Darcy/Happy
Darcy let out a long sigh. She hated flying. But Pepper was going to a super important business meeting in Japan, and as Pepper’s PA, she had to go, too.
Although, to be fair, flying on a private plane was a lot more appealing than commercial flights. It was still boring, though. Pepper was off renewing her membership in the mile-high club with Tony, who wasn’t supposed to be with them but had turned up anyway, probably out of boredom.
She sighed again, looking over at the cabin’s only other occupant. Happy, Pepper’s bodyguard. He was sitting a couple of seats down, a look of frustration on his face as he jabbed at the tablet he was holding. “How’d you end up with ‘Happy,’ anyway?” she asked. “Is it a Tony thing like ‘Pepper?’”
He looked slightly relieved, actually, as he looked up from his tablet. He wasn’t the most tech-savvy guy on the planet, or so the story went. “It was my boxing name.”
“You boxed?” Her eyebrows rose in surprise. She knew he’d been Tony’s driver-slash-bodyguard first, but then had officially become Pepper’s bodyguard after Tony became Iron Man.
He unfolded himself from his seat and walked the short distance to sit down again, this time across from her. “Yeah. I never smiled, so they gave me the name, ‘Happy.’” He shrugged. “It stuck.”
Darcy nodded, looking at him. He was wearing his usual neat suit, but she could easily imagine him in boxing gloves and shorts. “So how’d you end up…” She gestured at the plane. “Here.”
“Tony was in a car crash, I was first on the scene. Stayed with him until the paramedics came. I wanted out before I got seriously injured, and he…” Happy nodded. “He got me out.”
“Huh.” She watched him for a second. “You still box?”
“Yeah, with Tony sometimes.” He shrugged again, a slightly rueful expression on his face. “Not as much as we used to, conflicting schedules and that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Darcy nodded emphatically. She’d moved into the Avengers Tower to assist Jane with her science badassery, but Jane was being called out of town more and more often, and Darcy wasn’t really as helpful as she could have been. So Pepper had sort of adopted her, and she didn’t see Jane nearly as much as she used to.
“I’m gonna get some coffee, you want something?” The way he was looking at her suggested that maybe it was an invitation to more than just coffee.
She grinned. “Yeah, coffee would be great. Thanks.” They’d both kinda been left in the dust and were obviously going to be spending some significant time together, getting to know him wouldn’t be a bad thing.