Can't Touch This
Darcy was not having a good day. She had been awoken (yet again) to her next door neighbours and their rather boisterous love making two hours before her usual five AM alarm. Not only was it an interesting way to start the day, it also served to further rub in the fact that Darcy was currently suffering from an unfortunate lack of a partner herself. Regardless, it didn’t help that said neighbours also happened to be some of her closest friends. It would seem that there was in fact such a thing as being aware of too much when it came to other people's lives, especially when those people were considered family.
After her immensely interesting and entirely uninvited wakeup call she decided to start her day with a cup of tea. Darcy had grown into something of a collector over the years, and her teaware was truly a sight to behold, kept in a luxuriously large kitchen within its own little cupboard. Opening the doors she perused her wares, finally settling on a fine china cup, which showed a scene from her favorite book, Alice in Wonderland, on the side. As she moved to prepare her tea (chamomile, honey, vanilla, and cinnamon made quite the combination) she mulled over her plans for the day, praying to Thor that Jane would be too tired to do any universe expanding science. After pouring her fill she moved to her sitting room, teacup in hand, as she mused that perhaps being awoken early was not too bad. After all, she was able to catch the sunrise over the city through the floor to ceiling windows that coated her main living area. In this quiet calm of the early morning, with barely a soul awake, Darcy felt true peace. Closing her eyes she tried to hold onto the moment, savouring the solitude.
By noon that peace had completely evaporated. Despite Jane being up into the wee hours of the morning she still insisted on getting in a full day's work, which meant that Darcy was expected to be in the labs. The labs were a stressful mishmash of every sort of scientific field and endeavor one could think of. Each scientist (of which there were many) had their own designated area, and Jane was fiercely territorial. The issue with this of course arose whenever Tony (who shared a floor with Jane and Dr. Banner) attempted to expand some of his “zone” into Janes. It should be known that neither she nor Darcy were afraid of biting in order to protect their space. Such appeared to be the case today. Tony wanted more room to move about in order to properly test his new armour, and Jane didn’t like people (i.e. Tony) touching her stuff, especially the new machine he was currently putting his hands all over. Darcy knew a bad situation when she saw one, and decided to intervene before someone (i.e. Tony) got teleported to Abu Dhabi, or to an even further away location like Alfheim. Putting down her transcriptions she siddled over to Tony, tapping his shoulder lightly as she told him, “Hey hot stuff, you and I both know that Jane won’t like you moving her equipment”.
Tony looked her up and down, clearly evaluating how serious she was, “Hey shortstack. My tower, my rules. So scoot or be scooted.”
Darcy took a deep breath in, held it, then exhaled as an absolutely feral smile took over her features. She looked up into Tony’s brown eyes, gripped his arm tightly, and said in a voice that was entirely too bright for her current stance, “Mr. Stark I will happily tase your ass so hard that Pepper won’t even begin to know what to do with it. So please, let go of the tool and we can both pretend that I didn’t see anything”.
Tony’s eyes widened slightly, chuckling as he stepped back. “Right on Darce. No harm no foul, right?”. As he made a show of going back to his station and toys, Darcy noticed that he also made a point to keep himself facing her.
“Of course bossman. Can’t go around holding grudges. Do you know how many people I would have to go after if I did?” she replied sweetly, warmth returning to her voice as she went back over to her little wooden desk in the corner.
Sitting down she went back to work, allowing herself to get caught up in the casual chaos of the numbers and data she saw laid out before her. Being so in tune with her work she failed to notice the way the hours on the old analog clock to her left kept pushing forward, or how the lab slowly quieted down. She would have kept working until well past dinner if not for the loud cough she heard from just overhead.
Coming out of her work induced daze Darcy noticed that she was one of the last people left in the lab. A quick glance at the clock told her it was already past six thirty. Looking up left her even more confused as she stared into a set of gorgeous emerald coloured eyes.
“Ummm. Yes?” She eloquently questioned.
“Miss. Lewis. You are friends with my brother Thor, are you not?” Loki, the one God she had been avidly avoiding since moving into the tower, asked from his place in front of her.
“Umm. Yes?” She repeated, furrowing her brows a bit in confusion.
“Right. Seeing as he considers you a sister, and that my dear older brother is also the future ruler of Asgard, I thought it may be wise to meet you.” Loki said looking decidedly unimpressed with what she imagined was the mess he saw in front of him.
“Oh I don’t know. I’m sure you must be very busy, what with your alien...princing. And I haven’t even had dinner. Trust me you do not want to try and get to know me on an empty stomach. Bad times for everybody.” She replied in a manner that she hoped didn’t bely the panic she felt at possibly having to spend more time in his presence.
Loki narrowed his eyes, frowning a bit in a way that spoke of bad taste. “You have yet to eat?”, he asked.
Darcy mutely shook her head no, praying to Thor (again) that he would not suggest they go out together. Loki breathed out sharply, nodding his head slowly while maintaining that unnerving eye contact he seemed so fond of, “I see. You will accompany me to dinner then”.
Darcy squawked indiginitaly as Loki raised an eyebrow.
“I was not asking, mortal” he sneered.
She sighed, knowing this was not something she would likely be getting out of anytime soon, “Fine, but you can wait while I gather up my stuff Mr. God Who Would Be King” she huffed.
Loki took a step back, gesturing for her to carry on. As he began to look around the labs Darcy busied herself with cleaning up her desk, opening a drawer to shove the files she was working on into. Picking up her bag she turned around to her chair and went about the usual motions of making sure it was packed up with everything she needed for the night. After she had triple checked it and realised that stalling for any more time would veer into the territory of being overtly (rather than subtly) rude she turned back around. What she saw was Loki touching the very same device that Tony had been attempting to move earlier in the day.
“Don’t you touch that!” Darcy yelled, watching in satisfaction as he quickly removed his hand.
“Now, I believe you were corralling me into dinner?” She spoke, once he had made his way back over to her.
Loki nodded, offering her his arm, and together they made their way out of the labs.