AN: Ah. Obviously I own nothing. Blah blah blah. Here's Tony...
CHAPTER 2: Secure the Bedbugs
Tony's working.
Well, to be truthful, Tony looks like he's working, while Darcy thinks that he's really just fiddling with his holographic interface to avoid going to bed. He does that sometimes.
He's been doing that for almost 24 hours right now.
Darcy is not best pleased.
Pepper was a great woman, a great personal assistant, and a great chief executive officer. Unfortunately, she couldn't do all three at the same time and still maintain some semblance of sanity. And since she couldn't exactly stop being a great woman especially when dating and putting up with the nonsense that surrounded Tony Stark... Well, Tony was more often than not left to his own devices lately. And that was a problem.
Not an insurmountable problem, and Darcy liked her chances. She'd just argued Agent Phillip J 'I've never actually taken a voluntary vacation' Coulson into standing down at least long enough to contemplate a nap. She'd tazed a god. She had experience dealing with luring the über-science people away from their lovely, lovely über science.
She could conquer Tony's insomnia.
"Mr. Stark, Ms. Potts has requested your presence in your room." She never said that she planned on playing fair.
He blinks at his interface. "This is my room. These are all my rooms. Now, shoo, Intern Girl."
"Of course, Mr. Stark. I'll just go keep her company in your stead." Hah, ignore that.
"Yes, you go keep her..." He stalls out playing back what he heard. "Wait! What?" His head jerks back, and he flails his arms, whirling to the side to face her. He narrows his raccoon-y, bloodshot eyes. "My Pepper." He glares a moment more before shifting his focus upward. "J, is Pepper in my bedroom?"
"I'm afraid not, Sir. Ms. Potts is now in her office." Oh, JARVIS, you traitorous, traitorous bitch.
"Hah!" Tony points a shaking, grease-stained finger at her. "You're from SHIELD, aren't you? I can tell because you're a lying liar who lies!"
Darcy rolls her eyes. God, this man is such a little kid. "Mr. Stark -"
"And stop that. Do not call me Mr. Stark. It makes me twitch. My name is Tony. I am a mechanic." He gestures to the grease and oil artfully covering his clothes, face, and hands. "Not one of your fancy-pants doctors."
"Actually, I'm pretty sure that there are quite a few universities have given you honorary doctorates. I think Pepper said you were at four or five."
He shudders theatrically. "Shit. Do not tell me things like that. That is just, no. That is the worst thing that I have heard this week. And this week was complete and utter shit. I am not a fancy-pants doctor. I am a technologically advanced grease-monkey."
Darcy tries to stifle her laughter. She really does, but this man is just so cute that she can't help the giggles that escape. "Wow, you are really just everyone's special snowflake, aren't you?"
He scowls at her. "JARVIS, why is this woman in my workshop?"
"Sir," the A.I.'s voice is the epitome of put-upon and if he could, Darcy has no doubt that he would be rolling his non-existant eyes at his creator. "Miss Lewis has been assigned AVENGER class security clearance which you have designated as having full access to your workshop."
Darcy smirks up at the ceiling. "J, that is so awesome. Thank you very much."
She glances back to the engineer. He's staring now, with an eerie focus that Darcy had heard about. He tilts his head one way and then the other like a bird of prey or a hunting dog trying to size up a foreign object. She sighs. She didn't even do anything, what now? "What, Tony?"
"Why do you have AVENGER class security clearance?"
Ah, she didn't actually know. All she knew was that her magic little badge hadn't denied her access to any door she had tried. So she shrugs. "I'm the mighty Son of Coul's favorite."
He narrows his eyes. "Bullshit. Agent doesn't have favorites. He has minions."
So much love for Phil. "Fine, I'm his chief minion."
He waves this assertion away. "What else do you do?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you've obviously been sent to wrangle me, but what else do you do here?" He turns back to his interface, then to a mass of circuits and wires to poke at it with a screwdriver. He reaches for a tool that turns out to be a soldering iron.
"Should you be using that now?" she asks waving at the flaming tool.
He waves it negligently. "Of course. I do most of my best inventing while shit-faced. And this is nothing. Answer." He continues prodding at the piece of machinery.
"I told Phil to take a nap earlier."
Tony's hand slips, fortunately not burning himself, but the same might not be said for the small burgeoning machine. He frowns down at it. "Fuck. That might have been important."
"To what?"
He tilts it one way and the other, squinting at it. "I'm not entirely sure, but, hmmm…" He brings it less than an inch away. He takes a few minutes to examine it.
"Tony?"
"Nope, I have no clue what the hell this was supposed to be." He drops it to the his cluttered workspace. "So, you told Coulson to take a nap?"
She nods enthusiastically. "Yep, I'm pretty sure he did it, too."
"Damn, you are good. How?"
"He's had a hard week. I think he was looking for an excuse and knew that I would badger him until he gave in."
Tony sits statue-still for several moments. He chews on his bottom lip. "You gonna badger me until I give in?"
Darcy drops into the nearest lab chair and beams at him, letting him take from that what he would.
"Right. I guess it's beddy-bye time for Tony." He stands and stretches, eliciting a horrendous series of noises. "J, what is the actual date and time?" he asks, starting toward the door of his shop.
"It is currently October 31st, 2013, 3:50 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time."
Tony startles at that and stares at Darcy. "What the hell are you doing up?"
Darcy snorts. "All of the Avengers had a bad week. None of you were asleep. If someone attacks today or tomorrow, as they almost certainly will (because, really? It's Halloween, and the crazies think it's their holiday) New York and the world will have to depend on the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Which is never a good thing. And even if it is a world-wide crisis, you'll all be useless because none of you have slept more than four consecutive hours of sleep in the last week. And especially not in the last forty-eight hours."
Tony kicks his lab table petulantly. "Shit, yeah, okay. Duty done. I'll go get some sleep."
"Upstairs, Mr. Stark."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever."
She watches him leave and follows him a moment before whispering, "Don't let the bedbugs bite."
When I was thinking of a date for JARVIS to answer I was originally going to make it some random Thursday or Friday. Then i saw when Halloween was (a Thursday), and that sealed the deal b/c I imagine super-villains get ridiculous the week (even weeks) leading up to Halloween given their tendency toward melodramatics and posturing.
Also I would LOOOOOOVE some feedback. PLZ N TY!
