Chapter Text
Darcy was alerted by Jarvis when the team got back to the tower from a mission that had gone wrong barely two minutes into the op. It was bloody, it was brutal, and her heroes were injured. Natasha had been shot through the stomach and the bullet had grazed her hip bone. She was rushed into surgery upon the team’s arrival.
When Darcy got up to the med floor, all she saw was bruised and beaten faces and a very low morale. She offered comforting touches as she made her way to James, standing outside the window to the operating room. When she was a foot away from the grief-stricken face of her lover she tucked the hair that had fallen loose from his haphazard bun behind his ear, resting her hand on his shoulder before looking through the glass at her friend on the table.
“She’ll be okay,” Darcy murmured softly, “she always is.”
James looked at her and his eyes were a stormy gray, swirling with sadness and rage. He huffed out a shaky breath before moving away from her touch, “This is my fault.”
Darcy curled her fingers into her hand as her arm dropped to her side, “James—”
The look he gave her was nothing but frustration and remorse. “I distracted her. Was supposed to be easy. She asked if I had told you—”
“Told me what?” Darcy interrupted with a look of confusion on her worried face.
“About us.” James looked through the glass towards Natasha, his arm whirring as he clenched his fist, “and I said no. Because I was cruel and angry, and I told her I wasn’t going to. That we had to stop. I told her I couldn’t hurt you anymore. I needed you.” He unclenched his fist as his eyes dropped to his feet before sliding to look at her out of the corner of his eye. “I told her she was my past, but you were my future. There was no more waiting for us but pain.”
Darcy schooled her face as best as she could, but she was no spy. She was not trained to be secretive or to lie. She crossed her arms in both comfort and defense as she took half a step away from him, her eyes staring at the woman on the table but not seeing her. “Why are you telling me now?” She gasped out between clenched teeth.
James chin dropped to his chest as he looked down at his boots, still shining with what was most likely blood, “All this is my fault. Because I couldn’t tell you sooner. Because I couldn’t end it with her sooner. Because I was selfish, and her pain is my fault. I didn’t want to lie anymore. Not to you.”
Darcy looked at him, saw the man crumbling before her as he was wracked with pain and guilt. “Now you’ve knowingly hurt us both,” she whispered without remorse into the space between them before she turned and walked out.
The pitying glance from Steve, the sad but worried look from Tony, the way Clint refused to look at her. It all added to her hurt as she walked out. She wished Thor was planet side, she wanted a hug from her pseudo-brother.
Darcy had been suspicious. The late nights James would wake without nightmares and go down to Natasha’s to drink and reminisce. The odd looks she would get from Tony and the constipated look on Steve’s face when Natasha would sit on the other side of James at team dinners and movie nights. The time the two of them went on a duo op and Natasha came back with the air of a woman who had been thoroughly fucked.
But she had also trusted James. Trusted Natasha. The man she came home to, the man that took her dancing and stayed up all night to do Science! With her and Jane whenever they went stargazing. The woman who taught her self-defense when she got mugged walking back from the coffee shop, the woman who helped her bake bird’s milk cake, and joined in on girl’s nights both in and out of the tower.
And now Darcy knew that she had been right to be suspicious. And that it hurt. The way the rest of the team so obviously seemed to know but not say anything added to her hurt.
As she stepped into the elevator she straightened her spine and squared her shoulders.
Darcy Maria Lewis would not cry over a man. She just needed some air.