Thanks for bearing with me. We had a roller coaster of chaos in my family as of late.
Now! Onto the story:
"Lets go! Its 1:45 and I want stuff!" Tony was practically running out the door.
"How many cars are we taking?" Darcy shuffled herself into her sweater and wrapped her purse across her. "I can drive but I can only fit five people."
"Oh we aren't taking cars." Natasha said smirking. "I managed to get us a quinjet."
"How?" Jane said, walking out the door and seeing it waiting for the group.
"Fury owes me a big favor over his daughter. I told him we needed a quinjet to keep and he's now calling it even." Natasha tossed a set of keys to Clint.
The group climbed in and noticed it had been upgraded. "I let Tony in on the surprise." Natasha said shrugging. And everyone was glad she did. Tony had turned it into a souped-up private plane. There was nice comfy couches and soft carpet. Real swanky.
There were three nice couches, complete with a coffee table in the center. Bruce and Tony settled onto one. Pepper and Jane were hunched over a tablet looking at what they wanted to buy when they got to town. Thor was set next to Jane, and he rubbed her back and gazed out the front windshield absentmindedly. Clint was pilot and Natasha was the copilot and Steve stood behind Natasha's seat.
Darcy was not overjoyed that she and Loki were going to be sitting together, but she just shuffled as far into the corner as she could and focused on Jane and Pepper.
Loki noticed her apprehension and how she was clearly trying to avoid him at all costs. He started to think that maybe it wasn't about what happened earlier, when she was half-naked, maybe she hated him. No, she couldn't, she welcomed him so kindly. She looked past his appearance. He finally decided in his head that she saw him as much of a freak as everyone else. Her attempt at kindness was just a front for her fear. Sulking, he stayed quiet the whole trip.
They landed on top of the Bank of the West Tower, in Albuquerque. Filing out, they honestly weren't surprised at seeing Happy standing there. Pepper walked over and shook his hand, and then headed to the door that led to the stairs. Following her lead the group went past Happy. Steve, Natasha and Clint giving him salutes as soldiers do. Loki walked past and lowered his eyes, but noticed that this man was not taken aback by his appearance, so the facade worked on him.
They got to the top floor, as Pepper and Tony walked through, they led the group to the elevator.
"Wanna tell me how we are able to land a quinjet on the top of a bank?" Darcy settled against the wall as they waited for the dual elevators to arrive.
"When I built the house I met with the operator of this bank. He said 'whatever I need,' well, we needed a place to land." Tony shrugged off her question.
Darcy just gaped at Tony, shook herself with a 'he is a bajillionaire' look and entered the left elevator when it arrived.
Darcy was sad to see that Clint was going off with the rest of the guys to an old fashioned barber, while the girls got their hair done elsewhere. Natasha cheered her up though, by mentioning that now she got to surprise Clint with an even better makeover.
As they walked into the spa, they were greeted with champagne. Each were guided to chairs all lined up in front of well-lit mirrors. Pepper insisted that Darcy meet with the stylist first. Darcy was awkward and shy when Damien started asking her what happened to her hair. Pepper sat in the chair next to her and simply said that "Darcy had boy troubles, Damien. How're you and Marco?" Damien lapsed into stories of his boyfriend. Making the four girls laugh til their stomachs hurt with his silliness. He picked out a beautiful auburn brown to color her hair with. He applied the dye and moved onto Natasha.
Nat began to argue that she only needed her roots done, and a trim, when all three other girls insisted she mix it up a bit. Damien talked her into having him loosen some of her curls, but it was Darcy who asked the big question. What was Nat's REAL color? When Nat picked it out of the swatches, all four of the other people insisted she return to that color. So she said yes, especially since Darcy pointed out how much Cap'n might like it. So he set to work on hers. All the while Darcy set to convincing the other two that since Nat and her were changing it up so should they.
Pepper decided to go back to her days of bangs and Damien was so excited. He loved her in all the pictures of her and Stark at all the big openings and whatnot when her hair was shorter and she had pretty blunt bangs that emphasized her eyes.
Jane was the difficult one. She insisted that since she spent her entire life working and putting it into a ponytail, so it wasn't worth it. Darcy convinced her to take it a few inches shorter, but still long enough to put up. While Damien waited on Nat and Darcy's hair to completely take, he showed Jane how to style it so easily, that it wouldn't take her more than a few seconds. Jane gave into the persuasion and agreed to giving it a try at home.
Nat and Darcy were rinsed. Darcy's hair was cut and dried. He styled it easy enough that it was just going to be a few minutes in the morning to get it to lay right and they were out the door, off to find the boys.
On their way to the bar they were meeting at, Darcy stopped in front of a shop window. There were hats! She headed right in. The other girls followed, pretty confused.
Darcy picked up a hat and plopped it on her head.
Jane said, "Uhm, why are you hiding your new hair?"
"I'm a present. Clint can take it off at the bar. Pick one out for you." Darcy giggled, handing Jane a bucket hat as she pulled her peruvian pick onto her head.
In the end all four had a hat on, hiding their styles so they could reveal them.
The walked into the bar and the men looked confused.
Darcy walked up to Clint and drug him to a spot with good lighting. She wanted him to see the color. "Take my hat off." She half-whispered.
"What?" Clint said, not hearing her right over the music.
"Take my hat off!" She giggled. All the girls were pushing their respective man's hand away from their hats. Wanting to do something similar.
Clint turned to the guys and shrugged. Then turned back to the woman before him. He slowly picked up her ear flaps and she laughed. He finally just yanked it off and Tony wolf-whistled.
"Its a good color, Darc." Bruce said.
Clint just looked at her. She seemed to glow with the red. Her skin seemed warm and inviting and he just kissed her gently, and whispered, "You're beautiful."
It was just then that Bruce caught Loki's reaction.
Loki was thinking along the same lines Clint was. She was gorgeous. He couldn't get the idea of how opposites attract out of his head. He flagged the bartender and got another beer and tossed it back. Her reddish-brown. His green and gold. They'd look good together. The colors! He mentally scolded himself. Not him and her. Not Loki and Darcy.
Bruce had tapped Steve's knee and he caught it too. They exchanged similar "dad" looks. (He better stay away from my wonderful Darcy)
"Me next!" Jane said. She turned to Thor and pulled off her bucket hat. He grinned stupidly.
"You're beautiful too! I don't care what you look like! I love you for you." And he picked her up in his signature bear-hug. Darcy smiled at how their love was like a simple kindergarten love. They didn't care that Jane was a scientist on Earth and Thor was a demi-god from Asgard. They loved each other, just because they did. Simple as that.
"You next!" Tony energetically pulled off Pepper's hat. She smacked him on the arm before she combed it through with her fingers. Tony reached up and straightened out her bangs, and the whole group got a glimpse of the affection between the two.
"I love you with bangs Pep." Tony said quietly.
Steve looked anxiously at Natasha. He was like a kid a Christmas waiting to see what was in his stocking. He couldn't help but ask, "Is your hair still red?"
Natasha's face fell, "No" she paused, "its not." And pulled off her hat.
"Damn!" Clint called out. Natasha stuck her tongue out at him. She then looked anywhere but Steve's face.
He walked up beside her and whispered in her ear all but silently, "Look at me." She slowly raised her eyes, taking in the super-soldier before her. His lips, his skin, his jawline, his nose, then, finally, his eyes.
His eyes looked dark. And she knew what that meant. She looked good, really good to him. Sexy. She looked sexy. Thats what that look meant. She got goosebumps, then as the group became loud as they tend to be, she remembered where she was.
Darcy caught her eye and gave her a look that screamed, "Come here now you horny teenager!"
Tony spoke up asking if the girls wanted food or drinks or were they ready to head to the boutiques.
As the group loudly walked through town, receiving many cheers from the townspeople and stopping to shake hands, take pictures, and sign things. Thor had fun signing a guys forehead and would not shut up long after they reached the store.
Jane, Darcy, and Thor decided to look after Loki. Jane and Darcy weren't really looking for anything new for themselves, but Darcy offered to help Loki as Jane helped Thor. She could feel the rest of the group's eyes on her and Loki as she showed him the clothing. He was slightly taken aback at the lack of leather and metal. She gathered he was more of a green, purple, blue and black kind of person and set about finding him shirts that met his standards.
After a few initial, accidental insults, Loki got the hang of telling her what was and was not good. Thor had thrown a hanger at Loki when he accidentally was a little too mean. Then again, it wasn't his fault, she tried to get him to wear red. No.
He picked out a lot of dress shirts, and then she introduced him to an array of tee shirts. Some had silly sayings, so he went with plain ones. He walked past a display of flannels that he had seen Clint looking at. Darcy had winked at Clint when he came out of the dressing room with a flannel shirt on. She must find these appealing on men, Loki thought as he shuffled through.
Darcy noticed him looking at plaid shirts and she couldn't help but imagine him in one. She loves the rugged look of them. Then her thoughts turned to her in a green flannel and nothing else, standing before Loki and those piercing red eyes rimmed with dark lashes surveyed her; pleased with what he saw. His blue skin was deep with heat and she could just imagine what a frost giants kiss would feel like. She imagined when she and a boy had kissed after eating italian ice and it was cool and sexy. She mentally shook herself and furiously searched for Clint with her eyes. She found him sitting and talking to Tony, but then he looked up and she saw his steel-blue eyes and remembered thats who she cares about. Not an evil genius alien.
Thor noticed Loki's whole interaction with Darcy. So had Bruce. Thor and Bruce exchanged looks and Thor decided he needed to speak with Loki when they returned to the mansion.
Thor helped Loki find pants and socks and whatnot while the girls wandered through the dresses. Darcy found a emerald green peasant dress with gold embellishments that she had to have, but when she looked at the green again she remembered her daydream, and put it back. Loki saw this and sighed. She would have looked beautiful.
Tony, Steve, Bruce, Clint, and Natasha were huddled in a corner talking and being a little too obvious as they shot glances at Darcy. She started to get angry. Pepper pretended to go to grab her arm and usher her elsewhere.
She walked up to the group of them, arms crossed, "What?! are you all looking at. And why are you looking at me."
"Nothing!" Clint said a little too loudly.
Darcy snatched the starkPad from Clint's hands and her jaw dropped. They were online shopping. It was a Jazz Collection arrow necklace, in platinum, with diamonds, FROM TIFFANY'S.
"Oh. Sorry. I had a weird flashback from high school when the other kids googled me and found out about my parents." She flushed red and the group of them felt terrible.
They had intended to throw Darcy off the trail of her real birthday present, but only ended up making her remember that horrible time.
"Sorry Darc. You know we wouldn't google you. We love you and we don't need to know the details." Tony spoke up. It was a rare moment when Tony was honest with people, but with Darcy, you have to be. "Want some ice cream?" He said with puppy eyes.
"Yea, yea. Thats fine." Darcy wiped her eyes.
Thor heard the whole thing and came over and picked Darcy up from behind. "You know my brother's real parents were mean too. But then we adopted him and now he is nice. He has made his mistakes, but he is good, and I don't know what google is, but I wouldn't do it to him and I certainly won't do it to you."
Darcy laughed, and was afraid if she laughed harder she'd crack a rib with how tight Thor held her. He dropped her and she caught Loki's eye. "So you guys are my adoptive family, huh?"
"Just don't do the world domination thing. It's not worth it." Loki said with a smile.
The entire group looked at him, shocked he made a joke like that, and then burst into laughter. The shy shopgirl came over and handed Tony his credit card and then said that a man named Happy was already taking all the purchases to their car.
On the way out, Bruce noticed that the green dress Darcy liked was missing from the rack.