Summary: Nick Fury and Darcy Lewis catch up with each other and Tony Stark is dismayed to discover that he has been lied to

Mr. Fury and Darcy-Lee

"Hey, Mr. Fury, it's good to see you again."

"Hey yourself, Darcy-Lee. It's good to see you too. What have you gotten up to?"

"Sadly not going to Asgard," Darcy pouted. "But! Thor apologized for leaving me behind when he took Jane to Asgard because apparently it wasn't appropriate. I think the Asgardian master of protocol or their equivalent took him to task for it."

Tony Stark gaped. "You," he pointed his finger at first one and then the other, "but, how? Why?"

How did they know each other? Why did they know each other?

Darcy looked at him like he was slow, which was not something he was used to. "I'm Dr. Foster's assistant? Dr. Foster who made the Einstein-Rosen bridge? Who also off-and-on dates an alien god king? So I'm like her entourage and lady in waiting and everything. It's all very fancy."

"Fancy like not going to Asgard?" Fury teased.

Tony let that settle in his head for a moment: Fury. Teased.

Darcy didn't even hesitate though. "Oh my god, let me have my fantasies! I have spent so much time crunching numbers and analyzing spreadsheets and the super computer in Stark Tower is amazingly slow for what it is."

"Hey!" Tony said, insulted. And also ignored.

"I mean, it's also hosting a working AI, so I guess it makes sense that the processing power is mostly monopolized, but I still expected more. But from the look in Jane's eyes, she's getting antsy to grab some more data while the numbers continue to crunch. I suppose I can't ask about what you've been up to?"

"Well, I'm still dead," Fury grinned, and Tony wanted to gouge his eyes out because what was even going on, this was not reality. "But someone else isn't so dead, and I came to watch the fireworks."

"And hopefully help with the resulting fires." Phil Coulson said dryly.

Tony gaped some more, before pulling himself together and saying with rare sternness, "What is going on?"

He used that voice rarely enough that it usually got immediate responses. He was too powerful—politically, financially, and physically—for people to ignore when he was being serious.

Unfortunately, this time was an exception.

"Oh. Hey, secret agent man. I take it reports of your death were greatly exaggerated? You had a kickass wake."

And that just drove the point home, didn't it, Tony thought. He'd held a wake for Phil Coulson! And it had all been a lie?

"You lied to us! You went to that wake and chewed us out for how we treated Phil, and he wasn't even dead?"

Coulson raised an eyebrow and turned to Fury. "You chewed them out at my wake?"

Fury shrugged, "They were being remarkably twee."

"I can't believe you just used the word 'twee'."

"I, on the other hand, am very impressed that you used it correctly. Go you, Mr. Fury."

"Thank you, Darcy Lee."

Darcy beamed.

Fury looked indulgent.

Coulson looked stoic.

And Tony was still seriously annoyed and wasn't even sure whether he was supposed to be annoyed or not. Coulson had at least kept part of his attention on Tony.

"Am I just expected to ignore the fact that you lied to us? That you faked your death?"

"That is entirely up to you, Mr. Stark," Coulson said in his bland government-man voice.

Darcy interrupted to exclaim, "Wait, you're upset because the head of a multi-national espionage agency lied to you?" She looked incredulous.

Tony shifted, unaccountably uncomfortable. "He lied to all of us."

"What do you think espionage consists of? Hint: it's not telling everyone the complete truth."

"That's not the point!"

"Actually, it kind of is the point. Did you think you were the exception, the one he told the whole truth to?"

"No, of course not."

"You did! You really thought you were a unique little snowflake and got the whole truth from a spy agency! That's amazing!" and Darcy was decidedly laughing at him.

"I hacked his records and they said Coulson had died!"

"Uh-huh. And I bet Mr. Fury really reamed you out, too. Probably said something like," and here she deepened her voice, "Stop hacking all of our records, Mr. Stark. It's terrible that you have access to all of our records. Terrible, I say!" By the end, her voice had reverted back to her regular pitch, except with even more laughter.

"That's not… I mean, that's… He lied!"

"Duh."

"Hey!"

"It's really kind of sweet of you? I mean, also super gullible. How can you have as much money as you have and still expect everyone to be honest with you?"