half lamented. “If she can do it, what's stopping anyone else? Anyone can do it!” 

“Nah.” The smirk was back, pleasantly tweaking his cheek muscle as he thought about it. “She probably already fixed that exploit. I looked at the backlogs for the Chitauri incident, she got in around JARVIS and through our firewall as a cheat to get into SHIELD then tacked up the walls behind her as she left. Very little trace. Gorgeous work. Could barely tell where she was.” 

“Well,” Happy said shortly, mildly irritated and exasperated. “I suppose that's why she needed me to tell you she's in Dr. Foster's lab.”

The elevator in front of them dinged and Tony made to walk toward it, but the doors opened to reveal shapely legs standing in his personal elevator. 

The further perusal of the shapely legs stopped by a black dress hemline just above the knee and very knowing chuckle with an attitude that could only be one person’s. Darcy chuckled with one arm on her hip as Tony took her in. Her hair was down and swept to one side, showing off the gold drop earrings that managed to bring out the spark in her eyes. There was bright red lipstick that didn't look out of place on her face and he realized it matched her purse and shoes perfectly, standing out and fitting in in good ways. Very good ways. Tony knew she was a knock out but he hadn't imagined this bombshell. Or he had, rather. And it was way better in reality.

Darcy looked over him, too; She was right, he was in dark slacks, a graphic tee and a blazer. Her eyes lingered on the slacks, she was a little surprised they weren't jeans, honestly, but the drape was, er, complimentary. Not quite the billionaire hobo look, but unfairly attractive and close enough that she once again chided herself for the return of those fleeting Boss Butt thoughts.

Neither was staring, per say, they just appreciating each other visually. And forgetting to blink. Happy cleared his throat. Rather than be embarrassed, both of their instincts were to lean into it and laughed.

She stepped off his private elevator back into the alcove of the lobby that she'd begun to know so well. She smirked. 

“Nice. The shoes match the lipstick.” Tony remarked, making Darcy feel ever so slightly more appreciated. 

“Better, watch me walk away.”

“Not the first time.” Tony said automatically. 

“Perv.” Darcy winked and pointed towards her feet as she took a few steps away from him. 

Her soft-looking matte red high-heeled shoes had shiny gold soles. He didn't know why that made his genuinely smile but it did. 

“Nice.” He remarked as she turned back around. 

“In honor of my boss. I kinda couldn't resist. They were already my favorite color so I figured what the hell.” She shrugged, looking appreciably at her feet and back up with a grin. “Shoes are like chick armor, some of us don't have on-call robo-protection and I wasn't sure how bad it would be to bring my taser.”

“I don't think I would have questioned it.” Tony took a few steps forward and offered her his arm.

“I'll keep that in mind for next time.” Darcy grinned as she took it. They followed Happy out to the car when she was let in first. He followed, watching her.  Looking at her. In ways. It made her feel … stuff. Part of her wanted to double check the cleve to make sure it was where it was supposed to be, but Tony was mostly concentrating on her eyes and she did not know what to do with that. He looked away when it was obvious he was caught, and plucked a bowl of cashews off the minibar next to her. She cleared her throat and cleared her mind of all stupid thoughts.

“Happy, why are you driving us?” She asked towards the front of the luxury car. She looked at Tony beside her, “I thought he was head of security?”

“I'm his security.” Happy nodded so his reflection in the rearview mirror indicated Tony. Darcy chortled a little at a sweet -albeit big- ordinary guy being security for Iron Man. 

“You're his bestie. Gotcha.” Darcy said with a smile and a nod. “I just checked in on mine.”

“How's Foster settling in?” Tony blandly asked. It had the type of emphasis where most people would think he didn't care, but it occurred to her that if he didn't care, he wouldn't have asked. 

“Making the baby scientists cry with her fantastic work ethic,” Darcy's smile was dazzling as she relaxed into her seat. “She's fine.”

He walked her in through the hallways, lots of rich fabrics and dark woods and what she assumed was the smell of austere stuff like books and hunting. A guy in a tux smiled at them and lead them to a backroom. It wasn't huge but not small, about small tables set up with table cloths and fabric napkins. She vaguely recognized most people at most of the tables, but they were lead further passed each of them until they arrived at their table and two men, already seated, stood to greet them.

They weren’t in their uniforms, but Darcy would have to be ridiculously stupid if she didn't recognize the various cuts of man meat before her. The papers, various check-out magazines, childhood history books, — not to mention her spelunking into the depths of government agencies’ files for kicks or the Avengers Bingo card she made for Jane when she was in the running to become alien royalty— alllll of those thing pretty much solidified her knowledge of the faces in front of her:

Captain freaking America looked decidedly uncomfortable. Maybe just awkward, like he was in skin too tight or maybe the suit was too staid and he needed his patriotic onesie back on for National Security. 

The Falcon looked more comfortable and smirked. One look, with the smile and eye-twinkle? Oh yeah, Falcon-boy was going to be a smooth-talker or a flirt or something. Or think he was. She could work with that.

But yeah, she may as well pull out her bingo card and dauber right now, tick, tick. 

Unfortunately,  Darcy couldn't fit that laminated card in this little purse. Plus, she was arm-in-arm with Tony Stark turned Iron Man, so… Darcy was pretty sure her fan-girl alarm was pretty burnt out.

“Darcy Lewis, Captain America and Falcon otherwise known as Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson,” Tony gestured between the set of guys in front of them and herself, “Cap and Sam, this is Darcy.”

Captain Freaking America shook her hand with two strong but not forceful pumps, before she switched to the gentler hand-shake of the Falcon.

“Nice to meet you guys,” Darcy said, either very good at playing it cool or the shock hadn't set in yet, shaking their hands an appropriate amount of times and her voice staying at both a normal volume and frequency. 

Tony was obviously smirking at her, clearly watching her internal freak out with amusement. Somehow Tony's entertainment calmed her and she elbowed him a little as admonishment. Tony faked an ouch and Darcy rolled her eyes jovially, “Ass.”

Sam looked at the interaction with amusement, but Captain America was preoccupied by excessive patriotism or something because he did not seem amused by their lightheartedness.

Captain A seemed like he wasn't amused by much, actually. He was elsewhere, or very present, but like, with a specific goal: he wasn't in the mood to be anything but business-like. Darcy's back itched at that, wasn't this supposed to be a social thing? Either way it seemed almost the opposite of Tony's day-to-day attitude. 

He pulled out her seat for her and she wasn't expecting that. She winked at him as he smirked and sat down next to her at the four person table.

“It's nice to meet you Darcy,” Sam broke the ice, smiling like the charmer she figured he might be. “What's a nice girl like you doing with him?”

“Maybe I'm not that nice,” Darcy grinned at Sam and shrugged. Tony twitched out of the corner of her eye, but she still hadn't seen Captain A look at much that wasn't the menu. 

Captain Steve's eyes rolled, “that's why you're with him.”

Maybe it was the delivery, but the joke wasn't nearly as funny as her responding chuckle said it was. “Yeah, well, I seem to find difficult people.” She scrunched her nose and winked at Tony. “My old boss is kinda known for pulling several all-nighters in a row and living off pop-tarts, Tony is easy.”

"Likewise I'm sure." Steve said quietly, he probably was aiming to be quieter or something, but Darcy just  blinked at the second and honestly wondered if he was trying and failing to be funny or if he ever worked in HR. 

“Uh,” Sam defused the situation, “Easy on the eyes.” Sam winked and Darcy forced out a small laugh regardless of the amusement, anything to change the damn subject. 

Tony flagged down a waiter, “Two scotches, please. You want a drink?” —Darcy's duh look barely sat on her face for enough time to be called a microexpression before Tony turned back to the waiter. “Three scotches.”

Darcy genuinely smiled: Tony was easy to be around, whatever that meant, regardless of humorless old guys pretending to be young and hot. She made eye contact with the waiter who was stalling a bit out of his reluctance, probably unsure over whether or not Tony was being sarcastic. She smiled wider.

“Just two, but keep a refill on deck.” She winked at the guy and the old man smiled back before he shuffled off.

Darcy pushed her seat back a little and stood, Tony's hackles rose.

“Where are you going?” He asked quickly, somewhere between worried and curious. 

“I'm going to use the ladies room.” She said like he was a toddler. He visibly relaxed. Had he had people leave because of a little tension? If that was the case, she was convinced he had shitty friends. Darcy put a hand on his arm and squeezed a little. “I'll call if I need help.”

The tension drained out of his muscles beneath her hand but his outward mocking face stayed the same. “Should I order for you?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Darcy nodded quickly as she started to walk away. “Make good choices.” Tony snickered. Darcy had to roll her eyes at the sound,  knowing full well there was a good 70-30 chance he'd actively do the opposite of what she'd asked. She headed to the back hall. 

With what seemed like a quick use of the facilities, she looked around at the little upholstered makeup lounge by the entrance of the bathroom. The mirrors lined the walls, floor to ceiling, probably meant for ladies to do outfit checks after having to pop a squat, so to speak. ‘Networking events disguised as parties’ were one thing, but heck, she wasn't sure what this was at all. Also, was Captain America a misogynist? Well, 1940s, past precedent, blahblah. Maybe he was just having a bad day and thought he was being subtle taking it out of the new girl.

She seriously hadn't been gone more than five minutes and the three at the table looked so uncomfortable it was borderline hilarious.

“Ah, she returns!” Tony announced as he stood and pulled out her seat for her. If she didn't know any better, she'd have to say there was relief in the man's eyes as he smirked his sarcastic smirk at her.  He looked a little more worn than five minutes ago as he actually got up to help her into the chair. He must have loved the chance to pull out of whatever conversation had gone on while she was elsewhere. 

Cap looked angry and frustrated like he wanted to say something or poop. Sam looked more like he was going to back up his buddy in whatever was going to happen regardless of whether he declared water dry or not. 

Tony was trying to be Tony, his smirk was a little flatter, a bit falser, his body seemed stiff like he had posed himself to look relaxed instead of actually being relaxed. 

Darcy slid back into her seat at the table. …Note to self, pee before dinner parties. Because yikes. 

“So,” Darcy started. It wasn't just Tony, everyone seemed to be happy she was taking the conversation away from wherever-the-hell it was, daggers still spewing from the eyes of Tony and Cap despite their attention pretending to be elsewhere. “Sam. I read that you were retired?” 

“You read about me?” he said suggestively. She snorted. “Nah, just playin’. We both live in DC, I'm a counselor for the VA." —Well his friendship with the Captain started to make sense, dudes that pissy usually needed some therapy— “We come back for equipment updates.”

“Oh, do you have an equipment update coming up?” asked with genuine interest. Darcy took a mental note of that, she still didn’t have access to Tony's work stuff, she internally growled, she needed to get that schedule.  

“Uh, no,” Sam smiled sheepishly, all apple-cheeks and twinkle-eyes, “just thought he could do it soon.”

“He just drops everything to do it?” She noted, mentally adding random schedule clearing to her tally of potential duties. She looked at Tony for confirmation, but he squirmed in his seat at the bald statement. She smirked at him, the frikken softie. Sam seemed taken aback but Captain A rolled his eyes. 

“Everything?” He sounded disbelieving. Either that Tony didn't drop everything or maybe Tony had nothing else to do? She guessed the latter Tony was a pretty easy going guy. At least she thought, anyway. Though, again, she internally cringed, this was a guy she had known for all of two days.

“Uh, yeah, I mean I just saw his social schedule but it's pretty jam packed. Oooo foods!” Tony's rigidity seemed to slack at her excitement over the food, happy for the diversion of discussion and apparently the curiosity attention Darcy foisted upon the plate set in front of her.

The food looked —she narrowed her eyes at it — like it was going to be a challenge. Her lips twitched into an almost smirk and she put her elbow on the table, her fist holding up her head as she appraised the plate. She turned her head on her fist and looked at Tony.. Darcy smiled with amusement and her free hand gestured to her plate of tan, slimy, roundish, snails.

“What did you do.” It was more of a statement than a question, her eyebrows, apparently incapable of lifting independently, both raised pointedly.

 “Escargot in their shells,” Tony tried to deadpan, he really did, but her amusement at the slight inconvenience was giving her that smarmy smile and the sight of it was addictive. “I knew you'd love ‘em.”

“Joke’s on you, I have no problem eating weird sh… tuff in front of strange superheroes.” She said with that stuttering correction in the middle. Eating weird things may have been okay, but swearing in front of Captain America was apparently an issue. The irony wasn't lost on her. Or apparently, Tony, who nearly choked on a chuckle at her self-correction. She took her head off her fist and looked at her plate again. 

Tony just smiled and watched as her stubborn ass reached for the utensils that was delivered with her plate: tongs and a long trident fork (if this were any place else with anyone else she'd be claiming herself king of the sea). The tongs looked like piercing tongs if they were piercing a giant or starting with straight-up 0 gauges, but they clamped almost perfectly on the almost-oval shell. She kept it clamped shut and twisted her hand to lift the thing and suddenly the pressure gave, the tongs clacking together as the snail shell slips and went zipping through the air like one of these three guys towards an unsuspecting senator.

The waiter reached out and snatched it, like a freaking miracle worker or an angel or something, saving her from everlasting mortification of getting snail juice all over a guy she voted for. Her thankfulness must have shown in her eyes because the older waiter smiled at her, her shell nestled in his hand discreetly.

“Happens all the time.” 

He didn't put it back because this was a classy place, classy enough to leave her with seven little slippery-shelled demons waiting for her to accidentally chuck them all over the room. She cringed and looked around at the guys at the table, all in various states of amusement at her expense. Especially Tony. Tony, the little shit, actually held a hand over his mouth to help tame his smile. She pointed the tongs at him menacingly and narrowed her eyes. 

“You ordered these just to see me try and eat them.” She clacked the tongs at Tony as his grin peeked out from behind hand in front of his mouth and his eyes did that sparkly thing that seemed to happen when he was really amused. Darcy couldn't help but give him a wry smirk and shake her head. “Ass.” 

She put the tongs down and picked up a shell with both hands. The outside wasn't as slimy as she assumed but, quickly grabbed it with the end of her fingers,  put the shell to her lips and sucked the little bastard out of its shell with a slight slurp. Sam couldn't contain his chuckles as he cracked up at her hoover impression. A mass quickly shot into her mouth and she chewed experimentally a few times. Darcy scrunched her face at the taste, getting a mouthful of savory herbs with something that felt like a clam but tasted like a mushroom with garlic and butter. It wasn't a whole lot of chewing until she could swallow it down, Tony and Sam damn near laughing hysterically at the whole thing. Darcy ran her tongue over her teeth with her mouth closed and shrugged. 

“Pretty good.” 

Tony's eyes crinkled at the edges in mirth but there was something else in there.  She'd managed to make him relax, albeit briefly, from whatevs tension that a supposedly friendly dinner seemed to grow. 

She had to hand it to him, Tony was smooth. He went from mocking her with food to talking about whatever with Steve pretty easily. She was out of the loop  at least no one was making much of an effort to pull her in,  which was fine with her,  there were still two snails to dig out. 

Darcy would be lying if she said she understood much else at the table. Darcy wasn't stupid, she understood the facts of it well enough but without context (which they didn't seem to want to explain) or care (which honestly she couldn't muster) the whole thing was moot anyway, but watching the dynamic sent her thinking: Avenger-ing seemed to be on the social side but damn it looked like work. Tony and Steve had started talking about something, somewhere, that kinda sounded like logistics and she wanted to re-categorize this dinner.  It seemed like his previous PAs or whatever considered any non-SI stuff to be on the play side of the work/play balance and it was no wonder everyone thought this workaholic was lazy. She made a mental note to have FRIDAY help her sort his work-play situation as the heros at the table tensely kibitzed about something intensely debated, apparently. 

The tension was a monster. It was like static electricity, it built up and built up and sooner or later there was going to be some lightning.The waiter set plates down in front of people, pausing the conversation long enough to basically have food waved in the faces. Darcy barely saw the others get served, her plate freaking glistened with a big juicy steak on something taupe and pink with a brown streak of something saucy over it. Tony picked well: The man may have ordered her a genuine appa-tease-er but he delivered when it came down to the actual meal. It looked damn good, and he'd gotten himself the same thing so he must have known it was good. 

The waiter’s presence and timely food-dispersion felt like it managed to dissipate the electrical storm a-brewin. She was busy thanking the waiter when she heard Steve say one short, sharp sentence:

“That's exactly what your father would do.”

Her fork was half way too her mouth before she realized that something about Tony’s posture had changed and his face was weird. Oh, it was still a grin, but. She'd seen his sarcastic grin and manic grin and even a few genuinely amused grins, but she was not a fan of whatever this grin was. It flashed of… pain. Which did not seem to make a whole lot of sense, but there it was.

Darcy bumped the side of his knee with hers, checking in non-verbally. He looked at her but she just left her leg there, pressed up against his. His face's subtle tension slacked a little. His leg stayed where it was, almost pressing back into hers like the extra pressure was helping him.

“Yes, well, Howard isn't here.” Tony said, gathering his wits instead of vitriol. “He and Aunt Peg had an oversight. Erskin had oversight. The SSR, SHIELD. Look at what happened last time someone wasn't available to oversee?” He admitted with not a small amount of regret. Darcy took his relaxed demeanor as a hint that it was okay to take a bite and damn was it a good steak. Tony sipped his scotch. “It's not even a big idea”

“Yeah, but Ultron was your last big idea.” Captain Steve nearly growled. “Who's to say this one would have less of a body count?”

Darcy's ears had to do a double take: Did she really hear that? Really? Out of that mouth? Was it legal for Captain America to be such a dick? 

Darcy blinked as Tony's leg leaned into hers even harder. The pressure was so great that it felt as if he was daring her to pull away, but she kept it there, her hand dropping beneath the table to rest on his knee to help reassure him or ground him or something. She had zero idea of what to do here. She turned and looked at him: 

Tony's face was stony, his trademark grin was completely flat, his eyes devoid of their twinkle. It was a little jarring to see. He took a deep breath and she looked back at the annoyed Captain America and his calm but ever-so-slightly embarrassed friend.

“That's exactly what we're trying to prevent.” He took a performative bite of his steak. It was small and easily chewed and then dabbed the corner of his mouth with the napkin from his lap even though there was clearly nothing on his face. “Then again, you're not the prevention guy, reactionary, you wouldn't even have a job if guys like me didn't try. You're clean up . You're the janitor in a spangly uniform. World peace would put you out of a job and your existence would be meaningless.” 

Tony wiped his face with the cloth napkin and tossed it on the table, pushing his chair out and standing as Steve's face got redder. Darcy hadn't even managed to process the shit that was happening when Tony put out his elbow. She calmly wiped her face with her own napkin and put it down before she stood up. She gave a blink-and-you-miss-it nod-and-small-smile to Sam, and took the offered arm, placing her other hand on his arm, too, making it clear that regardless of discussion, her position was clearly at Tony's side.

They didn't need to say another word, her hand saying enough. They left.

Tony hadn't said much. He'd just gotten back into the limo and then he was all in his head. FRIDAY and Happy seemed to be used to it, taking his nonverbal cues or routine in step. It was late, he said ‘Night’...so Darcy went to bed. 

But only to lay back in her unpacked pajamas and stare at the ceiling. That had been… whatever the fuck that was. An interesting first day on the job, sure, but it was a messy dinner out. At least it was quiet enough that she knew the headline of the latest dirt-rag wasn't going to be ‘Super Beef and Mediocre Chicken’ or anything (which she guessed was the whole point of that pseudo-vampire's lair of a restaurant) so that was a plus, but it was just a freaking battle zone that kept replaying over and over in her head and she wasn't even a target. 

Going to the kitchen for a glass of excuses to get out of bed, Darcy saw the glint of light down the hall. The lights were on in Tony's lab, because of course they were. Even at three AM, of course they were.

Darcy came down the half set of stairs in her pjs, long shirt and shorts but the shorts are mostly hidden by the obscenely long shirt.

There he was. 

Hunched over a piece of equipment and greasy and obviously brooding.

She sighed and pushed over the glass composite doors and all of a sudden the volume changed, rock cranked up to near-teenager levels while he worked. 

Darcy had no idea how FRIDAY heard her request to lower the volume over that, but she did and soon the rest of Motörhead's Overkill was much quieter.

"You know,” Darcy started, getting Tony to look over at her. “As your personal assistant, part of my job is to make sure you eat but I'm pretty sure another big part is to get you to sleep.” She slowly walked closer to him like she was approving a wounded animal that she didn't want to bolt. “Somewhere in the middle is 'drink less.' I think that one's negotiable, but the eating and sleeping bits? Not so much.”

He looked back at his whatever-the-hell, tweaking something with what looked like a lug wrench but was likely way more high tech than that, and shrugged. “I don't sleep.”

"Can't isn't don't." She said blandly as she meandered closer. 

He grumbled but didn't look at her again. “You've said that before.” 

“It was true before, too.” Darcy shrugged. She pulled up an empty metal chair and sat next to him, the act made him look at her. “So, you're in your lab at three am.” Darcy shrewdly observed. “From my experience with Jane that means one of three things:” She ticked off her fingers as she spoke, “One, you're in the middle of a science binge. Two, sudden brain lightning happened and blah-blah-blah science. Or three —and I'm thinking this is the one— something is bothering you.” She nudged his knee with her own ever so slightly, not to dislodge him from the sciencing he was doing but enough to make him know he had to respond. His whole face frowned, as if there was some response in there but it couldn't come out.  Darcy soldiered on. “Dinner was a wreck. And what's up with Captain America? He was a dick. Thirteen year old Darcy would be so freaking disappointed right now.”

That seemed to work. 

“He thinks the only way to save people is his way, the morally right way.” Tony scowled thinking of the guy, “the only way.”

“I get that.” Darcy said calmly, juxtaposing his anger. “Problem is, I think you think he's right.”

“No.” Tony almost scrambled to correct her. “we need some oversight—” 

“No, I mean about Ultron,” Darcy interrupted. When he didn't answer, she knew she hit the nail on the head. She saw the guilt again and boy did it bug her. “And you look up to the guy, I mean who wouldn't? America's youth were brought up on the guy. Being yelled at by him is like being dressed down by the president or the Pope or Oprah or something. But he's your… friend?” His weird grimace-y horror face made her correct herself with a well received half-smile, “Okay, coworker-slash-friend, this shit wouldn't hurt as much if you weren't at least friendly, right?”

“It's a long story,” he said, waving more away from this conversation but his voice got rougher and sadder and she didn't like it. “I took the Iron Legion a step too far and that's on me. Ultron was—”

“Hey.” Darcy interrupted him, seeing the guilt again made a sad feeling crawl into her heart and sit there and she didn't like that at all. “You've apologized publicly, financially, and what's more important, you actually feel bad and you're learning from your mistakes.”

“Am I? I'd still do it. Maybe with less autonomy or maybe it would work with a base like JARVIS or FRIDAY instead of the Mind Stone's construct, it was too advanced, maybe—” He cut himself off with a slight growl.

“Okay, I didn't understand any of that.” Darcy rolled her eyes, slightly amused for some reason. “When Jane got stuck on a thing she'd call Erik, it helped her to have a more Astrophysicist-y Astrophysicist around, but I guess there's not really a more genius-y genius than you, huh?” Tony started to smirk and Darcy smacked his (surprisingly muscular) arm a little. “Oh, shut up, I'm not trying to feed your ego, asshole. I'm trying to help you see what other people see: someone -at the top of the genius ladder- made a mistake. Of course they're scared.”

“Hm.” It was a I-don't-want-to-talk-about-this-anymore noise, maybe a I’ll-think-about-what-you've-said noise, but it's not like he'd say that. She felt like he'd say gtfo, but maybe she should pre-empt that specific request and leave him to his brood-a-palooza alone.

She stood from her chair and patted his shoulder as a goodnight. His hand quickly covered hers, pressing it slightly, keeping it there. …Go figure, Mr. I-Don't-Touch-People was touch-starved. 

Darcy was a touchy type; friends and family, if they were up for it, whatevs. Thor was physical, Jane was not. It made a huge difference in how she interacted with them. Thor hugs were joyous and plentiful, Jane hugs were rare and dire. Tony was a sarcastic, pain in the ass, stand-alone-type but behind closed doors… he was still sarcastic and a pain in the ass, but this ass-pain needed a hug. Little touches were grounding, anchoring to another human was sometimes super necessary and if anything, dinner had proved where he was on that idea. 

He twitched when she relaxed her hand, like he didn't expect it or something, but then it curved around hers a little bit. 

Darcy smiled. No leaving. Message received. 

“Do you want something to eat? We didn't get a chance to really eat at that thing.” She pondered a sec, thinking of the decadent foods that mightbe a bit tainted by the night, “Cheeseburger? It feels like a cheeseburger night.” 

He grunted, his tiredness and-or hungriness suddenly catching up with him. He stood, her hand organically getting dislodged, their physical contact erased like it had never happened in the first place. 

"FRIDAY we need some giant cheeseburgers and classic Bugs Bunny, STAT." The large wall across from the lab's futon lit up with classic cartoons, Darcy smiled at the ceiling. "Thanks, babe."

Darcy plopped onto the futon. Tony grabbed a tablet of work as he sat on the other side, waiting for their food.

Chapter Text

Tony woke up.

He woke up and was well rested, hydrated, and only a little bit hungover. He was cogent enough to both remember that that was just like yesterday and realize that twice wasn't a pattern yet.

He remembered yesterday pretty quickly: Dinner with Capsical and his bird-friend, trading barbs, walking out, drinking and building and hating everything and whiskey and then… not. 

Spark.

She'd distracted him during the worst parts of dinner, engaged Wilson in some kind of conversation. She had accidentally/incidentally stood up for him, grounded him, and left on his arm. Then burgers and Wile E Coyote and a theoretical discussion of 1970s distribution rights of the fictional ACME company. Tony got the distinct impression that his Spark was smarter than she thought. 

Tony sat up. He was on the futon, but the blanket and pillow weren't originally from his workshop. The pillow smelled vaguely like vanilla-based perfume with stale, milky coffee and if he wasn't completely mistaken he swore he could smell the specific flavor of sarcasm on it, too. The monitor on the wall was off, the lights had been turned down. There was a small bottle of water and a packet of aspirin on the side table. He couldn't help but smirk as he reached for the goods, internally amused by the thought that Foster was probably going to resent her new assistants, advanced degrees or not, they wouldn't be this thorough. Tony swallowed the aspirin and chased it with a gulp of the water before he brought himself to his feet, up the few steps of the partition, through the clear doors separating his areas from one another.

As soon as he opened the door he heard broken, off-key lyrical speak-singing. Tony heard Darcy before he saw her, watching her momentarily as her sorta-rhythmic shuffling around the kitchen with her back to him, clearly dancing and singing to whatever was playing over her headphones. Those corded earbuds he had seen on the plane were back, this time he was more used to the women wearing them and couldn't help but take note of the nearly pale oatmeal color of the rubber coating of the wires a sign of its age and not its design, as the hard plastic of the speakers were still white. The scratched chrome of an old ipod sticking out of a tiny pocket in her pants. What was more interesting, though, was her dancing in place. Interesting, bordering on priceless. Rhythmic and uncoordinated and very recordable for embarrassment purposes should she have been the embarassable type. Add that to her quietly singing along with occasional lyrics…

“Ain't no par-tic-u-lar sign I'm com-pat-i-ble with; I just want your ex-tra time and your—”

When Darcy began to kiss the air along with the song and a laugh popped out of his chest like a bursting bubble, the noise must have broken through the Prince in her ears. She jumped slightly and brandished the spatula in her hand like a weapon. Tony couldn't help but snicker at her fight or flight reflex resulting in her threatening him with kitchen utensils. As her mind caught up to what actually happened, she huffed and pulled the old, graying cords out of her ears and shoved them into her pocket. She narrowed her eyes at him. 

“Good morning to you, too, Ass.'' Darcy turned back to what she was doing at the skillet, spatula going back to a kitchen utensil from its brief stint as a defensive weapon. “Breakfast's in a sec.”

“I don't eat breakfast.” It was automatic. 

“No, you drink breakfast.” Darcy snorted and gestured with the weapon-slash-kitchen utensil to a small pyramid of breakfast burritos on the plate beside her. “Eat.”

The burritos looked like the same ones she had forced Foster to eat when he'd first seen her, he couldn't fully suppress a grin at the memory as Darcy turned off the burner and added a slightly crisped log of flour tortilla to the pile. Darcy hoisted herself up on an unused section of counter between the fridge and the breakfast, taking a burrito for her own. Her maroon blouse and black slacks managed to be classily work appropriate and yet fit Darcy's relaxed nature, but she looked moderately bossy in the get-up. It took one pointed look from her to get him to push off of the spot along the wall he had leaned against and walked leisurely to the food stack.

He took a bite of one of the logs; Crispy outer flour tortilla semi-sealed with a quick fry, some unexpectedly fluffy scrambled egg, hot sauce, ham, and what appeared to be a strip of crunchy bacon in the center. It was surprisingly delicious. He looked at it with some minor surprise and took a bigger bite. Darcy snorted and took a bite of her own, pointedly looking at him ‘not’ eating breakfast. She was smug. Tony ignored it.

“How did you make these?” He spoke around his bite. Darcy nodded affirmatively with her mouth full. She put a hand over her mouth to speak through the last of her bite without grossing him out with see-food. “I don't think this kitchen had tortillas.”

“Or ham, or eggs, or bread,” Darcy smiled. Tony glared, acknowledging that she was more than likely right. “Before I went to sleep last night I asked FRIDAY for a few things, like a work appropriate outfit and to stock your fridge with something that didn't qualify as booze or take out. She came through like a champ.” Darcy shrugged and indicated her clothes with the burrito in her hand.

A ping chimed and she slipped what looked like a plastic and metal brick out of her pocket to look at the message. Tony narrowed his eyes at the thing stealing her attention before breakfast was even finished, it only managed to keep his attention because it was more non-Stark technology in his own damn building.

“Looks like I have to go get my lanyard and stuff at from HR today, yay,” Darcy said unenthusiastically while she hop-slid off the kitchen counter and put her massively outdated cell back into her jeans pocket. He smirked as she grabbed what looked like a gray shirt box that had apparently been beside her.

She put it onto the nearby kitchen table, plopped onto a dining chair and lifted the top.

His mouth opened slightly and he nearly dropped his tasty breakfast in pure horror:

It was a laptop.

Honestly he thought it was an unattractive faux-modernist chopping block or something, thick and old, almost faded grayish-beige color and almost three full inches thick.

Tony quickly stepped around her and snatched the laptop from in front of her. The plastic housing was worn and there were a few easily visible cracks and probably dozens if not hundreds of microfractures around the edging where the two plastic pieces met and some permanent light shadows on the monitor from prolonged use. Tony didn't even want to think about the wear on the keys, but that was only slightly less concerning than the tech beyond aesthetics; it was heavier than it looked, which explained her ability to hoist Foster's giant things back and forth. The damn thing was noisy, too, as the fan kicked on not three seconds after the old thing started to boot up, which didn't seem to do much because he could smell the permeating stench of overheated wiring go uncontrolled by the supposedly cooling fan and the warmth of the processor threatening to give him blisters. He touched it like it was in some way contagious and the more tactile he got with it, the more likely he'd catch whatever outdated nonsense this was.

Her technology was sad. Depressing, even. 

“How old is this?” He barely covered his horror as he looked at the lower corner of the monitor, “with an ancient OS? Gross.”

“Gimme that!” Darcy stood up to take her laptop back and thwapped at Tony's hand to get him to let go of it. She put it back where it was on the table. 

“Get rid of that thing before it gets its late century funk all over the place.” Tony grimaced and Darcy just snorted in amusement at his horror.

“What are you doing, anyway?” He said as he took another bite. He quickly reached out with his free hand and turned the laptop in place, bringing both the screen and affronted Darcy to face him. Tony nearly breathed in his half-masticated breakfast foods as he skimmed the half-written code on the screen: A dark-green background with light font coloring took a second to put together in his head: she was building what looked like a tethering worm and aiming it at FRIDAY's firewall.

"I couldn't get in last time.” Darcy groused, turning her laptop back to face her. 

“So you're trying to hack me?” He raised an eyebrow. 

“Sure, I'm ‘trying,’” Darcy smirked with an amused arched brow. He couldn't help but grin as they seemingly agreed to disagree on the efficacy of her hack. “You set me up on Jane's stuff on the plane, shopping was easy because your AI loves me, I could reach the general internet, the security dude gave me access to this floor and my clearance gives me your social schedule. I can wade through that easily enough, but gaining access to your work schedule? Big nope. Can't add to it, can't delete from it, can't even see it, so. I decided it was time for Plan B because I really do not want to deal with HR again.” She shuddered exaggeratedly. “The lady I dealt with last time more or less called me a slut like four times in two minutes and I don't really want a repeat performance.”

“What?” Tony stiffened, almost frozen in place with a flat, expressionless mein, shocked into anger with a new bite filling his mouth, fluffy scrambled eggs going unchewed as he heard it. 

“I've been called worse,” she said nonchalantly. “You're not blessed with these ladies without some haters.” She pointed to her breasts and Tony reluctantly relaxed, his eyes staying off her chest for surprisingly long despite her literally pointing them out as she made that statement. Darcy shrugged. “Easier to avoid it when I can.”

Tony frowned briefly; yes, he'd seen them; his peripheral vision had been honed for that specific purpose since he was 12 years old —plus the more obvious version he'd been perfecting since then— they were prominent, but well covered. He remembered Cap's words to her and the hackles they raised, but only now did he realize those raised hackles were mainly his. He hadn't really noticed her lack of reaction at the time, but when he thought back, she hadn't really reacted. Darcy seemed resigned to it, mildly disappointed by not surprised.

"Okay,” Tony quickly sucked the tips of his left hand's fingers free of burrito debris before he reached over to the nearby wall and tapped against it. Darcy's eyes widened as she saw it; there weren't any letters or numbers or sigils on the wall, it just lit up in different colors when his fingers tapped the surface. There was a beep and Tony took another bite of the burrito. “There.” He said boredly, smirking as he propped his chin up on his arm, giving him the ultimate air of nonchalance. “You have better access to the compound than most of the Avengers.” Tony said around his bite. He chewed and swallowed, watching Darcy gape like a fish as she tried to wrap her mind around what had just been done. “What? Did you expect some paperwork montage?” He reached across her space to her ancient laptop and typed a few things into the screen and suddenly his vaguely shitty SI employee website was easily a thousand times better with links and access to things previously inaccessible. “Admin privileges granted.”

“Bullshit.” Darcy burst out with a disbelieving half-laugh. “I'm not anything close to administration.”

“Technically you are.” Tony shrugged. “You're second in command to the Stark part of Stark Industries. Perks included.”

“Holy shit,” She let out another loud laugh and shook her head. “This doesn't feel legal.”

“There'll be some signatures when you go pick up your lanyard.” He waved his hand like he'd just said something obvious. “What's your first act?”

She paused and a small, quiet grin stretched out her smirk into a full-on grin.

“… emailing some security footage to HR managers?” She shrugged while biting her lip to quell the grin growing on her face, questioning if she should delve that deep into petty behavior. It wasn't completely petty, she knew, but it still felt a bit skeevy to do. Tony's returned grin was down-right menacing: He approved. As a matter of fact, he might have to look at that footage himself and fire the person if their manager didn’t, but he wasn't about to take this away from Darcy. Darcy smiled brightly and flexed her hands above the computer, the joints in her fingers quickly straightening and crimping a stretch as she almost dove at the keyboard. She obviously knew what to do at a computer. Her hands moved a bit faster than someone who did clerical work and digitizing, he remembered her elegant hacking into JARVIS and wondered if it, too, had been done on this highly outmoded brick of a machine: A dozen keystrokes in and Tony was cringing at each clack of the keys like she was playing an out of tune piano. He could hear the springs beneath the keys, brittle and dirty, the amount of force behind her fingers as they hit each button was monstrous and more than a little sacrilegious in his presence. 

Another few clacks of the keys and he couldn't help it, Tony shut the laptop so quickly Darcy barely had time to retract her hands before the large screen half inevitably crushed her fingers with its bulkiness.

“Hey!” Darcy protested as Tony grabbed her wrist and led her to stand before letting her go. 

“Come on,” he instructed simply, shoving the butt-end of his obviously four-star breakfast burrito into his mouth. He headed to the elevator doors secure in the fact that she was following him by the huff of amused annoyance out of her smirking mouth. 

“FRIDAY, give R&D a heads up.” He pulled a pair of tinted sunglasses out of his pants pocket and slid them on. She almost raised her eyebrows, his floor was like ninety percent window and putting on sunglasses now, in a windowless elevator, seemed like a weird choice. He must have seen the questioning glance (she wasn't exactly being subtle) but didn't say anything about it.  

“R&D, huh?” Darcy smirked. “So we're basically going to get a new computer because you're allergic to my laptop.”

“I refuse to allow that monstrosity in my presence.” Tony said with a tone of finality.

Darcy let out a full laugh at that as the elevator pinged and Tony pushed her back gently out the doors.

“Windows 95 is not allowed in this tower. FRIDAY, make a memo.” He pronounced as he grabbed Darcy's wrist again.

“Yes, Boss.” the Irish voice agreed, and Darcy laughed harder as she was tugged into the hall. 

It was lucky that the R&D labs were in the same building as his living space-slash-lab, but each floor was bustling with white-coated science-types. the seas seemed to part for Tony, which shouldn't have been a shock, but she noted the stares. People in the hallways were 50-50 on fleeing or fawning, Tony just walking straight through the center of the hall, like he hadn't a care in the world, like there wasn't anyone in the hall at all beyond herself and the destination. His gait was pretty determined but weirdly leisurely, like his hands were shoved in his pockets but damn if he was going to be delayed by anything or anyone.

Darcy looked at him. The sunglasses suddenly made sense. They were his armor. Maybe half nonchalant poker face, half headphones-on-the-subway-type signal to humanity to back off… maybe with a smidge of something like blinders on a road horse to keep him from getting scared or distracted. 

Darcy almost grinned at figuring out another layer to her new boss-slash-buddy beyond what was written by random journalists that he may or may not have slept with. She didn't though: the fact that the sunglasses were armor and the humor was armor and the persona was armor and his literal armor was armor—she kinda hoped she was wrong: Pretty much everything about the guy seemed to be armor was super depressing the more she thought about it.

A quick wave of his hand and the door opened, everyone working on their own projects froze. Tony walked in like he owned the place, which, Darcy supposed, he did. She looked around when she followed him, cataloging the things she saw: White lab coats, weird tech in hand, computers, scorch marks on the white laminate countertops, everyone frozen in mid-tinker and staring at Tony with wide eyes for a second. When everyone remembered to function, a middle aged guy appeared almost magically in front of them with all the sweet enthusiasm and excitement of a highly educated 6 year old girl. 

“Mr Stark, sir!” He tittered. Tony clearly didn't look at his lanyard but Darcy did, labeling him Michael with a polish last name shed totally mangle. “Is there anything you're looking for in particular, sir?”

“I'm not.” Tony pointed specifically at Darcy, who he had all but ignored until Tony's pointed finger drew attention to her. ”She is.”

“Uhm?” The poor little scientist guy was probably as confused as Darcy herself, just less chill about hiding it.

“Everything she needs, full electronics package.” Tony waved his hands at the rows of white work tables covered in circuit boards and diodes and wires. Darcy snorted a laugh and Tony looked at her with a growing smirk in place. “What? Perks, Spark. You're management.” He said the last sentence pointedly, purposefully, and the lab techs seemed to hear it and straighten up. Darcy heard it too, watching the techs walk just a little faster at whatever they were doing and attempt to give her sneaky glances.

“I expect her to be top of the line. FRIDAY send you a list of the tech she has that needs to be replaced, full deck. Replace everything that's over six months old, she's the boss. Her ass is my ass; kiss away. I've got to get this.” He turned around and left the room, putting the speaker of his phone by his ear and tried not to roll his eyes at the monotone introduction and wait music of a government official. He heard Darcy's little chuckle at his exit. Tony meandered just outside the door, out of sight of the now bustling R&D scientists probably falling over themselves to get her a set-up worthy of Stark Industries.

“Mr. Stark said deck you out so… deck you out we will. Oh! I see the list here.” FRIDAY must have populated a list as soon as Tony had finished his sentence and sent it to the guy's work tablet. “We have several things we've been working on— come on Mary, Pat, Francis—”

Tony smirked and heard his phone click over, Ross's impatient tone filling his ears. Tony's smile faded as he heard the commanding tones and he started walking a bit more determinedly away from his entertainment.

“Yeah, yeah. I'm on my way.”

“He's sewing discord in the military.”

Tony blinked and looked up from the yellow legal pad he'd been jotting down details for an idea on his next project —not that Ross knew that.“What?”

“Amongst the privates.” Ross harrumphed. Literally harrumphed. It fits with his uniform and constipated look, but seemed a might cliché. “The generals know which side of their bread is buttered, even if you ‘don't make weapons anymore’.”

“I don’t.” Tony reminded sternly.

Toss grinned in a way that didn't seem like a grin. “And yet we have the Iron Patriot.”

“War Machine.” Tony corrected with a smirk. He couldn't exactly take back their acquisition of the suit, but he could at least remind them of their incorrect naming.

“The Iron Patriot” Ross redirected firmly, “ is a marvel of modern control, a symbol of the United States' might. What Captain America could only hope to be.”

Tony rolled his eyes. Meetings with Ross always needed a bit of a break in order to regain his mind outside of the constant armed forces talk. Not that he was suppose to call them armed forces, apparently that, like War Machine, was ‘too aggressive for the populace.’ Honestly if he didn't agree on this one thing he'd be loathed to see if there were more things to have in common with the man, but his genuine worry for unchecked power was… motivating. But now, after hours of this, it was getting annoying. He reached into his pocket and drew out his phone, looking at its blank face and smoothly standing. 

“I have to get this,” he announced as he left the conference room and several annoyed faces. He couldn't care less, and no one was calling, but damn if he didn't need the break from that scowl a-thon.

He pressed the button on the side of his watch, the one that sent out something akin to a localized EMP and kept him from being swarmed by the Pentagon's various recording devices, and quickly pressed the contact he wanted.

A video phone, he was greeted by Darcy's smirking face.

“How dare you use the phone at work,” He non-scolded before she scoffed. 

Darcy rolled her eyes with a smile. “You called me.”

“Could have been anybody.” Tony said flippantly, still smirking.

“The caller ID said Overboss.” She eyed him with a teasing irritation and his smirk became a proud grin. Darcy pursed her lips in that teasing way. “Did you remote program that or do all StarkTech phones come with your number pre-programmed? Though, if that many women had your cell number, it would explain some things.”

“How dare you.” Tony deadpanned so hard that Darcy nearly snorted. “Get the necessities?” She clearly had, the video was Stark standard resolution. He wasn't even sure if her old phone would have had the capability to do a video call without its processor shutting down.

“And then some.” She nodded: Her tone was unamused but her words were deceptively excited. “They let me into the prototype lab. Walking in with Tony Stark got me the star treatment. Laptop, phone, obviously— StarkPad, StarkReader, StarkPlayer, —seriously, does everything have to have your name on it?— three types of headphones… all the things. You know you have some dedicated minions? Emil knew tasers were against the law so he specifically found some items that hadn't been classified as anything yet to avoid running to legal. It was so cool. I did a thing— you'll see." She lifted her eyebrows a few times in fairly suggestive excitement. "You in your lab or annoying someone somewhere else on the SI campus?”

He gave her a small shrug. “I'm in DC.”

“Ah,” Darcy immediately cringed a bit and Tony caught it, giving her a questioning look. “Pretty sure I should have known you were supposed to go to DC before now, being your assistant and all.”

“It wasn't on the books.” Tony waved off. Darcy snorted: she learned to keep track of off-book stuff too since almost Jane's entire existence was ‘off the book.’ “Besides, you've got to break-in your new stuff, seeing as it's yours to keep. Preferences, apps, whatever you want… I draw the line at ABBA ringtones.”

“What?” Her eyes widened, “Tony! I could sell this stuff and buy my apartment building.” Also she was totally going to give him an ABBA ringtone now, Dancing Queen maybe, but that wasn't a rush.

“Nah,” he waved off, literally, putting his hand in view of their face-to-face phone call. “I can't have you lugging around that brick of a laptop and a flip phone—”

“—it wasn't a flip phone—” Darcy argued petulantly. 

“— and an Ipod?” He looked like a combo or aghast and disgusted. “With corded earbuds?” He shivered demonstratively and looked away, “I won't have you seen with those. My assistant lugging around ancient tech is bad for the brand.”

Darcy smiled at his nonchalant look away from his phone. He was on a visual call, not looking into the camera. Sitting, not driving or walking or even reading probably, just not looking at her. Because he was being nice and he couldn't, what, face her gratitude? Thirty seconds of thinking and, yeah, that was exactly Tony's thing. Snark? Yup. Genuine emotion? Pass. It just meant he had non-assy emotions way more than the paparazzi or rumors would dictate. She smiled wider. “You're secretly a squishy guy, aren't you.” 

It wasn't really a question, he actually looked at her to look faux-offended at the accusation.

“Ew.”

She nodded sagely, “Squishy and sweet and— “

 “I can't hear you, you're breaking up.” He deadpanned.

“It's a video phone,” Darcy sing-songed.

“—Going through a tunnel.” Tony said with very little acting and moved his hand to the off button and hung up, the phone stopped on a dimmed image of him with that stupid smirk on his stupid face. The screen darkened before she could see if there was any blush to his cheeks but she conceded there probably wouldn't be, her incredible rightness or not.

"Ass.” Darcy said with an affectionate head-shake. As she got ready to put it back in her pocket  

“Darcy, my analysis of your gait indicates that you have to leave now in order to make it to your appointment in the Admin and Humanities building.”

Darcy knew how to get to the HR office without asking, which was weird. It kind of felt like she'd just been transferred to this school and she already knew where the principal's office was —oddly a feeling she knew too well. Her lanyard-tag-thing was apparently ‘necessary’ (though she'd never seen Tony wear one), but it was ‘fast tracked by Mr. Stark’ — whatever that meant, The techy-printy back desk guy ran the tag over a few scanners to test the bar code and the inner strip thing, some scannable thing that looked like a 90s holographic sticker and a QR code had a baby. (She was kind of surprised that he hadn't asked for a discreet microchipping, this whole thing was thorough). He looked at the tag to make sure all the dates and numbers were correct and had a very confused look on his face before he handed it to her. 

“Is everything correct?”

The picture on it didn't suck, birthday was a yes, employment begin date uh-huh, employee number that she had no idea was right or not, it even had her glasses prescription and blood type in small font under the picture (so freaking thorough) but then she saw it, the thing that made the desk guy so confused and she couldn't help but smile again. 

Darcy D. Lewis

Underboss

She barked a laugh and slipped the lanyard around her neck. “That's right.”

“Then you're all set.” Scanny-guy nodded and gestured. “Please sign out at the front desk.”

And yes. Yes, she would. Having an appointment with this section means she could bypass the front desk when she came in, but now? Now was Her Time.

A quick double check of her outfit as she walked towards the front desk on the other side of the office Darcy wasn't a Pepper Potts type, she knew she wasn't a power-suited kick ass executive, but she was wearing a solid color shirt and slacks, a semi professional set thanks to FRIDAY. The knit hat was absent as her hair wasn't gross because showers were a thing. With bathroom time in her luxurious new assistant's suite came with time to put on makeup. Not to mention the complete lack of hangover. Now she was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, not that it was a full 180 clothing-wise or anything, but still, she was dressed in some semblance of day-to-day professional attire and not pajamas. Plus there was the badge, all official and the whole holographic tracking thing. Probably more impressive if the Underboss part was ignored, but ehh. Laptop bag, fancy-ass briefcase filled with oodles of new tech that could fund or destroy a third-world country… like a full professional non-hooker who worked right here. Suck it, HR Monster.

“Hey,” Darcy greeted as she came up to the front desk, calm as a cucumber. A familiar lady looking back at her. HR Monster in the flesh.

“Hello, how can I help you?” The HR lady said. Darcy knew her name now, a quick perusal of the HR personnel tree required her to know the whos-and-whats when she sent her email: Krystal Jameson. Same lady. Same bitchy haircut. Same once over. Totally different demeanor. 

“You might not remember me, but I was here yesterday?” Darcy smiled serenely.

“Oh?” HR bitch said, obviously her twattery had been so ingrained that her blatant disregarding of the very department she was in didn't register. The thought made Darcy's smile a little more genuine and a teeny bit more feral.

“Yeah, new hire, I was trying to get back upstairs, you refused to help me, blahblah?” Darcy was still genial, smiling, looking nonplussed, until she reached the end of her sentence and made possibly the most passive aggressive eye contact that her former retail experience could afford her. 

“Oh.” Her eyes fell into recognition, her eyes scanning over the shiny fresh lanyard dangling on her chest. She seemed both disgusted and slightly regretful for pissing off a boss.

“Obviously you remember, awesome.” Darcy's smile spread out wide. Darcy quickly snagged the clipboard with a big old heading of ‘sign out’ across the top and signed her exit, handing it back with a grin. “I just wanted to say, good luck during your surprise review today with your division manager and department heads.”

Krystal blinked before Darcy's smile seemed more menacing, then Krystal seemed to gape like a fish.

“Darcy,” The ceiling spoke at a nice, moderated tone, shocking fish-face Krystal a little. “The head of R&D is ready for your approval on the finished products on the LEWIS line and Mister Hogan put in a request for an appointment with you sometime today.” 

The woman's eyes widened at the voice in the ceiling. 

Darcy felt smug. “Yes, thank you, FRIDAY. Please let Mister Hogan know that I can be by in about twenty minutes if that works for him. 

“He can meet you for lunch in the Avengers’ Lounge.” FRIDAY acknowledged. “I'll show you there.”

Darcy smiled a placating smile at the HR pain in the ass. Damn, this AI was on point. Badge? Check. But access to the AI that was only given to high-level associates who was name-dropping both the head of campus security and R&D, then displaying her access to the Avengers Lounge? Freaking masterful. She genuinely wondered if Tony had programmed FRIDAY with a Wingman protocol or if it was just some perfectly timed fate. Either way, if FRIDAY could eat cookies she'd be getting oodles of cookies right now.

She felt more than saw the slack-jawed, karen-haired human resources monster watch her leave. Once the door just behind her, Darcy couldn't help but let out a giggle that seemed to worry at least one passer by in the hallway.

“Dear gods, that was satisfying.” Darcy smiled as she followed more arrow lights in the wall as the AI directed her which way to go. “Hey FRIDAY? Can you notify me when that woman has that meeting with her superiors?”

“Of course, Darcy.”