-(.:.)-

Darcy and Tony had teamed up. The mission? Stocking up on enough snacks to keep an assortment of super heroes fed in between meals. Darcy had discovered 'pocket burgers' long ago in college; you could take rolls or biscuits and flatten them out, stuff them with any number of yummy fillings, and then pinch them and bake them. Little homemade hot pockets- the guys loved them. Tony had watched her make 2 dozen of them the first time, then watched as she had a mini temper tantrum when the guys had all systematically entered the kitchen and stolen them off the cooling racks, leaving her with 2.

Tony had grinned and disappeared into one of his many lab rooms, emerging again with an automatic 'biscuit squisher' that saved a ton of time and allowed her to mass produce the little snacks. Now she would set aside one day a week, usually when she knew that the rest of the gang was occupied, and would stock up on the creations. Tony got into the habit of helping her pick out the fillings and helping load the ovens, which was rewarded with first pick out of the oven.

Most of the Avengers were more patient now and waited for the 'go-ahead' to steal the little pockets, although occasionally there were daring thefts, like the time Scott Lang (aka ant-man) had managed to grow and shrink himself in order to steal the pocket and disappear before Darcy could catch him.

Today, Darcy was 6 dozen pockets in, and was sitting on a kitchen stool, playing on her ipad waiting for the last batch to be done. Tony was being his usual annoying self and trying to insert himself into her attention span.

"Reindeer Games disappeared earlier today," he said, tinkering with an old toaster. It was a common opinion that Tony was incapable of sitting still without doing something with his hands. Pepper refused to comment. "Thor was being especially dodgy today. Something's up."

Darcy turned off her ipad, knowing that once Tony started talking she wouldn't be able to concentrate.

"Huh," she said. "Maybe it was just some Asgard shit, you know, ruling the country and all." Tony shrugged.

"Maybe," he said, in a tone that said that he didn't buy it. "Of course usually if they are going back and forth to Asgard, they call for Heimdall; this time Loki just disappeared into thin air." Darcy frowned.

"I don't know Tony, maybe you should check it out," Darcy said, jumping as the timer went off on the oven. "Last batch, check." Tony grabbed two oven mitts, or Iron Mitts rather, since they were made to look like his Ironman gloves, and extracted the last sheet from the oven.

"Too busy," he said. "Saving the world and all that. You should check it out, Lew-lew." Tony had started using the nickname once after hearing her call Mjolinar "mew-mew." She rolled her eyes.

"I guess it would give me something interesting to do." She finished packing all of the pockets into Tupperware containers, gesturing for Tony to pick his. He chose a ham and cheese pocket and grinned, waving at her as he left the room. Darcy sighed, washing her hands and double checking that everything was off.

What if Loki and Thor really were up to something? Jane should know. She turned off the kitchen lights and headed out to the hallway. Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson were engaged in a super long game of hallway Frisbee.

"Cease fire!" Darcy called out. "Civilian on the floor!"

"Understood!" Steve called out to her from down the hall.

"Pocket burgers in the fridge!" she called, and then was almost run over by a tornado.

"Thanks, Darce," Steve said, patting her on the arm as he headed behind her to the fridge.

"Yeah, thanks Darcy," Sam parroted, following. Darcy smiled and called out,

"Leave some for everyone else," as she headed down the hall.

She poked her head in at the common room; Natasha was sitting by the window looking out; Clint, Maria, Bucky, Loki and Thor were on chairs and couches, eyes glued to the oversized tv screen which was playing 'The Rock.'

"Have you seen Jane?" She asked the room. Natasha gestured upward.

"Astronomy lab," she said. Darcy headed up an elevator bank to the 4th floor, which housed a number of labs for the science addicted building tenants. Just outside of the astronomy lab, she heard voices, and stopped before going in.

"It's not right, Thor. She has a right to know."

"Jane, it's dangerous. If I thought it would ease her pain at all, I would tell her in a heartbeat. But he is being held for sale on a planet of ill repute."

"Even more reason. Even if he was an ass, we should still try to help him, shouldn't we?"

"It is not for us to get involved. He has connections, Jane, with dangerous people. Loki has promised to keep an eye on him."

"Well THAT's reassuring." Darcy heard them kissing, a sure sign that Thor had not picked up on the sarcasm. She backed a little ways down the hall and then approached the room again, singing an Aerosmith song, hoping that they wouldn't figure out that she'd been eavesdropping. She had no doubt that they had been talking about Peter Quill; she had confided to Jane a few days ago that she still thought about him, and Jane was forever trying to fix things. This at least solved some of the mystery, she now knew where Loki had disappeared to.

"Hey boss lady. Hey big guy." She gave them a little wave. "Pocket burgers in the fridge." Thor's eyes lit up, and he looked to Jane. She nodded, and he darted out of the room, toward the elevators.

"Nothing more motivational than food," Jane said. "How are you holding up, Darcy?" Darcy smiled.

"No complaints. Tony is sending me on a secret mission, so that will keep me occupied." She looked sideways at her friend.

"Well that's good," Jane said. "Well I have some work I need to get done, but I'll see you later, Darcy." So she was getting the blow off instead of the 411, eh? Now she would definitely need to get to the bottom of what was going on. And she knew exactly who to bother to get the information she needed.

-(.:.)—