Chapter Text
He could just barely reach the blue wire with the tip of his middle finger, but it was enough. He carefully wriggled his hand through the tangled mess, the wire stuck to his finger. “Got it!” He called out, triumphantly.
“Great work, Peter!” Darcy placed the mini soldering pen into the hand that wasn’t buried deep inside the access panel.
Peter grinned, and carefully soldered the broken connection back together. He sat back. “Okay, Doc! Try it now!”
Jane gave him and Darcy a thumbs up in acknowledgment and bent over her computer, typing out a command line. A second after she hit ENTER, the machine whirrred to life and the indicator lights on the wall panel lit up, all green. “Yes!” she screamed and punched the air. She jumped up and grabbed Peter and Darcy into a group hug. “We did it!”
The three jumped up and down, arms still around each other, laughing and screaming in celebration.
“Hey, some of us are trying to work over here!”
The three stopped and looked over towards the doorway. Tony Stark leaned against the door frame, smirking.
Peter ducked his head and ran a hand through his hair. “Hey, Mr. Stark.”
Jane pointed at the machine. “Look!” she cried. “It’s working!”
Tony walked over. “That’s great, Foster--” He paused and frowned. “Are you kidding me? Is that duct tape? Do I not give you a big enough budget that you have to resort to duct tape?” He threw his arms up, gesturing violently at the offending section of the machine. “And, oh my god, what the hell type of casing is that?” He turned to Jane. “There’s an entire lab downstairs with fabricators and 3D printers. You don’t need to MacGyver your equipment together anymore with stuff from the trash and,” he shuddered, “duct tape.”
Darcy laughed. “Hey, it’s part of her process, man. And duct tape is awesome. Don’t knock the duct tape. It’s held these babies together for years!” She held out a foot, proudly displaying her well worn Doc Martens.
Tony looked at the tape-covered boots with disdain and pinched his nose, sighing. “Lewis,” he said in a pained voice. “I know for a fact we pay you enough to buy new shoes. You just wear those to make my soul hurt.”
Darcy grinned cheekily. “So you admit to having a soul, Tin Man!”
Tony stared at her for a second before shaking his head and sighing. “No respect for the boss,” he muttered.
“Oh, any respect I had for you was gone when I peeled you and Jane out of the lab after a three day science bender and you called me ‘Science Dolly Parton’.”
Jane yelped. “He did what? I don’t remember that.” She turned a glare on Tony.
Darcy rolled her eyes. “You were practically hallucinating in wormhole physics at that point. I’m surprised you were upright.” She waved a hand off to the side. “Anyway, I’m used to comments like that, and I’m normally very happy with how Mother Nature has treated me, but--” She moved next to Jane and also glared at Tony. “Rude.”
Tony wilted at bit under the two women’s combined glares, and at Peter’s disappointed puppy dog look. “Okay, fine. I’ll make it up to you. You want a raise? I’ll give you a raise. FRIDAY, give Lewis a raise.”
“Certainly, boss.” The AI’s lilting voice projected out of the speakers mounted in the ceiling. “How much should I tell accounting?”
Tony huffed. “I don’t know--”
Peter jumped in. “Maybe you should ask Ms. Potts what’s fair compensation for sexual harassment?”
FRIDAY responded immediately. “That’s a great idea, Mr. Parker.”
Tony yelled, “Wait, that wasn’t an order. Belay that!”
“Sorry, boss. I’ve already relayed that question to Ms. Potts.”
“Shit.” Tony pointed at Jane and Darcy. “Stop corrupting my intern and AI. I know it was you two.” A buzzing noise sounded from his pocket and took a deep breath before reaching for his phone. Narrowing his eyes at the three in front of him, he answered. “Pepper, love of my life, light of my day--” He spun on his heels and walked out of the lab.
Darcy and Jane learned towards each other and started giggling. Peter held out for a few beats before collapsing against the other two, unable to keep the laughter in.
Jane recovered first, and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Okay, I think we deserve a break.” She looked at the computer screen and nodded. “Everything looks to be running smoothly for now, and there’s nothing we can do until we can test the range on this thing. And I’m starving.” She looked at the other two.
Darcy looked at the clock in shock. “Jeez, we worked right through lunch.” She lightly punched Peter on the arm. “Why didn’t you say something? Your stomach must be eating itself.”
Peter noticed then how hungry he was, and his stomach decided then to gurgle loudly. He shrugged. “Sorry, guess I was in the zone.” He looked at Jane hopefully. “Can we get tacos?”
“From that place three blocks down?” Jane’s face lit up. “Oh hell yes! And they have those amazing margaritas.”
Darcy grabbed her bag. “I’m totally in. Mama needs some carne adovado and margaritas.” She slung an arm over Peter’s shoulders and headed out of the lab. “You can be our DD.”
Peter looked at her in amusement. “But we’re walking.”
Jane locked the door behind them and fell in on Peter’s other side. “We’re totally expensing this,” she said, looping an arm through his. “Tony can pay for our meal after insulting Darcy, and I plan to make him pay in tequila. So we are going to need your sober underaged butt to make sure we get back to the Tower in one piece.”
Peter rolled his eyes but let himself be dragged along by the two women. “Remind me how I got myself into this?”
“You asked Tony if you could work with us.” Jane poked him in the side and giggled when he yelped. “You have only yourself to blame.”
* * *
The next day, Peter walked into the lab and was surprised to see Darcy already there. “I thought you’d be sleeping off a hangover,” he said as he tossed his backpack in the corner.
She looked up from her textbook and waved at him. “Nah, you’d need a lot more than the half a pitcher of margarita to get me hungover. I had way too much practice in undergrad.” She leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head. “Jane, though, she’s a lightweight. When I knocked on her door this morning, there was no sign of life. Don’t expect her in for a bit, and when she does, she’s going to need a bucket of coffee.” She pointed her highlighter at Peter. “So chop chop, intern.”
Peter mock saluted her. “Aye aye, boss lab assistant.”
Darcy grinned. “I so love having a minion.”
“So how’s the studying going? Ready for your midterm?” Peter asked as he counted scoops of coffee into the machine. After a slight pause, he added two more than he normally did.
“I think so. I’m so ready to graduate, though.”
Peter hopped up to sit on the desk next to her. “How much more do you have?”
She rolled her eyes. “At the rate I’m going, I’ll get my masters around the time you get yours. But with all this,” she flapped a hand around the lab, “I can’t really handle more than one class a semester.”
“Can’t you get credit for all the work you’re doing with Dr. Foster and Dr. Selvig? I mean, that must be worth something, right?”
Darcy waved her highlighter at him. “Nuh uh. My intern days are over. I’m a lab assistant now. I have my own interns,” here she tapped him on the arm with the highlighter and grinned, “to boss around.” She dropped the marker down on the desk and closed the book.
“It doesn’t seem quite right that you can’t use your experience to test out or something.” Peter looked down at the title. “I’d think that after working with Dr. Foster for the past, what, eight years? You’d be beyond Introduction to Astrophysics.” He looked pointedly over at the long range sensing machine that Darcy had helped design and build. “Just sayin’.”
“Peter does have a point, Darcy.”
The two looked up to see Pepper Potts standing in the doorway of the lab. She walked in and set the paper shopping bag she had been carrying down on the desk. “This is for you, Darcy. I’m so sorry for Tony. And yes, we have given you a raise out of Tony’s personal R&D budget.”
Darcy jumped out of her chair and looked into the bag. “Oooh.” She pulled a shoe box out and opened it. “Check it,” she told Peter happily. “New Docs!” She paused and her face fell slightly. “Does this mean I can’t wear my old ones anymore to annoy Tony?” she asked Pepper.
Pepper laughed. “I had a feeling that was why you hadn’t replaced them.” She walked around the desk and glanced down at Darcy’s feet. “While I admire your persistence, Darcy, please wear the new shoes. It doesn’t look great on SI to have our employees wearing thrift store rejects.” She paused. “No offense.”
Darcy grinned and clutched the shoe box to her chest. “Totally no offense taken. I get it. I’m so used to wearing what I can find at Goodwill, it’ll just take a bit for me to get used to actually having disposable income.”
“You don’t have to go crazy,” Pepper said. “I understand laboratory work. You don’t want to wear anything that you don’t want ruined or isn’t comfortable. But,” she pointedly looked down at Darcy’s duct-taped boots, “maybe it’s time to retire those.”
“You got it, boss lady.” Darcy sat down and started unlacing her old boots.
Pepper picked up the thick textbook and flipped through it. “I’m no expert, but isn’t this material kind of basic compared to what you’re doing now?”
Darcy pulled off one boot, revealing a sock covered in kittens. She shrugged. “I mean, yeah, kind of. The theory in there is practically out of date given everything Jane and Erik’s discovered these past few years. And the calculations are things that Jane was having me do after New Mexico and I stuck around.” The other boot came off and her other sock was striped blue and pink. Darcy reached for the new Doc Martens. “But this class is a prerequisite for all the other classes in the program.” She sat back and looked proudly at her feet. She clicked the toes of the new boots together, and she admired the lack of duct tape marring the surface. “Thanks for the boots, Pepper. Really.” She picked up her old ones and dropped them in the garbage can.
“They’re the very least I could do after what Tony said.” She closed the book with a snap and frowned down at the cover. “And I’m going to have Tony call up Empire State University and talk to your dean. It’s utterly ridiculous that you have to sit through these classes. You’ve co-authored papers that are way beyond what’s in that book, for god’s sake.”
Darcy took the book back. “You really don’t have to do that. I feel like I should sit through this stuff for real, you know. It’s not like my poli sci degree really prepared me for a graduate program in astrophysics.”
Peter jumped in then. “I’d say those six science credits sure did.” He grinned up at Pepper. “Right, Ms. Potts?”
Pepper smiled back. “And then some.” She looked back to Darcy. “I think it’s still worth a shot. If you get out of some classes, that’s both time and money you’ll save.”
Darcy frowned and Peter could almost see the mental math. “It’s true that ESU is not cheap. And if it gets me done sooner, I guess, sure, why not? The worst that can happen is they say no, right?”
Pepper’s smile turned into an outright grin and she nodded approvingly. “Attagirl. I’ll talk to Tony. Lay the guilt on him.” She reached out to ruffle Peter’s hair briefly. “Okay, I need to head to my office. I’ll see you guys later.”
“Bye, Ms. Potts!” Peter called out as Pepper walked out the door.
“Bye, Pepper!” Darcy echoed.
Peter turned to Darcy. “I never asked you this before, but why are you going back to school? You don’t need an astrophysics degree here. Dr. Foster doesn’t care about that.”
“But other people do.” Darcy sat back down and leaned back, propping her feet on the desk. “They see Jane and Erik and all that they’ve done. Creating a Einstein-Rosen Bridge, modeling the physics of the Bifrost. That’s Nobel Prize level stuff there. And then there’s me. After those two, I’ve probably got the most hands-on experience with artificial wormholes in the entire world. But, all anyone sees is my lack of credentials after my name.” She spun the chair around, her boots hitting the ground with a thud. She looked at the large machine sitting in the middle of the lab. “Who would ever believe that a BA in political science helped design that? That I did most of the coding, and helped with the calculations for designing the arrays, and the physical welding and wiring that thing together?” She looked at Peter. “Maybe it’s egotistical, but I want to be worthy of being Jane’s assistant. To show everyone else that I’m here for a reason and not just because Jane felt sorry for me, or some BS like that.”
Peter opened his mouth to respond when Jane shuffled into the lab. She blinked furiously in the florescent lights and her mouth was drawn tightly in a flat line. She made a beeline for the coffee machine and poured herself a mug, and drank it down without adding any cream or sugar. She then poured a second cup and held it, staring down at it for a few seconds. Suddenly, she looked up fiercely. “Darcy Lewis, don’t you dare ever talk like that again. Of course you’re worthy to work with me! I couldn’t survive without you. You’re my best friend, Darce, and you’re so so smart. Smart enough to have figured out how to deal with me. Smart enough to keep me human. You were there for everything. After New Mexico and London, how could you even question yourself?” She gulped down the second cup of coffee and set the mug down with a slam. “And screw everybody who doesn’t see that? You figured out how to put together an extraterrestrial sensor with duct tape! And screw Tony Stark for making fun of that.” She marched forward and pulled and astonished Darcy into a tight hug. In a softer voice, she said, “And you helped me after Thor left, both times, and I was a mess. And I’m so sorry if I ever made you feel less than amazing, because you are.”
Darcy hugged Jane back. When she spoke, her voice was shaky. “You’re my best friend, too, Jane. I love you.”
Peter shifted awkwardly from foot to foot and then started to slowly inch towards the door. Darcy’s hand shot out and grabbed him and pulled him into the hug. “Oh no you don’t. Come on. Join the feels.”
He sighed and hugged the two women back. “Darcy, I think you’re pretty great too. If you weren’t there helping out Mr. Stark and Dr. Foster, I may not be here right now. So thanks. Because being a pile of dust sucked.”
Darcy laughed. “You guys are the best.” She broke the hug and wiped her eyes. “But I still gotta finish this degree. I want to do it. Not just because of other people, but for me. Turns out that I like this science stuff more than I expected I would when I applied for that internship.”
Jane nodded. “Okay. And I’ll support you in that. If you ever need help, let me know.”
“Dude, you already wrote me a kickass recommendation letter for my application! The school was practically begging me to enroll after they read that.”
“I’m sure Tony Stark’s letter didn’t hurt either.”
Darcy sniffed. “Psh. Tony who? Dr. Jane Foster is where it’s at.” She held out her hand towards Peter, who obligingly gave her a high-five. “That’s right. My best friend, the Isaac Newton of astrophysics.”
Jane smirked. “Well, the Isaac Newton of astrophysics can still help you with your homework if you get stuck, you know.”
“Well, sure, that’s a given. I help you develop an early warning system for alien visitors, and you help me with my homework. Sounds like an even trade.”
Peter just grinned at the two women. Asking permission to help with this project over his spring break was the best decision he’d ever made.