"Ah, fuck. I'm too young and awesome to die a virgin."
The girl in question swore as she ducked under his armored hands and turned into his side to avoid as much of the falling debris as she could. Despite the fact that they were now both buried under a good foot of collapsed warehouse and physically cut off from the rest of the team and he definitely had one or two broken bones the Mark 32 suit was assessing Tony couldn't help but agree with her surprising statement.
"I'd be happy to lend my personal and immediate services to solving your problem."
JARVIS always willing to lend his aid broke in with "Such a kind offer, sir. But perhaps now is not the best time?"
The woman snorted in unimpressed amusement, coughed, and muttered a choked 'sure you would, Stark' before falling silent. Well, to be fair, the girl wasn't getting filtered air like he was…
"You're right JARVIS, rain check then, now might not be the best time."
The young woman shifted closer and opened her mouth to give what he could only assume was a snarky reply before she started coughing again.
Ok, Thor or Steve really needed to get their asses over here, like, now.
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It was one hell of a week later that Tony finally learned who the girl was. It had turned out the girl was none other than Foster's little lab gopher Darcy Lewis.
And well, damn. While he was only half joking back when he had hit on her during the battle, her file now interested him even more.
Tasered Thor and lived to become bros with the Norse god. Point, Lewis.
Kept most of Dr Foster's old equipment running on nothing more than duct tape and a prayer despite her unfortunate taste in college majors. Political science? The words politics and science always made Tony cringe when used together. But Culver University was no laughing matter, both Dr Bruce Banner and Dr Jane Foster were a testament to that fact.
….and her file really needed more info to keep him amused. Seriously, what was first-name-Agent last-name-Son of Coul hiding from him?
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The Dodge Spirit did not now or ever belong next to any of his shiny pricy sports cars. Even if the car had been brand spankin' new…which it wasn't, at all. Its color alone would have offended the Ferraris and Lamborghinis delicate sensibilities. And Tony didn't even want to imagine what mental affect it could have on his antique cars…
Maroon? Really? Ancient peeling maroon paint… His poor sports cars were going to need therapy and lots of it.
"JARVAIS, what the hell is that…thing… doing in my garage? How did it even make it by security? Like I do still have some fucking security monitoring this place, right?" He fired off the questions to his trusty AI as he made his way closer to the ageing eyesore.
But before JARVIS could provide him with some answers a steel and vinyl creeper with the Stark Industries logo embossed on its side came sliding out from under the car to hit his foot.
"J-man, wanna let me take this one?" asked Lewis from where she lay on the creeper: wrench, rag, and WD-40 in hand.
"Of course Miss Lewis, I'm sure sir would find you a much more enlightening conversationalist at the moment than me."
"Oh now, JARVIS, like anyone could carry a convo better than you. I mean, where would I be without our nightly philosophical musings on life, the universe and everything?"
Tony blinked down at the girl as she cheerfully carried on with JARVIS and ignored the fact that she had just rolled over his toes with one side of her creeper…no wait, make that his creeper, there was a dent in the left side that he put in it last week. He nudged the side of the creeper and the girl smiled up at him.
"Explain? Now?"
"Pepper said I could fix/store my car here. I needed access to tools and the employee lot has got zilch, it's like people can't even check the oil these days without hiring some wannabe jiffy lube mechanic to do it for them. This is one sweet set up you got here, Dude. "
He gave a small nod in her direction "your car is hideous and belongs in a junkyard, but I will forgive your authorized trespass on the grounds that you're a hot chick that knows the difference between a double-box wrench and an open-end wrench. "
"My many thanks o-gracious kinda-bossman." She saluted him with the wrench and slid the creeper back under the maroon monstrosity.
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"Pepper…" he whined into the phone. "Pepper…she was using my tools. In my garage. My personal garage…how could you do this to me?"
"Do what?" came the exasperated reply.
"You know very well what, Miss Potts!"
"Mr. Stark, I can assure you I certainly don't. Now as the current CEO and the only person in this conversation trying to run an international business can I please get back to work now?"
"Fine, but don't think I'm going to let this go Pepper!"
He could just imagine her rolling her eyes thousands of miles away as she hung up on him.
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"So as I was saying, my skill set would have been completely badass if I had been born a privileged white male sometime in the 1500's."
Clint Barton was doubled over with laughter at whatever story Darcy had just finished regaling him with in the Avengers lounge.
"Oh man, add that to the Taser and we ought to add you to the rotation kiddo." He laughed again and glanced up to see Tony.
"Stark, you gotta listen to this kid's stories, off the charts, fucking insane."
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Alcohol, Daddy issues and boredom had gotten him in trouble in the past. Surely three days of no sleep, lots of coffee and DUM-E trying to brain him with a fire extinguisher had to be better.
He might have been wrong on that, but lack of sleep didn't stop him from knocking on her door at 4am.