Work Text:
This is so stupid , Darcy thinks. Phil called to ask if they could meet up at eleven instead of one to go over the newest SHIELD/Avengers requisition form. It’s a standing monthly appointment (the crew burns through goods fast). Darcy has an office on the Avengers floor, but Phil kept insisting they go to the penthouse---
Like really insisting. Darcy figured he was angling for a nooner, which yeah , she’s down. But then he’d tried to kiss her, and look, Darcy’s a smart girl. Phil’s schtick is guilt fucking (a little like hate-fucking, but not quite). They don’t kiss. Phil pretends to not know her, if possible. He has trouble maintaining eye contact (she suspects it’s because she knows how he licks his balls licked and he’s not comfortable with anyone having that kind of knowledge). But sometimes his eyes stray, to her tits, or her legs, or her ass, and he looks a little angry, a little ashamed of himself and his lack of control. He’s not known for making obvious overtures. Phil avoids her for as long as possible, until he snaps and throws her over a desk, or takes her in a supply closet like a horny teenager like he can’t fucking stand not to be fucking her right now . He gets dirty-old-man-angst if he looks at her too long, which is why he usually fucks her from behind. It works for them and Darcy likes letting the buttons pop on her blouse just to see the vein in his temple throb.
And he tried to kiss her. Like. On purpose .
In a hallway. Like, they weren’t even near the supply closet.
So she tazes him. A little. He’s being weird.
She pushes him into the nearest room (one of the other tactical training rooms) and tases him right under the chin.
He should have dropped to the floor in a twitching, drooling mess. And he does drop, but less with the drooling and more a mechanical, mutated screech. He fucking split into two Phils and a bunch of tiny fucking robots fall out of his insides, like golf-ball-sized hedgehogs, rolling across the floor and sprouting legs. “Shit! Shit! Holy shit!” Darcy manages to hit the lockdown button next to the door, effectively trapping herself in the room with the RoboPhills and their army of mechanical spiders. Whatever they are---they do not need to be all over the goddamn tower.
“What the fuck?” Barnes bellows, as he punches half a Phil in his shiny, mechanical face. For only having one leg, the Robo Phils are fucking spry . Darcy thinks they’re starting to like--grow. More parts. Which is concerning. The spider things are coming together to form a leg, and an arm, whirring in perfect harmony to attach themselves into place. There are---a lot of spider balls. Barnes is, as always, dressed for a fight. Darcy, on the other hand, is wearing stilettos and a mini skirt (Phil likes ‘em porno-short). “What the fucking fuck---”
“We had---An appointment. He was being weird--I don’t know! Oh holy shit!” Darcy stomps on a robot coming near her, and it doesn’t crunch satisfyingly like an autumn leaf, but clings to her fucking foot instead. “Oh my god!” She climbs up on a work out bench, and considers kicking off her heels but---having no shoes seems like a bad idea. She scrapes the spider off instead, like dog shit on a curb.“The rooms on internal lockdown---these can’t get out. Tony should---”
“Jarvis is scanning them to see what can be done,” Tony cuts in, over the coms. “Smart thinking on the lock-down, baby.”
“Uh Stark?” Barnes barks, and Darcy whips around just in time to see his half of the Robo Phil split again, spider balls rising up to support this new Robo Phil the III. There’s less of--whatever it used as skin (please, please, please don’t be Phil’s real skin), stretching across the shiny, metal skeleton, but what's left flutters like paper mache on a pinata with every move. “This is some medusa level shit. Stark! Weapon intel! What are we dealing with?”
“ Can’t get a read on the spiders, but they’re putting out low-level EMP signals. Probably explode on impact with metal,” Tony tells them. “They seem to act like an exoskeleton but they have a pretty complex data collection sensor; they absolutely cannot get out. No solid read on the Phils yet. They’re mostly made of high tensile iron-copper alloy - they’re throwing out enough to scramble the reads. They’re strong--”
“We noticed,” Barnes mutters, wriggling himself out of Philip II’s grip. “What kind of weapons do we have on hand?”
“Well there’s your arsenal in the locker room,” Tony responds dryly. “ If you can get to it... Jarvis picked up six separate internal cores, so assume they can split into six...Signals coming from the torso, so aim there..”
“Copper like---like a mother board?” Darcy kicks a spider across the room.
“It’s looking like it, yeah.” Tony hums, over the intercom. “It looks like the spiders can patch in everytime they split. The Phil’s are essentially brains; don’t know what they can do. The spiders are the muscle. They need the Phils for command; I’m picking up wireless signals.”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Darcy thinks, hopping from toe to toe on the bench. This is...Essentially a gym. So. It should have---But she doesn’t see it. “Tony--- defibrillator. Where?”
“I’m going to fuck you extra hard,” Tony announces to the room at large. “For thinking of that before I did. Behind the grey panel in the wall farthest from you.”
“You can’t be touching them when I fry them,” Darcy tells Barnes. “The charge will transfer. Head to the locker room, get your shit.”
Barnes boggles at her. “I’m not just going to leave you here!”
Darcy would argue, but there isn’t any time. Left Phil splits again. “The guard my back and get us to the locker rooms. We’ll take out what we can on the way.”
*******************************************************
She wakes up in medical feeling fantastic and drugged to the gills. There’s an IV to her left, dripping The Good Stuff directly into her blood and Darcy is just---very appreciative. Beneath her hospital gown, a thick grey patch is stretched over her ribs. Darcy’s not sure what it is but it feels---good?
“Limitless money, an open relationship and general debauchery aren’t the only perks of riding my dick, baby-cakes,” Tony says, from the chair beside the bed. He looks a little harried, like he’s been worried about her, and Darcy feels---something. In her heart-region. “The patch blocks pain-receptors the way aspirin or Tylenol does, but instead of putting it into your bloodstream, we just transmit it locally through a series of electrodes. You feel fine, but your ribs are super, super broken.” He stares at her for a long moment, enough for Darcy to feel inexplicably guilty. “They had to cut you open and replace several inches of bone. Two of your ribs were smashed to dust, it took six hours before the doctors were certain no bone shards were left to migrate and stab your internal organs. Two other ribs just cracked. Everything’s bruised.” He leans back in the chair, and props his boots up on the edge of the mattress. “All over Barnes.”
“Well I needed his help getting out of there alive and he couldn’t very well do that with his brain leaking out his ears.”
A sharp bark of laughter escapes Tony. “And here I thought you were going to claim altruism or some shit. Okay. Fine. Reasonable. But you scared me, sunshine.”
“Please, I handled it like a boss.” She remembers climbing the ropes, shooting the weird Robo Phil’s from the rafters. “Don’t lie, I looked hot as hell.”
“It would have been hotter if you hadn’t passed out twenty feet above the floor from internal bleeding,” Tony tells her mildly. “The spider thing punctured your left lung. But yeah, you look with a gun. Scary , but good.”
“So do I have like, bionic ribs now? They don’t do anything weird, do they?”
“Gold Titanium Alloy.” Tony winks at her. “I scrapped it from one of my old suits.”
“Romantic,” Darcy grins at him. “Barnes make it out okay?”
“He did. Cap managed to override your internal lock-down, and zap the last Robo Phil with the AED. Smart thinking on the lock-down though; those things were equipped with some pretty heavy duty info-storage.”
“And Phil? We got eyes on him?”
“Alive and well,” Tony confirms. “He’s actually waiting to see you. I’ll leave you to it. They’re going to discharge you today, but you’re on bed rest until further notice.” He brushes his hand over her head and leans down to kiss her sweetly. “I’ve got a promise to keep. You did good, kiddo. Clint had a boner through the debrief watching you shoot. Kept muttering about how hot it was that you raised your arm on the follow up after every shot. Thought he was gonna shoot his load in his pants right in front of Phil's debrief.”
“And you didn’t have a boner?”
“Babe, I watched it live.” He kisses her again. “Of course I did.”
Phil comes, looking stiff and uncomfortable. He doesn’t say much, from where he stands at her bedside. “Perhaps it would be wise if we didn’t continue our....liaisons.”
Darcy grins. He’s trying not to look at her nipples, where they’re hard beneath the thin layer of her tank top. “You always say that.”
“And I always believe it.” He sighs, the long suffering one he seems to save for her. “This event only further cements my belief.”
“Yeah buddy. Keep telling yourself that.” Darcy reaches out to pat his arm, as condescending as possible from her nest on the bed. “Same time, same supply closet next month?”
Phil looks away. “I’ll be in the city on the fifth if you’re free? We still need to go over requisitions.”
“You haven’t had me over a desk in a while,” Darcy muses, grinning when Phil twitches .
“Until next time, Ms. Lewis.”