2 Broke Girls/Avengers/Thor Fic: Versus the Metaphorical Goatee Part 2/?
Title: Versus the Metaphorical Goatee (2/?)
Fandom: 2 Broke Girls/The Avengers/Thor
Pairings: Max/Caroline, Darcy/Clint, Steve/Tony(implied)
Summary: Things don’t end well for people Thor looks at like they’re evil twins.
Author's Notes: I think smittywing gets all the blame for this one. And the thanks for the beta. :)
Part One
The SHIELD clean-up team only call Coulson when there’s a problem. Stark and Captain Rogers in a shouting match with Thor qualifies as a problem, Coulson will admit. But possibly not as much of a problem as the two people dumped in the interrogation room behind Stark, Captain Rogers, and Thor.
Coulson steps around the ruckus and takes stock of the situation. “Gentlemen. Stark.”
“Son of Coul!” Thor sounds relieved. (The son of Coul thing never gets old. Really.) “Surely you can convince my comrades of the danger--”
“Danger?” Stark cut off Thor. “Thor, I’ve known this girl for years, she’s not a danger!”
“They wanted a picture with us.” Captain Rogers had his hands out, as if calming Thor down could be accomplished through judicious use of hand gestures and soothing tones.
“Stark.” Coulson snapped his fingers and then pointed at the blonde girl behind the mirrored glass. “I assume you’re talking about that one.”
“Yes.” And for once, Tony Stark sounded grateful to talk to him. It was uncomfortable.
“Her name is Caroline Channing. She’s the daughter of Martin Channing. You know the one. She’s not a threat. Not even a corporate one.”
Coulson nodded. “Miss Channing is not the problem. Her companion is.”
Stark and Rogers both angled their bodies to look around Coulson at the two women in the interrogation room.
Rogers recovered first, though he was still frowning. “I think they were both working at that terrible diner down the street from our operation. They didn’t engage us until after the fight was over and the agents have already confirmed they didn’t have weapons on them.”
"I have to tell you, the other one doesn't look very frightening." Stark crossed his arms in a loud screech of metal on metal.
There was a commotion outside and Widow, Barton, and Banner came in. Banner was wearing even less clothing than usual.
“Did you or did you not just leave us to do dinosaur clean up?” Barton asked darkly.
“I believe we agreed not to do that,” Romanoff said dangerously.
Rogers look pained, Stark looked annoyed and Thor looked apologetic. “We are sorry, my friends, but there was an urgent matter we needed to attend to.”
“More urgent than dinosaur dung?” Barton wasn’t shy about expressing his disbelief.
“Thor kidnapped two women,” Stark said nonchalantly.
“Barton.” Coulson waved Barton over.
“Kidnapped?” Banner sounded even less willing than usual to be part of this team.
Barton walked over to Coulson, mouth pinched and clearly still ready to engage in verbal battle with his other teammates. Until Coulson pointed at the interrogation room.
Barton processed in the blink of an eye and then turned to Thor and asked, very calmly, “Why did you kidnap my girlfriend?”
“Are you sure you’re doing that right?” Jane leaned across Darcy to snag the mouse back. Darcy smacked her on the hand and covered the mouse and keyboard with her body.
“Yes. Go away.”
Jane struggled to free her hand and when that didn’t work, she started scratching to get to the mouse. “No seriously, I think--”
“I think you can’t use any Microsoft programs but Excel which is why you have an intern,” Darcy grabbed Jane’s flailing hand and turned the battle into impromptu thumbwar.
“I can use Word,” Jane hissed.
“You have no imagination and your Powerpoints look like they’re on an overhead projector.” Darcy always wins at thumbwar. Jane has tiny hands.
Jane tries with her other hand. “Scientists appreciate clean lines and simple layouts.”
“Please, I’ve seen your three-dimensional graphs.” Darcy started to involve her leg and turn this into a bad game of Twister.
“If you would just--”
The phone rings. It’s Darcy’s phone because Darcy believes firmly in individualized ringtones and Jane believes firmly that there is one ringtone to rule them all.
There’s a brief scramble while they disentangle themselves and Darcy password locks the computer. Jane steals the phone in retaliation. “Hey Clint.”
Darcy plucks the phone from Jane’s hand, with only token resistance from Jane. “You shot Godzilla in the eye.”
“Just the one,” Clint laughs. “You should see what they did to the other one.”
“Oh I saw. The whole internet saw,” Darcy assures him. “You shot yours in the eye and in the tongue.”
“Well, there weren’t a lot of weak spots,” Clint offers.
“It’s cool,” Darcy said. “But don’t bring Godzilla meat back to New Mexico. I’ll just have to go vegetarian again.”
Clint laughs again but it’s not up to his usual standard. Darcy taps her fingers on the glass of the lab and looks out into the soft lights of the town at night. “You okay?”
“I’m good. I’m fine. But there’s a situation,” Clint says, his voice steady and warm.
“So you’re not coming back for a while and you’re breaking it to me gently,” Darcy hazarded. “I think Thor better send roses to Jane ahead of time, because he’s not the best at breaking things gently.”
“No, ah--” She can practically hear Clint shake his head. “Actually, they’re sending someone to pick you up. A car should be there in ten minutes.”
“Picking me up?” Darcy turned around and waved to Jane. “Picking me up to go where? New York?”
“Yeah,” Clint said, the same time Jane said “I’m coming with you.”
Darcy cupped her hand over her phone. “You have the presentation.”
Jane arched an eyebrow. Darcy smiled. She uncupped the phone. “Jane’s coming.”
There’s a pause and Darcy knows Clint’s dying to argue, but he’s apparently a learn from experience kind of guy so instead he just says, “Pack for at least a week, okay?” And then he mutters something inaudible before saying goodbye and hanging up.
“Did he stop mumbling yet?”
“Nope,” Darcy shakes her head, already grabbing her bag. “But he totally still loves me. A car will be here in ten. Make them stop at the 7-11 for coffee before you guys get to my place. It’s going to take me ten minutes to even find my suitcase.”
Jane salutes and they both make a mad dash to find clean clothes.
When Clint came back to the briefing room it seemed like everyone else had had time to shower and change. Stark was in jeans and a metal band t-shirt, with his incredibly obvious briefcase sitting on the table in front of him. Rogers looked like the forties spit him out ass backwards and in plaid, Natasha was in a clean uniform, and Banner was wearing clothes. Awesome.
“Thank you for finally joining us,” Fury said from on high.
Clint tipped an imaginary hat. “Lewis and Foster are on their way to the base and should be flown out within the hour.” At Fury’s eyebrow Clint added, “Dr. Foster insisted.”
“It still seems like a bad idea to bring the original to the place where we’re holding the copy,” Stark muttered.
“Be that as it may, Mr. Stark, I’m sure you can understand the need to confirm the DNA samples are accurate,” Coulson replied calmly.
“What do we think exactly?” Natasha folded her hands on top of the table. “A clone? Waitressing at a dead-end diner?”
“Evil twin?” Stark threw out, tapping his goatee with a wink. Clint thought it maybe would have been funny if he’d been in the mood or if even half the audience had a chance of getting the reference.
“Alternate universe corrupting our timeline?” Banner adjusted his glasses.
“Skrull,” Fury said decidedly.
“Skrull,” Coulson agreed.
The team exchanged looks. Stark muttered something about little green men and Banner glared at him.
“Are we sure there isn’t a simpler explanation?” Rogers said after a moment.
“Skrull is easily the simplest answer,” Coulson replied, positively upbeat.
“Okay.” Clint rubbed his face and took a deep breath. “I’ll bite. Why the hell would a skrull impersonate Darcy?”
Tony coughed and Steve shot him a look before saying diplomatically, “Well, she does work with the Avengers.”
But pretty much the whole room is staring at Clint because he’s dating Darcy and they all think he’s an accidental lady killer. “Great,” Clint muttered.
“I took the liberty of having agents interview their colleagues at the Diner,” Coulson tapped some keys and a hologram of a driver’s license appeared overhead, for one Maxine Black. “We confiscated the personal items from the diner but there was regrettably little. Recommend reconnaissance at their apparently shared place of residence.”
“If she’s a Skrull, she really did her homework. That’s an awful picture,” Tony said.
Clint wasn’t going to agree out loud but inside he agreed wholeheartedly.
“Any pertinent information from their colleagues?” Steve asked, quite obviously refusing to look at Tony.
Coulson paused. “The chef was a less-than-reliable source but the owner and the cashier seemed quite insistent that Ms. Black is not participating in the proliferation of illegal substances.”
“So, no,” Tony said.
“At the very least it’s clear that Ms. Black has not engaged any of her colleagues, excluding potentially Ms. Channing, in any nefarious activities.” Coulson’s tone made it clear that he thought this was a reasonable choice on Ms. Black’s part.
“So the apartment is our only lead,” Clint nodded. This was just fantastic.
“Okay,” Steve nodded. “Tony, why don’t you and I--”
“I’m coming,” Clint said.
“Same,” Natasha agreed. Clint smiled at her. They were both in agreement that letting those two handle anything with subtlety was a lost cause.
“I’ll stay,” Banner offered.
“Thor refuses to leave the Skrull, so let’s go with that,” Fury said. “Move out and report back in two hours.”
Tony got up and clapped Clint soundly on the back. “Don’t you just love field trips?"
Fandom: 2 Broke Girls/The Avengers/Thor
Pairings: Max/Caroline, Darcy/Clint, Steve/Tony(implied)
Summary: Things don’t end well for people Thor looks at like they’re evil twins.
Author's Notes: I think smittywing gets all the blame for this one. And the thanks for the beta. :)
Part One
The SHIELD clean-up team only call Coulson when there’s a problem. Stark and Captain Rogers in a shouting match with Thor qualifies as a problem, Coulson will admit. But possibly not as much of a problem as the two people dumped in the interrogation room behind Stark, Captain Rogers, and Thor.
Coulson steps around the ruckus and takes stock of the situation. “Gentlemen. Stark.”
“Son of Coul!” Thor sounds relieved. (The son of Coul thing never gets old. Really.) “Surely you can convince my comrades of the danger--”
“Danger?” Stark cut off Thor. “Thor, I’ve known this girl for years, she’s not a danger!”
“They wanted a picture with us.” Captain Rogers had his hands out, as if calming Thor down could be accomplished through judicious use of hand gestures and soothing tones.
“Stark.” Coulson snapped his fingers and then pointed at the blonde girl behind the mirrored glass. “I assume you’re talking about that one.”
“Yes.” And for once, Tony Stark sounded grateful to talk to him. It was uncomfortable.
“Her name is Caroline Channing. She’s the daughter of Martin Channing. You know the one. She’s not a threat. Not even a corporate one.”
Coulson nodded. “Miss Channing is not the problem. Her companion is.”
Stark and Rogers both angled their bodies to look around Coulson at the two women in the interrogation room.
Rogers recovered first, though he was still frowning. “I think they were both working at that terrible diner down the street from our operation. They didn’t engage us until after the fight was over and the agents have already confirmed they didn’t have weapons on them.”
"I have to tell you, the other one doesn't look very frightening." Stark crossed his arms in a loud screech of metal on metal.
There was a commotion outside and Widow, Barton, and Banner came in. Banner was wearing even less clothing than usual.
“Did you or did you not just leave us to do dinosaur clean up?” Barton asked darkly.
“I believe we agreed not to do that,” Romanoff said dangerously.
Rogers look pained, Stark looked annoyed and Thor looked apologetic. “We are sorry, my friends, but there was an urgent matter we needed to attend to.”
“More urgent than dinosaur dung?” Barton wasn’t shy about expressing his disbelief.
“Thor kidnapped two women,” Stark said nonchalantly.
“Barton.” Coulson waved Barton over.
“Kidnapped?” Banner sounded even less willing than usual to be part of this team.
Barton walked over to Coulson, mouth pinched and clearly still ready to engage in verbal battle with his other teammates. Until Coulson pointed at the interrogation room.
Barton processed in the blink of an eye and then turned to Thor and asked, very calmly, “Why did you kidnap my girlfriend?”
“Are you sure you’re doing that right?” Jane leaned across Darcy to snag the mouse back. Darcy smacked her on the hand and covered the mouse and keyboard with her body.
“Yes. Go away.”
Jane struggled to free her hand and when that didn’t work, she started scratching to get to the mouse. “No seriously, I think--”
“I think you can’t use any Microsoft programs but Excel which is why you have an intern,” Darcy grabbed Jane’s flailing hand and turned the battle into impromptu thumbwar.
“I can use Word,” Jane hissed.
“You have no imagination and your Powerpoints look like they’re on an overhead projector.” Darcy always wins at thumbwar. Jane has tiny hands.
Jane tries with her other hand. “Scientists appreciate clean lines and simple layouts.”
“Please, I’ve seen your three-dimensional graphs.” Darcy started to involve her leg and turn this into a bad game of Twister.
“If you would just--”
The phone rings. It’s Darcy’s phone because Darcy believes firmly in individualized ringtones and Jane believes firmly that there is one ringtone to rule them all.
There’s a brief scramble while they disentangle themselves and Darcy password locks the computer. Jane steals the phone in retaliation. “Hey Clint.”
Darcy plucks the phone from Jane’s hand, with only token resistance from Jane. “You shot Godzilla in the eye.”
“Just the one,” Clint laughs. “You should see what they did to the other one.”
“Oh I saw. The whole internet saw,” Darcy assures him. “You shot yours in the eye and in the tongue.”
“Well, there weren’t a lot of weak spots,” Clint offers.
“It’s cool,” Darcy said. “But don’t bring Godzilla meat back to New Mexico. I’ll just have to go vegetarian again.”
Clint laughs again but it’s not up to his usual standard. Darcy taps her fingers on the glass of the lab and looks out into the soft lights of the town at night. “You okay?”
“I’m good. I’m fine. But there’s a situation,” Clint says, his voice steady and warm.
“So you’re not coming back for a while and you’re breaking it to me gently,” Darcy hazarded. “I think Thor better send roses to Jane ahead of time, because he’s not the best at breaking things gently.”
“No, ah--” She can practically hear Clint shake his head. “Actually, they’re sending someone to pick you up. A car should be there in ten minutes.”
“Picking me up?” Darcy turned around and waved to Jane. “Picking me up to go where? New York?”
“Yeah,” Clint said, the same time Jane said “I’m coming with you.”
Darcy cupped her hand over her phone. “You have the presentation.”
Jane arched an eyebrow. Darcy smiled. She uncupped the phone. “Jane’s coming.”
There’s a pause and Darcy knows Clint’s dying to argue, but he’s apparently a learn from experience kind of guy so instead he just says, “Pack for at least a week, okay?” And then he mutters something inaudible before saying goodbye and hanging up.
“Did he stop mumbling yet?”
“Nope,” Darcy shakes her head, already grabbing her bag. “But he totally still loves me. A car will be here in ten. Make them stop at the 7-11 for coffee before you guys get to my place. It’s going to take me ten minutes to even find my suitcase.”
Jane salutes and they both make a mad dash to find clean clothes.
When Clint came back to the briefing room it seemed like everyone else had had time to shower and change. Stark was in jeans and a metal band t-shirt, with his incredibly obvious briefcase sitting on the table in front of him. Rogers looked like the forties spit him out ass backwards and in plaid, Natasha was in a clean uniform, and Banner was wearing clothes. Awesome.
“Thank you for finally joining us,” Fury said from on high.
Clint tipped an imaginary hat. “Lewis and Foster are on their way to the base and should be flown out within the hour.” At Fury’s eyebrow Clint added, “Dr. Foster insisted.”
“It still seems like a bad idea to bring the original to the place where we’re holding the copy,” Stark muttered.
“Be that as it may, Mr. Stark, I’m sure you can understand the need to confirm the DNA samples are accurate,” Coulson replied calmly.
“What do we think exactly?” Natasha folded her hands on top of the table. “A clone? Waitressing at a dead-end diner?”
“Evil twin?” Stark threw out, tapping his goatee with a wink. Clint thought it maybe would have been funny if he’d been in the mood or if even half the audience had a chance of getting the reference.
“Alternate universe corrupting our timeline?” Banner adjusted his glasses.
“Skrull,” Fury said decidedly.
“Skrull,” Coulson agreed.
The team exchanged looks. Stark muttered something about little green men and Banner glared at him.
“Are we sure there isn’t a simpler explanation?” Rogers said after a moment.
“Skrull is easily the simplest answer,” Coulson replied, positively upbeat.
“Okay.” Clint rubbed his face and took a deep breath. “I’ll bite. Why the hell would a skrull impersonate Darcy?”
Tony coughed and Steve shot him a look before saying diplomatically, “Well, she does work with the Avengers.”
But pretty much the whole room is staring at Clint because he’s dating Darcy and they all think he’s an accidental lady killer. “Great,” Clint muttered.
“I took the liberty of having agents interview their colleagues at the Diner,” Coulson tapped some keys and a hologram of a driver’s license appeared overhead, for one Maxine Black. “We confiscated the personal items from the diner but there was regrettably little. Recommend reconnaissance at their apparently shared place of residence.”
“If she’s a Skrull, she really did her homework. That’s an awful picture,” Tony said.
Clint wasn’t going to agree out loud but inside he agreed wholeheartedly.
“Any pertinent information from their colleagues?” Steve asked, quite obviously refusing to look at Tony.
Coulson paused. “The chef was a less-than-reliable source but the owner and the cashier seemed quite insistent that Ms. Black is not participating in the proliferation of illegal substances.”
“So, no,” Tony said.
“At the very least it’s clear that Ms. Black has not engaged any of her colleagues, excluding potentially Ms. Channing, in any nefarious activities.” Coulson’s tone made it clear that he thought this was a reasonable choice on Ms. Black’s part.
“So the apartment is our only lead,” Clint nodded. This was just fantastic.
“Okay,” Steve nodded. “Tony, why don’t you and I--”
“I’m coming,” Clint said.
“Same,” Natasha agreed. Clint smiled at her. They were both in agreement that letting those two handle anything with subtlety was a lost cause.
“I’ll stay,” Banner offered.
“Thor refuses to leave the Skrull, so let’s go with that,” Fury said. “Move out and report back in two hours.”
Tony got up and clapped Clint soundly on the back. “Don’t you just love field trips?"