"Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely thrilled at being here, but why exactly can't you just get him to do it? Or, you know, get S.H.I.E.L.D to monitor me?"
A glare was directed at her. "We aren't yet so desperate that we're going ask him to do our work for us," the man in front of her replied. "After that stunt you pulled during the Peterson mission, I'm certain that you're capable of getting past S.H.I.E.L.D monitoring, and as much as I hate to admit, Stark has much better computer systems than we do – he can keep an eye on you where we can't."
Skye sighed. "Fine, I get that you still don't trust me," she complained, "But why are we sneaking through his mansion? Does he even know we're here?"
"Of course he does," Coulson replied easily. "I'm sure you've heard about his personal A.I butler – I have no doubt that Jarvis will have alerted him to that fact that we've infiltrated his mansion. But ever since Fury bumped the Avengers up to Level 7 clearance and let them know I'm alive, Stark's been after me to come and visit. This way, I'll have some advance warning when he approaches me – Stark couldn't stealthy if his life depended on it."
At that, Skye let it go. It was obvious that Coulson and Stark had their own issues, and she wasn't about to get in the middle of them. Besides, if she poked at the agent too long, he might actually decide to abort their infiltration-whatever it was-thing of Stark's mansion, and like any geek worth her credits, she really wanted to meet the man behind Iron Man.
And if it meant letting the grouch in front of her pretend that this was an actual mission, she was fine with it.
At least, she was until Coulson took a random turn and landed them in a hallway that was decorated completely differently to anything else she had seen in the mansion.
"Coulson, where are we?" she asked tentatively.
The man in question took a quick look at his surroundings. "I've never been to this part of the mansion before, at least not in person."
"So we're lost?" Skye asked, unable to keep the nervousness out of her voice. "We're in the mansion of a man who's genius at weapons design is uncontested, and we're lost? Do you have any idea what could be waiting for here?"
Coulson threw her an unimpressed look. "I never said we were lost, did I? I know exactly where we are; I've just never been here in person before. If my recollection of this maze that idiot calls home are right, we should be in-"
Skye's scream cut him short. "What. Is. That?" she shrieked, pointing at the creature that had just poked its interested nose out of one of bends in the corridor.
It was a fluffy white creature, the type that would have been the favourite of women everywhere, if it hadn't been for the fact that they were rather expensive and also happened to look like a mutated, long-necked, miniature horse.
Of course, the fact that it had startled Skye didn't really help endear it to her. And then three others like it joined their companion, and Coulson was pretty sure that it the Hellcarrier when Loki had broken out and Banner had Hulked out had been quieter than Skye screaming her head off.
"COULSON!" she shrieked.
"Calm down," he murmured, smirking inwardly. Watching the hacker lose her cool was just so entertaining. "They're some of Stark's pets – alpacas, and if I remember correctly, they're named Fuzzy, Baby, Madre and-"
"Dandy," a third voice broke into the conversation. "Glad to see you remember them, Agent Agent. Don't think that gets you out of a lecture from Pepper, though," the handsome, clean-cut man whose face was plastered on billboards all over the country continued, "She's still upset over the fact that you didn't bother to tell her that you weren't dead. And the Avengers want to talk to you, of course, and now that you're here, I can call of them from the Tower – it shouldn't take them more than a couple of hours."
"Stark-" Coulson tried to speak.
"By the way, what exactly are you doing here? You know this is where I keep my pets," Stark continued, plowing through any protests that Coulson might have put up. "If you wanted to visit them, you just needed to tell me. Anyways, come on; let's go meet Pepper. You can tell me what S.H.I.E.L.D wants once she's done with you. Also, what happened to that fiddler? Or cellist? Or whoever she was? Pepper will want to know, you know."
As Stark continued to chatter on, ignoring Coulson's many attempts to try and get a word in edgewise, Skye narrowed her eyes at Coulson's retreating back. As she followed the two men, she started to scheme. She had no doubt that Coulson had led her into that corridor deliberately, and he was going to pay for that.
But first, she was going to do what all hackers dreamt of doing – she was going to get her hands dirty on Stark's tech, and nothing – not even Stark and Coulson's little war – was going to stop her from accomplishing that.
A/N: This is based on an interview with RDJ, in which he talks about the pets he has, including the four titular alpacas named here. It's just something that Tony would do, and I just couldn't resist :P
I hope you liked it! And please drop a review on your way out - I'd love to hear what you thought about it :)