A/N So no new chapter of V is for Victory this week (for reasons you can find on my tumblr if you're really interested, my username is the same as my penname) But have a little something new instead! I actually started writing this before V consumed my muse so it's been sitting on my hard drive for awhile.

I have to give big thanks to enigma-eggroll for beta-ing this, and you all should too since this was the first thing I wrote after a very long hiatus from writing and it was really rough before she whipped it into shape. And I also have to dedicate this to my boo Tash since he is the one who encouraged me to write this and had to talk me down from several ledges when I was sure I had lost all abilities to write and I was freaking out about timelines and basically wanted to set my laptop on fire…

Okay if you're still reading this take a virtual cookie and I hope you enjoy!

"Hey kiddo," Tony greeted Darcy as he waltzed into the small non-descript SHIELD office. He immediately owned the room, just as he did every room he walked into, even though the only things currently occupying the space were Darcy, a desk, a couple filing cabinets and an obviously plastic ficus.

"Yo, Tony," Darcy replied easily.

"I like this whole naughty secretary look you've got going on here," he mentioned, observing her from over his signature sunglasses, taking in her black pencil skirt and pinstriped vest over a white cap sleeved blouse. Her ever-present glasses and her bright red lipstick completed the illusion.

"Why thank you," Darcy said genuinely pleased by his compliment. As the junior SHIELD-Avengers liaison, she split her time between the SHIELD offices and Avengers Tower, where Tony was used to seeing her, and where the dress code was far more casual. "It's the new office look I'm cultivating. Check it out," she added lifting one ankle to show off her new pumps. "Even my heels are pinstriped. Pepper helped me pick them out."

"Well Ms. Potts will never steer you wrong on the subject of footwear."

"Yes, she definitely is the consummate authority on the topic," Darcy agreed. "So, what are you doing here?"

"Don't you know?" Tony returned her question. "You're Little Miss Liaison, shouldn't you be liaisoning?"

"Well, I know why I'm here, I just don't know why you're here," she replied, trying to remember if there was anything on the team agenda that would bring Tony into the office today. She couldn't think of anything, and that made her cranky. This was her job to know after all and she didn't enjoy being out of the loop.

"I'm here because Pepper called me from Rome this morning to tell me I had a Very Important Meeting at ten with Coulson that I was absolutely not allowed to blow off, and believe me the capitalization was implied," Tony told her, dropping into the chair next to Darcy. "These chairs are ergonomically unacceptable," he muttered, taking off his sunglasses and tucking them into an interior pocket of his suit jacket. "Why, are you here?"

"I'm here," she said bringing up the calendar on her work tablet to confirm that she knew nothing of Tony's meeting, "because I have a ten o clock meeting with Coulson about the results of my blood test I had to get after I got bitten my Mr. Squeekers last week."

"What the hell is Mr. Squeekers?"

"Oh, he's one of Dr. Banner's lab rats," she answered absently, still distracted by her tablet. Not that Tony minded, his phone had been out from the moment he sat down.

"You're not going to try to convince me that Bruce named one of his lab rats Mr. Squeekers?" Tony looked up from whatever he was doing on his phone disbelievingly.

"No, don't be silly," Darcy shot back. "He insists on calling them by their trial numbers, even though I took the time to learn all their little ratty personalities and do him the favor naming them. Mr. Squeekers and Baron Von Fromage are my two favorites."

"Of course they are," Tony deadpanned. "And Bruce never mentioned to you that it might be a bad idea to play with the possibly irradiated experimental rodents?"

"Oh no, he told me a bunch of times," Darcy admitted freely. "But Mr. Squeekers is just so cute with his fuzzy little ears. And he's always been a complete sweetie, at least until the furry little jerk bit me last week."

"That rat bastard!" Tony shot back, unable to resist.

"I know, right?" Darcy grinned at the pun, genuinely disappointed in herself that she hadn't busted it out first. "But that's why I'm here. It still doesn't explain why you're here for a meeting that I as your liaison did not set up for you. Or," she blanched as the reasons for her own meeting suddenly caught up with her, "why they wouldn't just tell me over the phone if everything is peachy with a side of keen, and why didn't they call me up to medical if there was something wrong. Why am I meeting with Agent Coulson?"

Tony frowned at the young woman across from him. She wasn't exactly wrong. "Are you feeling okay? Not developing any weird symptoms or mutations? You're not growing a tail are you?" he asked, tipping back in his chair, presumably to look for the aforementioned tail.

"No, I'm not growing a tail!" Darcy exclaimed both hands flying to the back of her skirt, horrified at the thought of it. "And besides, if I was mutating they would have called Bruce, not you, don't you think?" It was both a statement and a request for reassurance.

"Right, I'm sure Coulson just overbooked himself," Tony told her in what passed in his world for comforting. "In which case, I'm going first. I have a three o clock with some investors that I plan on skipping to play some one on one with Happy."

"This is Phil Coulson, Agent of SHIELD, we're talking about," Darcy interjected. "Do you really think he double booked a meeting?"

"You have a point," he admitted, "but he's also never late and it's now 10:03, so there is a first time for everything."

Darcy nodded and swallowed hard, chipping at the nail polish on her thumb – a nervous habit she just couldn't manage to break.

"So… Words With Friends?" Tony asked after a few moments of awkward silence.

"Oh you're so on," Darcy replied, already pulling out her iPhone that Tony glared at every time he saw it. But she repeatedly told Tony, until Stark phones came with fun novelty cases that she could switch out as the mood struck, she was going to stick with trusty Apple phone which was currently sporting a pair of silicone rabbit ears.

When she lay down the word QUAINT for a totally awesome 50 points – having hit both double letter and double word tiles – she idly wondered how this became her life. Not just that she was playing Words with Friends with Iron Man, who was currently bemoaning the fact that apparently the app dictionary did not include words he knew were words, because he had invented them and muttering that they would soon be receiving a strongly worded email or maybe he would just create a hack to add them in himself, but all of it.

It turned out that graduating Summa Cum Laude with a BS in Political Science and having tased a Norse god were the proper qualifications for an entry level position with SHIELD. Although she had her suspicions that it was only because the MIB weren't sharing certain Neuralyzer tech so that they couldn't erase the second qualification. But Darcy wasn't about to complain. A totally kick ass job right out of College that she didn't even have to apply or interview for? She wasn't stupid. Summa Cum Laude, remember?

The first eight months of her time at SHIELD had actually been bitterly boring. As a low-level paper pusher, she had done just that – low-level paper pushing. It wasn't until almost six month after the battle of New York, as the media called it, when Thor returned to Earth having repaired the bifrost with the Tesseract, and started showing up at her cubical on a regular basis, that she captured her superiors' attention. Apparently, being best friends with a god's girlfriend was the quickest way to move up the ranks. Her easy association with Thor and the rest of his teammates – since Jane was not good at social interaction without moral support – got her name to grace lips far up on the SHIELD food chain. But it was the PR miracle and accompanying cover of the Avenger's little Halloween incident, that got her formally assigned as the Junior SHIELD-Avengers liaison. Which has been her official job title for the past seven and a half months.

Her direct superior was Agent Coulson, but since he usually concerned himself with things way above her pay grade, he awarded her with a remarkable amount of freedom, leaving Darcy to deal with the day to day happenings of the Avengers as she saw fit. What it basically coiled down to was that they were her responsibility when they weren't actively saving the world. So, while she had a cool job title, the description was a bit more vague and as a result, her duties varied from everything from Superhero wrangler/baby sitter, to public relations, to pop culture educator, to cover story writer. Basically, she was whatever the team needed from her at the moment and Darcy was glad she had a good face for them because she wore a lot of different hats.

She had just realized that she could use her blank tile, two C's, O, X, and a Y already on the board for a totally awesome scoring COCCYX, when Coulson finally decided to join them. He was a shockingly full seventeen minutes late.

"I apologize for my tardiness," Coulson said, entering his office, carrying a single manila folder. "I wanted the boys in the lab to triple check their findings before bringing them to your attention."

"Oh my god I'm am going to grow a tail aren't I?!" Darcy exclaimed, her phone sliding right out of her hand and hitting the floor with a dull thud.

"No," Coulson replied, almost showing an emotion at her, at least to him, complete non sequitur.

"Oh well that's a relief. I just bought these really cute vintage cords from the thrift store up on 143rd and 17th, and a tail would make them bulgy in places they should not be bulgy," she informed them, leaning forward to swipe her phone off the ground from where it slid underneath Coulson's desk.

Coulson, in classic Agent form, did not deign to respond to Darcy's comment. "When your DNA was input into the database, it kicked out some surprising results. It turns out that Ms. Darcy Lewis is a direct biological descendent to Mr. Howard Stark. His granddaughter actually. Which would make you-"

"Related," Tony cut in, not willing to define it any more narrowly than that at this juncture.

Darcy's head shot up, unfortunately she was still half under her boss's desk and her head slammed, painfully, into the edge nearly upsetting the pencil cup that sat on the corner. Coulson's hand not shot out and saved it with his ninja agent skills.

"Her father most likely," Coulson stated unemotionally. He glanced away from Stark to give Darcy a cursory once over to make sure she hadn't concussed herself.

"But not necessarily," Tony replied in the same measured tone, "besides, I've heard you talk about your parents haven't I Darce?" He turned to look at her when she didn't respond. "Darcy, isn't that right? Tell Agent you already have parents," he said again, snapping his fingers a couple of times to get her attention.

"My Mom married my Step-Dad when I was still a baby. I never knew my birth father, but it never mattered to me, my Dad was always my Dad," Darcy answered flatly, barely above a whisper. She was more than a little shell shocked by both this revelation and the blow to the head.

"It's just as likely that I had an illegitimate brother who fathered our dear Darcy," Tony pointed out, not about to let Darcy's admission derail his point of view.

"That is true," Coulson conceded. "And since, for some reason, we don't have your DNA on file Mr. Stark-"

"Good!"

Coulson continued on as if he had not been interrupted, opening the bottom drawer of his desk to retrieve a plastic bag, "this was as close as we can tell. I anticipated that you would want further investigation into this matter. I brought a kit so we could settle this matter as quickly and efficiently as possible."

"Fantastic," Tony said, snatching the bag full of cotton swabs and sterile containers from Coulson's desk. "But I'll have my own labs process the results. I rather like not being in SHIELD's oogy boogy system, and I'd like to keep it that way."

"As you wish Mr. Stark."

Darcy was still holding her head, staring at nothing, mouth gaping. So it was more than a surprise when Tony reached over to swab the inside of her cheek.

"Oh my god, Tony!" Darcy exclaimed at his rude method of pulling her out of her stupor. "Hasn't anyone ever told you it's typically considered polite to warn a girl before shoving something in her mouth?"

"You know, I have heard that before," Tony replied with a smirk that quickly faded. Sexual innuendo with his might be daughter was probably not appropriate. Even by his standards.

"Why does that not surprise me," Darcy shot back. "So just to reiterate, I'm not growing a tail right?"

"Both of you get out of my office," Coulson ordered, his part in this done, at least for now. He was fairly confident hosting long lost family reunions was not within his job description.

It was a long, silent walk through the labyrinth that was SHIELD's office space back to Darcy's lightly used desk. Sitting heavily in her chair, she looked up at Tony with mild surprise in her eyes. It was like she hadn't noticed him walking her back to her cubical or maybe she wasn't sure what he was doing hovering around her desk.

"You know, it really doesn't matter at this point," Darcy finally broke the awkward silence. "It's a little late in the game for a change in the lineup to really make any difference," she said vaguely, knowing that walls have ears, a fact exponentially true when you work in a building full of super spies.

Tony nodded, but didn't say anything as he leaned one hip against the half wall at the opening to her cubical. He was staring hard at something and Darcy followed his line of sight to a picture she had on her desk of herself and her dad on her sixteenth birthday. They were in front of her vintage yellow VW Bug, which he had restored for her as her gift. It was the last picture she had of the two of them – he passed away three months later of an undiagnosed heart defect.

Choosing not to try to decipher what could possibly be going through Tony's mind – it would only give her a headache – Darcy continued speaking. "You could just dump that in the trash on your way out," she nodded at the slight bulge in his well-tailored suit that concealed the DNA test supplies, "and we can keep on keeping on with the status quo."

"I'm not good at status quo," Tony said forcibly tearing his gaze away from the photo to look at Darcy. "And I'm worse at not knowing. I have to know, knowing is what I do."

It was Darcy's turn to nod silently; these were all things she already knew to be true.

Tony took her nod as one of agreement, or maybe just acceptance, either way it ended in the same result for him. "Alright then," he said, clapping his hands together, his entire demeanor changing like a flip of a switch. Gone was the introspective man who had just received possibly life changing news and back was Tony Stark genius/mogul extraordinaire. "I'll have my boys take care of this," he patted the pocket of his coat, "and why don't you come by the tower for dinner. Pepper left for Rome this morning so we're going to order pizza since there won't be anyone to glare disapprovingly at our poor dietary choices and life decisions."

"Yeah okay," Darcy agreed matching his upbeat tone.

"Alright, I'll see you later then kiddo." It was a usual term of endearment of his for Darcy, but as now loaded word passed his lips without his express consent it made him choke on his own tongue a little.

"And there's no point of freaking out about this until we know anything for certain, right?" Darcy added when she saw his reaction to his unintentional slip. She tried to keep her voice as steady and confident as possible, but she wasn't sure if she was trying to convince Tony or herself.

"You're totally right," Tony agreed. "So we'll just wait to have any reactions about it until we know for sure. Not that it really makes a difference one-way or the other like you said. It's just to know. Right?"

"Right. Because knowing is good. They say you should learn something new every day."

"I don't really think this situation is in the spirit of what they were talking about."

"How do you know?" Darcy countered. "Do you know 'they' personally? If not, I'm just going to go with it, because knowledge is power, and live and learn, and an apple a day keeps the doctor away."

"Okay then." Tony made the decision to just roll with that one. "I'll see you tonight at the tower. It's the awesome building with the big 'A' on top. You can't miss it so try not to get lost this time," he smirked reaching into his jacket to pull out his sunglasses.

"Hey!" Darcy exclaimed indignantly. "That was one time, and there was a lot of tequila involved and really it was not my fault. I am almost 97.4 percent sure that that cabbie was actually a secret agent for AIM, so really it was my duty to lead him away from the tower. You should be thanking me, I'm a hero."

Tony just laughed and slid on his sunglasses before turning on one heel and striding towards the elevator.

Darcy waited until he was fully out of sight before spinning around in her chair and literally head-desking, her forehead hitting the edge of her desk with a dull thud.

"Ow," she whined, fairly confident that she was now going to have a bump on the front of her head to match the one on the back from when she hit Coulson's desk earlier.

It was going to be a long rest of the day.

A/N And there we have it! I'll be honest in that I'm not exactly sure when I'll update next since I'm going to be focused on getting V is for Victory posted on schedule, so this is more like a sneak peak of this story, but I will tell you that the next chapter involves Steve, Darcy, Central Park and novelty ice cream so make of that of you will :) Let me know what you thought!