Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Just Another Manic Monday
Darcy Lewis scowled as she punched the button for the 46th floor of Stark Tower. She’d just gotten a call from her landlord to let her know that the tenant in the apartment above her had passed out with the water running in his bathtub and that water had leaked through the floor boards into her own apartment, leaving serious water damage. When she got home tonight, she’d have to assess the damages to her belongings and her landlord would assess the damage to the apartment and they’d have to work out a solution. Just what she fucking needed, dammit. Sure, her apartment in Williamsburg was a shit hole, but it was the best Darcy could get on her mediocre S.H.I.E.L.D. salary that didn’t involve a 2 hour commute to work. The whole building smelled like the retirement home her grandmother had been in when she died, the windows were painted shut, and the hot water only worked occasionally, but it was home. Unfortunately.
When S.H.I.E.L.D. had asked (read told) Jane and her to pack up their stuff, six months ago, Darcy had been excited about the prospect of moving to New York. The opportunity to have an awesome job and the chance to literally meet and work with superheroes. So far, living in New York was the only one of those things she’d actually achieved. Instead of remaining the full-time lab assistant to Jane, which she actually enjoyed--despite the quirks of working with someone obsessed with Science! the way Jane was--once she’d arrived in NY she was told she was going to be a file clerk for S.H.I.E.L.D.. Apparently, they didn’t think she had the skills or the capabilities to do anything else for them, but due to her knowledge of Thor, the Bifrost, and of S.H.I.E.L.D., they felt they had to give her a job. This was both annoying and depressing to Darcy, because she knew she was more talented than they thought.
Nowadays, however, she was allowed to spend her mornings in the lab with Jane; mostly because the first two assistants they’d hired to replace Darcy had screwed up royally and Jane had fired them in piques of anger. The first had forgotten to feed Jane--since more often than not, she was so focused on making Science! that she often forgot she required food--the end result being that Jane fainted in the lab and smacked her head pretty badly. When she’d come to, she’d been pissed because she’d lost valuable Science! time and had forgotten the formula she’d been working on at the time of her fainting. The second had decided to reorganize Jane’s (but actually Darcy’’s) filing system to suit his own needs. When Jane had spent three days looking for relocated data she’d needed to assemble parts for the Bifrost doorway, she’d lost it and screamed at the new assistant until he’d run away crying.
Jane had demanded that S.H.I.E.L.D. return Darcy to her. S.H.I.E.L.D. had refused, saying Darcy wasn’t qualified to work in the lab, since she was neither a scientist nor trained in a science field. After Jane had refused to check-in and share her findings with S.H.I.E.L.D. for three consecutive weeks, they’d come to a compromise. Darcy would spend her mornings with Jane, making sure she was both fed and had managed some sleep, as well as helping to organize and collate data and then she’d spend her afternoons in a four foot by four foot cubicle in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s covert base. Her afternoons usually consisted of copying, stapling, and filing, resulting in papercuts that hurt like bitches and the desire the slam her head against her desk a few dozen times. Daily.
The worst part about her job situation was that her pay was so crap. Factoring in commute time between Stark Tower and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s offices, Darcy worked a 10 hour day, yet she barely made enough money to cover her rent each month. As it was, she’d lost fifteen pounds since she’d moved, simply because she was so broke, she couldn’t afford to buy junk food. Or any food really. If it weren’t for the amazing cafeteria in Stark Tower, she would be living off ramen and canned soup, if she were lucky. Genius that he was--though she’d yet to verify this herself--Tony Stark had realized that happy and healthy employees work better. So he had a cafeteria built into Stark Tower and all employees ate for free. Whenever and whatever they wanted. Darcy technically wasn’t an employee, but she did have a security pass that she used to get to the labs and the restricted living area of the Tower, where Jane now resided, so she was able to access the awesome cafeteria. As a result, she was able to get breakfast and lunch for free from Stark Tower. Sometimes, she’d manage to grab an extra sandwich or a pastry or something that she could eat for dinner or over the weekends, but most of the time, she simply didn’t eat once she’d left the building. It sucked, but unless S.H.I.E.L.D. decided to give her a raise, that was how it was gonna be.
Once the elevator arrived, finally, Darcy stepped off and headed towards the lab space set aside for Jane and the Bifrost research. She managed to swipe her security pass along the scanner by the door without spilling the two jugs--because they were way too big to simply be considered cups--of coffee before pushing the door open with her hip. Not seeing her boss lady slash best friend slash errant scientist in the front room of the lab, Darcy headed back towards the back room, where the test equipment and the machinery to rebuild the Bifrost were located. As she walked in, Darcy could hear Jane muttering something to the soundtrack of clanking metal. Eyebrows raised, Darcy took in the sight of Jane, covered in some sort of sludgy substance elbows deep in a machine. Jane’s hair, which had been in a ponytail when Darcy’d left for the coffee, was now half down and had four pencils shoved into it.
“Seriously?! I was gone for fifteen minutes. Fifteen! What the hell happened?” Darcy asked setting the coffee--and the pastries she’d nabbed for herself--down on an empty tabletop.
“Hmm? Oh, I realized that I might be able to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, which should solve some of the issues I had when I ran the trials last week. So I decided to go ahead and switch it so I can try and run more trials tonight.”
“Right. Cause that makes perfect sense to me. Not. But seriously Jane, how’d you get so--” Darcy gestured at Jane’s disheveled state, “--in fifteen minutes?” When Jane gave Darcy a blank look, Darcy sighed and ran her hand through her hair. “Right. Jane, when was the last time you slept? Was it last night?”
“I think so. Oh, no wait. It was after I ate the rest of the Chinese food you brought me.”
“Jane that was three days ago.”
“Oh. Well, then three days ago, I guess.” Darcy sighed.
“Fine, forget the coffee, it’s time for you to go to bed. Though I think a shower is definitely the first priority,“ Darcy said, eyeing the sludge on Jane’s hands and arms.
“What? No, I’m totally fine Darcy. Really, I don’t need to go to bed.”
“What day of the week is it?”
“Duh, Wednesday.”
“Jane, it’s Monday. I brought you the Chinese food on Friday, just before I left for the weekend.”
“Oh.” Jane said, looking absolutely confused. “Are you sure it’s Monday?”
“Jarvis? What day of the week is it?” Darcy asked the ceiling.
“It’s Monday, Miss Lewis.”
“Thanks J-man.” Darcy said with a grin. Then she turned towards her boss and gave her the look. “Seriously, shower then bed. Now.” With a sigh, Jane nodded and headed towards the elevator which would take her up to the living quarters portion of Stark Tower. Darcy knew that SI’s CEO, Pepper Potts, stayed there occasionally, when she was actually in town, but so far, all the other apartments in Stark Towers’ top five floors were unoccupied. The Avengers had yet to make an appearance, and they definitely hadn’t had a sleepover. Of course, considering the reconstruction had only finished up three months ago, it wasn’t really that surprising. Just a little disappointing.
“Hey Jarvis?” Darcy couldn’t help looking at the ceiling every time she spoke to the AI. It was a habit she hadn’t managed to break in the 5 months she’d been working in Stark Tower.
“Yes Miss Lewis?”
“When Jane wakes up, will you please tell her to go to the cafeteria to get food before she comes back to the lab? And will you please keep telling her until she actually goes? The pop tarts she had for breakfast so aren’t going to hold her over until I get back tomorrow morning and I don’t want her to make herself sick.”
“Of course, Miss Lewis. Would you like me to bar her entrance to the lab until she’s eaten?”
“You can do that?! Sweet! Yes please, that means she’ll have to get food.” Darcy fist pumped in excitement. “J-man, you are awesome.”
“Why thank you Miss Lewis,” Jarvis said, and to Darcy, he sure sounded awfully smug for a computer. Darcy grinned before making her way to her desk. She glanced at the clock as she logged back into her computer and realized she only had another forty-five minutes before it was time to leave for S.H.I.E.L.D.. After scarfing down a muffin and downing half of what would have been Jane’s cup of coffee, she plugging in her iPod and tackled the sheafs of paper with data to be entered into spreadsheets. By time she needed to leave for S.H.I.E.L.D., she’d managed to get through all but a few sheets of Jane’s latest data and notes. While her computer logged off, Darcy organized the stacks of paper on her desk into piles of importance so that tomorrow morning she could bust through them all.
Grabbing her bag and her untouched barrel of coffee, she headed out, but not without stopping by the cafeteria for a salad and a sandwich to take with her. Thirty crowded and hectic minutes later saw her passing through the incredibly intense and super serious security hall to get into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s offices. She spent the next two hours of her day sorting through a paperwork nightmare that had cropped up that morning. The paperwork was supposed to have been done by Agent Thompson, who oversaw Darcy’s work, mostly because she didn’t have the clearance level to be reading mission reports, but the moment she’d sat down at her desk, he’d dumped it and taken off.
Asshole, Darcy thought as she managed to fill out the necessary requisitions paperwork that had been missing from one of the mission reports. Apparently a couple of high-up S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had gone MIA and had left their assignment in-box overflowing with the super-top-secret missions they were supposed to be taking care of. In lieu of the two senior agents taking care of them, the missions had been pawned off on some junior agents who had then gone and fucked them all up, thus creating a paperwork SNAFU that made Darcy want to staple something to Agent Thompson’s forehead.... And possible tase him in the balls.
“Ahem.” Darcy heard Thompson clear his throat from the doorway of her cubicle, but as she was busy and he was a dick, she ignored him. “Ahem!” He tried again. Darcy smirked slightly as she kept her head down while rifling through the papers to put them in order for filing. “Miss Lewis, I expect you to answer me when I call you.”
“Well, if you were to call me, I’d see your name on my caller ID and simply let it go to voicemail, because I’m busy.” She paused a beat before looking up at him. “And you’re a dick.” Thompson sputtered in outrage at her comment.
“I’m reporting you Lewis. Insubordination, rudeness, and failure to cooperate.”
“Really? Cause if you fire me, then I can just go back to being Jane’s assistant full-time. So go ahead. Report me.” Thompson scowled at her, knowing she was right. She wasn’t here because she wanted to be, she was here because S.H.I.E.L.D. was forcing her to be. “Besides, I’m not answering you because I’m busy doing the stuff you’re supposed to be doing, since you know I don’t have clearance for it. But whateves, it’s your job on the line.”
“Indeed Miss Lewis. It is his job on the line.” Darcy’s and Thompson’s head snapped up to see Senior Special Agent Phil Coulson standing at the edge of her cubicle looking--well, deadpan as usual--but his voice implied he was pissed.
“Son of Coul!’ Darcy said with a grin, knowing the apparently immortal Agent was rather fond of the title he’d been given by Thor over a year and a half ago. Darcy knew he wasn’t actually immortal, but seriously. The guy was shivved through the chest with the mother of all spears and despite the rumors circulating through S.H.I.E.L.D. that he’d flatlined five times, he’d survived and was well enough to actually come back to work less than half a year later. Dude was a mother fucking badass! Plus, he’d totally returned her iPod when he came back to work a month ago, so he was ok by Darcy.
“Ah, sir. I was just--”
“Save it Thompson. You’ll be hearing from me shortly. Miss Lewis, I need you to come with me. Now.” Wide-eyed at his tone, but smirking at Thompson’s impending comeuppance, Darcy stood after locking the paperwork into the top drawer of her desk. Even she knew classified files shouldn’t be left sitting out where anyone passing by could see. She allowed herself an imaginary fist-pump when she saw Coulson nod in approval at her actions.
“You’ll want to bring your bag with you Miss Lewis, you won’t be back at your desk for the rest of the day.” Quirking her eyebrows in askance, Darcy did as he said before following the stoic, and still slightly limping Agent away from the cubicle farm and towards the high-clearance level bank of elevators. As they stepped inside the doors, following a badge swipe and a voice confirmation screening--by Coulson, of course--Darcy couldn’t help the excited smile that spread across her face. For such a shitty start, her Monday might turn out all right after all.