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Darcy had everything all planned the night before. She’d gotten it down to a science in the days before just to be sure her plan was feasible. Her alarm would go off and she’d get up and start the pot of coffee she’d gotten prepared after dinner the night before. She’d jump in the shower, just enough to wake her up and wash any sleep out of her eyes, then dry off and change. The coffee tumbler she’d set out the night before would be waiting for her next to the fresh pot and she would be able to pour her mug and go.
People did not fuck around when they had to deal with government offices in New York City and she wasn’t about to spend all day waiting in line for one stupid signature for the permit she needed for the next charity event she threw in Central Park. She wouldn’t. She’d looked up reviews online and figured out the best route of travel. She had a book loaded onto her phone in case she did have to wait in line - she wouldn’t, but always be prepared was her motto.
Then, of course, the unexpected happened. There was a call to assemble at 1:30 in the morning. If she’d been sleeping in her own room it wouldn’t have been a problem, but Darcy couldn’t even remember the last time she slept in her own room so, really, she should have planned for this. Tony had gotten up, kissed her quickly, and dashed off to join the rest of the team while she closed her eyes and tried desperately to get back to sleep.
That had been a pipe dream and she knew it the moment her head hit the pillow after Tony had gently shut the door. She tossed and turned the rest of the night, finally falling asleep sometime around 4 in the morning, not even two hours before her alarm was set. When she did wake up the sun was shining brightly into the bedroom and she instantly knew she was in trouble.
“J man? What time is it?” she yawned and stumbled out of the bed towards the bathroom.
“It is currently 10:24 in the morning, Darcy.”
“FUCK! Jarvis, why didn’t you wake me up?! I was supposed to be at the permit office 3 hours ago!” Darcy turned off the water to the shower she’d just started and began to pull her hair into a messy bun at the top of her head.
“You instructed me not to wake you if you had turned off your alarm,” the AI replied with a tone that Darcy immediately interpreted as snarky.
“Whatever,” Darcy sighed as she threw on her clothes and shoes. “What’s the best way to get there now?” The only thing her preparation had helped her with was knowing she could grab her bag on the way out the door and speed walk her way to what was sure to be the longest line she’d seen since her last trip to Disney World.
Twenty minutes later she was hovering in a crowded mass of people, her mouth dry from the brisk walk through the city. There was a coffee cart on the other side of the block, she could see it through the window and started to calculate the odds of her being called in the time it would take to get there and back.
“E254,” a computerized voice called, “Please proceed to counter number 7.” Darcy couldn’t believe her luck. She’d not even been in the building for five minutes. She pulled the file folder container her prepared documents out of her bag as she approached the woman at the counter and smiled.
“Good morning, ma’am!” she smiled and turned on just a hint of her southern drawl to get away with the honorific, “I just need to get a permit signed off on for use of Central Park?”
The woman across from her took her folder with an arched eyebrow and a barely muttered greeting. “Mmmhmm, says here you’re running a charity event?”
“Yes, that’s correct. It’s for the Ave-”
“Don’t matter what it’s for, you’re gonna need to go to need to go to the-”
“Commissioners office to get the charity approved?” Darcy interrupted, her bubbly and polite persona waning in the face of the droll tone of the woman in front of her. “We’ve been approved already if you check that second page there?”
The woman checked the next page, scanning the document for any possible mistake. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, throwing Darcy’s own word back at her but as a slight, “I do see that you were approved for last year but this expired two days ago.”
Darcy could feel the last of her available will draining out of her. “Okay, I can go there right after I finish up here and get that taken care of. Will I need to do that before you can help me?”
“Me?” the woman asked with a sarcastic chuckle in her voice, “Honey I’m not helping you one bit. I’m collecting your information and sending it to the back to be processed. We’ll call your name,” she glanced down at the paper, “Miss Lewis,” as soon as that’s done. You can return to your seat.”
Darcy turned from the desk as the computer was announcing the next number. Her day was going to be spent weaving through red tape and she was going to have to do the bulk of it without having even had caffeine. She found a spot against the wall and leaned against it staring longingly at the coffee cart across the street. Now that her number was gone she had no way of knowing where she was in line. At the last counter, a clerk was calling out a name for the third and apparently final time. Apparently if she as much as took too long going to the bathroom she’d be screwed and have to start the entire process again.
She pulled out her phone and entertained herself with a game for a few minutes before switching over to her book. Darcy couldn’t be positive how much time passed before a notification popped up over the sentence she had been reading.
Hey there, baby girl. Just got back home. How are you doing today?
Darcy breathed out a deep sigh she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
You safe?
And sound.
Do you think you could whip me up a time machine really quickly? I’d like to go back to this morning when I apparently turned off my alarm and missed my chance to get to the permit office before they opened.
Oh, no. How bad is it?
Daddy, it’s so bad. There’s no place for me to sit down and I didn’t get even get coffee before I left.
Quickly, before she thought too hard about it, she pressed the camera icon in the chat and added a cute picture of her with a slight pout to her mouth to the message before she hit send.
Heaven forbid came Tony’s sarcastic response.
There was no other response after that and Darcy couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t just be more whining. She knew that whining to him about something he couldn’t fix wouldn’t get her anywhere and went back to her book waiting to hear her name called. She’d almost forgotten where she was when she smelled something delicious and completely out of place in a government building.
Now that she was paying more attention she noticed the movement of people around her. They’d gone from being still as insects stuck in honey to an excited mass. She looked up from her phone and startled when she saw Tony in the center of the waiting room speaking to a young man. The man stood from his chair and held the arms steady for Tony to climb on top of it and survey the room. A three-level wheeled cart was next to him filled with pink confectionary boxes, the top-level dedicated almost entirely to large carafes of coffee and the appropriate fixings.
“Hi, yes, can I have your attention?” he called out over the heads of the crowd, “I’m looking for my girlfriend Darcy? Gorgeous brunette, blue eyes? Probably wearing a beanie?” The heads of the people surrounding her started turning her way. “There you are, baby,” Tony grinned when he saw her. “Cronuts and coffee for everyone waiting just as soon as my girl gets hers!” he called out as he jumped down from the chair and pushed the cart towards her.
Darcy was as pink as the boxes of cronuts, “Tony, you didn’t.”
“I think,” Tony said as he handed her a large cup of coffee, “What you meant to say was ‘Oh, Tony, you’re the best and I love you!’”
“You are the best and I do love you, but really this is crazy. You’re going to cause a mob rush in the office. There’s no way there are enough cronuts on this cart for all these people,” she gestured around with her own pastry before taking a bite. “God, it’s still warm,” she moaned.
“Watch those noises, kid, we’re in public. And I’ll have you know Happy is waiting outside with a car full of cronuts so I have no concerns about feeding the crowd.” Darcy was clearly shocked so he added, “What? It would have been rude to bring a feast just for you and I couldn’t fatten you up just to leave you to the beasts of government waiting rooms.” Tony’s mouth was catching up to his brain when there was a loud noise over the din of the room.
“Darcy Lewis to counter eleven. Darcy Lewis!”
“You better be glad I got called, mister,” Darcy smarted as she took another bite of her cronut and made her way to the counter for her paperwork. When she’d gotten what she needed she fought through the crowd of people swarming the cart to stand with Tony. “So, I guess I’ll see you back at the tower?”
“Nonsense, Darce. Happy’s on his way in with the rest of the boxes, he’ll stay here for crowd management so I can take you for a proper meal.” Before Darcy could respond Tony had taken her elbow and was escorting her to the exit door while Happy slid into Tony’s place at the cart.
“How’s Abuela’s sound?” Tony asked her once they were in the open air.
Darcy grinned up at him and hugged his arm, “If I didn’t know you better I’d say you were trying to charm me with melty cheese.”
“Who says I’m not?”
“Abuela Claudia’s chile rellenos said so and you know it,” Darcy teased.
“You got me there,” Tony admitted as he lifted her hand from his arm to kiss her knuckles. “What have you got planned after lunch?”
“Ugh,” Darcy groaned. “My approval from the commissioners’ office expired yesterday so I’ve got to go fight more red tape this afternoon. I anticipate it being even worse than this morning, I’ve heard nightmares of lines wrapped around the outside of that building.”
“It can’t possibly be worse, I’ll be with you which has to make it at least 50% better. No, 75% easily.”