Author's Notes: OK so I've been away from this site for a while. I mainly use AO3 now and I know there's a ton of unfinished stories I have here which I am hoping to get finished so I'm currently trying to copy some of my stories from AO3 to here and then start copying some of the stories from here to AO3 as I complete them. I can't promise which ones will be done and when but I am trying.

When Darcy Lewis was introduced to anyone in the tower, people always brought up how she tazed Thor. Everyone thought it was badass and awesome, so she never said otherwise. Truth was, when she had done it, she had been terrified. Yes there had been three of them against one out there in the desert but Thor had been a crazed stranger that was impossibly huge and muscled, versus two women and an old scientist. So yes, she had tazed Thor but it had been because she was scared not brave. Thor had grabbed her arm and she just reacted.

It was part of her best secret. Well, parts of it weren't a huge secret. She wasn't a touchy feely or cuddly type of girl, even Jane knew that much. The truth was despite her rather loud and abrasive personality, she didn't like to be touched. She could handle handshakes or kisses on the cheek when she greeted people easy enough but other parts of her body were off limits. Jane didn't know, Darcy had nearly told her many times but it was awkward, you couldn't just blurt out your problems to someone you just met…but by the time you've been friends for a while it seems like something you should have already mentioned. So she didn't say anything.

She thought that perhaps Erik might know, or had at least guessed something. After he didn't die with everything that happened in New Mexico, he had hugged her and she had flinched and when Jane had done the same he had seen Darcy do it again, so he knew it wasn't personal. She wasn't sure how much he had picked up on since then but he never asked her about it and never hugged her again. He looked completely surprised when she half hugged him when they came to New York after the attack. He had been recovering from Loki's brainwashing sceptre and Jane and Darcy had been so glad to see he was alright, that she had gripped both his hands in hers and squeezed, before being daring and very briefly hugging him.

Then came the Avengers. Living in Stark tower…or now Avenger's tower, had been a real test for her boundries. The first time she met most of them they shook hands and that was fine. Tony Stark himself however did a handshake, hug type thing that had Darcy reaching for her Taser. That had prompted a round of jokes about Darcy tazing Thor. The team were great, she didn't' see many of them often though to be honest. She spent most of her time in the labs with Jane and Erik and only saw the actual Avengers rarely.

Then she officially met Bruce Banner.

"Um…Hello?" Darcy turned to see the quiet scientist looking questioningly at her.

"Sorry, Jane was getting a bit frantic so I hid in here. I didn't touch anything." She explained, then she bit her lip. "Actually that's a lie, I totally went through a load of your stuff."

"I'm sorry?" he looked completely baffled and slightly annoyed.

"Don't panic, I have security clearance, otherwise Jarvis wouldn't have even let me in here." She said quickly.

"Jarvis shouldn't have let you in here anyway." He returned.

"My apologies Sir, Miss Lewis was in need of a quiet space. I can assure you that she has not harmed any of your work." The A.I. chimed in. "In fact, seventy-six percent of the files on your desk are now on the system." Darcy looked up guiltily.

"You scanned my files?" he asked.

"Nope, I typed up your files. Seriously, if I scanned them in no one would ever be able to read them so… I didn't plan on it, I promise!" she blurted. "I literally just opened the top file, just to see what kind of scientist you were. I wanted to know if there were any poisonous fungus things or explosives in here I should avoid. Once I saw the handwriting and the growing pile of paperwork, I just figured I'd help out a little."

"You typed up my notes?" he frowned. "How did you even read them?"

"Doc, I read scientist." She waved off. She watched as his eyes widened suddenly.

"That's where I've seen you before, you're Dr. Foster's assistant."

"Dude, I've been in the lab literally opposite yours for a month and you didn't know where you'd seen me before?" she snorted. "That is just typical."

"Don't take that personally, I get involved in my work, I don't notice a lot of things." Darcy couldn't help but think that his slightly bashful expression was somewhat adorable.

"Chill, it's not like we've actually been introduced. Oh yeah, speaking of; Hi Dr Banner, I'm Darcy." She held out her hand and he stepped forward to shake it politely.

"Nice to meet you Darcy."

"Soooo…I should probably come clean and let you know that before I started typing up the files, I went to use your computer to check facebook and might have instead gone through all your email." She confessed. He dropped her hand like it was on fire but his expression looked more amused than annoyed this time.

"You have no concept of privacy do you?" he asked.

"I totally do but you had over three months of emails, someone needed to go through them." She waved at the computer screen to make her point.

"I don't really do email, so when they started growing to the hundreds I just avoided them." He admitted.

"Hundreds? Try over a thousand." She corrected. "Look, I didn't read any of the personal emails, anything that looked personal is all grouped up here see." He came closer as she pointed on the screen. "So they are for you to go through. A lot of the emails were junk, Jarvis and I got rid of all those and we've set some new filters up to minimise the junk getting through from now on. Jarvis assured me you didn't want to keep the porny ones."

"There was porn?" he looked shocked.

"Sure, tons of junk mail is porn related. It's like a game, see what type of junk you get the most of; porn, fake bank emails claiming you have a ton of cash waiting for you if you just give them you details, Viagra adverts, diet pills-"

"I-I don't…I mean-" he spluttered out, looking pretty uncomfortable.

"Don't have a heart attack. It's called junk mail for a reason, it isn't trying to tell you something, I get freaking Viagra emails, do I look like a seventy year old man?" she laughed. He silently stared at her for a moment before deciding that she definitely did not look like a seventy year old man, sat on his desk chair in her tight black pants, black sweater and green chucks. In fact she only looked about twenty so he promptly steered his thoughts away from anything that could be considered totally inappropriate.

"No, no you don't." he said.

"OK then, so then there's business related emails. I put them all in a folder, I did go through some of those. Some of them were just unimportant, wasting your time. A couple were asking questions about reports and results, some of which I typed up, so I hope you don't mind that I forwarded them on. There's still several emails that you need to deal with in that folder though." She explained, he nodded along before leaning forward to look closer at the screen.

"Why is there a folder that says Tony Stark?" he asked, his mouth quirking at the sides.

"Duh, he's Tony Stark. He can probably go from personal to business to junk in one email." She grinned. "So I figured, shove all his emails in their own folder and you can ignore him or not at your own leisure. All future emails from Tony Stark will go straight into this folder."

"Thank you for this, despite the intrusion, what you did was actually very helpful." He said, leaning against the desk and crossing his arms.

"What can I say, it's my job." She said, sliding the chair back from the desk and standing.

"You're Dr Foster's assistant, not mine."

"Technically I'm just 'Lab Assistant', I wasn't strictly assigned to anyone. They wanted Jane here and Jane wouldn't come without me so they just gave me an entry level position and don't much care what I get up to." She explained. "If you need someone to type up your files so people can actually understand them or anything then just come knock on Jane's door. Honestly, I don't mind. My job for Jane is basically type things, files things, go through emails and make sure they eat and sleep. So if you also need typing filing or sustenance then you know where to find me."

That was how Darcy adopted Bruce Banner into her science nerds. Once or twice a week she would spend the afternoon in Bruce's lab typing up his reports for him and on the days whenever she went to get coffee or food for Jane and Erik, she asked Bruce if he wanted something too. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. After a couple of months of this, she learned to gauge what he said versus what was actually the case. Sometimes he said no when he actually hadn't eaten anything that day and she brought him something small like tea and a packet of chips or cookies to nibble at.

She wasn't sure how or when but Bruce seemed to know. Or at least knew something. She didn't notice right away because he also kept to himself quite a lot but he definitely knew something. He always made sure to approach her from her line of sight, or to announce himself from a distance if he was behind her. He never touched her, never got too close and that was how she found herself able to relax around him. She didn't have to worry about controlling her reactions or worry about watching his every move. Perhaps that was how he noticed…because he was the same. Did he appreciate being able to relax and not explain himself for keeping his distance the same way she did?

They never spoke about it though. That was one of the things she was so grateful for.

Things never go smoothly though. Whenever you think you have things figured out, life is always bound to kick you in the shins and laugh while you figure out things all over again.