"Stupid machine," muttered Darcy Lewis as she glared at the frozen screen of her desktop computer on the desk in front of her. This was the third time the damn thing had died on her this week, and it was only Tuesday!
"Best technology in the world, my ass. You may be Stark Tech, but you really do suck balls," she continued to rant at the unresponsive screen. Whacking the side of the monitor, she was unsurprised when nothing happened. Darcy was frustrated and picked up the phone to call the tech guy yet again.
After the 'Battle of New York' as it had been dubbed by the media, Darcy had found herself dragged out to The Big Apple along with her spazzy boss, Jane Foster. Well, first they had been dragged out of their lovely little lab in Puente Antiguo to some god-forsaken place somewhere in Norway, where Jane had been offered an amazing job. As it turned out, that was a ploy by SHIELD to keep her safe while Loki was on Earth. Once he was carted off to Asgard again, they wanted her to work in New York with Tony Stark, and Dr. Bruce Banner on the Rainbow Bridge.
As Jane's assistant aka, 'civilian-who-knows-too-much', Darcy was not really qualified - read: not qualified at all -to continue working with her when they got to the Big Apple. SHIELD had wanted Darcy to sign confidentiality papers saying she wouldn't tell the world about the aliens and bridges, and release her back into the wild. Pshhh, yeah, 'cause the aliens that came out of the hole in the sky didn't already blow that one wide open.
As it was, Darcy knew she wouldn't be able to keep any of that to herself without bursting at the seams, and word-vomiting on some unsuspecting sod. She really didn't want to find out what method SHIELD would use to 'off' her if anything slipped, so Darcy pleaded with them to give her some sort of job. Turns out, SHIELD wasn't in the habit of handing out jobs to 'those-who-know-too-much-but-aren't-really-useful'. Luckily, super-duper-amazing Pepper Potts had happened to be in the vicinity and witnessed Darcy's completely embarrassing outburst. Pepper had felt sorry for her (or something), because the next thing she knew, she was being offered a data-entry job at Stark Industries. Darcy didn't even have to think about it; she accepted the position on the spot.
This is how, three weeks later, she found herself in her own office in the newly renovated Stark Tower (renamed 'Avenger's Tower' by The Man Himself, or so she had heard) staring at a computer that quite obviously hated her.
Dialing a number she now knew by heart, Darcy attempted to count how many times she had called Ted, tech guy, in the last three weeks. Yes, Ted. She was on a first name basis with the head tech guy for her department. That's how often she had a problem with this stupid computer. It wasn't like she was technologically challenged or anything, in fact, she loved technology. It just seemed that recently, or rather, in the last year or so, she had difficulty with anything electronic. For example, just last week she'd managed to set a tea kettle on fire in the break room. How do you even do that?
"Hullo, you've reached Tech. Have you tried turning it off and on again?" came the bored voice from the other end of the line.
"Heya, Ted," Darcy greeted.
"Again?" came the exasperated reply.
"'Fraid so," she sighed.
"What are we gonna do with ya, girl?"
"Hopefully nothing that involves pain, or death, for continually breaking supposedly impossible to break Stark Tech?"
"I'll look into it," he said with a chuckle before ending the call. Darcy hung up the phone and blew a raspberry at the now black computer screen. She settled back into her chair to wait for someone to fix the annoying machine.
"How on earth am I supposed to get any work done if my equipment keeps breaking down?" she asked her empty office.
Thirty minutes passed and there was still no sign of a tech dude. Darcy frowned as she reached for the phone, with the intention of calling Ted again – you know, check and see if a tech was actually on their way. Maybe they'd just gotten fed-up with all her technical issues and given up on her? Gawd, maybe she would even have to go to Pepper and tell her the computers were spawn of the devil? Yeah, no, that's not happening. Pepper was fantastic and all, but she scared the shit out of Darcy. She was a force to be reckoned with, that's for sure. Placing the phone against her ear, Darcy was just about to dial when there was a knock at her door. Startled, she dropped the receiver back into the cradle.
"About time," she complained, swiveling her chair around to glare at the unfortunate tech who had been sent to deal with her computer this time, only to freeze and stare once she was facing the door.
"You're Tony-Fucking-Stark," she blurted out, wincing as her brain-to-mouth filter failed her once again.
"Why so I am!" He exclaimed, looking down at himself in mock surprise. "Thanks for noticing that, babe," he added with his award winning smile. Did he really just call her 'babe'? Really? Well, that was all sorts of creepy. Despite that, Darcy had to admit that she was maybe, probably, definitely star struck at that moment.
"What are you doing in my office?" She asked, blinking slowly a couple times, just to see if he was a hallucination or a figment of her imagination and would disappear. 'Cause there was no way Tony Freaking Stark was standing in her office at that moment, with that self-confident look on his face, right?
"First of all, this is technically my office. Secondly, I hear you are having some difficulties" he ignored her question and focused on the tower by her feet. He sauntered over to her desk, grabbed her chair, with her still in it, and rolled it out from behind her desk and out of his way. Completely at a loss for what to do, Darcy just watched him attempt to boot up the computer. Crouching, he pressed the power button and the tower sparked and coughed out a black plume of smoke, startling Stark into falling back on his ass.
"You okay?" Darcy asked, torn between rushing over to him to help, and staying in her chair, safely across the room from smoking psycho computer. Her desire not to get shocked or burned won out, and she stayed put, bum firmly planted on her chair.
"Huh," Stark made a sound of surprise, squinting at the smoking device. "This happen often?" He asked, peering at her out the corner of his eye, maintaining a line on the machine. She shook her head vigorously.
"Usually they just shut down or freeze," she answered, "more to the point... Why are you, Tony Stark, fixing my computer?"
Waving away her question, he prodded the tower, presumably to see if it was still hot, before quickly removing the side panel and poking around inside. Luckily, there was nothing on fire.
"Here's the thing, I wouldn't do simple jobs like this for regular underlings," Darcy shot him a dark look at that, not that he actually saw it. True as it may be, you don't go around calling people 'underlings', that was just rude! "But after three weeks of near constant troubleshooting, your name got flagged as a potential threat and bumped up the chain to my personal AI, who notified me. And since Dr. Foster talks about you non-stop in the lab, I thought I would check out the problem personally. After all, you're young, it's unlikely that you're that incompetent with computers, and this is my tech you're dealing with, so I know that's not the problem. I also don't believe you're sneaky or smart enough to be a spy, which brings me to the question 'What the hell are you doing with my computers?'"
Despite the insult buried in his long-winded explanation, Darcy found herself ridiculously pleased by the thought that Jane still talked about her. She hadn't seen or heard from the scientist since they arrived in New York City. Shrugging in response to his mostly rhetorical question, Darcy curled her legs up under her on her unsteady desk chair and continued watching him tinker with the surprisingly numerous amount of wires inside the computer. One noise of frustration later, and Darcy found herself with a face full of irritated genius playboy.
"What the hell did you do to my poor baby?" He whined.
"Nothing," she cried, standing up quickly and pushing him out of her personal bubble, "I'm just trying to do my job! It's not my fault your damn computer is blowing up on me!"
"Ah, that's where you're wrong," he chuckled, taking a half-step towards her. She scowled and opened her mouth to dispute him. Before she could get out a sound he had placed a finger to her lips to shush her. Not expecting him to invade her personal space again, and not prepared for his wicked grin, Darcy found herself unwillingly shocked and flushed. Rude. Taking advantage of her distracted state, Stark pulled her hand up from her side to eye level, where he then placed his phone on her open palm. Almost immediately the device fizzled and the screen went black.
"Interesting," he muttered, taking his phone back and releasing her hand, which she let drop to her side. "You completely killed the battery," he commented, prying off the backing of the phone and inspecting the battery. "So it's not something you're doing intentionally," he added, "This calls for some experiments!" He grabbed her arm and had dragged her half-way to the door before she was able to dig in her heels and stop.
"Hang on a minute!" She growled, "If you don't let me go right now, I swear to god, I will not hesitate to kick you in the balls, billionaire or not!" With a wide grin, he released her and stepped back, hands in the air in front of him as if in surrender.
"You've got guts, kid," he chuckled again, sweeping his arms out and towards the door in a grand gesture, "if you would be so kind as to join myself, Dr. Banner, and Dr. Foster down in the labs, I want to run some tests to see if we can't find out why you short circuit my tech." Thoroughly unamused by his actions, Darcy frowned at him as she walked past him and out into the hall.
Turning her frosty look towards him she said, "Don't touch me like that again, Mr. Stark, or I will hit you with a sexual harassment charge so fast your head will spin."
"Tony," he said abruptly, seemingly unconcerned by her threat, "Mr. Stark was my father."
Oooo, she could practically smell the daddy-issues from here.
He led her down to the elevator, which they boarded and rode to the R&D floors above. Stark chatted away to her the whole ride up. He must have really liked the sound of his own voice, because Darcy didn't really talk back at him, instead she crossed her arms under her breasts and did her best to ignore him. Handsome or not, no one got hands-y with her without her permission and was spared her wrath. And what did he mean by 'experiments' anyway? She hoped he wouldn't try anything creepy; she'd left her taser in her desk drawer and had no way to fend him off if this all went sideways. Then again, she hadn't really heard anything in the news about harassment charges. That could also be because he buys them all off. Oh, what a dilemma! She would just have to kick his ass if he even so much as looked at her wrong. But he did mention Jane, so there was a good chance that they wouldn't be alone, and it would be nice to see her friend again.
They made their way down another hall and to a lab enclosed in glass. Seriously, there were no walls, just glass. That really couldn't be safe, what with three crazy scientists working in one room. She also marveled at the fact that the three of them hadn't managed to blow up the building. Darcy knew what Jane could get like when she got into one of her frenzied 'I understand the universe' moods. Just imagining the chaos they probably created made Darcy shudder. God help us all. She perked up considerably once she caught sight of Jane through the window, though. She seemed well watered and fed, if her flitting around the lab was any sign. She also didn't notice Darcy right away, but that was to be expected with All The Science going on. When Jane did finally see Darcy enter after Tony, she stopped speaking mid-sentence to squeal and wrap her up in a giant bear hug.
"Darcy, I've missed you!" she exclaimed, latching onto her even more tightly.
"Same here, Jane," Darcy wheezed, "Breathing. Jane, breathing. Air is required here."
"Sorry!" Jane flushed, pulling back. "It's so good to see you, but what are you doing here? You don't have the clearance to be up here." Now she peered at Darcy in concern, obviously not noticing she had been brought up to the lab by Stark.
Shrugging, Darcy turned back to Tony for the answer, only to find that he had wandered over to the only other occupant of the lab. By process of elimination, it would mean that would have to be Dr. Banner. She didn't know much about him, but back in New Mexico, Jane had referred to his work and how brilliant he was. Darcy gave him an appreciative once-over. He certainly appeared all science-y to her, with oversized clothing, thick glasses that looked like they had seen better days, and a mop of hair like a flock of birds had tried nesting in it. In other words; absolutely adorable.
"So what are you doing up here then?" Jane asked.
Darcy pulled her attention away from 'Dr. Fluffy', as she had just dubbed him in her head.
"Ehh... It's probably better if we get Mr. Stark to explain it," she replied. After all, it's not like she was even sure why she was there to be tested. Ugh, she didn't want to be a lab rat.
"I'm not going to make you be our lab rat," Tony scoffed next to her ear, causing her to jump. For someone who always had to be at the center of attention, he sure could move quietly when he wanted. Scowling at him, she motioned for him to shed light on what he hoped to find by bringing her to the lab to begin with. He briefly overview of her dilemma with anything electronic, and how he found out about it and what had just happened in her office with his cell phone.
"I'm hoping some blood tests, and maybe some radiation tests will tell us more," he told them.
"When did you first notice this happening?" Dr. Fluffy asked quietly from his chair. They had gathered their chairs into a sort of circle for the discussion and Darcy found it rather odd that he had spaced his chair much farther away from all of them. Or, at least he tried to. As soon as he had sat down, Tony had made a point of dragging his chair closer to the other scientist. His only response was to sigh in exasperation and roll his eyes, so she assumed that this was something of a ritual of theirs.
"Some time ago," she answered, "I'm not sure exactly how long, but we were still in Puente Antiguo when it first started happening."
"And you never mentioned anything to me?" Jane asked, shocked, "What if this is something dangerous? What if you had sparked some other equipment and hurt yourself?"
"Well, I haven't yet. I'm fine," Darcy defended herself, crossing her arms and glaring at Jane to show her point.
"Could it possibly be a result of some of Dr. Foster's equipment?" Banner inquired. Jane looked over at him, insulted.
"I know my equipment may not be as high-tech or as sleek as Tony's, but I do know what I'm doing, and I guarantee all of my equipment is safe to use," she sniffed at him.
"Yeah, and if it was the equipment, you would think Jane would be doing the same thing," Darcy added. "She's the one that used that stuff more than me. I mostly just transcribed her notes and brought coffee for her."
They all quickly agreed that they weren't getting anywhere with the discussion, apart from accidentally insulting each other, and decided to take their tests and talk about it again once they had some results. The biological aspect was not Stark's area of expertise, so he left them shortly after to go find something to amuse himself. Probably annoying Ms Potts. From the sounds of it, that was his usual thing to do when bored.
That left Darcy in the more than capable hands of Jane and Dr. Fluffy, something she definitely wasn't complaining about. Well, she may have complained about them taking as much blood as they did, but who could blame her? Needles were really not her thing.
Dr. Banner, whose name, she discovered, was Bruce, did a few radiation tests, but explained with a smile that he didn't expect them to yield any results when she showed concern over it. She remembered hearing about the Hulk on the news for the first time, and the unfortunate circumstances behind his creation.
After taking a few more tests, the scientists sent her on her way back to work, claiming that the results wouldn't be in for a while, and it was no use having her hang around the lab. Not only that, but Darcy quite obviously didn't have the clearance to be there, so it was decided that the less time she spent in the laboratory, the less of a shit SHIELD would be to her later.
Darcy wandered back to her office and really hoped she wouldn't get fired over her lack of being at work during work hours. That would just blow. Then SHIELD would probably sweep in, declare her some sort of spy, and lock her away for the rest of her life. Which, knowing them, probably wouldn't be very long. How was this her life?
Entering her office, she was very surprised to see Pepper Potts sitting at her desk, looking at the burnt computer with amusement.
"Uh, hi," Darcy stuttered and shut the door behind her. She figured, whatever her boss was here for, it was something she wouldn't want overheard by everyone else in the office. As it was, she had gotten some odd looks and a few raised eyebrows when she had returned.
"Miss Lewis," Ms. Potts greeted her with a gentle smile on her face, "I hear you had a bit of an adventure today."
"Yeah, about that," Darcy sat down in the empty guest chair by her desk, "I'm not about to get fired or anything, am I? I really didn't mean to set the computer on fire, and then Mr. Stark kinda just dragged me to the lab, and I swear I wouldn't have gone if I had known that I really didn't have carance-"
"Darcy," Pepper cut off her rambling, smiling even wider now, "I'm not here to fire you."
"Oh good," she sighed, and sagged into the chair with relief.
"I'm here to offer you a promotion," she finished, laying a stack of papers down in front of Darcy.
"'Scuse me?" she sputtered, "Why?"
"It's come to my attention that you're privy to secrets above your clearance level, and this is the quickest and neatest way to solve that problem," Pepper explained. "You would be working as my liaison. I need someone here to keep an eye on Tony while I'm around, and I hear you have 'balls of adamantium', as Tony puts it."
Mind racing a mile a minute, it took Darcy a few to realise what was being asked of her.
"You want me to be Stark's babysitter?" she wondered, dazed.
"Essentially," Pepper agreed, "you'd still be doing most of the tasks you're doing now, except in a much more 'hush, hush' manner."
"Wow, okay. When do I start?" Darcy asked, still not quite able to believe the promotion was real. After all, first, she'd broken all the electronics, then she'd met Tony-Fucking-Stark (genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist), then she'd been dragged around the building by him, visited with her high-powered friend in a high-clearance lab, and now… now she'd been handed a promotion to babysit said genius. It was a lot to take in.
"Given your rather unfortunate condition right now, we hoped to have you start next Monday," Pepper informed her. Wincing in discomfort, Darcy nodded and accepted the papers. "Now go home," the older woman commanded, a comforting look on her face. "You look like you could use a bit of time to yourself. Don't worry about bringing those papers in this week, just bring them the next time you're here for more tests, or Monday, whichever comes first. And you'll be paid for this week. Think of it as medical leave, if you will."
With that, Ms Potts got up, gave Darcy's shoulder a quick pat, and exited the office. Shaking her head, Darcy stood up… to go home. Seriously, how was this her life?
The following Monday, Darcy made her way to Stark Tower, paperwork neatly filled out and in her arms. She hadn't gotten word from any of the scientists during the week and was really hoping that, in this case, no news was good news. As was her life though, they had nothing conclusive to show. It ended up taking three weeks of constant testing and Darcy tiptoeing around all the technology before they finally managed to pinpoint the cause of her unusual condition. In that time, the condition had gotten worse: bad enough that she couldn't touch most electronics without short-circuiting them. It turned out, she had what Stark called 'a shit tonne' of radiation in her system, enough that she should've been suffering from it, and her lack of reaction was part of what puzzled them.
Bruce and Tony had launched into a long lecture on what EMR, or Electromagnetic Radiation, was, how it affected things around her, and how it worked and stuff, but honestly, Darcy didn't understand most of what they were saying.
"So basically, I'm frying the electronics with radiation like from a microwave or something, but you still have no idea how this happened to me?" she questioned after they had finally paused for breath. Then another thought hit her. "I'm not gonna turn into something like the Hulk, am I?" she asked in growing alarm. It may have been her imagination, but she could have sworn Bruce winced and looked away as soon as she said that.
"Not likely," Tony breathed, and stroked his beard, "From what we can tell, if you were going to have a reaction to the EMR, you would have by now. As for how this happened-"
"That's where I come in," Jane cut in. She had spent most of the lecture sitting beside Darcy with a comforting arm around her shoulders. Darcy looked at her quizzically.
"How so?" Darcy asked, still reeling from the other news.
"I think it might have been exposure to something from across the Einstein-Rosen Bridge," Jane explained.
"So I've contracted some strange alien disease?" Darcy said incredulously, "Seriously?!"
"No!" Jane gasped, "or, at least, we don't believe so."
"Oh my god," Darcy groaned, leaning forward to rest her forehead on her knees. "I'm gonna die aren't I? That's what you guys aren't telling me, isn't it?"
"Nothing like that," Tony chuckled. He reached back and grabbed something from off the work bench he was leaning on. "In fact, we think we have something that can dampen the effects, and hopefully prevent you from experiencing any adverse side effects." Taking a step towards her, he grabbed her hands and dropped the objects into them.
"These bracelets emit a frequency that should counter what you're giving off," Bruce clarified upon seeing her confused look. The bracelets were thick, but not thick enough that they couldn't be passed as regular jewelry. Actually, looking at them closer, she found that they reminded her of the cuffs Tony wore on occasion. The ones for his Iron Man suit. Well, that was kinda cool. Slipping them on, Darcy didn't feel any different.
"Are they working?" she asked, shaking her arms as if that would start them up.
"Let's find out!" Stark said gleefully, grabbing one of his StarkTablets from the bench and passing it to her. Holding her breath she took it from him, breathing out slowly when nothing sparked or started on fire.
"Awesome," she nearly wept. It had been killing her not to be able to use the shiny new iPod she had received from SHIELD when she had first arrived to the city. She hadn't wanted to inadvertently send it on the fritz, so it sat in her apartment, still wrapped and everything.
"Thank you," Darcy said, so grateful that she could go back to normal. Jane smiled and gave her a warm hug.
"I'm glad we were able to help," Jane sighed. It was obvious that she'd been quite worried about her friend. Bruce muttered a 'you're welcome' and returned to his corner of the lab to work on whatever it was that he had spread out over there. Tony declared that this was a cause for celebration and that he had to take her out to dinner.
"Why, Mr. Stark, are you asking me out on a date?" she smirked, "as my boss, I do believe that's highly inappropriate."
"Come on, smartass, dinner awaits," he chuckled, draping an arm around her shoulder and Jane's. "It's a group invite. You too, Bruce-y," he called over his shoulder as they exited the lab.
Seriously, honestly, how the fuck was this her life?