A/N: This fic is based on a headcannon an acquaintance of mine came up with on Tumblr. It's sort of grown a bit in my head out of that initial headcannon into a multi-chaptered fic. I would like to thank my lovely beta for reading through the first two chapters so quickly and helping me make the chapter flow better. This chapter would be a little more confusing without you dear. I hope every one that reads enjoys the fic. And if you could please leave a review for your thoughts on the fic since this is the first time I'm writing a larger group of characters than simply Darcy and Loki. (And at this moment I am not sure of potential shipping in this fic beyond Jane/Thor and Tony/Pepper.) Thank you.
Favors
Chapter 1: What sort of favor?
There was a palpable strangeness when Darcy arrived for work. People that usually greeted her warmly couldn't look away from her fast enough. Others gave her disapproving stares as she went through the daily security checks and scanned her ID for elevator access down to Jane's lab.
No one shared the elevator with her, halting mid-step before spotting she was in it and backpedalling quickly. After the sixth awkward encounter on the second basement, that had now made her five minutes late, Darcy was getting more than a little annoyed as the lift dropped down two more floors. Only the process started again.
After awkward stare number eight, she waited in the wings for person number nine to get on so she could get an answer.
"Would you care to tell me why everyone is running away from me today?" she asked the poor lab rat she'd tricked into sharing the elevator with her.
The poor guy jolted in surprise before giving her body an obvious once over. Her skin crawled in disgust before she crossed her arms over her chest indignantly.
"There is no way that was actually your body," he mumbles and gets off at the next floor before she could punch him once realization dawned on her.
Oh no, he had better not be referring to what she thought he was. The elevator came to a stop at her floor and she got off, her feet moving of their own power toward Jane's lab.
"JARVIS?"
"Yes Miss Lewis," the AI answered immediately.
"Spill."
"I am not aware of what you are referring to."
She stopped, "The hell you don't. Spill or Tony will be spending the next eight weeks working the bugs out of your programming, do you understand me?"
Several long moments passed before JARVIS finally responded, "I would like to first preface this by saying that while your threat has no true effect on me, I fear what your messing with my programming would do to Mr. Stark, and therefore am under duress while I answer."
"Spit it out!" she exclaimed, growing impatient.
"Mr. Stark hacked your email. He was quite amused when he read your emails with your former boyfriend demanding he take the photos down."
For one very brief moment, Darcy couldn't believe that Tony had done that and then she could believe all too easily. That freaking little bastard, hacking her email and then using it to prank her; the man had no sense of privacy. There were laws against that sort of thing, regardless of if he had issues with secrets. Her email was her email and she was sure she had a certain right to privacy, even as a SHIELD employee working in Stark Tower as part of a government contract. Turning on her heel, she strode straight back to the elevator. That man was going to get a piece of her mind. This was not okay.
"Miss Lewis, what are you doing?"
"Giving your dad a piece of my mind. And if you tell him I'm coming, so help me, JARVIS, you will feel my wrath too," she muttered, swiping her ID once more. Boarding the elevator, she stabbed at the button for the 54th floor where Tony's playroom was. Alarms went off and the doors didn't close for a half second.
"JARVIS."
The alarms shut off and the doors slid shut, the elevator jolting into movement a second later.
"I have blocked the notification to all of Mr. Stark's personal devices. Good luck Miss Lewis."
Just like that, Darcy was alone with her thoughts as the elevator rose up the floors. JARVIS must have been rerouting calls to other elevators, as she never once stopped on her way up from the tenth sub basement to the fifty-fourth floor. The AI knew exactly what was at stake then when she was this upset. There was no reason for even the most seasoned SHIELD agent to piss her off as much as Tony freaking Stark had.
Still as the elevator dinged her arrival and the doors slid open, Darcy couldn't help remembering Jane's words a few months back when her ex had posted the pictures on the internet as revenge for her dumping him: One night's mistake can haunt you for the rest of your life. When he'd taken those pictures she'd been so sauced it had seemed entirely fine. It was only in the morning that she'd sort of regretted it and then she'd really, really regretted it after the break up. There was a court order in place for him to take them down; apparently, he hadn't. Well, that was definitely going to be taken care of after she'd gotten through with Stark.
She ignored Pepper telling her to hold on and calm down. Honestly, she liked the woman; she was great and tough as nails, but this was Darcy's reputation that was being entirely destroyed by Pepper's boyfriend's prank-happy love for messing with people.
Storming into his office, she didn't even bother checking to see if there was someone else in the room.
"Tony Stark, you are one hell of a son of a bitch. You had no right-" she started coming up short when she caught sight of a full body shot of her naked as the wallpaper of Captain America's laptop. Her eyes went insanely wide as the Captain looked at her briefly before dropping his gaze to anywhere but where she was, his cheeks flaming.
"Funny, JARVIS didn't mention you were coming," Tony muttered looking nonplussed that she was standing before him seething.
"My sincerest apologies sir, but Miss Lewis threatened to leave me incapacitated if I didn't help her surprise you." JARVIS piped up.
She glared at the ceiling half-heartedly, not entirely surprised that the AI would side with its master. JARVIS was practically Tony's child, and children were always going to side with their parents; it was like a requirement.
"I'll just be going. Stark…Miss Lewis." The Captain stammered as he tried to leave the room without looking like he was thoroughly embarrassed.
The door didn't close before Darcy pointed a finger at him, "You are going to take my picture off of Steve's computer. You are going to issue a statement to every damn person you sent those photos to stating they are fake, and then you are going to make sure no one ever finds them ever again. Not even you. Do you understand me?"
"Or what?"
"You really don't want to piss me off further Tony. You might be a billionaire, but you aren't bulletproof and I'm extremely tenacious when I want something."
Tony looked bored with her threats, that somehow she would make him pay for not doing as she demanded. And maybe he had a right to. What could she really do to him that wasn't going to make the public love him more? She was nobody, just a little intern whose reputation was in the shitter because someone a lot higher up on the clearance totem pole thought it would be hilarious to circulate her one single dumb set of nude photos.
Thankfully, Pepper stepped in then, seeming to sense that they were about to enter into one of those epic grudge prank matches that were something of a legend around Stark Tower. Especially, after the last one with Loki ended in flooding only Tony's bedroom.
"Alright Darcy, we'll do as you ask," Tony opened his mouth to say something but she shushed him with a look, "But we need a favor from you in return."
Darcy looked at the both of them warily. She didn't like the sound of that. There was virtually nothing that Tony Stark couldn't get. If he was trading favors over something like this, she got the impression that it was going to be something nasty. Possibly more than nasty; it was going to end in her flayed alive and her entrails baking while she roasted on a spit screaming. Darcy shuddered.
"What sort of favor?"
"How friendly are you with Loki?" Tony asked.