"Bruce Banner?" Jane just about peed her pants. "The, Bruce Banner?"
"One and only." Tony replied. "We're kind of science bros. Don't get me wrong, you and I are science soul mates, and if Pepper wasn't around, and if Pure Blonde wasn't around, you and I-"
"You're not my type." Jane told him, with wide eyes. "But Bruce Banner is!"
"Sheesh." Darcy rubbed her head, blinking as though she'd just woken from a deep sleep. In her hand, a small motor, and a thin screwdriver. There was a smear of liquid band-aids on her face, and someone had clumsily tied her hair back for her. She also had band-aids on her knuckles, machinery induced injuries on her hands, too. "How long've I been down here?"
"About thirteen hours. You and I both, kiddo. Hungry?"
"No..." she looked around her immediant vicinity. There were one, two, three, four, five, six empty cups, one still half full with ice cold coffee. There were crumbs in her lap and a small stack of plates on her left, beside a bunch of hastily made scribbles in handwriting that wasn't hers.
"Anything dancing yet?"
"No..."
"I give it another hour before things wiggle at you. Hallucinogenic is the best state of exhaustion to be in, trust me, I get my best work done then."
"Actually, sir-"
"Mute." Tony said, and nudged Darcy. "What have we learned today, kid?"
"We've learned that science is the answer to every problem, ever." Darcy replied with all due vehemence, sitting a little straighter. "And measly, lesser mortals should just accept that without a fight, and allow us to fix the world."
"Sounds familiar." Loki drawled from his dark corner.
Awkward.
"Brother, do not tease them thusly. They do not understand your humor." Thor said lightly, looking at the pale shade on Jane's face. "My love, he says it in jest."
"Oh. Okay." Jane said, though she edged just a little closer to her soothingly huge Aesir, her eyes going back and forth between Tony and Loki.
"When did you get in here?" Tony demanded. "And what are you doing with those cards?"
"Building a castle. It takes a delicate touch. Also, I've been here for the better part of four hours."
"Liar!"
"To you, dear Stark?" he lifted his eyes to him, one brow cocked. "Never."
"Jarvis, how long's he been in here?"
"Three and a half hours, sir. I tried to tell you, but I was put on mute." The AI sounded particularly snide in his accusation. Darcy felt genuinely sorry for the poor fake man.
"Ah." he said shortly, then rounded on Loki. "You could make some noise, you know."
"I don't feel the need to enter the room with bravado such as yours." was his absent reply. "Discretion is the better part of valor, and all that noise." He was busy stacking his rather impressive house of cards, not even bothering to look at their host.
"I'll get you a kitty collar if you keep it up."
Loki's brows drew at the term 'collar', as did Thor's.
"Friend Stark, a collar is unnecessary. Particularly one so small as to encircle the throat of a kitty."
"Oh, you know the noble kitty?" Tony mused, going over to relieve Darcy of her motor, which she was inspecting with her tongue poking out.
"Yes." the big man declared in a happy bellow. "My lady Jane told me. She is knowledgeable in all things."
"I may have mentioned." Jane said bashfully. "What a cat was."
"Did I make that?" Darcy was kind of, bewildered. "What the hell have you been teaching me, Tony?"
"I didn't do much. You're raw potential. This isn't half bad."
"Darcy built a lot of the equipment I used before the S.H.E.I.L.D fiasco." Jane offered, moving Thor's arms to nestle on his lap. He tucked his chin over her shoulder and wound his forearms around her tiny waist, doubling over her. "She was pretty good with it all."
"I'm handy with a wrench. Had to be, my mother's useless with home repairs." she rolled her eyes briefly, though peered at the motor Tony was tweaking. "What did I do wrong?"
"Actually, kid, nothing's wrong. Your shortcuts are pretty advanced." he showed her what he was doing, and she watched without blinking. "Do you wanna keep working on this, or shall I reserve a desk for you here?"
"Yeah, if you don't mind... I don't want to like, track oil through your pretty tower. 'Sides, I'll need help eventually." she glanced at the pages. "What was I making?"
"Beats me." he shrugged. "You were in a head space. You'll figure it out. These things just come together in the end."
"And what, you fed me?" she asked with good humor and a large yawn.
"He can barely feed himself at the best of times." Jane murmured.
"So he's you in your head space?" Darcy winked at her, which Jane received with a brief eye roll.
"No, Janey's right. Dum-E did."
The robot excitedly wheeled over to them, rose his claw up to Darcy's height. He had what appeared to be bright red lipstick kisses on his claw, and a matching band-aids to what Darcy had.
"Oh, shit, I couldn't remember why I was avoiding the 'D' word." he grumped.
"Naww!"
He squeaked at her, made noises, and moved up and down like nodding. He made quite a show of carefully picking up her coffee cup and handing it to her. It soon became apparent who had been feeding her for the entire day.
"Hang on, why is he covered in make up?"
Dum-E promptly wheeled around, snatching up a mirror to swipe and accidentally throw into her lap. Tony glared at him and he dutifully recoiled and sagged, but Darcy giggled, negating all of that.
"Thank-you, baby." she reached out and petted him, and he squealed in reply, zooming in happy circles.
"Alright, back to your station. I can't deal with this." the robot made a sad sound at Tony, and Darcy mimicked it. "I said, go back! Don't encourage him, he's supposed to listen to me. I am your father, and I say, go back to your station!"
Dum-E retreated, making himself as small as possible, then turned off to crash back on his charging pad. She gave him a sad wave, and he returned it, before charging down and becoming still. Darcy was pouting when she looked in the mirror, and yes, some where along the line she'd put her face on. She was also wearing jeans, and had no idea how they got there.
"You didn't have to yell at him." Darcy told the genius, who cocked a brow at her.
"Stop flirting with my robots. You've already got Jarvis under your thumb."
"I resent that." the AI interjected. "I am not a physical entity. I cannot be weighed under a thumb."
"I know that, dummy - Not you! You, got back to your station! U, I wasn't - no, U, shut up and power down. I will donate every single one of you."
"Donate them to me." Darcy told him, and went up to inspect the whistling robot at his station.
The doors slid open, and a sheepish looking Bruce Banner stood with a weathered suitcase in one hand and ugly brown jacket over the other arm.
"Hello." he said, and looked ancient and worn. "Sorry I'm late. I forgot what traffic was like."
"Shoulda let me send the StarkCopter." Tony said with a cheeky grin. "Bruce, this is Darcy, Thor, Jane - the weedy guy in the back is Loki, your significantly greener alter ego knows him intimately."
Bruce didn't look at Loki for long. Loki was thankful. Thor beamed and bounded over to crush him in a hug enough to lift him off the floor, but it was somewhat refined, considering he had Tony at least a meter off the ground when he reunited with him.
"Hi." he patted Thor's shoulder. "How are you?"
"I am most well, shield brother! How do you fare? Was your trip here unkind?"
"Slightly. Missed the bustle, a little bit." he was let down, allowed to fix his glasses.
Jane had gone up behind them, and stuck her hand out when he landed.
"Dr. Banner. I'm Dr. Jane Foster. It is an absolute honor to meet you."
"Oh, Dr. Foster?" his eyebrows rose. "I've read your work."
"You have?" she beamed.
"Yes, of course. You're kind of the bad girl of the science world. Excellent work, though." he shook her hand more enthusiastically. "I'm glad something of your studies has come good."
"I think he means, 'become a god'." Darcy told Dum-E, who made a sound like laughter. "Oh my Thor, I want one."
"You can't have him. Dum-E's my baby. I made him when I was like, twelve." Tony snorted.
"You were fathering children at twelve?"
"I cannot say it is surprising." Loki drawled, and kept behind the steadily raising castle of cards. He had three more decks balanced on his knee - he didn't struggle with them, just put one on top of the other, paused to ensure they wouldn't fall, then went onto the next one.
Bruce spared him an even, uninterested look, then went to Tony and Darcy, offering his hand to them both.
"So serious." Darcy beamed, shaking his hand.
"It's kind of his M.O." Tony said with a half smile. "This is Darcy Lewis. She's the kid from New Mexico."
"I, am not a kid." She bumped him with her hip, but shared a grin with the scientist. "I'm the one who introduced Thor to a tazer. Though Jane hit him with the car. Twice."
"That was an accident." the scientist flushed and started to hastily explain herself to Bruce, who was amused, nodding along. From there they turned to the subject of Thor's crashing down to Earth - which prodded scientific questions Tony soon added to - to another scientific field that spiraled from there. All three of them were growing increasingly animated, answering and asking questions where they saw fit.
"We're out of our depth." Darcy mused, waving to Jane as she went. Tony returned it, though absently, already half way through his fairly extensive knowledge on gamma radiation in relation to the space-time continuum between Science Bro and Science Soulmate.
Thor nodded, hummed, and turned to leave, but jogged back to press a quick kiss to Jane's cheek. She turned and caught it on the mouth, before resuming her speech as though nothing had impaired her. Bruce wasn't even slightly phased by the show of affection, rapt up in whatever Jane was saying.
"You make me sick." Darcy said with a bright smile. "Remind me again how I'm dying alone with lots of cats, why don't you?"
"What is this, cat?" Loki's brow was drawn in thought. He had his cards shuffled between closed palms, standing at her right side, just out of her peripheral vision. She hadn't even realized he'd moved. "This is the second time I've heard the term."
"A small animal that gives birth to live young. They have long tails, and are fluffy." Thor declared in a proud bellow.
"Unless you're Dr. Evil." Darcy offered, and kept the significantly larger god between herself and the trickster as they wondered back to the lounge room.
Darcy was casually in a pair of baggy pajamas; her shirt was v-neck and white, never a good thing when one is prone to black lace. She was up on the counter, cross legged, enjoying a sleepy bowl of coco pops after a good sleep with not one single dream. She had disappeared to drink from the bowl for maybe two full seconds, enjoying life, when she dropped it down again snorted it through her nose.
"Eloquent."
"What is wrong with you?!" she wiped her hand over her mouth, slammed the bowl down beside her. "Seriously, why would you do this to me?!"
"I don't do anything to you with intentions of that disgusting reaction." he was in a similar get up as she was, only his pajama bottoms were green stripes to where hers where purple. His hair was washed and he looked younger, somehow. "Stop gawking."
"Why are you so... Bright? Did you do something bad?"
He snorted.
"Even if I had, would I tell you?"
"You actually look... Better. Cleaner. Not as-" she made a cutting motion with her hands around her face. "Sharp."
He just blinked at her.
"Haircut." she snapped her fingers and pointed at him. "You've got a haircut."
"...I have."
"Did you do it yourself? I didn't think you knew how to navigate yourself to a barber. It looks really good."
There was an intense pause.
"Are you complimenting me?"
"But... That's not it. Oh my god, you aren't wearing a 'woe is me' face. The whole - thing..." she gave him a long up and down. "All of this... Looks good on you."
He looked completely startled.
"Uh, Loki? Now you're gawking. And you're aiming the gawk at me. And I am uncomfortable as a poodle in space."
"I-" he made a strangled sound. Cleared his throat, and picked up an apple. "Well, I've no inclination as to what a poodle is, I assume a poodle wouldn't be uncomfortable in space, it'd be dead." And then he casually sauntered away after picking up an apple.
"...Good morning to you too!" she hollered out after him.
Bruce came in, wearing his dress slacks and a purple shirt rolled up at the sleeves. His glasses were on top of his head and he was rubbing his eyes, as Jane walked in, supported by Tony, who was whistling a cheerful tune.
"Good morning." Darcy offered. "Science yourselves out?"
"Never." Tony sat the woman in a chair, went over and threw some pop tarts in the toaster. Jane slumped, already snoring, and Bruce fiddled with the kettle, trying to find the on button. Darcy leaned over and flicked the switch for him, to which he hummed, pleased by the help.
"Thank you."
"Welcome. You guys look like zombies. I made Thor watch 28 days later with me last night, beeteedubs."
"Ugghh." Was Jane's reply. Thor got into movies a little too hard, taking the reality of them a little too literally, becoming all sorts of paranoid and impressed. He went through phases, and it was adorable.
"What was our antlered friend up to?"
"Playing with his cards." Darcy emptied her bowl, washing it quickly, before putting it upside down to drain. "Thor's developed a zombie thing."
"Nnnuuhg." was Jane's reply.
"Did you break Jane's brains?" She cocked a brow at Tony, who rose both hands in defense, pointing at Bruce, who was smiling slightly as he yawned. He looked worn out, but chilled as a cucumber in snow. He had a smudge of ink on the back of his hand which had some how transferred to his cheekbone, and his glasses were currently being wiped on his shirt.
Tony looked chipper and fine, for all he was now presumably awake for twenty plus hours.
"Sleep well?" he asked Darcy.
"I don't think I moved. At all." she grinned. "I haven't slept like that since high school, man."
"Why?"
"Prone to bad dreams." she shrugged. "Always have been. Not like, you know, that one, but bad enough."
Bruce politely refrained from asking what it was he was missing, to which Darcy was intensely grateful. It was hard enough to not-explain to Jane, let alone someone who when provoked, grew exponentially and threw a green tantrum.
Thor walked in, scrubbing his face.
"My lady Jane." he pressed a tender kiss on the top of her head. "You did not retire for the evening. I grew concerned that my shield brothers would whisk you away with their talk of science."
"Not if you'd take your damn shirt off." Darcy mumbled, and Bruce sent her an amused eyebrow quirk, which made her wink back at him. "Hey, you too, Mr. Salt 'n' Pepper."
He just shook his head with a chuckle.
"Would I do that to you?" Jane asked her god weakly. "Do you really think that?"
"Not ever, love." and he pressed a kiss on top of her head.
"The cute. I can't." Darcy was internally glowing; she was happy that he could draw coherent sentences from her science friend when no one else could. It would make Jane-wrangling a lot easier on her until Thor got a hold on the process. And then, eventually, she wouldn't be needed.
There was an absent moment when she missed the intimacy of being in a relationship, and then Captain America walked in.
She, in her jammies, with milk splattered half way down her front from being Loki'd, was not expecting this. Her eyes bugged out (not attractive) her mouth popped open, (here's hoping she swallowed most of her Coco Pops) and she felt suddenly weak at the knees (seriously, Lewis, you're not in a Jane Austin novel, pull yourself together.)
"Hi." he hadn't even noticed her, because she'd done this, shrink behind Tony thing. He was all, handsome and windswept, a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm. His fringe was a little too long for his traditional cookie-cutter style - it flopped down above his brow, while the rest was all stiff, stuck back into shape.
"Hi." Jane offered, though Thor went to him and clasped his arm in a meaty handshake, grinning widely. Steve seemed to be prepared to be picked up and swung around, which is probably why Thor didn't do it.
"Steven Rogers, Captain, this is my lady Jane. Jane, love, this is Steven Rogers - he is my brother in battle."
"So he is." she waved, her glasses reflecting most of the light filtering in through the window.
"And I'm Darcy." was that her voice? Why was she standing up so straight? Why was Tony watching her with both eyebrows cocked? She offered a saucy wink and two finger salute, then nearly vaulted the bench to extend her own hand.
"Lady Darcy is my friend." Thor went on with a fond grin in her direction. "Most defensive of Jane, she rendered me useless in my human form."
"Wow." was what Steve said, and shook her hand. "Hi, Darcy. I'm Steve."
"How goes it, Steve?" was she... fluttering her lashes? Oh, god, she was a mess. But he seemed to be responding well, smiling a nice-boy bashful smile and dropping his head just a little. Didn't matter he tried to hide the blush on his face, because he was honestly so tall she could still see the pink bloom on his cheeks.
"Yeah, hi, Spangles. Remember me? Host?" Tony tossed a loose arm around her shoulders. "How was the ride? Don't tell me, I don't care. Did you find your room? JARVIS, we put Cap in his own floor?"
"No sir. You told me to put Captain Rogers on the floor with the other guests."
"I changed my mind. Put him on my floor."
"Sir, Captain Rogers has already deposited his things by U and Dum-E. Dum-E has since brought most of those things to his allocated room."
"Oh, my poor baby." Darcy aimed a pout at the roof. "Does he need my help?"
"...Actually, Miss Lewis, I think he might welcome that."
"He doesn't need help, he'll be fine." Tony scoffed. "Reroute where he's sleeping, is all."
"What's the problem?" Darcy cocked a brow. "You want the pretty war hero all to yourself?"
"Yup. That's it. I want him all to myself. That, and, heavy lifting, you know, I'm getting old. How can I build things I can't lift? Exactly. That's why I need Cap. And you, you just, don't need Cap. You need to un-Cap. See what I did there? Can you even catch my drift?"
"I'm going to help Dum-E. C'mon, solider boy, you can come with me. Flex those muscles I hear so much about." Darcy ducked out from under the mechanic's arm sent a grin back over her shoulder that lit the entire tower from the inside up. "Be back in a jiff, you guys." And she proceeded to lead Captain America out of the room.
Darcy wasn't super human, but she did catch Jane saying something about Tony's 'laying it on too thick'. His retort, however, was cut short by a bewildered Bruce Banner, asking exactly what that meant.
"Hey JARVIS?"
"Yes, Miss Lewis?"
She slowed into an easy stroll.
"Where was Cap's original room?"
"You cannot miss it, Miss Lewis. Dum-E does not posses the ability to close doors."
They rounded the corner to see two large bags not-so-neatly stacked on one another, smack bang in the middle of the doorway. Dum-E was dragging a backpack behind him, but when his camera caught Darcy's image, he squealed with excited meant and sped over to them. Steve, quite adorably, put himself between her and the robot, but she had likewise gushed, grinning ear-to-ear.
"Hey, buddy!" she bent, putting hands out to catch his claw. He left skidmarks in his wake, pumping the brakes so that she was unharmed. The bag swung after him, however, and hit him in the back wheel, knocking him forward a clumsy inch. "Oh, baby. I missed you too."
He whistled at her, apparently telling her a long stream of things, with animated claw maneuvering.
"What...?" Steve bent to stare. "This is Dummy?"
"Yeah. Tony built in in his early teens or something. He's the best." Darcy grinned at the spinning robot. "He's really helpful. Come on, my little minion. I see three bags and you've got a helping claw."
He nodded - or, the robot equivalent to nodding, when it didn't have a head - and seemed to pointedly stare at Steve, claw cocked.
"Oh, my manners are abysmal. Steve, Dum-E. Dum-E, this is Steve. Can I call you Steve?"
"Absolutely." he smiled at her, and the world narrowed in on that moment. She sighed, her smile only dreamily half cocked.
"Right. Okay. I will. Shall we?"
Dum-E whistled, and Darcy put her hand on top of his claw, making him squeak and rock from side to side. He sped down the hall, turned around, sped back to them, rolling backward while Steve and Darcy both took a handle of the same bag.
"Really, ma'am- you don't have to." he appeared to be flustered. "I can carry these."
"I said I'd help." she beamed, and hoisted the smaller bag up onto her forearm. "And please, ma'am makes me feel like a librarian. Call me Darcy."
"Darcy." he repeated, and smiled. "I can do that."
