InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "It's prison, yo!"

---

It was their last day in Disney and Darcy knew that she should probably be out enjoying the parks, buying last minute souvenirs and supplies, and just generally not spending time on campus when they would more than likely be back in the void next week. And yet she was in Tony’s lab, which seemed more like it was ‘theirs’ these days, looking through the pictures she’d picked up from their wedding reception.

The party had been amazing and they had spared no expense since they weren’t technically paying for it. It was supposed to be a fun time, nothing serious, just a way to get the most out of their visit here as possible.

And yet.

There had been a few moments throughout the reception where it felt different. Real. And that scared Darcy. She didn’t really do relationships and she knew damn well that Tony Stark didn’t either. At least until he’d settled down with Pepper, but she was no Pepper Potts and that was years in the future.

Darcy was catching feelings for her faux husband and she had no idea what to do about it.

---

Tony had been living out of the lab for most of the week. Perhaps he should have taken advantage of the fact that they were somewhere in the real world for once. He had taken a break for the reception, but then it had been back to work. He was on the verge of decoding his father’s message to him, work that would be made quicker now that he had what he needed to fully upgrade his workstation. Thank whatever pantheon of gods apparently existed for a week in civilization.

While JARVIS became fully integrated in the new computer system, Tony had run back to his room to shower and change out of the clothes he had been wearing since yesterday. He returned to the lab to find Darcy seated at the table that had slowly become hers over the past few weeks. Tony stopped in the doorway and leaned against the doorframe. They had managed to avoid one another since the reception. Something had been touched upon afterward that apparently neither one of them were prepared to acknowledge. He didn’t expect to see her before the reset.

He watched her from the doorway for a moment before speaking up. “Photo prints, huh? How old fashioned.”

---

Darcy was a little startled to hear his voice, having expected that he would be taking advantage of their last few hours in civilization, and she looked up in surprise. “Yeah, well, it was all part of the package,” she said. “We got a disc too.” If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that the photos were of a regular couple who was celebrating their union. Apparently they were both excellent actors because in a few of these, they really looked like they had a real relationship.

“I didn’t think you’d be here tonight. What’s up?” She knew he’d been spending a lot of time in the lab, but they hadn’t really talked about what he was working on.

---

“I’m on to something with the power source issue.” While he hadn’t had time to dig through his father’s SHIELD box in Fillory, once they got their memories back the following week, Tony had begun working his way through the box’s contents. The appearance of a scale model of the ‘74 Stark Expo and a conversation with Loki of all people had helped him understand just what his father had been trying to tell him in the old film reel footage. His previous piecemeal setup lacked the juice for what he needed it to do, but thanks to his and Darcy’s online banking excursion and a little bit of portal magic, Tony had been able to gather what he required.

He was still leaning in the doorway when he spoke, but then straightened up and came inside to where Darcy was seated and picked up a couple of discarded pictures. The photographer had managed to capture a series of photos of Tony and Darcy dancing. The reception had been in celebration of a relationship that was entirely unreal. But then why did it look real to the couple in the photos?

---

"Oh great!" Darcy said, watching as he crossed the room and picked up a few photos. "What can I do to help?"

Everything else aside, she did genuinely care about his well being and wanted to do whatever she could to help him build a new arc reactor.

Besides, focusing on science was a good distraction from thinking about her feelings.

---

Tony’s eyes lingered on one photo in particular, before he tossed them back onto the table. Out of sight, out of mind. He motioned toward the giant model being held up by three of the lab tables he had pushed together. A perfect distraction.

“If I’m right,” he said, leaving out the usual “and I’m always right” line that he would have used on just about everyone else, “That’s a blueprint to something bigger. ‘The key to the future,’ he said. His life’s work.” Tony didn’t bother clarifying who he meant. He had been singularly focused on his father for the past week, and on his possessions that had fallen into Tony’s hands for some reason. This had to be the reason.

---

Walking over to stand next to him, Darcy studied the model with interest. She hadn’t been able to find much about Howard Stark’s plans in the SHIELD files when she hacked them, so she wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking at, though it did seem promising.

She was very aware of his presence and told herself she should take a step back, put a little more physical distance between them, but she couldn’t make herself do it. Over the past few weeks, she’d gotten used to having him close and she liked it more than she probably should. God, this was getting way more complicated than she’d ever have imagined.

“All right, so where do we start?” she asked.

---

The hint of a smile appeared on Tony’s lips at her readiness. He wasn’t accustomed to others sharing interest in his projects. Instead of answering, he clapped his hands twice.

And nothing happened.

Pursed lips, a furrowed brow, and one finger held up in a just one second kind of way, Tony slipped away from Darcy’s side to walk back to stare at one of the computer screens that had been upgraded from its scavenged 1990 model. A few quick keyboard strokes, a confirming glance at the area around the model, and finally a two-handed snap in front of a second computer screen, and Tony took a step back. “Say ‘hi,’ JARVIS.”

“Good evening, Dr. Lewis,” came the disembodied voice of Tony’s AI from the computer hub where Tony stood. It was a fraction of JARVIS’ usual commanding presence, but the Ellsworth lab was a far cry from Tony’s technology-integrated smart house in Malibu.

Tony returned to Darcy’s side. “Let’s try this again.” He clapped his hands twice, and suddenly a grid of holographic lights surrounded them and the model on the table.

“Hologram projector system operational,” JARVIS informed them needlessly.

Tony rolled his eyes and nodded, used to the AI’s frequent statement of the obvious. He looked at Darcy. “We start here.”

---

The voice startled Darcy until she realized it was the same voice she’d heard from his armor when they didn’t have their memories. After a moment, she also recognized it as Vision’s voice. “Woah,” she said. “Impressive.” It shouldn’t really surprise her, given what she knew about Tony’s technological advancements at home, and yet she was still caught off guard that he managed to rig up the lab to this degree on their limited resources and funds.

She grinned at him, her eyes shining with a mix of admiration, curiosity, and excitement. “Here’s hoping we don’t get anything too terrible thrown at us next week,” she said. “I don’t want anything to distract us from this.” She realized that she was speaking as if it was a given she would helping him. Of course, he’d also said ‘we’.

If they were going to hole up in the lab together, Darcy really needed to deal with these unexpected feelings. Otherwise, things could get messy and she didn’t want that to happen. “Assuming you want my help,” she added, hoping she didn’t sound as awkward as she felt by offering him the out.

---

Tony hadn’t exactly been the most proactive the last time they had been anywhere with the tech to serve his purposes. He had managed to score a few choice pieces in Space Vegas, but his pursuits had been more hedonistic than fruitful. Of course, in his indulgence, he had managed to score a wife. He looked at her now, her eyes bright with anticipation, ready to take on a problem that wasn’t hers. This was the sort of road he usually traveled alone. Rhodey had tried to tell him he didn’t have to. Tony hadn’t believed him then.

But what about now?

Darcy offered her help.

And Tony leaned down and kissed her. It wasn’t like one of his typical kisses—expected and leading to one very particular thing. But it was deliberate. And though his eyes were open at first, they eventually closed.

The kiss was reminiscent of the one they had shared after they arrived at their hotel room following the reception. None of their usual banter, just a desperate sense that their bodies were never close enough. A release of the tension that had been building between the two of them and now had nowhere else to go. In the morning, they both sensed that something had been different about the night before, but instead of acknowledging it, they had each gone their separate ways.

And now he had kissed her, and in a way that was a statement in and of itself, even if Tony wasn’t entirely clear where it had come from or even why. But it felt right.

---

Darcy hadn’t been expecting the kiss and yet she immediately melted into it, her arms wrapping around Tony's neck. It made her feel the way she'd felt after the reception, when they finally retired to the honeymoon suite that was included in the reception package. The suite full of romantic touches like roses, strawberries, and champagne, all of which they indulged in a way that didn't feel ironic or like it was part of the game.

When she reluctantly broke the kiss, she didn't pull her arms away, instead looking up at him, her eyes clouded with a combination of desire and confusion.

"What are we doing?" Darcy asked, her voice thick with emotion. Even as the words left her lips, her heart started to beat faster, fearful that the mere act of acknowledging the moment would break the spell and ruin everything. They were out now though and she couldn't take them back.

---

Tony’s brow furrowed a little as Darcy ended the kiss. He looked at her for a moment, then glanced out at the model. “Discovering a new power source?” As his gaze returned to her, his face twisted up into a playful expression. “Re-discovering would probably be a better word. But the old man did make it extremely hard to find.”

Not what Darcy had meant, clearly, but then, Tony did not know how to answer the question as she had posed it. He had absolutely no idea what they were doing. He just knew he wanted to do it. And wasn’t that the reason Tony Stark did anything?

---

As much as part of Darcy would like to just push right past it and pretend there wasn’t something happening between them, she knew that she couldn’t ignore it any longer. Even if Tony didn’t want to have this conversation, it had to happen.

“Tony,” she said, her tone slightly weary. “You know what I mean. And I’m sorry, but I can’t pretend it’s not there.” She had no idea how to really go about having this conversation, relationships had never really been her thing, so she was fumbling through it and praying she wasn’t about to wreck their friendship and working relationship in the process since she had no desire to lose either of those things.

She took his hand and tugged him towards the sofa in the lab. A sofa where they’d spent a fair amount of time over the past few weeks, taking breaks from their science to make out or just relax. “Fair warning, this is new territory for me,” Darcy said. “But it feels like there’s more between us now than just friends with benefits who do science and happened to get drunk married.” God, that was a mouthful. “And if I’m reading you wrong and you don’t feel like that, then that’s okay. I just need to know.” So she didn’t let herself fall for him. Derleth wasn’t that big and she did not want to have things go south because of unrequited feelings and have no space to be away from each other.

If she was reading him wrong, this would be pretty embarrassing, but it certainly wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever dealt with and at least she’d know.

---

The tone her voice took when she said his name was a familiar one. He had heard it all his life. It usually meant he was avoiding something. An unhappy childhood, a disapproving father, responsibility, his mistakes, his mortality.

Tony’s instinct was to redirect with a little snark, but then she took his hand, and he let himself be pulled along to whatever Darcy had in store. He plopped down next to her on the sofa, his facial expression entirely unreadable. At least he hoped it was.

“That was kind of a mouthful,” Tony agreed when she had finished talking, as if he knew she had been thinking the same thing. “The kiss was more concise.” He looked back to where they had been standing. “You caught that, right?” He turned back to look at Darcy, a small smile finally breaking out across his face. “Because I thought that was you.”

---

She released a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding and returned his smile with a soft one of her own. “Concise, yes. But not perfectly clear.” And the last thing Darcy wanted to do in this situation was assume.

It seemed as if she wasn’t misreading things though and that was a relief. Where they went from here was a whole other conversation. “So… we should figure out exactly what this means,” she said. “I mean, in terms of boundaries and stuff.”

---

“Really? Because I kissed you, you kissed me back, it felt like we were answering some kind of unasked question. Pretty well, actually.”

Tony was being serious, even if his delivery made it seem like he was playing down the situation. Old habits die hard, and one of Tony’s oldest was using humor to keep people at arm’s length, keeping them from getting emotionally close enough to him to form any kind of serious emotional relationship. It worked both ways.

“Boundaries. I like boundaries, boundaries are good. Usually as something to push at.” The futurist looks toward the stars kind of thing. And again, not what Darcy was asking for. But then he took a breath and looked away. A few seconds passed. “I don’t really do this. The whole unburdening myself to another person thing. It’s not my style.” Tony returned his attention to Darcy. “But you’re right. There’s something there. Us. There’s definitely an us. I may not know what that means exactly, but it’s there.”

There, he was emotionally honest with another person, and the world didn’t end. Not yet, anyway.

It wasn’t as if he had never been in a relationship before. He had gone moon-eyed for the occasional love interest in the past, but in more recent years, he had sought out pleasure instead of connection. Since becoming Iron Man, both had been set aside. But things had changed in Derleth. He had changed in Derleth.

---

“Neither do I,” Darcy said. “But I guess acknowledging there is an us is as good a place to start as any.” Most people probably did that long before hitting marriage or even sleeping together, but they weren’t most people so why should they do anything remotely normal?

She took his hand again, wanting that connection as they tried to figure this out. “So we start with that and then figure out the rest later,” she said. “People do this all the time, right? We’re both above average intelligence. How hard can it be?”

---

“Incredibly,” Tony answered, partially in jest, but also honestly. He stood up from the sofa and pulled her along with him, giving her one extra tug so that her body pressed up against his. “But I like our chances.” He kissed her again, feeling a kind of freedom in being able to enjoy it as more than a sexual daliance, if that’s how he wanted to. And in the moment, he did.

He was the one to pull away this time. “That was a yes to the help, by the way.” He pointed in the direction of the Stark Expo Model. “Can we get back to the science? Or are there anymore questions I can find creative ways to answer?”

---

Darcy rolled her eyes, but she was smiling, relieved that she hadn’t made this up in her head and that it was finally out in the open. Where it went from here was anyone’s guess and she had a feeling it was going to be an interesting ride.

“I do enjoy your creative answers,” she said. “I suppose we can get back to science though.”

She walked back to the model and gave him an expectant look. “Okay, so tell me what you’ve pieced together so far,” she said.

---

Tony followed her back to the table. Nothing about his past indicated that this thing with Darcy wouldn’t completely crash and burn. But as a man with shrapnel millimeters away from entering his heart, who regularly strapped himself into a flying suit of armor, he was used to taking risks. He looked over at Darcy.

She seemed worth it.