Pajamas
Part 1
Bye Selina Novella
Darcy had been in her pajamas and a facial masque when the Men in Black had broken down her door. It was a NICE door too. Mahogany. She'd been house sitting for her aunt and uncle in New York, drinking wine, watching the Big Bang Theory, and refusing to see anyone today, cause you know what? She deserved it! She'd dealt with the whole Norse God of hotness landing on her car, the Men in Black stealing her iPod, and being attacked by the iron giant. She'd finished her degree (finally) and was taking a break before finding a job. So this? Not in the agenda!
So now here she was, on a FLYING battleship, in a room with Tony FREAKING Stark, Thor, CAPTAIN AMERICA, one of her old professors who apparently turned into the Hulk as a hobby (and what was with Culver attracting the weird anyway?), a very scary woman, and a very large black man with one eye and a potty mouth. Oh, and Agent I-stole-your-iPod-and-now-I'm-pretending-it-never- happened. And she was still in her tank top and shorts combo pajamas with Pinkie Pie on them. At least one of the agents had let her wash her face mask off, so she didn't have flaky green skin. She had a feeling people with green skin made these guys trigger happy.
"Ok, not to be rude or anything, but WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE?!" she demanded, glaring at the angry pirate man, her hands on her cutie marked hips.
"Oh, I like her." She heard Stark tell Professor Banner in a stage whisper. She had to fight down a grin. Tony Stark thought she was cool!
Cyclopes man looked unimpressed though. "You have been brought here, against my better judgment, because an important individual wanted you safe. Your apartment was deemed unsafe. So you have been brought here. I expect you to conduct yourself like a sensible human being, and remember the NDA's you signed during the New Mexico incident." He glowered at her.
Darcy rolled her eyes. "I never act like a sensible human being, you can ask Professor Banner."
Banner looked pained. "She blew up one of the fraternities with a flour bomb on parent's weekend, because one of them had groped her."
"That was never officially proven." Darcy replied lightly, grinning cheekily at the professor before swinging back to glare at Scary Man. "So basically Thor asked you to give me a lift, and since he's a god and a prince and could swat you like a bug, you said 'okie dokie loki' and now here I am. So where's Jane?"
"Dr. Foster is safe. She's currently at the observatory in Traunsee as a consultant." Agent I-won't-make-a-facial-expression-if-it-kills-me replied evenly.
Darcy turned sharply to look at Thor. "You brought me here but not Jane?! You better have a damn good explanation or I will tase you again."
"She tased you? She tased the 'god of thunder'?" Stark demanded, looking delighted.
"The Lady Jane was removed from danger without my needing to ask." Thor explained, looking like a sad puppy. "The men of Shield were kind enough to anticipate my wish to protect her. They did not however, realize that you, Lady Darcy, were also of importance to me."
Awww. How can she be mad at that? Darcy smiled at him. "Okay then. So what exactly are we being protected from?"
"His name is Loki." Scary red-headed lady said quietly from her chair. "He's trying to take over the world."
Darcy blinked. "Loki as in your brother Loki?" she glanced at Thor, who sadly nodded. "And I thought you ruled the world?" she asked Tony Stark, who grinned, crossing his arms behind his head casually. "Yeah, guess he didn't get the interplanetary memo."
"Well that's not good. So where is he?" she asked, pulling up a chair next to Professor Banner whom everyone but Stark seemed to be giving a wide berth. And what was up with that anyway? She'd always thought he was adorable, and he always seemed amused when she flirted with him in class before he ran off after that thing with the military.
Banner edged away from her slightly, and replied. "In my cell."
"A cell? Why do you have a cell? Why does he have a cell?" she demanded, looking between Banner and the rest of the table.
"He turns into an enormous green rage monster. For some reason that makes Shield think it has the right to build a cage for him. Rude right?" Tony grinned.
"Totally rude." Darcy agreed.
They both turned and glared at Fury, who looked unimpressed. Professor Banner hunched his shoulders, looking embarrassed. "Ms. Lewis, please stop encouraging him," he muttered to her quietly.
"Stark, if you would like to stop lecturing me, and focus on the problem at hand, perhaps Doctor Banner would escort you to the lab so you can try to trace the Tesseract?" Fury rumbled at them. "In the mean time the rest of us can work on a few scenarios for dealing with an extra terrestrial threat."
Captain America nodded gravely, and wow, no way that bod was natural. Scary lady and Thor nodded their agreement.
"Ms. Lewis I assume you can function as a lab assistant, despite your lack of discipline?" Fury demanded, glaring at her.
"As well as you can fly a battle ship with one eye." She chirped back. No way he was intimidating her. Ok he did, but that just made her mad and snarkier than usual. "We can discuss my wages for working later," she added, just to watch his eye twitch.
Professor Banner shook his head and gently took her arm, tugging her into a hallway, Tony Stark following behind after blowing Fury a kiss.
Darcy was told to entertain herself while Professor Banner and "Call me Tony, Gorgeous" Stark played pretty, pretty princess with a magic scepter.
"So for Loki to activate the cube he'd need a power source, any ideas?" Tony asked Banner as they worked between two clear hanging computer screens.
"He'd need to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier." Banner replied, most of his attention focused on the computer.
"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect. Lewis, you worked with Selvig. Think he could do that?" Tony asked her.
"Not sure about Eric, his stuff was all too theoretical for me to follow. But Loki probably knows. Thor told Jane that science and magic are the same thing and some of the stuff we saw Thor and the Destroyer doing? Tunneling stuff would be a cinch." Darcy replied, playing with Tony's phone and texting someone named Jarvis.
"Okay, so let's assume they can do that, they could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet," Professor Banner said.
Tony looked at him like Christmas had come early. Professor Banner noticed, and turned away, blushing slightly. Awww! How cute! Darcy thought.
"The gamma readings from the scepter are definitely consistent with Selvig's earlier reports on the Tesseract, but it's going to take us weeks to process." He seemed disappointed.
"If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops." Tony grinned, pulling instruments Darcy didn't recognize from a box he'd brought with him.
"All I packed was a tooth brush." Banner murmured, looking amazed at the equipment like it was a glass of water in the desert.
"At least you got clothes." Darcy muttered. She hadn't gotten a chance to grab her toothbrush.
Tony grinned. "I like your sleepwear. Pinkie Pie's my favorite pony too. And they do show off your legs very nicely." He winked at her then turned back to Bruce. "You know, you should come by Stark Towers sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land."
Bruce ducked his head, obviously pleased at the offer but said, "Thanks, but last time I was in New York I kind of broke… Harlem." His happy expression turned grim and he turned away, walking over to scan the scepter with one of Tony's instruments.
Tony didn't give up though and followed him. "Well I promise a stress free environment. No tension, no surprises…" He then poked him with a tiny electric prod. Banner yelped and stared at him like he was crazy. Darcy cackled.
Tony looked at him closely. "Nothing?"
Captain America had apparently walked in while she was watching the Science Bros, because he grabbed Tony's arm and yelled at him, "Are you nuts!?"
"Jurys out." Tony assured him, turning back to Banner. "You've really got a lid on it haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, big bag of weed?"
"Oooh gimme!" Darcy grinned, making grabby hands.
"Is everything a joke to you two?" Rogers demanded, glaring at her and Tony.
"Funny things are." Tony replied, and wow, what was up with the tension between these two? It was around an 8.0 on the Richter scale!
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doctor." He glanced at Professor Banner warily.
Professor Banner looked sad, but resigned and replied, "No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."
Darcy quietly got up and stood next to him, silently offering her support. He obviously noticed and looked at her like he really wasn't sure she was entirely sane. But that was how people normally looked at her, so no big deal.
"You're tiptoeing big man. You need to strut." Tony smirked; she could almost see his brain laughing at the innuendo behind pointy things.
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark." Captain glowered at him.
Tony glared. Darcy almost wished she had popcorn. Alpha Males Battle at Dawn. It could totally work as a tv show. "You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."
"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked, looking skeptical.
"He's a spy, Captain. He's the spy. His secrets have secrets." He pointed to Banner, who had gone back to his work, although Darcy could tell he'd already finished scanning that part of the scepter. "It's bugging him too, isn't it?"
Bruce shook his head. "I..I just wanna finish my work here and…"
"Doctor?" Steve asked, looking more concerned now.
Bruce sighed. "'A warm light for all mankind' Loki's jab at Fury about the cube."
"I heard it."
"I didn't." Darcy muttered.
"It was before you got there. I'll show you the video later." Tony muttered to her.
"Cool." She grinned. Being BFFs with Tony Stark was awesome.
Professor Banner pointed at Tony. "Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news."
"Stark tower? That big, ugly–" Tony raised an insulted eyebrow at Rogers, "building in New York?"
"I think it's awesome that you built yourself a giant penis monument and put your name on it." Darcy stage whispered. Tony smirked. Steve choked.
Like he was ignoring talking students (Which she had been) Banner continued "It's powered by Stark Reactors, self-sustaining energy sources. That building will run itself for what, a year?"
Tony replied lightly "That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."
"So why didn't Shield bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business to begin with?"
Darcy sighed. "You just can't trust secret, shadowy government agencies anymore."
"I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of Shield's secure databases." Tony said casually, enjoying the look on Captain America's face.
"I'm sorry, did you say…" He stuttered, horrified.
"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. When he wasn't flirting with Lewis on my phone." He glanced at her pointedly.
She had been flirting with a high tech AI? "That's awesome." She breathed, thrilled. Tony rolled his eyes, amused. "In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret Shield has ever tried to hide."
"Hey, let me know when you find out where they put my iPod." Darcy asked. What? Persistence is, like, half the battle!
"And you're confused about why they didn't want you around?" Cap demanded, ignoring Tony's offering of a blueberry. Darcy sensed this was a sneaky plan of Stark's to use positive reinforcement when he did something particularly awesome. Stark does awesome stuff, you get food. Therefore you like it when Stark does cool stuff.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically not awesome." Tony pointed out.
"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them."
"Following's not really my style." Tony argued.
"And you're all about style aren't you?" Cap sneered.
"Of the people in this room, which of us is a. wearing a spangly outfit, and b not of use?" he shot back. Ooooh burn! Darcy grinned.
"Captain?" Darcy interrupted. He turned to look at her. "Look, I know you've not been around for a while, but really, Tony's right. A lot's happened since you were gone. Governments are not something to be trusted without question anymore. Yeah they're out for the greater good of their people in theory, but in general, they look out for themselves and what offers them power. The United States included."
Professor Banner nodded. "Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?"
Cap looks torn. Finally he mutters, "Just find the cube." and stalks out the electronic door dramatically.
"That's the guy my dad never shut up about? Wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice." Tony muttered, annoyed.
"The guy's not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us." Bruce replied, fiddling with some of the imput levels on the Tesseract finding sensor.
"What he's got is an ACME dynamite kit." Tony argued. "It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm going to be there when it does."
"And I'll read all about it." Bruce replied, smiling slighty as he tossed some data over to Tony's screen.
"Uh-huh. Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us." He fiddled with Bruce's program for a second, seemed to find it flawless and made his way over to Professor Banner.
Banner tried to ignore his approach, focusing on the screen in front of him. "Ah, see, I don't get a suit of armor. I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare."
Tony frowned and tossed Darcy an assessing glance, she shrugged helplessly, before he turning back to Bruce. "You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart." He pointed at the circle of light that shown through his t-shirt. "This stops it. It's part of me now, not just armor. It's a... terrible privilege."
"But you can control it." Banner pointed out, tonelessly.
"Because I learned how."
He shook his head. "It's different." He turned back to the computer screen but Tony slid the data aside with his fingers so that the two were face to face, separated only by the clear screen.
"Hey, I've read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you."
"So you're saying the Hulk… the other guy… saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?" He glanced at her. "To scare and endanger my students? To break my school, my home, to almost break the people I love in half?" He's growling now, fighting down anger.
"Hey, stop it!" She hopped off the counter she was sitting on and glared at him. "I was there you know! Two years ago when the army came and started blowing stuff up? I was on the quad. Those guys nearly rolled me over in a tank! And you – or the other guy or whatever, he was protecting us. It was that asshat general who was the problem, not him. He just wanted to protect Doctor Ross and stop getting shot at, which duh, who wouldn't?"
Bruce shook his head, turning away. "Well I'm glad he helped you."
Tony looked at her appraisingly. "You want a job? I've got an opening for a PA." Darcy laughed.
They had been at it for hours, Darcy had gone back to her phone flirtation with Jarvis, and the two scientists limited their exchanges to data and science talk. Finally Tony leaned back and stretched.
"So, tell me about yourself Ms. Lewis." Tony ordered.
Darcy looked up from the phone. "I was born in New England, my parents died when I was 5 in a freak parachuting accident. The diver was drunk and didn't open his shoot, landed on my parents in our backyard and that was the end of that."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"No." Professor Banner said, shaking his head at her disapprovingly. "She makes up a new story every time. She told my class that her father was Deadpool and her mother was a Victoria Secret model."
"I'd believe it." Tony grinned, glancing pointedly at her rather awesome boobs. "Next time you can say you're my kid, it'll drive the press into a frenzy."
"Awesome!" Darcy grinned back, delighted.
"Please don't encourage her…" the professor said wearily, shaking his head. "The story about her being Deadpools kid got into the school newspaper and the next thing we knew he showed up."
Tony raised an incredulous eyebrow. "Deadpool, the merc with a mouth, the craziest assassin in history came to your college for Daddy-daughter time?"
Darcy grinned. "He likes to google himself. And hey, I could be his kid. I was adopted, I have no idea who my real parents are. He took me out for chimichangas and then we watched Golden Girls. Before he left he linked me to his tumblr. He mostly posts a lot of pictures of people he's killled, lolcats, and philosoraptor. And reblogs everything from his hashtag."
"Huh." Tony blinked. "What's his username?"
"ChimichangaKingIwillUnaliveu. He also gave me my taser, since I didn't want a gun."
"Your life is oddly facinating for a twenty something with no super powers." He told her, amused.
She rolled her eyes. "I know right?"
One of the screens lit up, a camera showing a guy who could only be Loki in those clothes, and the Scary Lady from before. They watched in silence as she subtly gets the information she needed from him.
"So he's trying to draw the big guy out?" Tony asked, turning to Bruce.
"Don't worry about it. It takes a lot to make me lose control these days." Bruce assured him.
Darcy whistles. "She's good. And scary. Very, very scary. And did he just call her a whiney pussy?"
"I think so, I'm not that good on Britisisms. She'll shake if off though. She's a spy and an assassin. She's my former PA." Tony replied, sending a glare at the screen.
Darcy blinked. "Those are very pointy high heeled shoes you want me to fill."
"As long as you don't stab me in the neck with a needle, you're golden."
She blinks at him. "Do your PAs usually want to stab you with needles?"
"Only on Tuesdays."
The phone she's been playing with beeps and Jarvis's text politely asks her to give the phone to Mister Stark. She obligingly hands over the phone. Tony grinned viciously. "I'll take government secrets for 500, Alex." He purred.
Darcy wasn't really surprised when one-eyed-pirate-man came bursting into the lab a few minutes later.
"What do you think you're doing, Mr. Stark?" he demanded angrily.
"Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you actually." Tony replied, not turning away from the data screens.
"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract." Fury ground out through clenched teeth.
"We are. The models locked and we're sweeping for the gamma signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile." Banner informed him, clearly not wanting to get involved.
"And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss." Tony finished, and then turned around the screen he'd been looking at. "What is phase two?"
With breath taking timing, Rogers entered the room and dumped a gun that looked like it fell out of a sci-fi film onto the counter with a bang. "Phase two is Shield used the cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow."
Tony looked insulted.
"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract, that does not mean that we're–"
"I'm sorry Nick," Tony interrupted as Jarvis pulled up a blueprint for what looked like a missile powered by the Tesseract. "What were you lying?"
"Ooooh, busted!" Darcy couldn't help adding. She really didn't like Fury, and she wasn't a fan of bombs either.
"I was wrong director. The world hasn't changed a bit." Steve said, looking disappointedly at Fury.
The already crowded room became smaller as Scary Lady – Natasha according to Tony- and Thor walked in, her eyes focused on Professor Banner. Banner looked pissed. Military weapons were kind of a bad thing in his book nowadays Darcy supposed. She slipped back behind the table holding the scepter, feeling a little out gunned in a room full of super heroes.
"Did you know about this?" Bruce demanded.
"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment doctor?" Natasha asked in a forced calm tone.
"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed." He smiled self deprecatingly.
"Loki's manipulating you."
"And you've been doing what exactly?"
"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."
"Yes, and I'm not leaving because you suddenly get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why Shield is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction!" Darcy thought she knew the answer to that, but then she was a political science major, and had taken several classes on Cold War politics.
"Because of him." Fury pointed dramatically at Thor. Yup. Thought so.
"Me?" Thor asked, stunned.
"Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, out gunned."
"My people want nothing but peace with your planet!" Thor protested.
"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled."
Darcy's mind flits to the mutant population, to Spider-Man in New York, the Fantastic Four, and of course the people in this room. Mostly good people, but all people Fury couldn't order around. That had to scare the shit out of him.
"Like you controlled the cube?" Steve argued
"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war." Thor said, refusing to accept the blame.
"A higher form?" Steve asked, looking haunted.
"You forced our hand! We had to come up with something." Fury replied, glaring at Thor for daring to question his judgment.
"Nuclear deterrent. Cause that always calms everything right down." Tony growls, looking frustrated.
"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?" Fury snapped.
"I'm sure if he still made weapons Stark would be neck deep," Rogers started, agitated.
"Wait wait! Hold on! How is this now about me?" Tony interrupted, scowling
"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" Rogers shot back.
"I thought humans were more evolved than this." Thor boomed, annoyed.
"Excuse me, did we come to YOUR planet and blow stuff up?!" Fury snapped back.
"Do you always give your champions such mistrust? Perhaps Loki was correct and you do need a steady hand!"
Natasha looked frustrated with the bickering. "Are you all really that naïve? Shield monitors threats!"
"And Captain America is on a potential threat watch list?" Banner demanded, incredulous.
"You're on the list? Are you above or below angry bees?" Tony shot at the super soldier.
"I swear to God, Stark, one more crack…"
"Threatening! I feel threatened!"
Darcy noticed the scepter is glowing, and she kind of got the feeling that's a bad thing. Glancing at the arguing super heroes, she inched towards it.
"You speak of control yet you court chaos!" Thor bellowed.
"It's his M.O. isn't it? I mean, what are we a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos! We're a time bomb!"
"Miss Lewis, let go of that immediately!" Fury snarled abruptly.
Every eye in the room turned to glance at Darcy, who's cradling the scepter in her hands. "Hey, yeah, don't kill me, 'kay?" she whimpered, not liking the sudden attention.
"Darcy, what are you doing?" Thor boomed, concerned.
"Yeah, you guys start arguing, the scepter of doom turns into a glow stick. I'm seeing a connection. Kinda wondering if maybe breaking it might be a good idea?" she asked, now afraid to do so.
"Sounds like a good idea to me. It's what you should have done with the Tesseract to begin with." Steve said, stepping forward.
"No-bad idea!" Tony argued, "What if it's the off switch?"
"Why would it be the off switch Stark? Are you not telling us something?" Fury glared menacingly at the inventor.
Tony rolled his eyes. "Cause that's what always happens when you break the one of a kind shiny object? It's always important later?"
"I don't see how that makes sense," Rogers argued, but Darcy was trope savvy and nodded knowingly, stepping back from the scepter. "He's right."
"I think you don't want to destroy it because you want to play the hero." Steve growled, getting up in Tony's face. "You're just a petty little man playing at being a super hero. Take away that suit of armor, what are you?"
"Genius. Billionaire. Playboy. Philanthropist." Tony said, each word a slap.
"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. Yeah, I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you."
"I think I would just cut the wire."
Steve gave a cruel smile. "Always a way out… you know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero. You are definitely not your father."
Tony looked ready to punch him. "A hero?! Like you? You're a lab rat Rogers, everything special about you came out of a bottle!"
"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds!" Steve taunted and Tony looking ready to take him up on the offer.
Thor laughed humorlessly. "You people are so petty, and tiny."
Darcy gave him a glare. Rude!
Tony ran a hand through his hair, trying to cool off and moved away from the Captain.
"Yeah, this is a team..." Bruce muttered angrily.
"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his..." Fury started but Bruce interrupted, frustrated at people always trying to cage him.
"Where? You rented my room. Remember?"
"The cell was just in case..." Fury started, attempting to be soothing and failing miserably.
"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know! I tried!" Darcy's heart was in her throat and she felt like crying. The others were all silent. "I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out! So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk, including my student!" He waved vaguely at her as he looked at Romanoff, who is plainly unnerved.
"You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?" he demanded.
Romanoff and Fury had their hands down to grab their guns. Darcy prepared to hide behind the table. Not having super powers SUCKED.
Steve stepped forward, putting himself on the wire. "Doctor Banner... put down the scepter."
Bruce looked down in surprise at his hand, a 'where did that come from?' expression on his face. The computer beeped. The frozen tableau was broken. They all turned to it, lost as to why it had beeped.
Tony blinked. "Huh. Found it."
Banner put down the scepter and walked over to the computer. "Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my little party trick after all."
Thor asked "You have located the Tesseract?"
Tony nodded at him and went to leave the room. "I can get there faster."
Steve glared. "Look, all of us..."
"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it!" Thor bellowed.
Steve interrupted Tony's departure. "You're not going alone!"
"You gonna stop me?"
Steve glared. "Put on the suit, let's find out."
"I'm not afraid to hit an old man."
"Put on the suit." He ground out.
"Oh my god, just whip them out already!" Darcy couldn't help yelling. They all stared at her, except for Professor Banner, who was looking at the monitor and noticed something about the Tesseract. "Oh my God!"
Then the floor was moving under them, the wall had been blown out and then she knew no more.