EDIT 2/9/2014: Story's the same just going through and adjusting things. Proofreading and all that.

Chapter 4: Butchering of Agendas Everywhere

"So, Thor conned Tony into letting us stay in the tower." Jane sighs as she hangs up.

Darcy drops the bag she'd been about to put on the closet shelf. "No, that is not possible."

"Darce."

"No, Jane, if he was going to ask if we could stay with the SuperFriends, why couldn't he do it before we got to the hotel? Failing that why couldn't he do it right when we arrived? What possible reason could he have for waiting for three hours after we told him that we got to the hotel?" Dammit. She didn't want to live with Tony and his friends for the next two months. It was going to be annoying enough being in the same city as Tony, but living in close quarters, or as close of quarters as Tony Stark ever lets himself be closed into, was not Darcy's idea of a good time.

Jane winces a little. "Look, Darce, I'm not really excited about this either. I'm not really upper-crust or anything, and Tony Stark can be a little intimidating. Not to mention the fact that we don't know what kind of facilities await us. Maybe I should've said no? I'm sorry, Darce."

Great, Jane. Make Darcy feel like a total heel. "Not to worry, Tony Stark only pits his intimidation shtick on people he thinks are incompetent. And believe me, Dr. Foster, o mystical documenter of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, you are not on that list."

"But that-"

"No buts, and please, you're questioning the facilities of Tony Stark after all the press he's had about being an indulgent, opulent hedonist. Now, we all know press differs from reality, but I highly doubt it differs that much." Darcy rolls her eyes and grabs the equipment she had just finished setting out. So annoying.

"We don't have to go."

Darcy turns to her boss and friend. The other women is mutilating a beautiful, embossed hotel welcome card. Darcy sighs. "No, but you want to, and I don't have that big a problem with repacking everything and then unpacking." She glares good-naturedly. "As long as you don't intend on making me do the unpacking alone. I promise to be unspeakably put out if I'm immediately abandoned for your 'it's-complicated'." She narrows her eyes. "Unspeakably put out."

Jane winces. "No pop-tarts put out?"

Darcy purses her lips. That's not a good punishment because, well, Jane defines absent-minded professor. "No, I'm thinking fruit-salad and doodles on lab reports put out is more apt." That worked especially well that one week Darcy worked as a TA.

Jane groans. "That was the worst week ever."

Darcy grins at her. "Please, boss-lady, I could do so much worse than that."

Jane swallows what Darcy knows would've been the most petulant whining of all time when a knock sounds from outside the room. Darcy rolls her eyes at the resulting disaster of dropped clothes and broken sound barrier that Jane creates as she rushes to answer the door. Thor is not going anywhere without his lovely Lady Jane. That is just not a thing that is happening.

"Jane!" See, happy booming voice, all joyful and triumphant to see her, all that equals not letting Dr. Jane Foster, Ph.D., out of his sight for the foreseeable future.

Darcy's train of thought is slightly derailed when another male voice calls out, "Uh, do you girls need help repacking?"

Darcy whoops. "Very much so! Happy Hogan, you are officially my favorite." She gestures at the mess that is the bedroom of the suite. "Those go in there. That goes in that long case that looks sort of like a drum case and sort of like a trombone case. Not sure if that makes sense but if you can't figure it out just leave it. These just go thrown in this bag."

She stops when she realizes that there is a distinct lack of Happy doing her packing. "What?"

"Um, how did you know my name?"

She waves him off. "I read it somewhere. See, Jane," she calls into the other room, "Even Tony's staff gets its own press." Darcy pauses and tilts her head. "That could be taken so badly."

Happy winces. "No, really, how did you know my name? Tony is ridiculously good at keeping me out of the press. Ridiculously good at keeping anything that he really doesn't want in the press out of the press."

"Oh god, does that mean that he wanted that story about the lesbian hookers to run? Or the one where a major news conglomerate called him a terrorist?" Darcy knows that neither were stories Tony particularly cared about, but hey, she was going for shock factor.

And oh, she gets shock factor.

"Darcy, oh my God! You can't ask questions like that!" Jane does a lot of things like no one else, science, kindness, exasperation, quelling, and oh god her shrill was to die for!

Happy just coughs and shifts uncomfortably. "Yeah, okay, sometimes while he doesn't care for a story, he doesn't really care that it got reported either."

"So, he's comfortable with being called a terrorist?"

"What? No! I was talking about him not caring about the lesbian hookers!"

Dead. Ringing. Silence.

Happy sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "So, is there any way I can convince all of you that this didn't happen. I swear I'm better at fielding questions when I'm working for Tony." He shoots a glare at Darcy. "I just wasn't expecting to have to do it right now. I still don't buy that you knew my name from some rag."

Jane turns to Darcy. "What did you do? How do you know Tony's driver?"

She sneers at Jane. Then she turns to Happy. "You're more of his friend-slash-modern-day-manservant. Oh, like when medieval warriors would end up bonding with the manservants that would take on crusades, right? Kind of like Thor's shield-brother concept except Tony pays you. Probably mostly to make up for that awful nickname. When I heard about it, I razzed him about it for months."

Happy stares at her blankly for a moment before looking to Jane and Thor for help. "Uh, I guess?"

"Darcy." Jane's tone is measured and even. She's getting upset. Even with Thor in the room. "How did you meet Tony Stark? And why did you get the chance to make fun of his nickname for his driver?"

"Actually!" Happy gestures at Darcy as she cuts in. "Her description of crusader bonds - okay, nevermind."

And there's Jane's quelling look again. Poor Happy, Darcy was definitely letting Tony know about that. At least after she stopped yelling at the idiot.

"Look, Jane, if we're going down this road, I need to make a call first."

"Darce."

"No seriously, I'll tell. I just need to talk to someone because this isn't just my secret. I told him to tell them soon, but he's a pussy when it comes to things like this, but he should've started telling people by now." She pulled out her phone. "So if you'll excuse me?"

She walks into the hallway and place the call. God, she could kill Tony. That man is incredibly brave the majority of the time, but he's complete crap at taking risks with his personal life. Whatever, ring, ring.

"Hey! Darcy, didja meet Happy? Is he everything you thought he would be? Isn't he just great? Are Thor and his lady-love locked at the lips? Happy's helping -"

"Shut up."

"What? But Darcy?"

"No, you don't get to talk. You don't get to ask questions."

"I'm sorry."

"I told you. You said you were going to talk to them. I told you that I would be in New York soon, and you said that you would tell your team and those close to you. I told you I would be in new York. I told you when. I gave you a goddamn itinerary."

"You didn't tell me that you would be with Dr. Foster."

Darcy takes a deep breath to stop herself from yelling down the phone line. This man just doesn't listen. "Yes. Yes, I did. I told you that I would be traveling to new York for a science conference with Dr. Jane Foster. Those were my exact words. I even told you that we would be showing the data we collected from the Convergence event and the portal over Manhattan. These were things that I mentioned, that I told you. But once again you weren't paying attention. You never pay attention to me."

"Darcy..."

"No, really, I should be used to it by now. We've expended so much energy ignoring my existence, why should I expect you to listen to me?"

"It's not like that, and you know it."

"Tony, I don't a good god-damned thing. Look, I'll pack Jane up and send her and her equipment over with Happy and Thor. Maybe we can meet up for lunch, but I'm gonna have Happy drop me at my apartment." She sighs. "Unless of course you actually terminated my lease."

"No, its still in your name. Look, Darce, I -"

"Tony, I get it. It's hard to drop this sort of thing into conversation. I'll get over it. It's not like I haven't been hiding this since before I could remember."

"Come to the tower tonight?"

"No, I'm not in the mood to hide who I am. I'll come over tomorrow, yeah? I've still gotta meet the rest of your boy-band, right?"

"Okay, but -"

"Look, Tony, this'll give you a chance to tell everybody at once without this becoming some warped show-and-tell presentation."

The phone crackles with one of his deep sighs. "Whatever, I was trying to tell you that I told Cap. We're having a movie night, and Thor wanted you and Jane here. But fine, talk to you later, kiddo."

He hangs up, and Darcy slides down the wall next to her hotel room. Dammit, now she had to think of a way to explain everything without actually explaining anything.

The sound of a throat clearing above her draws her attention. Jane sighs at her. "You don't actually have to explain right now. It would be great if you could explain before we leave New York, but you don't have to explain right this second."

Darcy laughs and pokes the other woman's shin. "This is why I love you, Jane. You're the greatest. I'm also gonna pass on the lifestyles of the rich and famous. I won't stay in the hotel though. I'll get Hogan to drop me at my place."

"Your place?" Jane drops to the floor next to her. "I didn't know you had an apartment in New York. Why didn't we go there in the first place?"

Darcy bites her lip. This was why she needed Tony to spill the beans. The coward. "That's another part of the secret. Also I didn't think there would be enough room for your equipment."

"Darcy, did Tony take advantage of you?"

Jane's question stalls out Darcy's train of thought. For close to a full minute Darcy just stares at her friend. Then she really can't help it. She bursts out laughing. She can't control it for a minute and a half, by which time Jane is scowling and crossing her arms.

"No, Jane, nothing like that. We just have a complicated relationship and he's not ready to explain everything that goes with it. It'll be fine. He'll explain by tomorrow at the latest. And hey, apparently Thor's taking you to a movie night. Have fun."

So, here she is we all knew this was coming but I had a hard time with the backstory b/c the Marvel Wiki for Earth-199999 (Cinematic Verse) says that Tony was born in 1970. Whereas RDJ was born in 1965... Which I had already looked up and accepted as his age b/c I didn't think they had canon for his age. I mean really why would you do that? And really that makes a huge difference b/c it's the difference btw him having a kid when he's 16 and him having a kid when he's 21.

Not that the Cine!Verse cares about my dilemma b/c in canon he has no progeny.

Then there's the thing where Darcy is a grad student but towards the end of that so she's at least 22 more like 25. Unless she did the whole accelerated education, graduate early thing? Is that a thing that Darcy would do? It's a thing that Kat Denning did. She was home-schooled and graduated at the age of 14. (At least according to the internet... sigh.)

And I realize that I've killed most of canon, that this story is fairly AU, that one of my tags actually reads 'Backstory had been screwed, blued, and tattooed. But I like using what actual information is out there, even if I do move things around.

And while I'm making this AN of doom, my timeline for the movies goes like this:
-Marvel's The Avengers
-Thor dark world
-Tony and Pepper break up off screen b/c that msg as he went through the portal was just an awful, heartwrenching thing
-most of the events of IM3 except Pep and Tony aren't dating maybe Darcy's the one that gets kidnapped (might end up doing rewrite for that, but don't count on it)
-a couple of months in which Avengers come back together as a team
-start of Relative Insanity (my series)

(wow I did not know that the incredible hulk was supposed to take place during Thor... that is just ugh)

I'm sorry that I'm drawing this out but really, you guys already know. And now Steve knows. And next chapter for sure everyone else gets to find out.