It took Agent Coulson all of two minutes to hire her as an employee at SHIELD. It took Darcy two whole days to find an apartment she could afford. At that rate, it would probably take a full two weeks for her to move in and get settled in said apartment. At least it certainly seemed that way, what with Darcy having spent a good portion of the day laying on a bare wooden floor, just waiting for the delivery guys to come.
If she had gotten expensive furniture it would have arrived yesterday. But since her bank account looked more like that of a monopoly game, thrift store furniture it was. She'd forked over quite a bit of money though to hire a moving company for a few hours to pick up all the stuff (she'd had to hit up three separate Good Wills and two Salvation Armies before she found enough), and predictably they were taking a lot longer than planned.
Darcy sighed and flopped back onto the hardwood floor. The one good thing about her apartment was the high ceiling. Darcy wasn't particularly tall or anything. She was rather short really, but the high ceilings throughout the apartment made the space feel a little larger and not quite so claustrophobic like the other places she'd checked out.
She tried to think of something else to do, but came up empty. All of her dishes (also thrift store purchases) had been washed and put away. What clothes she'd had shipped to New York from New Mexico were hung pathetically in her still-mostly-bare closet.
Her stomach chose that moment to growl, offering a wonderful reminder that she had yet to stock her kitchen with any food. Before today she hadn't really been there much, sleeping over at Jane's in Stark Tower until she had an actual bed and couch in her place.
Stark Tower never had an empty kitchen, and there was even more than one kitchen to choose from depending on what floor you were on.
And when Darcy wasn't with Jane, she had spent her time looking at apartments and shopping at slightly run-down thrift stores. She hadn't had time to buy and actually cook food in her apartment so in between stores she'd just stopped at the closest place that appeared to serve cheap food.
It was 5:30 pm though, the delivery guys were supposed to arrive three hours ago, and to top it all off she hadn't eaten anything since breakfast at8:00 am that morning. Who could have predicted that that measly blueberry muffin was going to have to hold her over for almost nine hours? Not her, that's for sure.
Obviously if she had known that, she would have stolen some of Thor's bacon or taken Jane up on the offer to bring back a few boxes of snacks to her apartment. Instead, because the delivery guys were a bunch of idiots, she was slowly starving to death in her empty apartment.
After another painful growl, Darcy clambered up and decided she couldn't wait any longer. She cast a look about her living room floor for something to write on, and finding a used envelope from the cable company, turned it over and scrawled out a quick note.
I tried to wait as long as possible, but I needed food. 3 hours is a little ridiculous guys. I'll be back as soon as I can.
Darcy Lewis (your current employer)
As an after thought, she added:
You better not leave. I'll give you donuts.
Satisfied, she taped it to the outside of her apartment door. Jane would joke that it was just like Darcy to have office supplies like tape before actual furniture. Darcy would have argued back something snarky about Jane's inability to feed herself. She was a grown adult gosh darn it, and pop-tarts were not acceptable food choices for all three meals of the day.
Not for the first time in the past week, Darcy was struck by how different New York was from New Mexico. Although she hadn't really been to New Mexico for more than a year because Jane (and consequently Darcy) had been on the move pretty much since Thor returned, it was still the last consistent place she'd lived. The last place she had called home.
New Mexico had been relatively calm, slow... nothing like the jam-packed New York which seemed to be a blink-and-you'll-miss-it sort of place. Plus, New Mexico was just downright warmer.
As Darcy walked down the street and was shoulder-checked by another pedestrian, she couldn't help but wish SHIELD had chosen its headquarters to be located in a slightly more southern area. When a strong burst of cold wind hit Darcy square in the face, she immediately started to draft a letter to Coulson in her head about how logically it made sense to have SHIELD based in Hawaii. Sunny weather = Vitamin D, and Vitamin D = happy employees. It was science.
At least New York had a lot of choices for food. One thing she did not miss was what all of that Mexican food had done to her waistline. It was physically impossible to stop at just one enchilada or one bag of churros.
Plus, in New York even when she did pig out, she had to walk a lot to get to the restaurant in the first place so it all evened out in the grand scheme of things.
Darcy was two blocks from her apartment, belly full of unlimited soup-and-salad and bag of glazed donuts in hand, when she heard an explosion.
Her head whipped around at the noise, instantly finding the source to be a large cloud of smoke billowing out of Stark Tower.
Darcy didn't even hesitate before turning around and running towards the explosion, something that was proving difficult to do because everyone else, of course, was running away from it.
There was no other option though since her best friend, and boss, was there. Of course Thor had to have picked that week to travel back to Asgard. Poor Jane probably...
No. Darcy wouldn't even let herself think of the possibility that something had happened to Jane. She wouldn't.
Darcy had expected the outside of Stark Tower to be similarly vacant like the rest of the streets, and she was correct. The surrounding area was completely deserted with not a person in sight.
It took Darcy a few seconds to figure out that there was something off - something more than just the lack of usual people milling around.
The first hint was when she stepped inside Stark Tower and immediately saw her breath in the air. She breathed out again, just to be certain, and sure enough, when she exhaled a cloud of cold hair puffed out in front of her.
When she looked around the lobby, the next hint was more obvious.
Everything was covered in ice.
For anyone else, frost-covered everything would have had them backing out of that building fast. It had been established by several people through her years, though, that Darcy wasn't just anyone.
And Jane wasn't just anyone either. Darcy had to find her and make sure she was all right.
She'd taken one step towards the icy stairs when there was a whooshing sound, and she looked up to see a field of pointed ice drop straight from the ceiling.
With a gasp, she crouched to the ground and covered her head, cringing as the thought of being impaled flashed through her mind.
There was no impaling, though. No pain. Just a loud roar and the feeling that something was hovering over her.
Already confused by the turn of events, Darcy was even more confused when she looked up and instead of seeing a ceiling seeing a large spanse of bare green skin. It took her another moment in her cold-induced state to process who it was.
Of course she knew what he looked like. Everyone in New York, well, everyone in the country really, had seen the Hulk on TV.
However, Darcy had never actually seen the green beast in person before. He wasn't actually as scary as she had imagined, although she admitted silently to herself that she was probably biased since he had just saved her life from the impalement of doom.
When the Hulk drew away and straightened from his protective position, Darcy felt her mouth drop open. He was just so freaking tall and... massive.
Not ever to let an awkward silence linger, human company or not, she spit out the first thing that came to mind. "Hey, I'm Darcy," she said, waving a little. When the Hulk frowned she immediately wondered if he didn't speak English. That would sort of make sense, although if that was true, she had no idea how she was going to talk to him.
But then all of that worry appeared to be for nothing, because he pointed at his chest and responded, "Hulk." So the big guy did understand her. It was with a small twinge of sympathy that Darcy realized maybe he just hadn't had a chance to talk to a lot of people since he was usually somewhere trapped inside a human body.
She didn't have a chance to ponder that anymore, though, because she right then she heard a familiar voice calling out for her. "Darcy, is that you?"
Darcy's heart lept in her throat at the sound of her best friend. "Jane?" she called back, running towards the stairs and only sliding a little on the icy floor.
Only when she reached the top of the stairs did she look back, but the Hulk was nowhere to be seen.
"Wait a minute! Are you saying that all of this happened because of a disgruntled employee?" Darcy asked incredulously.
Tony, sitting across from her beside Pepper, scratched his neck and frowned. "Yes."
Darcy snorted. "You need better recruitment practices! Who hires someone named 'Blizzard'?"
An angry, red flush overtook Tony's face as he stared daggers her. He probably would have responded back something rude if it wasn't for Pepper choosing that exact second to start cleaning a nasty cut on his leg.
"Darcy, I highly doubt he was named Blizzard when he was hired here, " Jane said in a placating tone.
Tony, finally able to speak, gave Jane a grateful smile then turned back to Darcy. "Precisely. When he worked for Stark Industries his name was Gregor Shapanka and-" He stopped midstence with a yelp as Pepper removed a half-melted icicle from his upper thigh.
"Oh man. That's gotta hurt," Darcy said, leaning forward to watch.
"Actually, it was Bruce who hired him initially. For the cryonics lab, right Tony?" Pepper asked, with a small smirk on her face as she wrapped a piece of cloth around his leg and secured it with tape.
Finally all bandaged up, Tony propped his leg up on the coffee table and nodded. "Yeah. Where did Bruce go anyway? After he shifted into the Hulk and pummeled Gregor into the ground, he just disappeared."
Darcy was about to jump in when Tony continued, "I just hope no one else saw him. He hates it when he changes."
Any words she had wanted to say instantly died on her lips. If Bruce really disliked the Hulk that much, bringing up how she had seen him would only make things worse. The idea settled like a lump in her stomach as she remembered how the big guy had saved her. No one deserved to feel like that, especially a hero.
She felt briefly disheartened at the thought, but when Pepper talked more about Gregor, she perked up. Where else could you find a disgruntled employee with a vendetta against Tony who had formed an ice suit of destruction just to get back at his old boss?
Just as Darcy was marveling out how weird her life had become, she realized she really needed to get going.
Darcy rose from her seat and headed towards the now defrosted and functioning elevator. With Jane safe and sound, and the man who called himself Blizzard being unable to harm anyone else, she could return to her apartment.
Thankfully the delivery guys had waited, and were quite eager for the donuts she had brought them.
As they unloaded her furniture and moved it into her apartment, they told her all about the ice dude who had attacked New York City. Darcy had feigned ignorance at the subject as she ate her own donut and listened in amusement as they argued over why the guy had chosen to attack Stark Tower in particular.
After they left, Darcy made her bed with a fresh set of sheets and an old quilt of hers that she'd had since high school. Then she slipped under the covers and laid her head down on her pillow, thinking about the green guy that had saved her life, and hoping that sometime in the future she could return the favor.
This is part of my series called "Her Big, Green, Guardian Angel" which has a main story of that same name that will consist of about 4 chapters, showing how Bruce finds out that Darcy is friends with the Hulk and proceeds to become friends with her, too. This one-shot takes place before that story as one of many prequels showing how Darcy initially meets (and is rescued by) the Hulk.
Not a ton of Hulk interaction, but he is a man/beast of few words. I think there will be another 3 prequel stories after this one showing more Hulk rescues and hopefully some more Darcy/Hulk moments!
And don't forget to check out the story that started this all :)
One more note - this bad guy is actually a villain in Iron Man comics. Check him out! His backstory is quite interesting.
Let me know what you think! (No beta and all mistakes are entirely my own).