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Tony woke at the odd end of four am, to Jarvis’s increasingly insistent voice. “Sir, Ms. Lewis is calling. Shall I answer?”
“Darcy,” Tony echoed, bleary eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Put her through.” If she was calling at four in the morning, she had to be drunk. Tony didn’t really want to miss that.
But, when the call was connected, it wasn’t party slurry and drunken revelry that Tony heard. It was crashing and smashing, and not a few angry sounding grunts. “Tony,” Darcy said suddenly, her voice winded and strained. “Tony---” The sound of flesh against flesh echoed through the speakers, before the call cut off.
Jarvis didn’t need to be asked. “The call came from her cell phone. GPS locates her in the Westburrow Apartment Complex on fifteenth and Salsbury. Shall I ready the car?”
“Fuck the car, I'm taking the suit.” Tony was already out of bed, stalking through his apartment in nothing but his boxer shorts. “Rouse’ the troops Jay,” He barked, as the red and gold of his suit folded seamlessly over his body. “ Assemble.”
Westburrow Apartment Complex was an upperclass shit hole of limestone and cheap windows. “Fourth floor, ninth window from the right sir,” Jarvis suggested, answering Tony’s silent question. “I would have suggested the door, but this appears to be a walk-up.”
‘There better be a good reason you woke me up on my night off,’ Natasha’s voice broke through his comm.
“Darcy’s in trouble.” Tony hovered near the unlit window for a whole of four seconds, before punching through the glass. “I’m at the site. Situation unclear. Jarvis, playback Darcy’s call.”
It wasn’t any better the second time. Broken glass, and bruised flesh. They were all too familiar with the sound a body made upon impact.
‘Drop time five minutes,’ Clint bit out. ‘Thor will be there in less. Doc’s with me; he’s looking pretty green around the collars. We’ll----’
Tony doesn't hear what Clint has to say, over the sound of shattering glass as he lets himself into Darcy's apartment.
“What the fuck Tony,” Darcy said, looking up at him from what appeared to be a living room floor. She had a man pinned face down on the carpet, her knee pressed between his shoulder blades. His arm was twisted up, wrist clenched tightly in Darcy’s hand, while she aimed a gun at his head with the other. “Seriously, I am never going to get my deposit back.”
“....you don’t live here,” Tony said dumbly, dropping down on the floor and flipping up the face plate. “Pepper upgraded your apartment.”
“Yeah, to this one,’ Darcy replied, with an incredulous snort. Tony flicked the nearest lamp on and winced. Her lip was swollen and split, tacky blood dried to her chin, and she’d have an impressive bruise decorating her face come the morning. “Why are you so fixated with me living in the tower?”
“You’re always there!” He replied defensively. “Jesus Christ.” He’d scrub a hand over his face if he wasn’t in the suit. “Who’s the carpet muncher?”
“Michael Jennings.” Darcy twists the guy’s arm a little more sharply. “Although that might be an alias. He lives in the next apartment. We’ve never spoken, but I woke up to him looming over me with a fucking camera.”
“He attacked you?” Tony wasn’t really sure what to do, standing there in Darcy Lewis’s tiny living room in full Iron Man suit, while she pinned a perv to the floor. He didn't think he'd over reacted, necessarily, but she clearly had the situation well in hand.
“Well no,” Darcy blinks at him. “I attacked him. I mean, he was in my bedroom. It’s four in the morning!” She readjusts her weight, pressing into the guy’s spine with the point of her knee.
“I think he drugged something I ate or drank. Something in my fridge. ” Darcy pushed the gun against the guy’s head a little more firmly than necessary. “When I woke up, I couldn’t move right. I couldn’t...my brain was all fuzzy. I kicked him in the balls, and when he fell, I grabbed my phone off the nightstand. You were my last call... I don’t know. He pulled me off the bed though, tried to pin me down.”
“Unsuccessfully,” Tony notes, making a point to sound impress. “Widow would be---”
“Proud,” Natasha finishes for him, stepping through the living room door. “You didn’t even go for your taser.”
Darcy looks down at the gun in her hand, and grins like she’s surprised to find a .22 and not a stungun. “I didn’t. I totally did that krav move you showed me. Were his ribs suppose to make that sound---”
“Only if you do it right,” Natasha grins, sharp as any of the knives hidden in her cat suit. “Where’d you get the gun?”
“It’s his.” Darcy’s mouth tightens. “He hit me with it, after I tried to call Tony. I did that elbow thing Clint showed me, right in the throat. It was easy to take him down after that.”
Natasha taps her com. “I need intel on one Michael Jennings, subject male, approximate age 24-18, height six foot four, weight approx. 170 lbs, current residence Westburrow Apartment Complex, suit D465.”
“You thinking a target?” Clint asks through the comm. Tony wonders where the bird had flown off too; Hawkeye had landed with Natasha after all. “Someone keeping tabs on her? Whose wheelhouse?”
“Avengers, SHEILD, possibly Stark Enterprise; I hear she’s kicked up some dust in Development.” Natasha looks at him from the corner of her eye. “Or it could be personal.”
Tony steps down the little hall, took in the photos on the wall, their glass smashed from impact. He peers into her room, finds it wrecked with broken nightstands, and the scattered contents of a dressing table. “Jarvis, scan for all recording devices, audio, visual, tracking---”
Before Tony can finish, Jarvis has already found eight. “Uh guys,” Clint calls out, loud enough that they can hear him through the apartment walls. “I think you need to see this.”
“What am I supposed to do with this guy?” Darcy asks, shaking the man beneath her.
“Give him to Thor,” Natasha demands, twisting the man up into an even more painful looking lock before throwing him into Thor’s chest, whose only just landed through the window Tony smashed.
“Oh God,” the perv moans, trapped between the Black Widow and The God of Thunder, having just been released from Darcy’s death grip.
The phrase out of the frying pan and into the fire has never seemed so apt.
Natasha leans forward, and grabs his chin with the sharp of her nails, shaking him roughly. “Now Mr. Jennings, my partner seems to have found something in your apartment. What are the chances we won’t like what we find?”
“I swear I never meant to hurt her, I only wanted----”
“Not the answer to my question,” Natasha sings, and only then does Tony notice her gun digging into the man’s junk. “What are the chances we won’t like what we find?”
Unsurprisingly, the man pissed himself, A spreading pool of urine puddling on the carpet between his legs. “Oh god I’m gonna die.”
“That’s what I thought.” Natasha sighed, long and drawn, before smashing her gun into his temple. Thor letS him fall with a thud against the pissy carpet, unconcious.
Darcy sighS, and wipes at the blood from her split lip onto the back of her hand. “I’m never getting my deposit back. Jesus Christ , Tony! Grab my cat before he jumps out the window.”
“Cat?” Something grey and furry darts between his legs, before leaping into Thor’s arms.
“Lucifer,” Thor greets it, raising the cat to eye level. “We meet again.”
“Your cat’s name is Lucifer?” Tony asked, at the same time Darcy said, “Did you really fucking Assemble over me ?”
“You were in trouble,” Tony reasons. He wants to put his hands on her, make sure that she’s okay. But he’s naked under the suit and he’s not sure he’d let her go if he started. He’s half tempted to fly her right the fuck out of here. “Cap’d be here too, but he’s in DC. Darcy you called me, and----” He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know how to explain that he wasn’t over reacting. “It didn’t sound good.”
Natasha comes back, a grim expression on her face. “We’re taking him to SHIELD. I’ve already called Coulson.”
“That bad?” It’s Darcy who asks, gaze shifting. There’s something strange in the calmness of her voice, the lack of tension in her shoulders. “Who’s he working for? What angle?”
Natasha grabs Darcy gently by her chin, lifts her gaze away from the man on the floor and holds it. “We’ll find out. You did good. Tony, can you call for a car to take Darcy back to the Tower? I’ll ride with her; Clint’s going to take the jet back to SHIELD.” She nudges the man with her foot. “I don’t want him on the ground, in case he tries to escape.”
“Jarvis called Happy after I left. He’s downstairs.” Tony wouldn’t trust anyone but Happy in this moment. If Natasha hadn’t volunteered to ride with Darcy, Tony would have been there too, boxer briefs be damned. As it is, he’ll keep close, flank the car with Thor.
Clint’s in his ear, as Natasha helps Darcy pack a bag. ‘Surveillance goes back months,’ he explains, ‘even before he moved in next door. He’s got you in here too, Tony.’
It could mean that Tony’s the target. Or it could mean that Tony and Darcy spend too much time together.
‘But mostly it’s Darcy and....and Phil,’ Clint adds and that is worrying. ‘It looks personal.’
***
He doesn’t even stop to consider putting her up in a guest suite, or even one of the furnished apartments on the Avengers floor. Doesn’t even consider she might want to stay with Jane and Thor in their apartment, or find safety in the comfort of Natasha or Clint in their respective suites. He’s waiting for her in the garages when Happy pulls in, hastily dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. Natasha cast him a steely eyed look, which is not in the least dampened by the fluffy cat tucked into her arm.
“I’ll keep Lucifer for the night,” she tells Darcy, nodding once before disappearing toward the elevators.
He takes her home ; his home, not the penthouse but the little loft apartment above the lab. It’s...It isn’t about him, not exactly. Isn’t entirely born from his own trembling rush of adrenalin (not fear). It just makes sense. The lab is on constant active lock down that only four people can ever access; Tony, Darcy, Pepper and Bruce. And even then, Jarvis can deny all save for Tony if any number of safety protocols are active. His little lab apartment has a second set of security protocols, more intense than even the lab. It is a fortress .
The bioscans are linked to Tony alone, and none can enter unless he’s actively present. Save for Darcy after her date with Storm, no one’s ever even been inside; not even Pepper who only ever insisted he sleep in their shared suit on the penthouse floor above. The doors have to be manually opened from the inside, can’t be over ridden by anyone, ever. There’s a fucking doorknob .
No one can access the loft, if Tony’s inside. No one.
“Shower,” he decides, leading her to the ensuite left of the bedroom. “You’ll feel better.”
She still hasn’t spoken, has’t shaken off his hold of her hand. He pulls her into the bathroom, stands as still as she does and wonders what to do. He doesn’t know how to comfort people and she has to be in shock, doesn’t she? She grabs the hem of her tank top without so much as a warning, and Tony barely has time to turn away. “Stay,” she says, sudden and sharp and shirtless behind him. “Please. Just. I’ll be quick.”
“Take your time.” He stares at the wall, the one that isn’t a mirror, and tries to shake the zing in his blood screaming at him to smash and burn the world. The danger is gone, at least the eminent danger, but his body hasn’t got the memo. He stares at the wall and wills himself to calm the fuck down. The wall is not interesting. The wall is a chic, cool gray. Behind him, water rushes, falling from the waterfall faucet, to slap against the open stone, and Darcy’s own bare skin. Steam rises around him, but doesn’t gather, sucked away quickly by the ventilation system.
Tony startles when the water shuts off, and Darcy appears a moment later in his line of vision, wrapped in one of his robes, hair dripping. “We need to take blood samples,” she tells him, grabbing his face and catching his gaze. She’s so fucking calm ; Tony think she might be the one in shock. “We need to know what he gave me. Can you do it? Do you have anything in the lab?”
He might not, but Bruce certainly does. He grabs a towel, one of the big ridiculous fluffy cream ones Pepper orders in bulk for the whole tower, and gestures to her hair. “Want me too...”
She doesn’t say anything, just leans forward so he can scrunch at her tangle of curls. She’s shaking, just a little bit, or maybe he is. The bruise on her face has already began to darken, and her lip is swollen, a hot, tender red where it’s split near the side.
He finds what he needs in Banner’s stuff, sealed syringes and tubes. Darcy doesn’t so much as flinch as he ties the tourniquet and taps into her vein. “This was smart,” he mutters, holding the cotton ball down and taping it into place.
“SHIELD puts a lot of emphasis on remaining calm,” Darcy explains, sounding suddenly exhausted. Tony sometimes forgets that she was an Agent. That the spunky, bright, sarcastic Darcy Lewis ran beside Natasha and Agent Coulson. Had answered to Fury, once upon a time. “Step outside yourself. Assess the situation from a non bias point of view. You are not a civilian. You are not a victim. Step outside yourself. You are an agent. You have a job to do. Focus on intel. What do we know? What can we learn? I ate when I got home; left overs from the Tamale place but I fell asleep before I finished. I probably didn’t get a full dose of whatever he laced it with. That’s why I woke up, why I could still fight. But it’s also why I can’t freak out right now, even though I really, really want too.” She looks at him, even as blood pumps from her veins, into the little glass vial. “I’m not the target. I’m not collateral. I’m not bait. Jennings had plenty of time to kidnap or even kill me. He was gathering intel. I’m in a position central to how many people of interest? Probably tracking my comings and goings. He had access to my apartment. Probably wiring my calls, my wifi. You should have Jarvis cycle my Starkpad, my laptop----”
“Darcy.” He grabs her shoulders, shakes her gently. She’s freaking out, but so goddamn calmly. “Can you sleep?” Tony wants to know what the guy gave her right now , but also knows it’s probably just a sedative. He pulls her upright, tucks her up under his arm as they head back to the loft. “We should sleep.”
“Yeah,” she hums, sounding a world away. “Thanks for coming for me.”
“Psh. You didn’t even need me.” Even so, he pulls her a little closer, helping her down from the table. “Will you move into the tower now? Please.”
“Yeah.” No hesitation. No fight. Darcy is, without a doubt, reckless and wild and bullheaded but she’s not unreasonable . Tony’s never been more grateful. “Yeah. I don’t want to go back there.”
“SHIELD can pack your shit; they’re going to want to scan everything anyway. You can stay at the penthouse.” There are other rooms. There are other suites. There’s whole apartments ready right now, on the Avengers floor. There’s zero reason for him to put her in his home. Except for every reason that matters.
He gives her a pair of his own sleep pants and a t-shirt to wear and they slip into bed with the ease of people who have lived together for years. Her hair is still damp, curling around her face and over her shoulders in half-hazzard curls. She rolls to face him; he can just make her out in the dark.
“This is my life,” she tells him, and he knows it’s for his benefit and not hers. “There has always been risks and it will never be your fault.” Tony doesn’t say anything and it’s that silence that damns him. “This might not be you.”
“We’re in the press every fucking---”
“I know you think pretty highly of yourself,” Her voice is calm, more soothing than he thinks he’s ever heard from her. Darcy isn’t a soothing person. “But I’m more than just Tony Stark’s sugarbaby.”
Tony blanches at that, recoils against the bed. “I didn’t---”
“You automatically assumed this is your fault. Tony,I worked for SHIELD. I worked for Fury. I am friends with the Avengers. All of them. I have had relations with a majority of them. Not to mention; Tony, I have access to literally all of Stark Enterprise. All of it. I’m Pepper Potts assistant---”
“She’s training you to take over President of SE,” Tony cuts in, because Darcy is and always has been, more than an assistant. “Sorry.”
Darcy stares at him. “Really? Shit. Wait. No. Don’t distract me. Tony this isn’t your fault.”
“It could be.” Tony won’t let got that it might be; whether it be because of her affiliation to the Avengers, or Stark Enterprise or Tony himself. “Because of me, I mean.”
“Fine,” she concedes, reaching out to grab his face. Her touch is gentle, and unlike her and Tony feels a little dizzy under the weight of it. “Fine. But it’s still my life. I still chose this. And honestly, I think it’s safer to be your Girl Friday than Fury’s. Most people like you.”
“Fine,” he echos, because that’s probably true. “I don’t think you should go anywhere without detail until Nat and Clint figure this shit out.”
Darcy hums. “Once upon a time, I was the detail.” Her hand leaves his face to curl over his neck, and her palms are cool and dry. She tugs at the neckline of his shirt, and the glow of the arc reactor makes her eyes look other-worldly. “You wanna fuck around?”
He’s--- He’s honestly fucking taken aback. He knows them for words. They are absolutely words and individually he even understands them. Strung together and spilling from her pretty, bruised mouth? What the ever loving fuck .
“ No ,” he all but spits, which is a really fucking weird response to Darcy asking if he wants to fuck around with her because he fucking does . Except not--- Not like this. Because Darcy’s only asking because Tony’s here and she likes fucking her way through each and every emotion. She’s freaked out. And Tony has, apparently, got feelings all over his dick because he can’t bring himself to take advantage of what she’s willingly offering. What the fuck.
“Any chance you’ll let me go find someone who does?” She pulls her hand away, his abrupt rejection shaking away the casual confidence of her touch even if she’s smiling. Tony immediately regrets everything. “Because honestly, drugs aside, I’m kind of keyed up.”
“No,” he says, this time more gently. Though he’s curious who she’d hit up in the tower. Bruce is out of town with the Parker kid for some sort of convention. Clint’s at SHEILD. Nat, maybe? Tony needs to not be thinking about that right now or ever. Natasha will look at him and know and then maybe break his hands with her thighs.
“Can I get myself off at least?”
Tony rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. This is a punishment, he just knows it. One he absolutely deserves. “Jesus Christ, go to sleep.”
***
Her move into the penthouse happens over night. She takes the guest room adjacent to the master suite because it has the biggest closet (the closet, Tony will note, is bigger than her entire bedroom in the last apartment). She’s already registered for entry in the bioscans, and isn’t concerned about losing any of her furnishings. There is the cat, who sheds horrifically. Tony’s not sure how he feels about cats. Even the best cat in the world still shits in your house, although this one seems to do it in the designated box. Darcy seems to appreciate being able to take the private elevators from her office directly to the penthouse foyer. Tony makes it a point to venture up to the penthouse more often, instead of crashing in the loft. It hadn’t made sense when there wasn’t anything to come home too, but Darcy likes to make breakfast, and Tony likes to eat breakfast.....
Which is why he’s in his kitchen, at nine am, firing up the coffee pot. He turns when Darcy’s bedroom door opens and --- Jesus Christ. That’s not Darcy.
Agent Coulson stands outside Darcy’s bedroom door, hand still on the knob. He holds himself very still, like maybe if he doesn’t move, Tony won’t see him. When this method seems to fail him, he clears his throat. “Mr. Stark.”
“Agent.” Tony just wanted a cup of coffee. He didn’t want to see Agent Coulson’s afterglow.
Darcy chooses that moment to open her bedroom door and grab Coulson by the front of the jacket. She kisses him square on the mouth, messes up his hair, pops half his collar, and undoes a random button in the middle of his shirt. “It’s a walk of shame Phil,” she teases. “Do it right. Also, don’t think I didn’t notice you stole my panties again.”
Annnnd, then she closes the door.
“Mr. Stark,” Agent Coulson says again, clearing his throat.
Tony takes a sip of his coffee, hoping the searing burn will wash away the morning entirely. “Agent.”
He pours a second cup of coffee, and leaves it on the counter before walking away. Far, far away where the disheveled image of Agent Coulson can haunt him no longer.
Darcy brings him breakfast in the lab. She’s in her pajamas; Pepper had insisted she take a time off until the investigation clears any connection with Stark Enterprise. She eats his toast, grinning through ever whole-wheat bite.
“I promise, Phill’s more embarrassed than you are.”
Tony grunts.
“Do you not want me to bring people back to the penthouse or....” She looks at him, no guile on her face. She’s honestly asking, like she’d respect his opinion.
“No,” he says mulishly. He’d be a hypocrite if he made the demand. He’s not gonna stop bringing women back, after all. Shit; he might start bringing more. He’s getting the specific itch that drives him to be balls deep in a busty brunette.
“They think it’s Phil,” Darcy tells him, holding a fork to his face, laden with eggs. “Bite,” she demands, waiting for Tony to obey. He does. They’re spicy, just the way he likes and he chews them angrily. “They think it’s Phill,” she says again.
“Who thinks what's Phill?”
“The case.” She holds up the toast, and Tony takes a bite, even though he’s already stopped working, and his hands aren’t busy. “They think Phil was the target. They found three people in SHIELD connected to Jennings, whose actual name is Nathaniel Hooper. Probably some sort of HYDRA grunt. They’re not sure. But money’s on Phill.”
“And where do you play into that?” Tony can hazard a fucking guess.
“It’s no secret at SHIELD that Phil's got a soft spot for all of three people. Two of which no one’s getting a jump on.” She shrugs, and swipes a crumb off his beard. They touch a lot. More than is necessary. Tony doesn’t know how to make her stop. “So obviously Phil came by to tell me we had to stop seeing each other.”
“And you...Fucked?”
“Last hurrah.” She rolls her eyes, and hoists herself up to sit on his table. “What do you think about Pepper and Phil? I can see it. Can you see it?”
His immediate response is a hard fucking no, but...Well. Actually. “Goddammit.”