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Darcy had not forgotten about it. It was, quite frankly, not the sort of thing she would forget. It was just that she knew the value of picking her battles carefully and, frankly, there hadn’t been a good time between Jane figuring out how to open the rainbow bridge again and all of them up and moving to New York to join the big ol’ Avengers party. There’d been apartment hunting, new office furnishings to break in, and the vitally important task of finding the best, nearest, and cheapest restaurants and bars now that they were out of the ass end of New Mexico and back in a place that had dining options besides pizza, burgers, and tamales. Although, God did she miss the tamales.
All of that was beside the point though, which was that she had not forgotten, and suddenly the perfect moment was upon her, one of the big team meetings breaking up and Coulson was still there in the room finishing up one or two things with Clint just as Tony was heading out into the hallway, so she pounced. Voice raised just enough to carry, she said, “Hey, Coulson. I want my iPod back!”
And there was a pause as Clint and Coulson looked up, Clint clearly confused about why she was bringing this up again now but Coulson’s eyes were already narrowing even before the harsh yell came from out in the hallway.
“Steve Jobs was a hack!”
Darcy twisted half around in her chair to holler down the hall, “You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, Tony!”
When she turned back around, grinning smugly to herself, any trace of expression had vanished from Coulson’s face and she got the clear impression that once again he could see straight through her, but that was ok. After all, she could hear Tony stomping his way toward the elevator and Clint’s mouth had dropped open, and gormless was a good look on him. All in all, it promised to be a good day.
A good day that just got better as Coulson closed the folder he’d been going through and said, “Of course. I’ll look into that, Ms. Lewis,” like he actually meant it.
***
She’s not sure if it actually took three days or if Coulson found it within an hour of her leaving and has just been holding on to it longer to make a point. If she had to guess, though, she’d put good money on the later. Either way, though, it was three days later when Clint showed up at her desk with a bright orange iPod with battered headphones and a familiar Batz Maru sticker on the back.
“So, explain about the iPod,” he said, and the bastard was smart and fast, because he was already pulling away as Darcy lunged for it.
“Give it to me or I will destroy you. I know where you sleep, Barton.”
“You do not.”
“You’re assigned quarters in the second sub-basement, you’ve got an apartment in SoHo, and you occasionally camp out in the rafters above the shooting range just to freak people out.”
The gormless look was back, and it was totally unfair for him to be that hot while looking like a doofus when he’d underestimated her. It only took him a fraction of a second to pull himself together, though, and then he was looking smug, which was less appealing. “Twilight is not a healthy model for dating and stalking’s illegal, Darcy.”
“Whatever. Natasha told me; she likes me better than you. Give me my iPod or I get the taser out.”
“Tell me why Stark’s kid is obsessing over an iPod that was old three years ago and it’s yours,” he shot back
“It’s already mine, that’s what the phrase ‘my iPod’ means. And using old, cheap, non-SI tech is one of the best ways I’ve found to piss Tony off.”
“What, seriously?” Clint blinked. Mmmm, gormless. “You have a direct ticket to beyond cutting edge toys and you use a four year old iPod just to annoy Stark? Vicious. Marry me?”
Darcy just held out her hand, then grinned when he reverently placed the iPod on it. “I’ll think about it,” she said, “in the meantime, pick me up at seven and you can pay for dinner. It’ll be like a date, but you’re probably not going to get laid.”
And oh, ok, maybe the smug grin was not actually all that off putting, at least not when it came with those Eyes and the slow burn, and guh. “Probably. I can work with probably.”