In a bar...

[captain_fucking_magic]

Harry's having a fairly good day, as these things go. He's taking a break from work, and has absconded with Perry's laptop to the bar, where he is typing up a blog post detailing their last case. Or at least, what he's allowed to blog about. Perry still insists on checking these things over before Harry posts them (confidentiality and all that, which fine. Harry can work with that), but he's got pretty good at knowing which bits to leave out or alter slightly to keep Perry in business.

And besides. It's kind of fun, being like Dr Watson. Only, you know. Without the doctor part.

Comments

[myeuh_muh]

School sucks, let's eat! Darcy's got to kind of like this place, the Bar always knows when to serve ice-cream and when pizza is more appropriate.

Today is a pizza and root-beer float kind of a day.

You'd have thought that perhaps two years of navigating a college library would teach you to look out for trailing wires.

You would have thought wrong.

"Shit! God, I am so sorry!"

[captain_fucking_magic]

Harry jumps, but luckily the cord pops out of the laptop without sending it crashing to the floor.

"Yikes!"

Harry looks around, more startled than anything. People in glass houses, and all that. Harry's not allowed to be annoyed at people for tripping over wires.

[myeuh_muh]

"Sorry, sorry." Darcy puts down her pizza and tries to lick ice-cream and root beer off her wrist at the same time and the root beer tips alarmingly. She tries to correct it by bending more. It sort of works. She looks at Harry upside down.

"Is your computer okay?"

[captain_fucking_magic]

"Uh."

He looks down at the laptop (the model's about six years old, from Darcy's perspective, but it looks brand new), and finds nothing wrong with it.

"Yep. Are you?"

[myeuh_muh]

"Just my pride." Darcy rights herself and picks up her pizza again. "You'd think I'd learn to look where I walk, right?"

She doesn't judge the old laptop. Hers is at least four years old, and still going pretty strong.

[captain_fucking_magic]

Harry just looks at her for a moment, as if waiting for her to fall over or something. Or maybe trip again.

"Could be useful," he says finally.

[myeuh_muh]

What's with the stare? Darcy stares back. He's kind of cute, in a puppy-ish... OH.

"Woa, that's weird. You look just like this guy I know. But less like... Sharp."

That's a compliment, right?

[captain_fucking_magic]

Ah. Right. Well, she doesn't look Victorian, so Harry takes a gamble in the other direction.

"Let me guess. Constant bed-hair, hilariously-sculpted beard, platform shoes..."

[myeuh_muh]

"Oh man, you noticed the shoes too? You know the whole Iron Man suit is like, three inches taller than he is? I figure like, he only starts half way up the calf when he's in the suit."

She sits down. Why not?

[captain_fucking_magic]

Yeah, he noticed the shoes, but he's not about to say how.

"Only three?" he asks. "He's gotta be at least six-one in that thing."

[myeuh_muh]

"I dunno, they always photograph him from a low angle so the only reason I know how tall he is is because of pap shots of him with Whatshername. Some model or something."

Darcy sticks some pizza in her face.

"Want some?"

It's a whole pizza with everything. The bell peppers make it healthy.

[captain_fucking_magic]

"Yeah, sure," Harry says.

He takes a slice, and manages to balance it and the laptop without dripping anything down his front.

He's done this before.

"She basically runs everything," he says. "Pepper Potts. She's, like, the woman with the power. Tony Stark's just the one with the bank account."

[myeuh_muh]

"No no, it wasn't Pepper Potts. It was just like, one of those scandal rag things you know, 'Tony Stark seen with woman, are they an item?' Probably not, he's been shagging his way across the world since he was old enough to know how."

Darcy sighs and chews pizza. "I guess he's all fucked up from being a millionaire or something."

[captain_fucking_magic]

"Oh. Huh. Don't know her, then."

He looks over at Darcy, as if trying to decide if he recognises her or not.

"How do you fit into all this, then? The... superheroes and all that stuff."

[myeuh_muh]

Darcy shrugs.

"I'm not a superhero or whatever if that's what you mean. The closest I ever got to a superhero was like when, I took this internship up in a tiny town in New Mexico And bunch of shit went down and I signed a bunch of paperwork that said I wouldn't talk about it, even though the men in black never gave me back my iPod or anything. So like, I have this totally cool story about how I met Thor but I can't ever tell anyone. So I guess really I don't have a cool story. What about you? Do you like, do birthday parties as Iron Man or something?"

[captain_fucking_magic]

"No, but that's a really good idea," Harry says. "I'm just, like, a glorified office boy for the world's straightest gay guy ever."

[myeuh_muh]

"Office boy, huh?" She raises an eyebrow.

Typical. Where are all the good men gone.

[captain_fucking_magic]

"Yeah, you know," Harry says. "Harry, get those copies on my desk five minutes ago. Harry, what the fuck did you do to the printer again? Harry, your filing system sucks. You're fired again."

See? Glorified office boy.

[myeuh_muh]

Darcy eats more pizza and considers this. Either this guy has the best ever poker face and some really weird euphemisms for sex or he is actually just the office-boy.

"I used to have a job like that." She says, finally. "Just like, a part time one. It kinda came to an end when he asked me to assume the position over the photocopier."

And that is when Darcy started carrying her taser.

[captain_fucking_magic]

Huh. Harry thought she already looked kinda young. Like, young enough to be having a root beer float because the Bar won't serve her anything more exciting.

"I know this is something you're not supposed to ask, but just how old are you, sweetheart?"

[myeuh_muh]

Darcy looks at the root-beer float and clicks.

"Oh, I'm like, twenty-three in May. But sometimes pepperoni pizza just has to be eaten with root-beer and ice-cream. What about you?"

Tit for tat, man.

[captain_fucking_magic]

Harry thinks about this for a moment.

"Still couldda probably sued him for sexual harassment. There's not a whole lot of money in that, but it destroys a guy's reputation pretty quickly."

Probably too late now, though.

"And, uh. Thirty-six. Like I didn't already feel like a creepy old man."

[myeuh_muh]

"I was like, nineteen. I just kneed him in the balls. He gave me a brilliant reference though. And like, don't worry about an age-gap. Like, I've seen worse. Way worse. I'd tell you all the juicy details but I signed a bit of paper that said I wouldn't. Or that I was a member of Reader's Digest. I can't remember."

[captain_fucking_magic]

"Really?" Harry asks, almost fishing for more information.

Not at what Darcy's kinda-sorta hinting. She's almost young enough to be his kid, if he'd started very, very early. But at her confidentiality agreement.

[myeuh_muh]

"Yuh-huh. I'm assuming not on the Reader's Digest though, 'cause I haven't seen a magazine at all. It was just all this, don't tell, don't even think about it. But it's like, who would believe me anyway? I mean, they might now, I guess, but like, when I signed it."

A thought occurs to her.

"It might not even be valid any more... What do you think?"