Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

London, November 2013, 1 week after the events of Thor: The Dark World

--

Jane and Thor were having reunion sex.

Actually, could you call it reunion sex if it had been going on for three days?

Darcy could sleep through the apocalypse, Jane had joked more than once. Since Darcy had been awake for apocalypses on town-, city-, and Nine Realms-scale, she felt that Jane should take another look at the data and revise her hypothesis.

To whit: Darcy could not sleep through this much noise, and an apocalypse wasn't even happening. The fuckpocalypse, maybe.

Oh, god, she needed sleep.

Ian had skived off to a friend's place on day one, where he was no doubt snoring blissfully with his legs sticking over the arm of their couch. Erik had made up with his ex-wife under the premise of “I was thinking of you when the world was ending,” but Darcy had bitter suspicions that he just wanted out of the flat.

Get a hotel? Too expensive. Ask the lovebirds to keep it down? No bloody way. Catch a flight back to New Mexico and hope the sounds didn't travel that far? Science wasn't on her side. There was only one viable option left to her.

Clad in the cosiest flannel pajamas she owned (purple with dancing Hulks), alligator slippers, and with Thor's cape wrapped around her like a blanket, Darcy left the flat, stomped up the stairs to the next floor and pounded on the door.

There was no response, but Darcy wasn't exactly expecting one on her first try. She pounded a little louder. ...Nothing. She tried “shave and a haircut.” Still nothing. Rude.

She was not going to keep standing in the narrow, unheated hallway. She was tired and cranky and had just helped save the world, thank you, so if she would just open. the. damn. door.

“If you don't let me in in the next thirty seconds, I am going to go back downstairs, find a bug, and enunciate very clearly about that summer you kissed Captain America's USO poster every day.”

Twenty eight seconds later, the door was wrenched open, and Sharon Carter pinned her with a glare that had once made an international terrorist burst into tears. Darcy shoved past her into the flat. This one was smaller than Jane's mum's, since it was partially under the eaves, but there was a bed, and it was in a room not directly adjacent to Jane's. Darcy made a beeline for it.

On her way past an even tinier room, she noted the security feeds, the crumpled chip wrappers, and the open laptop with Up paused on the screen. She didn't understand why Sharon liked that movie so much. It was like watching an animated retelling of any one of the family's actual adventures. Darcy preferred Wall-E. He was adorable. And a robot. An adorable, emoting robot.

Man, that bed was calling her name.

Sharon was trailing her through the flat, saying something about Darcy breaking her cover.

“Look,” Darcy snapped, rounding on her. “I am exhausted, Ronnie. I am so fucking tired. The world nearly ended last week. I nearly died. Shield ignored us. They ignored us, Ronnie. And now they've sent you. Did you know I didn't even try calling any of the family until it was too late? I was worried about Jane finding out about- about me.” Darcy could feel her throat closing, but she tried to press on anyway. “I nearly let-”

No. She refused to cry. This was just her running on no sleep and working through the trauma of the past week. If she could just get into bed-

Sharon's gentle, strong arms wound around Darcy's shoulders, and she found herself sobbing into the perfectly pressed oxford of the last woman who would judge her for falling apart.

They stood like that, in the doorway of the poky bedroom, until Darcy's breathing stopped shuddering. Darcy pulled back slightly, her glasses smeared with tears and makeup. Sharon's shirt had a huge wet patch, but she didn't seem to care. She squeezed Darcy close, and manhandled her over to the bed.

The duvet was pulled back, and Darcy's glasses were taken off and laid on top of a manual on improvised munitions. It was bristling with a rainbow of neon bookmarks, but Darcy was too drained to make a joke about Sharon's study habits.

Thor's cape was unwound from Darcy's shoulders long enough for Sharon to direct her into bed and lift her feet onto the mattress. The Asgardian fabric was warm and soft and smelled like wool and ozone. Darcy had taken it with her as petty revenge for the ruckus in the flat, but now, half-asleep, she wasn't sure she wanted to return it at all. It was cozy in a way she was pretty sure was magic.

By the time Sharon settled the duvet over Darcy, she was asleep.

Checking her phone was always Darcy's first order of business on waking up. She noted, with mixed interest, that she'd been asleep for twelve hours, and she had sixteen unread texts, several from Uncle Harry.

When Darcy poked her head into the surveillance room, she observed with amusement that Sharon had on Raiders of the Lost Ark, her unofficial favorite movie.

If asked, Darcy knew, Agent Carter's favorite film was something thoughtful and arty from the 60's. Sharon was a secret sucker for Indiana Jones, though. She'd learned to use a bullwhip at seventeen “just in case,” and it was listed under her weapons proficiencies on her CV.

“I'm heading back down. With any luck, they're done for a while.” She fiddled with the edge of Thor's cape, and added, “Thanks for letting me crash, Ronnie.”

Sharon nodded but didn't look up from the paperwork or whatever she was doing on a second laptop.

So. They were back to pretending Darcy and Sharon hadn't spent summers playing Spies and More Spies with the other kids. Back to pretending Shield sending a lone operative to surveil Jane et al counted as “security,” even if Sharon was one of the best agents they had.

Darcy sighed, but brandished her phone at the back of Sharon's head. “And go see Peggy! Your dad has been texting me, and you know he can guilt trip from 5000 miles away.”

Sharon nodded again, but otherwise ignored her.

Darcy might have closed the door more firmly than necessary on the way out.

Chapter Text

London, April 2014, same-day or day after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier

---

“It was just supposed to be a routine delivery,” she screamed into her phone. “You said-”

“I know what I said, Lewis ,” Barton barked back, the line fuzzy. “ Everything is going to shit. Shield is Hydra. Forget the delivery; get- ”

There was a crackle by her ear and the sting of plastic fragments against the side of her face, and the phone was gone from her hand. Darcy ducked belatedly, trying to see where the lucky shot had come from. The trash bin was no longer good cover, clearly, but she was pinned there. Her options were either the open street, or inside the gate of the London townhouse she’d been sent to.

Unfortunately, just as Darcy had arrived and set foot in the tiny, manicured front garden, every window had blown out and she’d been knocked onto her back. She was lucky her head hadn't cracked on the pavement.

Now, parts of the townhouse were on fire, and she’d been shot at. From the house. She'd glimpsed a few men in black fatigues and helmets; she hadn’t seen any insignia, but they looked like movie versions of SWAT. Or whatever the British version of SWAT was. Anyway, they had large guns, and were shooting at her.

Fucking Clint Barton and his “foolproof” favors. See if he got a Hanukkah card ever again.

The bin wasn't going to be worth a damn if the gunmen in the house decided to come get her. She needed a solution. She needed an escape route.

“Get in the car, Ms Lewis!”

Darcy twisted around in her crouch, the hand clutching her taser training on the voice.

There was a champagne-colored Rolls Royce on the curb, the passenger door a few feet away. How had she missed a fucking car pulling up behind her? There were bullet-shaped dings in a row along the side, and a smear of blood on the front bumper.

The car was drawing fire, Darcy realized in a detached way. If she didn't get hit by another lucky shot, ricochets were likely. More than likely- the car must be armored, if the way the driver lived through the next volley was any indication.

“Get in the damned car , Ms Lewis!”

Darcy snapped back into the reality of her position, and made sure to tuck her limbs close to her body, just in case. She’d have to break cover to get into the vehicle, but it was that or remain pinned down until some asshole with a gun got a better angle on her.

Lurching to her haunches, and trying to keep her balance with the weighty messenger bag and its mysterious package at her back, Darcy reached for the rear door, hoping it would provide cover.

The door sprang open under her hand, at the same moment the driver’s side window rolled down completely, and whoever was in there began laying cover fire back at the townhouse. With a machine gun.

Darcy wasn’t about to look a gift rescue in the mouth- she dove into the back seat, Clint’s “little favor” landing on the small of her back. Her feet had barely cleared the door when the driver hit the gas, the door slammed shut, and the smoke and noise of the attack was left far behind.

The silence in the Rolls was soothing and absolute, but Darcy found her thoughts racing.

What the fuck - had Clint really said Shield was Hydra ? Like, WWII, so-evil-even-Nazis-feared-them, totally defeated by the SSR, that Hydra? How was that even possible? How could Shield not know if they were infiltrated?

Until she found out the truth, she couldn't trust anyone except Jane and the family. And probably Clint. But if he was right, and everything her parents, grandparents, and extended family had fought to build had been poisoned by a long-dead foe, he'd have enough on his plate without having to worry about her safety.

“Do try not to bleed on the upholstery, Ms Lewis,” the driver said.

From her face-down angle, Darcy could only say that she was English, posh, and not young. The level, no-nonsense tone of voice was pretty reassuring after the morning Darcy had just had.

“No promises,” Darcy groaned. The cuts on her face were stinging something fierce, and her shins were scraped to hell; what a day to wear a skirt and tights. One of her lenses was cracked- and, ok, that could have been her eye - but she could still see just fine.

Her whole body ached, the back of her head was throbbing, and her right arm was beginning to burn in a way that suggested a lot more pain to come in a few minutes.

“You appear to have been shot,” the woman said. Darcy’s hand flew to her shoulder. “It’s a flesh wound; you’ll be fine.”

Darcy sat up, and looked at her rescuer for the first time. Her hair was the first thing Darcy noticed- it was light brown and silver, cut in a sharp bob, and completely unruffled. (There was every possibility that Darcy had not only lost her hat in the fracas, but some hair as well.) She was wearing what had been a beautiful dove grey suit, and a set of pearls that look like they cost more than Darcy’s entire tuition. The pearls were luminescent against the sooty ruin of the suit.

The driver was holding a compact automatic in one hand, and cradling the other to her chest. The car was driving itself, a dizzying array of heads-up displays on the windshield. Darcy could make out some of the information, but the images were skewed to be best viewed by the person in the driver’s seat. Her rescuer.

“Hey, thanks-” Darcy started, but the driver turned to face her and Darcy faltered. “ Aunt Alexandra ? I thought you were dead!”

Alexandra Falsworth’s stern mask fell into a rueful smile. “Not just yet.” She glanced at the messenger bag twisted around Darcy. “I believe you have a package for me.”

Darcy’s hand flew to her satchel, flinching at the coarse fabric against her abraded palm. “ You’re Councilwoman Hawley?”

“Funny how being married to a man named Hawley for one’s entire career makes people forget one was originally a Falsworth. Not exactly deep cover, but-”

“No one has heard from you since I was twelve. You've been on the Council this whole time, and no one noticed? Half the family works for Shield!”

“Yes,” she sighed. “I’ve been on the World Security Council, which requires much more secrecy than I could manage and still keep in touch. And with everything that’s been happening, that seems to have been the right choice.” 

“You know what’s going on?”

The councilwoman- Hawley, Falsworth, Aunt Alexandra, whatever- gave Darcy a shrewd look. “Why do you think Agent Barton asked you to do him this favor? I know you’re not Hydra, that’s why.” 

Darcy’s head was reeling. The blood was loud in her ears; she’d just been blown up and shot at, and-

“I found out yesterday,” the councilwoman said. “Agent Romanoff came to me with information. We agreed she should impersonate me at the launch of Project Insight, foil it, and bring Hydra's corruption into the public eye.”

Darcy opened her mouth to ask, but her “aunt” could see the direction of her thoughts, and said, “No, I told none of the family. There was so little time to act, and there was no way of knowing if any of them were Hydra.”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed. “You think someone from the family would betray Shield? And for Hydra? I didn't even know it still existed until twenty minutes ago!”

“The corruption has gone all the way to the top,” Alexandra said, her face drawn with pain and resignation. Bitter reproof colored her words, “Those at the heart of Shield have proven themselves, one way or another. So many have given their lives. Too many. Shield has all but collapsed.”

Darcy fell back into the plush rear seats, all her aches suddenly numb.

“The fighting will be going on for some time, I fear. Hydra will attempt to take strongholds and repositories for themselves, and Shield is weak,” she continued.

“But- But you're on the Council,” Darcy protested, her voice thready in her ears. “You could-”

“The Council has been effectively disbanded, since I am the last living member.”

“Well, you could do something ! Shield needs you. Your dad helped establish the SSR as a global entity. You could be a- a rallying point. You're Alexandra Falsworth .”

The councilwoman shook her head against Darcy’s impassioned speech. Darcy only saw her profile, and couldn't read her expression. “Alexandra Falsworth died many years ago,” she said, voice flat. “Alexandra Hawley died today, with Shield.”

“You could still help,” Darcy cried, the thought of Sharon or Antoine or one of her cousins in mortal danger stealing the breath from her lungs.

“I am.”

The Rolls Royce came to a stop in front of Jane’s flat. Despite the fact that Darcy knew the outside of the car was in bad shape, no one on the street seemed to give it a second glance.

Alexandra turned in her seat with a pained grimace; Darcy had forgotten she was injured. “The CCTV has all been rerouted, and what with the global intelligence community in chaos, no one will be the wiser. Your identity is safe. Or-” Her face twisted into a bitter smile “-as safe as anyone targeted by Project Insight can be.”

Darcy didn't understand what she meant- targeted by a Shield project? -but, judging from the events and revelations of the last half hour, it couldn't be good.

Darcy was starting to feel her wounds again, and with the pain, a rising urge to check in on the family. She needed to reassure herself that all the family was safe; whether they were members of Shield, had taken up other careers, or, like Darcy, had toed the line between the two. Retired or active, she had to know that everyone was alive. She needed to know what was going on inside Shield. She needed her laptop.

She shrugged off the messenger bag, and tossed it in the front passenger seat. Her other hand- shoulder protesting- reached for the door latch.

“Darcy-” the councilwoman said, stopping her. They couldn’t see each other’s faces where they were sitting, and maybe that was for the best. “You, and those like you, are our hope for the future.”

Darcy let her door swing open, and set a foot on the pavement. She almost didn’t turn back, but she had to say one last thing: “We might be your hope for the future, but your position and skills could help us survive the present.”

Chapter Text

The Playground, undisclosed location, late 2014

---

They'd barely made it off the ramp of the quinjet when-

“ Who is this ?”

Darcy craned her neck around the handful of tall, kevlar-clad new-Shield agents and came face to face with a man in a suit. Oh, sure, she’d been surrounded by people in suits since she was picked up, but everyone so far had been taller than her. Way taller, usually. This guy was eye-level, and he looked cranky. She liked him already.

He continued, “How am I supposed to keep this place secure when you keep bringing strays to the Playground like it's an actual playground?”

One of the agents, a tall blonde Darcy had never met until today, cocked her hip and said, “You know who this is, right, Koenig?” There was a definite smirk in her tone.

Koenig scrutinized Darcy again, no recognition dawning. One hand fiddled with a reflective badge on a lanyard, and his pinched look intensified. “Classified?”

“That,” a pleasant voice called from above them, “is the Taser Queen herself.”

Darcy darted around the Shield agents to get a better view of the man descending a ladder-staircase from a steel walkway. The hangar was so large, the clang of his boots was muffled in the space. One of the escorting agents snagged her arm.

“Antoine!” Darcy shrugged off the light grip and ran into the open arms of one of Shield’s most trusted members.

“Wait- ‘Taser Queen’?” Darcy heard Koenig say to the other agents. “Like TaserQueen86 in the Call of Duty guild? I thought they were a Shield agent.”

“Nah, mate,” Darcy’s other “escort” said. “She's no agent. Could be, a course, I’ve heard Coulson ask her enough times.”

Darcy tuned out the gossiping agents behind her and leaned back in Antoine’s grasp. “What’s my favorite spy-slash-peacekeeper doing all the way out here? I thought you were being assigned to Philly again.”

Trip’s face scrunched. “I knew Grandma would have word out in two seconds flat. Which is why I fed her false intel.”

Darcy gasped in mock horror. “You would do that to your own Nana ?”

“You sound just like her,” Trip said, rolling his eyes.

“So,” an amused voice said from behind Trip, “how do you two know each other?”

He turned, keeping one arm slung around Darcy’s shoulders. She came face to face (where had Shield been hiding all their reasonably-sized people!) with a pair of pretty brunettes whose crisp, comfortable Shield clothes made Darcy aware of the much-loved and -abused Black Widow tank top and slouchy red sweater she’d been picked up in.

Darcy didn’t hesitate: “We used to be married.”

Both women jerked back a bit in surprise. The taller one squeaked, “I didn’t know you’d been married, Trip!”

“Oh, it was years ago,” Darcy continued, patting Antoine’s arm in exactly the way she knew he disliked. He was probably making a sour face at her right now. “He’s such a sweetheart, but he didn’t know what to do with me.”

The shorter of the two women laughed, shaking her hair out of her face. The woman with the british accent was blushing. She made a good show of it, though, when she asked, “How long were you two together?”

“An hour and a half,” Trip said before Darcy got her mouth open.

The Brit gaped, and the shorter, tanner one looked a little slack-jawed as well before she said, “Huh. How’d you manage that one, Trip? Get a little too enthusiastic in Vegas?”

“I was six,” Trip said, drawing on his training to maintain a straight face. “and Darcy was four. She agreed to an annulment in exchange for a fruit roll-up.”

“Great-Aunt Peggy was very persuasive,” Darcy agreed, equally sober.

“‘Great-Aunt Peggy’? As in Peggy Carter?” the British agent squeaked. “ The Peggy Carter?”

Darcy stuck her hands into the ridiculously big pockets of her sweater and looked up at Trip. Very few people were privy to their connection to the exalted Director Carter and the Howlies who'd helped her found Shield after the War. She didn't know these agents, but Antoine did; she'd extend her trust wherever he'd placed his.

“Yeah,” he said. “Our families were close. We have… similar backgrounds.”

“Oh, so you're a legacy, too?” The woman seemed so innocent in that moment, although Darcy knew, as a Shield agent, she was guaranteed to have seen some shit. Most people would turn their noses up at the thought of a peer being given a leg up by merely being related to someone, but she only looked curious.

Darcy smiled. “I'd have to be a member of Shield to be a legacy, though,” she said. “I'm more… legacy-adjacent.”

Antoine laughed, waving the two women off when someone tapped his shoulder. The British dude who pretended he didn't like working for the Man took advantage of Trip letting go of Darcy, and set his hand on her shoulder.

Darcy raised her eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. She turned and gave Antoine her most shit-disturbing smile. “Welp, I gotta mosey. Interrogation awaits.”

“Interrogation?” he parroted.

“Yeah. I'm, like, a prisoner.”

Trip cast Darcy’s escorts a questioning look. She should probably have asked for introductions, but she figured the less she knew about new-Shield and its staff, the better.

The blonde rolled her eyes. “ Debrief . That thing at Avebury?”

Trip rounded on Darcy, “That was you ?”

She was already being directed down a hall that, yes, lead to conference rooms and not the interrogation suites.

“Well, it was my boss, mostly. But I did totally tase that one alien guy.”

“Another one?” Trip said at the same time as Koenig’s awed, “ That Taser Queen.”

The snarky British guy winked and let the reinforced door slide shut behind them.

Chapter Text

Flushing Meadows, New York, summer 2016

---

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, it’s her ,” Jane breathed, clutching her expo lanyard like a lifeline. Jane had frozen in the aisle, and the throngs of scientists, press, and excited members of the public flowed around her.

Since Greenwich- since the Aether- crowds gave Jane a wide berth. Darcy got jostled, of course, and people bonked her with their bags, as usual. So she stuck close to Jane, and let the herd subconscious direct itself around the two women.

“Chill out, Janey,” Darcy said with a huff. She’d left her coffee back in the booth. It would be all gross by the time she dragged Jane back, but there was no way in Helheim she’d wait in one of those epic café lines again, even if the espresso was pulled by Stark robots. She’d make Ian do it, when they got back. He didn’t like being booth babe, anyway.

“I can’t chill , don’t you see who is here ?” Jane was now clutching Darcy’s expo lanyard, tugging to angle her head in the right direction. Darcy’s Thor and Mjolnir pins cut into her neck for a second, before she snatched her lanyard out of Jane’s grip.

Darcy found herself facing an expansive demonstration area, with ballistic glass between the public and the exhibitor. Stark Expos were known for showcasing cutting-edge technology, science, and in Jane’s case, first contact with aliens. Stark Expos were also known for explosions, disasters, and in Thor’s case, sudden electrical discharges. Hence, safety measures up the wazoo.

Behind the thick glass, a trio of white-coated science-types were deliberately assembling something, likely a demonstration. Two were men, moving in concert with a small, grey-haired woman who was alternately gesturing instructions like a general, and diving into the guts of the equipment. It was too loud to hear what she might be saying, but Darcy recognized the way Jane worked in the older woman’s actions; they were familiar to Darcy for more than one reason.

The informational monitor outside the glass was cycling through a series of artsy photos and slow-motion video clips of explosions, and some sort of foam that contained the explosions. The Expo sign read:

Jacqueline Dernier, D. Eng., D. Sc.

Kineto-Resistant Polymer

Université de Lyon

“Oh,” Darcy said. The explosion on the screen had little bits flying out of it in a really pretty way, and Darcy was mesmerized. “I didn’t know you followed her work.”

“‘Follow her work’?” Jane said, incredulous. She dropped her voice, “It’s been top-secret for 20 years, following her work has been impossible.”

“Well, she was working for Shield,” Darcy shrugged, then cringed. She should not have said that. She could have smacked herself.

Jane’s mouth flew open, but they were in public, and Jane didn’t have clearance to hear anything Darcy knew about Shield’s old Science Division. Not that she knew much; just enough to get herself in trouble. Heading her boss off at the pass, Darcy blurted, “Do you want to meet her?”

A torrent of high-pitched and enthusiastic noises poured out of Jane’s mouth, to the tune of Yes! Ohmygod you can do that?

No. Under normal circumstances, Darcy would have to have pretended she didn’t know Jacqueline Dernier in any shape or form. Their connection was tenuous at best. Not to mention, it had been over a decade since she’d seen the other woman; Darcy couldn’t be sure she’d be recognized or welcomed in the flurry of the Expo.

But, for Jane, she would make the attempt.

Weaving and occasionally throwing an elbow, Darcy made her way through the spectators to a standard-sized door at the side of the exhibition space. After all, the space was mostly closed in: the screens would be showing the public what was happening, and one of the engineers would be explaining their invention over a sound system; explosive science and cheerful expo-goers would thankfully never mix.

Darcy knocked on the glass of the upper half of the door. None of the engineers even twitched. She glanced down, and there was an honest-to-Thor doorbell on the right. She pressed it, and fortunately, Jacqueline herself looked up. Darcy, feeling self-conscious now that she’d interrupted an exhibitor’s presentation at one of the premier science and technology expositions in the world, lifted both hands in an awkward wave that she tried not to cringe through.

Jacqueline’s tan, wrinkled face lit into a smile, and she hustled over to the door and squeezed through. Her assistants, apparently, could do this part without her.

She seized Darcy’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to each of her cheeks. Darcy knew she was smiling too wide, and that Jane’s face would be a picture of confusion.

“Ma petite Darcy! Tu n’as jamais venue me visiter à l’Université! Mais comment ça va, cocotte?” She talked a mile a minute; Darcy had forgotten. She barely had a chance to answer that she was doing well before Mme Dernier leaned back a bit to peer at Jane. “Et ta copine?”

“Ceci est ma patronne, Jane Foster. Elle apprécie comment t’as broyé les connards misogynes qui ont essayés de t’amoindrir.”

Jacqueline laughed, lightly slapping the back of Darcy’s hand for her flattery. She took Jane’s hand and shook it.

“What did you just tell her?” Jane side-whispered to Darcy.

“I told her you were my boss, and that you’ve been following her breakthroughs in chemistry for years,” Darcy lied in a whisper back.

“ The Jane Foster?” Jacqueline interrupted, her lined face brightening. Her grip on Jane’s hand was reestablished, as one peer to another. “You were on the cover of Astronomie !”

With unmitigated glee, Darcy watched Jane’s entire face turn red and said, “And the cover of New Scientist .” Just when Jane’s blush started to recede, Darcy added, “And Buzzfeed.”

A strangled noise escaped from her boss, who had made Darcy promise to never mention “17 Ways Jane Foster is Making Us See Stars,” even though it was super popular and got Thor addicted to their quizzes.

“Ah, yes,” Jacqueline said, a wild twinkle in her eye, “I quite liked the segment where they compared the Einstein-Rosen Bridge to the ‘Care Bear Stare.’” Darcy grinned and Jane groaned. Jacqueline added, “I am a fan of your equations- très élégants .”

The smile that bloomed over Jane's face was so radiant Darcy felt herself smiling from the overflow of her boss’ happiness. “Thank you.”

A burp of sound and a small fireball inside the exhibition space drew Mme Dernier’s attention.

“I must fix this. Coffee à toute à l’heure ? Darcy, you will arrange?” She deposited a card in Darcy’s hand and hustled off to manage the damage. The crowd was growing; nothing like the thrill of an imminent disaster to attract the science-minded.

Jane reeled back from the door. “Ohmygod, she is amazing. She likes my work! I'm gonna die.”

"You are not going to die,” Darcy laughed, pulling out her phone. “You are going to lead me back to the booth while I schedule coffee with her assistant, and we are going to save the general public from the hernias they are getting trying to lift Myuh-Myuh.”

Jane rolled her eyes. Her booth was mostly Thor alternately regaling the crowd with tales of Asgardian derring-do, and letting a line form to test their worthiness. It was a win-win, though, so Darcy didn’t know why Jane pretended to be annoyed: Thor got to meet people, people got to meet Thor, Jane got to sit in the back of the booth and work on her equations, Ian got to talk to other physicists, and Darcy got to watch the beefiest nerds of all genders flex over a hammer and walk away defeated.

The throngs of visitors to the Stark Expo parted before Jane like fish before a reef shark, but she didn’t notice. She was back to rubbernecking the exhibits and making a circuitous loop back to her own Expo space, the smile on her face one of a person surrounded by everything they love.

Darcy found herself smiling, too.

Chapter Text

Queens, New York, September 2017, a few months after Spider-Man: Homecoming)

---

Darcy did not like having to dress in suits. She looked bomb in a tailored suit, of course; she'd once literally stunned a room into silence just walking in in a white Alexander McQueen number. (It had been killed in action by a double whammy of red wine and an unexpected evil robot.) If she had to dress in a suit, it meant things were Official.

Darcy preferred to be clandestine.

But not in a spy way. In a wear-last-night's-pajamas-to-work way. Mark Zuckerberg's work wardrobe was too formal for Darcy. Jane didn't mind, since she sometimes wore the same clothes four days in a row during breakthroughs.

Today's situation, however, called for a suit.

Darcy had learned of the need for this meeting at her semi-monthly donut social with May Parker. Darcy brought the donuts, May made the coffee, and they swapped stories of what Peter was getting up to that he wasn't telling them directly. (Darcy had a strict confidentiality policy when it came to girl talk, though. Bros before parental figures.)

“You may go in.”

The administrative assistant set her handset back into its cradle with a sour look. Apparently Stark was persona non grata at Midtown School, despite donating a robotics lab that made the mechanics department cream their pants. Darcy, as a representative of Stark Industries, had been lumped in with the big boss. Unfairly, in her opinion; it wasn't like she'd thrown a Hammertech bot into their statue of Newton.

Darcy shot the woman her best senatorial smile, and hefted the designer briefcase she'd borrowed for the occasion.

The second the door closed behind her, Darcy slumped and huffed, “Thank Frigg.”

Principal Morita looked harried, which, in Darcy's experience, was how all principals looked when faced with Darcy Lewis. He also looked rumpled, wrinkled, and in need of an IV of espresso. His tie hung around his neck like an afterthought. The wan morning light picked silver out in his hair.

“Jesus, Andy, when did you get so old?”

He leveled her a look that probably scared the shit out of the average high schooler, but Darcy, as the distance of years had taught her, had not been average. She did remind herself that defying an authority figure was counterproductive to her goals for the meeting, even if tweaking Andrew would have been so much fun. She wondered if he still got that pursed frown she remembered from the week after he graduated college, when he babysat her because their parents were all scrambling to foil a military coup.

She threw herself into the sturdy wooden interview chair across from Andrew's desk- happy to be off the limited edition Iron Man heels she’d chosen to wear- and withdrew a file and a bag of donuts from the briefcase.

Andrew didn't perk up until she also withdrew a thermos. Damn her if she didn't know the Achilles' Heel of anyone who worked with science folks for a living. The coffee was hot, strong, and a custom blend she'd privately dubbed “Science Bender.” The aroma alone was enough to fortify the most exhausted minion. She filled Principal Morita's MSST mug to the brim.

He drained half his mug in one slug, and sighed back into his chair. “What are you doing here, Darcy? I was expecting to have a donation meeting with a Stark Industries rep.”

“Oh, yeah, that.” She rummaged in the briefcase again, and withdrew a cottony envelope. “Here. Stark has no sense of proportion, so this is like, a zillion times what I make in a year.” She gave him a wide-eyed stare he remembered from when she was seven and trying to be serious.

When he went to open the envelope, she stopped him, “Save it for later. You'll need the morale boost.”

He gave her another look, but this one wasn't as effective. The check, in his administrative hindbrain, was already being earmarked for school improvements and underfunded projects.

“I take it this isn't really about Stark Industries, then,” he said, setting the envelope on the desk in front of him as a reminder not to brush off the woman whose hair he'd once put in pigtails.

“Nope,” she said with a grin. “It's about one of your students, Peter Parker.”

Morita twitched. He knew his poker face was good, but Parker was already on his radar for the DC debate fiasco, and some odd behavior that had come up over the past year. Some of his teachers had expressed concern.

“What about Parker?”

Instead of answering, Darcy placed the file on top of the unopened check, and helped herself to a maple raised glazed.

The eagle logo on the file made him pause. There was not enough fancy coffee in New York to make him wade back into that life. She knew better than to ask.

“There's a reason I became a teacher, and it was not so Shield could meddle in my work.”

“Well, one, I'm not with Shield, I'm with Stark. Two, you should have thought of that before one of your students became an Avenger, Andy.”

Morita flipped open the file, and drew back at the images. The whole student body was abuzz with rumors about Spider-Man. He pushed a couple of the pictures around, focused on the sometimes-blurry shots of a man on a web. There was one where it looked like he was being thrown across a tarmac by Captain America. The last one in the stack was of Peter, his hair all over the place, in the Spider-Man suit, sporting a black eye. Morita looked at Darcy, whose lipstick was smudged and full of crumbs. “Parker, you said?”

“Yep.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged him for a superhero,” Morita said, draining his mug.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a principal,” Darcy sassed.

She went to pour him another cup, but he waved her off. Morita wasn’t sure what her angle was, and he didn’t like that there was a Shield file on one of his students. He had too many bad memories of how Shield handled young men and women who were out of the ordinary.

“Look, I’m only here because his aunt and I agreed I should come see you. We thought you should get a heads-up that Peter-” she considered her words for a moment “-Peter will be a superhero whether we let him or not. He takes risks, and gets hurt, and saves people.”

“He’s also still a kid,” Morita added.

“Yeah, he is. Which is why May and I are keeping an eye on him, and giving him our support. We were hoping you’d do the same.”

Principal Morita poured himself another cup of her excellent coffee. “Does Parker know you’re telling me this?”

“No. We’re not expecting you to suddenly become his BFF, Andy. Just- shoot me a text if you see him cutting class again.”

“Is that all?” She really must not be working with Shield if she wasn’t asking him to OK a full surveillance package on a minor.

“Yeah. It just needed to be done on the down-low.” She didn’t need to remind him to be discreet; everyone in the family could be trusted on that score. She gave him half a grin. “It’s not every day a skinny kid from the Boroughs saves the world.”

“Yeah.”

They both glanced up at the framed photo and medals on top of his file cabinet.

Darcy picked up the Shield file, and put a crisp business card in its place. When she stood, her demeanor transformed from relaxed old friend to consummate corporate operator.

She stuck out her hand. “Principal Morita, a pleasure.”

He came around his desk to take it. “Ms. Lewis.”

When he held the door open for her, he noticed Maureen sliding glances their way as she typed. The word of a visit by a high-level Stark Industries employee would be around the break room by lunch. By the end of the day, department heads would be angling for budget increases and better gossip. Morita wanted to sigh, but didn’t. Darcy’s ritzy cover was to protect Parker, and it was doing its job.

Her irrepressible grin was back, and she’d managed to fix her lipstick when he wasn’t looking. He’d learned years ago to be wary of that grin. Darcy jabbed a finger back towards the unopened envelope on his desk, and said, “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

By the time she was out of sight, he was at his desk, letter opener in hand. The thick envelope made a beautiful noise as it tore, and he agreed that after a meeting like that, he needed better morale.

The check had zeros. So many zeros. Morita slumped back into his chair and looked the way Darcy had gone.

And to think he'd assumed the fancy suit was overkill.

Chapter Text

Manhattan, “now”/pre-Infinity War

---

Darcy knew- because Tony Stark was a paranoid genius- that there was at least one secret entrance into Avengers’ Tower, in case of emergency.

Darcy also knew that before the Accords had blown everything to bits, every Avenger had been told how to access it.

She had never expected that information to be relevant until she walked into one of the residence kitchens to find Captain America and the Winter Soldier eating her yogurt in the weak illumination of the stove light. They were in what passed for incognito outfits, and hadn’t noticed her.

Having a shred of self-preservation, Darcy leaned back against the open archway and cleared her throat.

Both men jumped and turned. Barnes’ jump was smaller, but she saw it. There was a knife in his hand, which she hadn't seen a moment ago.

“Must be some damn good yogurt if I can get the drop on a couple of superheroes.”

She let the silence thicken, let the awkward moment swell until someone broke. It wouldn't be her- she knew how to let a stilted silence flow over her. She could do this all day.

Rogers broke first, glancing at the tub in his hand. “It is good, uh, Miss…?”

Because Darcy knew who she was talking to, she pulled out a little of her manners, and stepped forward with a polite smile, hand extended. “It's Ms, actually. Ms Darcy Lewis.” No one these days cared about the distinction, but the old timers would pick up on it. She felt her smile turn genuine. “No need to introduce yourselves; I'd recognize you in a hurricane.”

Steve Rogers’ huge, warm hand enclosed hers in a gentle shake. He was still holding his (her) yogurt, looking down at her with a thoughtful expression.

“I remember that line,” Barnes said, low. Darcy and Steve looked at him; his knife was nowhere to be seen. “Dum Dum used to say it.”

Darcy had forgotten where she'd learned the phrase; Barnes’ words stirred up memories of being lifted into her granddad’s arms when she was playing dress-up or in her Halloween costume, and insisting to Timothy Dugan that she was Princess Ariel or Lady Liberty or a selectively-evil witch. He'd laugh, and tickle her nose with his mustache, and say, “Darcy-girl, I'd recognize you in a hurricane.”

She blinked, and it looked like, for a moment, they'd all been sent down memory lane.

Maudlin was the opposite of Darcy’s middle name, so she looked between them with comic disbelief and said, “What, you don't see the resemblance? Just imagine me in a bowler hat and a handlebar mustache, and you'll see it, I'm sure.”

Steve laughed, but James Barnes gave her a slow once-over, the hint of a smile crinkling his eyes, and said, “ Just a bowler, doll?”

To counteract her surprise- and hopefully mask the expression on her face- Darcy lifted a lock of hair to her upper lip. “And a handlebar mustache,” she reminded.

“Yeah, now I see the resemblance,” Steve said, straight-faced, with a twinkle in his eye.

“You're shorter than I expected, for a Dugan,” Bucky added, still drawing his gaze over her.

Darcy set her fists on her hips and attempted to look taller, or at least fractionally intimidating. “How many Dugans have you met, exactly?”

“Besides you?” Steve said, setting his yogurt on the counter. He turned to the fridge, any tension her arrival had put in his frame now released.

“Just the one,” Bucky answered, leaning a hip against the kitchen island as Steve stepped around him, rummaging for more food to pilfer. He smiled- an uptick of the corner of his mouth- cast into shadow by the light of the fridge. “But I don’t remember him bein’ such a looker.”

She was standing there in ratty jeans and an oversized Hawkeye sweatshirt, and all she’d wanted was a cup of coffee that wasn't from Jane's ancient, duct-taped machine. She wasn't feeling sexy; she wasn't feeling heroic or particularly smart. Then again, that had never stopped her before.

She sauntered around the far side of the kitchen island, making for the fancy, Stark-designed espresso machine.  “I wasn't around in his youth, so I'll have to take your word for it.”

“We weren’t around in his youth, neither, doll. Dum Dum was older than alla us.” Bucky ran a hand through his hair, head following her progress across the kitchen.

“Sure, sure,” Darcy said, failing to suppress a smile, “he was ancient back then. And the rest of you were soft-boiled and fresh as daisies, huh?”

A snort emerged from the refrigerator, but Darcy didn’t really register it. Instead, her focus had narrowed down to the grin spreading across Bucky’s face. The grin didn’t abate as he looked her over a third time, head tilting a bit.

A tiny voice in the back of her head started screaming that when Sharon had been smooching her Captain America poster, Darcy had been writing “Darcy Barnes” in all her notebooks, and hunting through Great-Aunt Peggy’s old Howling Commando photo albums for pictures of a certain smile. A smile that had just been turned on her in living color.

Steve backed away from the fridge with an armful of takeout boxes, and a gallon of milk slung over his pinkie. He handed Bucky half an out-of-season watermelon and a block of cheddar, and set the rest of the food down on the island. He started poking around in the cabinets, too. Darcy looked at the spread; she’d heard they ate a lot, but this was Thor-level eating. The counter was starting to look like that scene from Jurassic Park.

They seemed to be planning to at least stay for a meal, whatever else they were doing in the Tower. On that note- “Uh, hey. You guys know Tony doesn’t live here anymore, right?”

Steve and Bucky exchanged a glance, and Bucky started cutting up the watermelon with a knife from the butcher’s block that she hadn't seen him reach for.

“That's kinda the idea, doll,” he said, eyes on her instead of his knifework.

She gave them her back as she programmed her order into the machine. Stark’s devices all used voice commands, but in deference to more than one person's morning caffeine deprivation, he'd added a touch screen. That Darcy’s threats were never bluffs might have had an influence.

“Friday is operational on these levels,” Darcy said, turning around. “He'll know you're here.”

“That's kinda the idea, too,” Steve said. He stuffed an entire spring roll in his mouth and started chewing. When he’d finished his “bite,” he said, “Thanks for not hitting the panic button on the coffeemaker all the same.”

And yeah- Tony was a paranoid genius, so of course every Stark-made item in the Tower had a panic button.

“Sure thing,” she said. Like Darcy would ever consider any Howling Commando a personal threat. In any case, she’d already considered that the Tower was mostly empty at this hour, and Jane was both ensconced in her work and currently able to call up a half-stable wormhole that would send most of an attacker on a one-way trip to empty space.

The coffee machine pinged its readiness, and Darcy reached for her mug. As she turned, her view out over Manhattan showed a small, glowing shape rapidly growing in size.

“Incoming,” Barnes said, his mouth full. Steve nodded and shoved another few bites of mystery leftovers into his mouth.

Darcy sipped from her drink while it was still the perfect temperature, but didn’t quite move to leave. “Well that’s my cue to bundle my lab wife out of the building. You guys planning on a knock-down drag-out?”

“Nah,” Bucky said, wiping watermelon juice from his cheek, “we're just here to talk. Steve- you called it a parlay?”

“We're keeping to the code,” Steve nodded. He was smirking into a foil swan full of ravioli.

“Did you- did you just make a Pirates of the Caribbean reference?”

Steve's smirk widened into a full grin. A glance at Bucky showed him grinning as well. “We've had a little downtime lately,” Steve said, mild tone at odds with his amused expression. “What with being international fugitives and all.”

She reached for a handful of cheddar cubes on her way past the cold feast laid out on the counter. Maybe she could lay them out like a breadcrumb trail to get Jane to leave the lab.

Her hand connected with Barnes’ as he reached for something himself, and Darcy suppressed a shiver as she met his gaze, and hoped the cheese wouldn't get manky in her suddenly hot grip.

At this point in life, there wasn’t a lot that fazed Darcy, having lived through multiple world-ending events and untold cataclysms and science experiments gone awry. She babysat superheros and mega-geniuses for a living. She’d been steeped in spy games from before she could walk.

Darcy Lewis didn’t fluster easily, but  contact with Bucky Barnes was making her blush.

The Iron Man suit landed on the balcony outside the underused lounge attached to the kitchen, presumably with Tony in it.

That really was Darcy’s cue to make like a tree and leave- she wasn't about to stick around for the epic fight/snarkfest- so she hoisted her coffee and headed for the elevators.

Over her shoulder, knowing she'd get the last word before Tony finished his showy entrance, Darcy called, “Give us some warning if your little parlay is going to bring the building down, savvy?”

“Anything you say, love,” Bucky's voice called after.