Chapter Text
Tony Stark was impressed with the precautions taken to hide whomever it was that called one Darcy Lewis. The only reason he had accepted this need to find the caller was because Coulson had said it would be a puzzle of sorts, and what an interesting puzzle it turned out to be so far. It had amused him when he found the call had pretty much been wiped from any call history; however, just like anything electronic nothing is ever truly erased.
So he followed the breadcrumbs as far back as he could until he hit a batch of viruses and coding. The work was phenomenal, and he really wanted to know who created it, because even with his genius it was difficult to navigate past. It took him several hours to finally work past and eliminate the viruses before they corrupted any of his equipment, but he still couldn’t find the location of the caller. The signal bounced around too much to be able to get a location.
Completely impressed, he decided to call Darcy and impress upon her his excitement. The voice on the other side of the line wasn’t exactly what he imagined; it was lower in pitch than some women with a slightly husky quality to it that made shivers run down his spine. If he wasn’t a taken and now dedicated man, Tony might have tried to flirt heavily with her. Actually that wouldn’t stop him from flirting with her, but for now he was concentrating on tracking the phone call and getting her location so that he could visit her in person.
He was amused at her attempts to tell him that there had been no phone call, at least until he dropped Agent Coulson’s name. Then her attitude flipped from passively aggressive to something bordering rage, honestly it kind of scared him because it was a complete turnaround. However, what she ended up saying before she hung up cycled through his head a bit and brought up questions. Questions that he didn’t have answers for, and he wanted answers, “Jarvis, we’re still in SHIELD mainframes right?”
“Yes sir, we are still within their mainframe. Would you like me to search for all records mentioning Darcy Lewis?” Jarvis’ voice came from the ceiling.
“Yes, I want to know everything that there is to know about her. Even sealed records,” Tony said as he left his workshop and made his way up the stairs toward his room, he needed to change, pack a couple of day’s worth of clothes and his suitcase armor.
“As you wish sir, her address has been sent to your phone and a flight manifest has been made and approved,” Jarvis’ stated, slightly amused at his creators actions.
“Thank you Jarvis.” Tony said before hurrying toward the direction of the elevators; without hopefully being seen by the others.
“Tony, where are you in a hurry off to?” Clint asked, his head poking out of one of the ventilation shafts.
“Ah, just going to visit someone I am curious about. Think of it as part of a project of Agent Agent, in true Stark fashion.” Tony said, hurrying away again hoping that none of the others would stop them. However, the muffled thump that came from behind dictated otherwise.
“Why is Coulson giving you a project, and not telling the rest of us?” Steve’s voice carried over from in front of the elevator that Tony was trying to make his escape to without being noticed; apparently he needed to work on stealth.
“Do you know how to hack? Any of you? No? That’s what I thought, it was a good thing he did ask me, or I would have missed out on some very good talent, now if you will forgive me, I have a flight to catch under the not so watchful eye of Coulson.” Tony explained, rushed as he tried to get the elevator doors to close faster before the two of them could get into the lift.
Steve and Clint looked towards each other and seemed to have an entire conversation without saying anything before getting into the lift with their more eccentric teammate. “So where are we going?”
“I am going to see a hacker, a good one; you are going to stay here, far away from hopefully my new hacker.” Tony stated as he glared at them out of the corner of his eye. “Also, do not tell Coulson where I went, he’ll know somehow and I don’t want to deal with the paperwork he’d saddle me with before I got there and she left. She is the only clue I have to get to this hacker and damned if I am going to lose her!” The doors to the elevator opened and Tony practically sprinted out of the lift, the doors to the tower and into the car that Happy was waiting patiently next to.
-.-.-.-
The ride to the airport was filled with Tony gently but frantically pawing through the files that Jarvis had uploaded to his Stark Pad and hoping that he made it to Virginia before she ran. Although, he had a feeling that even if he did make it before she left, that she wouldn’t open the door and let him in.
The information Jarvis had found was startling little, she was a computer prodigy and took college courses at the age of thirteen at New Hampshire Technical Institute. While it wasn’t the best school it had been close to her home. After graduating with a master’s degree in Computer Engineering it seemed like she dropped off the map until the New Mexico incident where she met Thor.
“Well, well that’s interesting. So that is why SHIELD is tapping, and following you around Darcy. You were there when Thor first made contact, and you were an intern for Dr. Foster. Now why would a Poli-sci student intern for an astrophysicist? Actually, why would someone holding a master’s degree in computer engineering work to get a degree in political science? Ugh, my opinion of you just dropped a few points Darcy.” Tony stated with a slight amount of disgust coloring his voice.
It didn’t take long to reach the airport and climb aboard the plane; however, it did take a couple of seconds to register the fact that Barton, Romanoff and Steve were waiting for him. On his plane, the plane that he was going to take to Virginia alone, and hopefully corner Darcy Lewis and talk to her.
“What the hell are you guys doing here?” Tony asked, amused disbelief coloring his voice as he stared at each of his teammates.
“Well we figured we would come with, kind of like a road trip, plus to keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t get into trouble. Because if you get into trouble Phil is going to give us disapproving looks for letting you go by yourself. This way if we do get disapproving looks it’s because we all went and still let you get into trouble,” Clint explained with a smirk painting his face.
“Fine, but you let me do the talking, if she knew her phones were being tapped and followed by your agency then she’ll more than likely not want to speak to you.” Tony said as he sat down and strapped himself in for lift off.
Clint, Natasha and Steve shared a look before turning to him and nodding, “just don’t piss her off Tony, she tased Thor and one agent in New Mexico when he tried to hit on her.” Clint warned before leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes.
“Really? That wasn’t in the files that I had Jarvis find and read on my way over,” Tony said looking at Clint with an assessing glint in his eyes, “you met her?”
“No, but I was assigned to New Mexico and was tasked with watching Dr. Foster, Dr. Selvig, Thor and Ms. Lewis. I watched her tase the agent, but didn’t find out about the Thor tasing incident until Thor’s merry band of friends came to visit and the fire breathing robot appeared.” Clint said, his head still canted back and eyes closed.
Tony let out an ‘hmm’ but turned his attention back toward the tablet that he had brought with him. “Why are you so interested in this hacker, Tony?” Natasha asked, her face and voice void of any emotion.
“Because he or she is good, really good and I’d rather have them in my employ than for a rival company. Whoever this person is, will eventually be found and hidden away in some sub-basement of a company and never let out of again. I can and will offer them more than that, plus I haven’t seen work this good in a long while, ever since a hacker called C0d3_M@$t3r, who was better than Zero Cool in the fact that they never got caught. I want someone like that working for me and not against me.” Tony explained, never once looking at Natasha and concentrating on his Stark Pad.
“I see,” Natasha said, but didn’t explain any further and started a conversation with Steve explaining who Zero Cool was, and why he was arrested. Pulling up the news articles and broadcasts from the trial on her own Stark Pad and letting him watch them.
They fell into a comfortable semi-silence with Tony concentrating on trying to bypass the coding and viruses, Natasha talking quietly with Steve, and Clint who was napping. Two hours passed before the plane started its decent into Virginia private airfield, another ten minutes passed before they were able to disembark the plane and pile into the car that waiting to take them to Darcy’s apartment.
-.-.-.-.-
When they arrived at the complex that housed Darcy, it was not really what they expected. The complex wasn’t the best, but not the worst and was almost inconspicuous. Although Tony grumbled when he found out the elevator didn’t work, and had to climb up to the sixth floor to reach their final destination. The apartment they were looking for was on the far side of the complex facing the alley; Tony knocked on the door and waited for an answer. He waited a moment, listening for any sound from inside the apartment before knocking again. When no sound was forthcoming he let out a curse and knelt in front of the door and produced a lock picking kit.
“When the hell did you learn to pick locks?” Clint asked incredulously.
“I was bored as a kid,” Tony said, and deftly picked the locks on the door and let it swing open and standing up. “She’s not here.” He said as he made his way around the apartment to get a feel of the woman he had talked to on the phone. One thing that he noticed was while there were a lot of knickknacks there was very little personal items, no pictures of her or her family, no accomplishments hanging on the wall, no sense of personality really.
“It feels lived in, but impersonal, kind of like a safe house.” Natasha stated as she looked around the living room, occasionally poking an item or picking it up to look at more closely.
“Hey, I found a computer over here, it’s turned on but in sleep mode,” Clint called out from the kitchen and waited for the others to crowd around before turning it on. When the screen turned on, they were met with a video that was paused, and a woman’s face filling up the screen.
Hitting play they all watched the video, “Hello Tony, and guests, well I assume there are guests considering you are the ‘Avengers’ as the news has named you. My name is Darcy Lewis, and I take it that you came to visit me. Sorry to say but you have missed me, and probably won’t see me for a while, I went to help out a friend with a problem,” Darcy paused, a thoughtful look passing over her face before she spoke again, “I will tell you once again, there was no phone call this afternoon please do not look into it further.” Darcy grimaced slightly, “I just antagonized you into it I think, if you’re anything like the others I know with your constant curiosity you’ll look into it.
“If you do look into the situation, which I know you will now that I’ve asked you not to, don’t get caught and don’t leave traces. Don’t trust suits, except maybe Agent Ipod-thief, and even he’s iffy.” Darcy sighed, “Last thing, don’t look for me you won’t find me, and that is a fact and if you do I deserve to be found.” The smirk on her face was smug before the video itself blacked out.
“Well she’s interesting, and now I really am curious. Come on, let’s head home. I think we’ve found everything here that we are going to find.” Tony said as he shut the laptop, unplugged it and tucked it under his arm.
“Why are you bringing the laptop Tony?” Steve asked as they filed out of the apartment and made sure the door was locked behind them.
“If she left it behind with a message on it, then maybe it has information we need. Though I doubt it, especially if she can ditch her entourage and not be noticed when she ran, if anything it will give me a deeper understanding of where to look.” Tony explained as they made their way down the stairs and out of the building.
“Do you think she’s in trouble of some sort? What about the hacker that you were looking for?” Steve asked, a little bit of worry worming into his voice at the thought of a pretty girl in trouble.
“I don’t think she’s in the kind of trouble you might be thinking, but there is something going on and she doesn’t want to involve others. That’s why she gave the warning to not leave traces, get caught, or trust suits. I have a feeling that if we find her, we find the hacker that I want to hire. Let’s go, the sooner I get home the faster I get home, and to my system the faster I can find her and ask her some questions.” Tony stated, as he climbed back into the car with the others and made their way back to the airport.
-.-.-.-.-
In a small hotel room off of interstate 81 outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania a laptop dinged. A petite woman, with an hourglass figure stood up from the bed, and sat in front of the laptop. “Well they got the message, now time to wipe it.” For the next hour and a half Darcy sat in front of one of her laptops, fingers flying across the keyboard, and coding speeding across the screen making sure to eradicate all traces of her presence from that system.
It wasn’t her best job, but it would throw them for a loop for a while, and get them off of her trail. Then maybe, once all of this was done and over with Darcy and Jake could meet Tony Stark. Maybe, that is if she doesn’t end up pissing him off by pretty much making the laptop fry itself when it powers up again. Then again, he might just see it as a challenge, and that would be an interesting development.
Once she was sure that everything was in place, she shut down her laptop, and headed to bed. It had been a long day, and she wanted some rest before she hit the road and met up with Hannah and Addi.