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“Right, no, I totally get that,” Darcy sighed into the phone, “You’re the third support person I’ve spoken to today to tell me that exact same sentence. Is it painted on every wall in your office or something because I swear if I hear-” She took the phone away from her head and glared at it menacingly before punching the button for speakerphone and muting her side of the call.
“Janey, are you hearing this bullshit?” she asked the scientist who sat across the lab.
“Unless you’re telling me the doodad is fixed, I don’t want to hear about it!” Jane called out as she pushed herself to another monitor and began focusing on science again.
The man on the phone droned on for another few minutes about how the technology was state of the art and sometimes that meant it didn’t exactly work as planned. When it didn’t seem like he was going to pause for a response anytime soon Darcy couldn’t stay silent anymore. “You know what? Transfer me to someone else there. You’re at Stark fucking Industries, someone in that support center has to know how to fix this shit!” She heard what sounded suspiciously like a headset being dropped on the floor and picked up before there was another series of button presses.
Instead of the fake cheery voice proclaiming the Stark Industries motto repeatedly, Darcy’s hold line was silent. She glanced down at the phone to ensure she was still connected to someone and rolled her eyes at the call time - two hours and counting. Another few minutes passed before there was a noise on the line, a bored-sounding, “Yeah?”
“Yeah?” Darcy repeated loudly. “Yeah? That’s what you’re going to start this conversation with when I’ve spent over two hours on the phone with four different support reps just trying to get this stupid fucking machine to print out the results from the test I ran at 10 o’clock this god damned morning!” She took a breath, pausing to collect herself before speaking again but the man on the other end spoke first.
“I’m sorry, who is this? And how did you get here?”
Darcy was speechless for the first time in years. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” was all she could manage.
“No, really. This is a secure line, no one is supposed to be able to get to it. Who are you?” the man asked again.
Darcy didn’t want to go through this whole rigmarole again, but she guessed she didn’t have a choice. “I’m Darcy Lewis, research assistant to Dr. Jane Foster in lab 42C. Our H377O machine stopped working about two and a half hours ago and if Jane doesn’t get these test results soon I think she may personally find and kill Tony Stark, so if you could please maybe just help me here?” She’d started out firm and in control but ended on more of a whine.
“Well, I do have a vested interest in staying alive.”
“Oh, shit,” Darcy said as the familiarity of the voice and his response to her sunk in. “I’m so sorry I yelled at you, Mr. Stark.”
“Tony, please.” Darcy could tell that he was smiling over the phone, she was picturing the crinkles around his eyes that she adored so much. “So your hello machine is on the fritz? 42C, you say?”
“Hello machine?” Darcy asked, “And yes, 42C, why?”
“Oh, no reason,” he replied, but there was a faint echo now, as though he were just outside the door. The call disconnected at the same moment the door opened, “Just doesn’t make sense to troubleshoot over the phone when I’m just down the hall. Where’s the hello?”
“Um, hi?” Darcy waved meekly. She was surprised that he was somehow better looking in person.
“Yeah, great to meet you too. Where’s the hello??” Tony asked, exasperated.
Darcy stood blinking at him for a moment before it clicked, “Oh my god you named the device we’re using to broadcast to space the ‘hello’ machine? And then used 1337-speak to disguise it? You’re absolutely everything I had hoped you would be,” Darcy smiled as she lead the way to where the broken machine was waiting.
She watched as Tony immediately began poking at the small screen on the device. “So how did you get connected to me?” he asked as he moved to the back of the machine and began taking off the housing.
Darcy shrugged, “I don’t know. I’d been on the phone with support for hours and I kept getting transferred around. I asked to talk to someone else and the next thing I knew you were talking to me.”
“Wait, did you just ask for someone else?”
“I’m not sure, why?” Darcy asked.
“Jarvis?” Tony called.
“Miss Lewis had been on the phone for a sufficient amount of time without any help and was beginning to raise her voice. I thought you may be able to assist her faster than anyone else could, sir.”
“Right about that, Jarvis. But how about you not transfer anyone to me in the future?” Tony called out before stopping and looking over at Darcy. She felt like it was the first time he was really noticing her since he’d walked through the doors to the lab. “Though, if they’re all going to be this cute, I may not mind.”
Darcy blushed then tried to cover it up by looking busy with the papers on the table next to her. “When do you think the hello will be fixed?”
Tony was putting the housing back on the machine, “In about five seconds when I turn it back on.”
“You’re kidding me,” Darcy said. “I’ve spent the past two hours on the phone with idiots when I could have just had you come fix it in five minutes?”
“Well, you didn’t know I worked down the hall,” Tony countered. “And I was at a thing until an hour ago anyway. But why haven’t we seen each other before? That seems like a problem that needs fixing.”
“Excuse me?” Darcy asked, flustered.
“How long have you been working here, Darcy?”
Tony Stark remembered her name. Tony Stark was standing in front of her, maybe two hairs too close, and he remembered her name. “Two months?” she offered.
“Yeah, see. Two months you’ve been working down the hall from me and I didn’t even know. Am I getting old? I used to be able to sniff out a pretty girl from three floors away. This is what - three labs?”
“Your labs are the size of football fields,” Darcy deadpanned.
“Fair point. But still, I should have met you before. Think of all the dates we could have been going on in the past two months,” Tony said wistfully.
“Dates?” Darcy wasn’t sure what had gotten into her in the past twenty minutes. Normally she so much quicker on the uptake. There was a beat before she recovered, “Aren’t you being a little presumptuous? Who says I would have accepted the first one, let alone any of the others?”
“Did you just forget who you were talking to? Of course I’m being presumptuous,” Tony smiled and Darcy’s heart skipped a beat at the way his face lit up with it. “Come to dinner with me?”
“Now?”
“Why not? The hello is printing out the report Foster wanted and I’m pretty sure you’re here past when you were supposed to leave.” He reached out a hand towards her.
Darcy smiled, “Okay, let’s go to dinner,” she said as she took his hand.