Chapter Text
"You sent me a text." Phil Coulson said, and Darcy almost fell out of her chair.
Seriously, the guy was a ninja. She had been sitting in a Starbucks in Manhattan on a Thursday afternoon, nursing a double-shot vanilla latte and considering the screen of her two-year-old not-so-smartphone, wondering how long she should give the SHIELD agent to reply, when he had appeared at her elbow.
"Yes, yes I did." She told him, recovering rather well considering that she had hot coffee on her wrist.
"Here." Phil had plucked a handkerchief out of his pocket and, before Darcy could object, had pressed it to her arm and mopped up most of her spilled coffee with it.
"Thanks."
"May I join you?" he asked, indicating the empty seat opposite Darcy with a tilt of his head and she nodded her assent.
She looked at him over the edge of her cup, trying to hide a smile as he wadded the handkerchief up and dropped it onto the table after staring at it for a few seconds, considering what to do with it.
"Sorry about that." Darcy told him, but he just waved a hand at her.
"Happens all the time, my... a friend of mine is clumsy as all hell."
Darcy ignored the slip, filing it away in the ever-expanding collection of small things she knew about Phil.
"So, you need an assistant?"
"I need someone who isn't afraid of a challenge, who doesn't bat an eyelid at some of the things that I encounter through SHIELD and who is willing to get her hands dirty. You tasered the God of Thunder then you stole one of Barton's cans of Rockstar and he didn't kill you on the spot. If you can work a computer and drive a car, you're hired."
"Sixty words per minute and I've had my license ten years. When do I start?"
"Do you own a suit?"
"It's not black."
"Neither is this one." He gestured at himself and Darcy took a closer look - indeed, the suit wasn't black. It was a very deep navy blue with grey pinstripes, and his shirt, which at first looked white, was in fact pale blue, and his tie had a raised dark-grey geometric pattern woven into it that caught the light at the knot.
"Huh. So much for the men-in-black routine."
"I like to subvert stereotypes." Agent Coulson told her, and Darcy was certain that she heard a hint of smugness in his tone.
"Do I have to wear high heels?"
"Not if you can't run in them."
"Okay, flats it is. Anything else?"
"Are you free this afternoon?"
"Uh, yeah. I just had lunch with Jane, so I'm free for the rest of the day."
"Good. Grab your purse, you can start now.."
It was a credit to Darcy's disposition that her only response was to drain her coffee and get to her feet as Phil shot another glance at his now-sodden handkerchief and shook his head slightly, apparently writing it off as a loss.
"Give it here." Darcy told him as he got out of his own seat.
"What?"
"I'm your assistant. I assume that includes handling your laundry and dry cleaning?"
"Uh-"
"Damn, Phil, for a smart guy..." she reached into her purse and pulled out a small plastic bag that was currently holding a silk scarf she'd bought on a whim. She pulled the scarf out and tied it around her throat, dropped the handkerchief into the bag and tied the handles together, depositing it back into her purse with a roll of her eyes.
"What else will I need to carry in here, working with you?"
"Do you still have your taser?"
"Of course."
"That's a good start."
They left the cafe, and Darcy was glad she'd worn a relatively respectable outfit today - a red button-down with a black camisole under it, black skinny jeans and her mid-calf black boots, with a grey blazer-style jacket (her 'suit' jacket, actually) over it. She hiked her purse up onto her shoulder and shadowed Phil, sliding her cell phone back into her jeans.
"We'll get you an upgrade on that, today, too. Stark has been customising a batch of new Androids and you'll need a secure line for us to contact you on - a kindergartener could hack into that thing."
"Hey, I like this phone!"
"It's a dinosaur. Here, this is what you'll be getting." He pulled a sleek black device out of his inside jacket pocket and handed it to her, extracting a set of car keys from his pants pocket with the other hand.
"Oh, okay. This I can handle. Nice car!" she looked up as he hit the central locking, making the indicators flash.
"Thanks. I might even let you drive it one day." He was ahead of her, and opened the passenger door in such an automatic motion that Darcy's suspicions deepened. He was used to having a second person with him, and used to being a gentleman.
"Thank-you, Phil." she smiled at him and was rewarded with a slight quirk of his lips as she stepped into the Acura, sliding her purse behind her knees and leaning back into the plush leather of the seat.
"Oh, I could get used to this." she commented as he slid into the drivers seat. She handed him back his phone and continued. "I swear, I will never be able to properly mavigate the subway and cabs are way too expensive."
"You know, you could take Mr Stark up on his offer."
"How did you know-"
He just raised one eyebrow at her as he started the engine and Darcy desisted.
"I guess I could think about it, I mean, living with my aunt is kind of lame, especially because she lives way out in Queens..."
"Exactly. If you move into the house then I can give you a ride to work. At least you'd never be late."
"Hang on, you live at the Avenger Mansion?"
"I was assigned to the house as part of the security detail, Mr Stark was kind enough to assign me a bedroom in the personnel wing." Coulson told her, pulling out into the traffic that was crawling along Central Park West and heading towards the Stark Tower, where SHIELD had procured five floors for their New York base of operations.
"Oh, okay. Well, I guess... I mean, he did offer, when Jane and Thor moved in he said he had a room available for me."
"You can call him when we get to the office and let him know that you're taking him up on it. Then you can speak to HR and we can get your security clearance increased, you're going to need higher than level three if you're going to be my assistant."
"What do you mean, level three? I have a security clearance? Why the hell wasn't I told about it?"
"It was increased after the events in New Mexico, so that you could continue to be involved in SHIELD-approved activities with Dr Foster."
"Oh."
"You'll need at least level five just to get into my office, possibly six if you're going to manage my schedule."
"Okay. Should I be taking notes?"
"No, it's better if you don't write anything down, you'll just have to incinerate most of it. Also, most of the security is biometric, anyway, since Stark upgraded it we don't need to remember passwords quite as much."
"I like the sound of that."
The fell silent as the Acura crawled up the avenue, and Stark Tower came into view two blocks ahead, just as Darcy's phone rang. She straightened her legs in a hurry to dig it out of her jeans - she'd forgotten that her ring-tone was AC/DC and didn't know how appreciative Agent Coulson would be of that.
"Good taste in music helps, too." He told her, and she was distracted from the display for a moment before she registered that he was giving her a compliment, swiping the screen to answer the call without actually seeing who was calling her.
"Did Coulson find you?"
"Speak of the devil and he shall appear." Coulson commented, apparently able to discern Tony Stark's voice from across the car and through a tinny cell-phone speaker.
"Hi, Mr Stark. Yes, he found me, we're heading back to the Tower, now."
"Great. See you in five." The line went dead and Darcy held the phone out, indignant.
"He hung up on me."
"He does that." And again, his mouth twitched just slightly.
"Yeah, I guess." She stretched again and went to put her phone back in her jeans but Agent Coulson spoke again.
"Keep it in your jacket, inside pocket. Harder for someone to steal and easier to get to in an emergency."
"Oh, okay. Sure."
"And if you get your jacket cut right, an inexperienced searcher might even miss it on a pat-down, especially with your bra-" He stopped mid-sentence and Darcy bit her lip to stop herself laughing while the tips of Phil's ears went red.
"It's okay, Agent Coulson, I'm not going to put you up on sexual harassment charges, I know I have a great rack. You can comment on it."
"Sorry, I wasn't thinking-"
"It really is okay, I promise. I've had much creepier guys say much worse, plus, you know I have a taser on me."
He glanced at her and she smiled, trying to reassure him, but he remained silent until they had parked in the sub-basement (Darcy was a little surprised to see that Phil had an assigned, reserved parking space just one level down and only two rows from the elevator) and made their way to the 75th floor, SHIELD's reception area in the Stark Tower.