Chapter Text
There were many things about working at Stark Tower that were very, very cool. The building itself was beautiful, the onsite living facilities well appointed and there was always a chance that you might run into Captain America with his shirt off if you hit up the gym at just the right time. The meetings, however, were not what Darcy Lewis considered to be one of the perks of her job. They were onerous, numerous and boring – so very, very boring.
There were project meetings, staff meetings and HR policy meetings. She had even attended meetings held solely to plan other meetings. Such was the nature of bureaucracy. The subject of today’s meeting was fire safety. Between Tony’s myriad lab accidents and Asgardians' and old-timey super soldiers’ repeated failed attempts to master the toaster, fire safety had become a pressing concern. Jane's experiments had never resulted in anything as banal as a blazing inferno and Darcy couldn’t help feeling that this was going to be a complete and utter waste of her time.
Attendance at the meeting was mandatory for all of the building’s occupants and employees. It was being held in a room Darcy had never seen before, large enough to accommodate everyone with seating in the round. It reminded her of some of the larger lecture halls from college, complete with those tiny seats with attached writing desks.
She was armed with an enormous cup of coffee and a glimmer of hope that said fire safety meeting might involve actual firefighters – hot, sweaty, shirtless, sooty firefighters with really big… hoses. Hey, a girl could dream, couldn’t she?
She arrived to find the room nearly filled to capacity. She grabbed one of the few remaining seats, settling in between Bruce Banner and Tony Stark.
“Hey Lewis!” Tony said, directly addressing her chest. “This meeting just got a lot more interesting…” he drawled with a waggle of his brows. “Ugh! Gross!” Darcy sighed. “Perv it on elsewhere, Grandpa!”
She took a moment to reconsider her seating choice while Bruce laughed to himself quietly. Tony couldn’t shut up or sit still if his life depended on it. This was going to be a long meeting…
“Oh, come on, Lewis!” Tony retorted. “You know that if it wasn’t for Pepper, you’d be all over this. I’m just sorry that there’s only so much of me to go around. It’s almost tragic.”
Darcy turned to face him squarely. He was still leering at her chest. She hooked him beneath his chin with her pen and raised his eyes to meet her own, smiling at him sweetly. “Say Grandpa, you’re about sixty percent of the reason that we have to sit through this ridiculous meeting today. So, sit still, shut up and keep your eyes off my tits! Capiche?”
Tony maintained eye contact and swallowed hard. It was pretty clear that he appreciated a woman who took charge. He was even pervy in defeat. Darcy shuddered through a douche chill, turning back towards the lectern in the centre of the room. A small older man in a rumpled suit approached the podium. So much for hot, sweaty firefighters Darcy sighed in disappointment.
As the man began to prattle on in a droning monotone, she scanned the rows for familiar faces. Directly across the room, she spotted Jane - head down, scribbling furiously in a spiral notebook. Darcy’s suspicion that Jane’s notes had nothing to do with fire safety was confirmed when she spotted Jane’s protractor. Darcy was pretty sure that protractors were not required for fire safety.
In the seat beside Jane sat Thor. He smiled brightly at Darcy, waving excitedly. He had somehow managed to cram himself into the tiny desk. It appeared as if he could walk away with it still attached if he stood up quickly enough. He was totally friggin’ adorable.
Her eyes moved to the seat next to Thor and her breath caught in her chest. It was filled with over six feet of glowering, insane, magical space prince: Loki of Asgard, brother of Thor and royal pain in the ass. He was sneering at Jane from the side of his eye with a look of unbridled disdain. Jane remained oblivious, scrawling feverishly in her notebook.
Loki’s black dress shirt was mostly unbuttoned and his sleeves were rolled up casually. His charcoal dress pants appeared tailored and his legs were sprawled out before him obscenely. His dark hair was cropped just north of chin-length and tucked behind his ears. It was a good look and she was looking, actually she was staring – hopefully, she wasn’t drooling.
Suddenly, his sparkling green eyes met hers as he caught her mid-ogle. Darcy’s eyes widened like a deer in the headlights and Loki’s narrowed menacingly. Tony jabbed her sharply with his elbow and whispered, “Who’s the perv now, Lewis?” He had witnessed the entire thing. Oh God, she was never going to hear the end of this!
She looked down at her desk with a groan and took a long sip of her coffee, regretting that she hadn’t asked the barista to add a shot of cyanide. Her mobile started to vibrate where she had stashed it in her pocket. She retrieved it, checking the screen furtively. A text message was displayed from a number that she didn’t recognize.
Ignore that buffoon, Stark. Gods welcome reverence.
Darcy swiftly deleted the message, switched off the phone and set it face down on her desk with a roll of her eyes. No wonder this dude had tried to take over the world, she thought with a sigh. Talk about an ego! She looked up to find Loki watching her with an air of complete self-satisfaction.
She watched him for a moment, noticing that he didn’t appear to be holding a mobile device. He quirked an eyebrow at her and her mobile phone began to vibrate loudly where she had set it on her desk. Her brows furrowed in confusion. She had turned off her phone. How the hell was it vibrating when it was powered off?
She flipped it over carefully. The screen displayed a selfie of Loki, winking and smiling, captioned: BAMF Loki does what he wants. She couldn’t help chuckling quietly. It was pretty damned impressive. The God of Mischief and Lies was trying to impress her.
She continued to look at the picture displayed on the screen as the wheels in her mind began turning. Since he had arrived at the tower with his brother several months earlier to make amends for his misdeeds by assisting the Avengers, she’d hardly exchanged a word with him. And she’d never seen him smile at anyone unless it accompanied an insult or followed a joke made at their expense.
He was reaching out to her. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe he was horny. More vibrating from her phone interrupted her train of thought, as a new text message appeared on her screen.
I am. You are the divine goddess who tased my idiot brother. I should be worshipping you.
This was old Silvertongue at his finest. She looked up at him again and he smiled at her warmly. Perhaps there were other reasons that he was called Silvertongue – filthy reasons… His eyes darkened and he licked his lips seductively.
Another sharp elbow from Tony interrupted her reverie, “Psst… I think he likes you…”