A/N: Another prompt fic, but I smooshed three prompts together, all were Tony/Darcy: HS AU, asking out, cheesy. It's silly. And probably at least a little OOC. But, yeah. Valentine's Day! Woo!
Unbeta'd.
The yelp Darcy let out when she opened her locker barely caused a second glance in the noisy, crowded hallway. Unfortunately the same could not be said when the—what must have been hundreds—of red roses cascaded out the open door and onto the floor around her.
She stared at the red and green pool that had formed around her feet, flabbergasted. Her eyebrows furrowed. "What the hell?"
She grabbed the locker door and swung it partly closed to double check the number. Yep, definitely her locker. Darcy continued to stand there, wondering what the hell she was supposed to do with all the flowers—she was so going to be late for class—when she felt the presence next to her.
"Wow, Lewis," Tony said, "looks like someone's pretty hard up for you." He looked at the flowers with a grin that Darcy wanted to smack right off his face. Speaking of—
"What is that on your face?" She asked him.
His hand flew up to stroke the oddly shaven facial hair. "I'm trying something new. It's distinguished."
"You look like you got into a fight with your barber."
He shrugged. "It makes me look older."
She smiled at him. "Aww, but your baby face is just so precious!"
She reached up but he grabbed her wrist before she could pinch his cheek and gave her a withering look. He let go and she dropped her hand, sticking her tongue out at him before turning back to look at the botanical problem currently plaguing her.
"What am I supposed to do with all of these?" She whined. Tony shrugged in response.
"I don't… why is someone giving me roses?" She saw Tony give her an odd look.
"It's Valentine's Day," he said.
"Oh," she said lamely then narrowed her eyes at him, "You can barely keep track of what month it is, how on earth do you know it's Valentine's day?"
He hesitated for a brief moment, barely noticeable, before speaking. "Blame Pep. She can't stop blabbing about her and Happy's big date tonight. It's horrifying, really. Can you imagine the two of them together? Ugh. They'll be so… efficient."
Darcy laughed. "You're just worried because you won't be able to hide from Pepper and use Happy as an alibi. You've lost your wingman, dude." She paused for a moment as something occured to her.
"Shit."
Tony raised an inquiring eyebrow.
"They're going on a date tonight?" She asked. He nodded.
"Pepper was supposed to help me study tonight. I'm never going to pass that test tomorow without her help."
"I can help." He said a bit too quickly, garnering him another odd look. "I mean, I'm not busy tonight. We can order pizza and… study."
"I appreciate the thought, Tony, but it's art history not science. Have you even been to a museum in your life?"
He looked offended. "Of course I have! I went that one time with that… one person. Remember? No, you weren't there. But it happened! There were paintings and sculptures and things. A lot of things." He waved his hand, dismissing his current line of thought. "Anyway, that's not the point. The point is I'm literally a genius. And I've spent far too much time with Pepper. Some of that stuff must have rubbed off on me at some point in time."
She gave him a disbelieving look before relenting. "I suppose it couldn't make things worse."
He shot her a bright grin and slapped her on the back a bit too hard causing her to stumble forward a step. His face started to take on an unusual pink hue. "Great! Great! I'll see you after school then, yeah? Perfect! Later, Lewis!" And he was off and down the hall before she could respond. She shook her head and bent down to start picking up the flowers.
Picking up all the roses and trying to fit them back into her locker—she had to put nearly a third of them in Jane's—meant she was ten minutes late to class. Fortunately she had Coulson first period, he just gave her a look that clearly said 'don't let this happen again' and moved on with his lecture. She was totally his favorite. She sighed in relief as she sat down and slid out her notebook.
The flowers were gorgeous, really, but the sheer amount was overwhelming. Whoever sent them clearly didn't think things through. What Darcy was supposed to do with them during school and how she was supposed to get them home? And on that same vein, there had been no card in the pile so she didn't know who had sent them. She hadn't heard anything through the rumor mill and the queen bee of that particular operation was one of her closest friends. There's no way Clint would keep it secret if he knew someone was crushing on her.
She huffed and tried to shove the thought out of her mind to focus on what Coulson was saying. It went fairly well until 5 minutes to the end of the period when the intercom buzzed.
"Can you please send Miss Lewis down to the office?"
Everyone turned their heads to look at Darcy who simply rolled her eyes and wondered what she had done wrong this time. She packed up her things quietly and walked out of the door, still aware of all the eyes on her back.
She walked into the office, noticing a human-sized stuffed teddy bear holding a heart sitting in the corner. She smiled at that, Darcy enjoyed when people got really excited about holidays and decorated. Walking up to the desk, the receptionist gave her a hard look.
"How can I help you?"
"You just asked me to come down here, Ms. Hill."
Hill nodded. "Right, Miss Lewis. It looks like there's been a delivery for you." She proceeded to just stare at Darcy, who looked around on the countertops for anything that might have come for her.
"I—uh, I'm sorry, I don't see it. What came for me?"
"That," Hill said, pointing to the corner.
Darcy turned around and groaned when she saw that Hill was pointing to the bear.
"Do you know who sent it?" Darcy asked.
"It's not my job to know, Miss Lewis."
"Can I just leave it—"
"No."
"But if I take it out to my car, I'll be late for my next class!"
Hill gave her a hard look. "Not my problem. Maybe next time you should tell Romeo to cool it during school hours. I don't care what you do with it, just make sure it's not here."
Which was how Darcy ended up carrying a stuffed bear that was both taller and wider than her to class the rest of the day. She would set him in the closest corner, feeling like she was being watched. Which, you know, she was if you counted all the giggling and staring from her classmates and the occassinal odd look from her teachers. But that wasn't it. It was the weird feeling of getting some pretty extravagant gifts from an anonymous benefactor. She didn't know if she felt flattered that someone liked her that much, annoyed that they clearly hadn't thought how these outrageous gifts would have to be dealt with, or worried that once she found out who it was she would likely have to let them down.
There was only one person in the school that she would be interested in and she knew he didn't have eyes for her. He was funny, insanely smart and sometimes a little brash and crazy but it was all part of his charm. He just seemed to be more interested in building robots.
She finally figured out how she felt at lunch. It might have had something to do with the barbershop quartet showing up and singing Can You Feel The Love Tonight to her in the middle of the crowded cafeteria.
Now, Darcy Lewis wasn't one to embarrass easily. She did just fine with public speaking and had given brief thought to being an actor, the fact that she couldn't act worth a lick had been the only thing that stopped her from pursuing it, but she had time to prepare for those things. She knew what she would be getting into. Being serenaded in the middle of a crowd of teenagers while holding on to a giant stuffed bear was something she had not prepared for.
So now Darcy Lewis was just plain mad. She stood there through the entire song, a fake grin on her lips, feeling her fact heat up—no doubt she had taken up the coloring of a ripe tomato—before stalking out of the cafeteria, dragging that stupid bear and holing up in the art room for the remainder of the lunch hour.
Luckily the remainder of the day seemed to pass without another incident. The final bell rang and Darcy heaved a sigh of relief before she grabbed up the bear, grabbed a garbage back off the janitor's cart in the hall and went to her locker. She stuffed all the flowers in the garbage bag somewhat carefully, still slightly miffed but unwilling to purposely destroy the roses, loaded up her bag with her art history materials and made her way out to the car dragging the bear and plastic bag along behind her, relieved to be done with all of the Valentine's nonsense.
Or that's what she thought.
There was something odd about her car as she approached. The sun was catching the windows in a weird way and everything inside looked… red.
Oh no.
She unlocked and opened the back door, three heart-shaped red balloons popped out and she watched as the breeze caught them and they floated off into the sky.
The entire car was full of the same balloons, pressing up against the windows, leaving no space for anything else. She let out a strangled yell and kicked her tire in frustration.
Darcy pulled up to Tony's parent's mansion just wanting to forget about the entire day. She didn't even care who has sent her the gifts anymore, she just wanted to pretend it never happened. She waltzed in the front door without knocking, having been there often enough over the past couple of years that no one even gave her a second look anymore.
She smelled pizza and her stomach growled. Following her nose to the tv room her and Tony usually hung out in, she walked through the doorway stopped in surprise. There was a little table in the middle of the darkened room, covered in a white table cloth. A pizza box sat in the middle, two lit candles on either side of it. Tony sat in a chair, fiddling with his phone wearing an opened dress shirt and suit coat, revealing the band shirt he wore underneath. The cuffs were unbuttoned making the white shirt sleeves peek out under the jacket and cover the majority of his hands in an adorable way.
"What the—" Tony's head snapped up when he heard her voice. He grinned.
"You," he pointed at her, "are late."
"Sorry, I had a bit of an incident after school and then I had to run home and drop everything off. Some idiot not only sent me those roses you saw but also a teddy bear that was bigger than me and…" she trailed off when she saw his grin falter. "Tony, what's going on here?"
For once in his life Tony actually looked unsure of himself. Darcy wasn't a fan of that look. Tony was her rudder, her rock. He was steadfast, stubborn, and confident. She didn't know how to handle a Tony missing those vital pieces of his personality.
He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, eyes darting everywhere but refusing to look at her. "Um. Yeah. That idiot would be me."
"What?" She asked in disbelief.
"I, uh, I sent you the roses. And the bear."
"The quartet and balloons?"
"Yep."
"Why?"
Tony was blushing—he was actually blushing. "Because I like you?"
Darcy's brain broke, she stood there gaping at him like an idiot for a few moments before the anger she had felt earlier that day mended the crack.
"What the heck, dude? What were you thinking?"
Tony's eyes widened.
"Do you have any idea what a hassle it was to carry around that bear all day? Or how embarrassing it was to be serenaded in the middle of the cafeteria at lunch?"
He shook his head.
"Seriously, what were you thinking?"
His eyebrows furrowed. "I was thinking that, well, Pepper said roses are a classic. And, well, so are stuffed animals and balloons."
"The barbershop quartet?"
"I saw you crying during that song when you forced me to watch The Lion King last month. Did I—did I do something wrong? Or—oh. Maybe you don't want—but Clint said—"
Darcy felt the righteous wind go out of her sails and sighed.
"Just," she interrupted him before he could try to wiggle his way out of the situation, "why didn't you just ask me? Why go so overboard?"
"Because I like you."
"So you said."
"…I like you a lot?"
Darcy shook her head and couldn't stifle the giggle. She saw relief wash over his face. "Okay, okay. Just… Tony, next time? Start with something simple."
"Something simple?" He asked, approaching her, his warm body filling up he space directly in front of her.
"Simple," she nodded.
"I can do," he paused, trailing a finger on her jaw from her ear to chin, "simple." He rubbed his thumb on her bottom lip, staring intently for a moment before meeting her gaze. "Darcy?" He asked.
She raised her eyebrows in response.
"You wanna go out with me?"
Her heart skipped a beat and she smiled at him. "Of course, you idiot." She leaned up and pressed her lips to his, losing herself in their first kiss. She pulled back when she noticed the scratch of his goatee. Darcy brought up her hand and traced it with her fingers. "We might have to do something about this, though."
Tony scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Already trying to change me, Lewis?"
"Never." She grinned cheekily.
"Hungry?" He asked.
"Starving."
He grabbed her hand, linking their fingers together and sending a warm rush through Darcy's body as he led them over to the table.