Chapter Text
Puente Antiguo is burning.
(Marisol Simons. Aged forty-six. Escaped an abusive relationship from her husband [markings on the back of her hands and her arms, scars across fingers, aversion to loud sounds {from the crash of bottles}]. Wears the pink lipstick and the coral necklace he never liked as a symbol of defiance. Buried alive by the collapsed roof of her store. Will no longer send her nineteen year old son attending University of Arizona the little tourist money she makes from her [childhood dream of a] cafe. He will most likely [eighty-two percent: anger issues, severe depression, will succumb to abandonment complexes] drop out after the fall semester –)
Dust lines the creases between her teeth and her gums, a fine layer of grime on top of the faint tang of the margarita mix and poptart crumbs from last night. Her left ear continues to ring and she has lost feeling in the index and pointer finger in her left hand.
(– Seventeen year-old runaway Richie Emerson. Hitchhiked from California, walking at least one-third of the journey judging by the condition of his sneakers [of a sentimental value, bought for his first track race by proud parents]. Young, fast-tongued, and saw the explosion from his counter at the gas station. He will not survive the burns. Calli Georgia, daughter of the diner owner: a first generation student off to big college dreams drawn in ivy and brick. Impaled by a rafter after –)
Statistically speaking, she would only lead twelve people to safety, while more than seventy-five percent of the small populous would meet their end. There is a fifty-two percent chance that she will meet a similar fate if she were to run out in open fire. She is neither strong (enough), nor clever (enough), nor brave (enough).
(– Freddie, Georgie, Samantha, Carlson, Max, Erik, Jane –)
Well, Darcy thinks, fuck it.
.
She is four, and he is thirteen. He wears a bright indigo dress shirt and she wears a pink tiered-skirt mottled in a crusted, dried mud. They squat behind an overgrown hedge in a vast garden under a greying British sky as the tip-tap of a well-used umbrella creeps closer. He holds a jar of fresh honey in his hand and a wild gleam in his eyes.
“Do you want to be a pirate?” he says, and she thinks she is in lo-
She wakes up.
.
Darcy follows Jane to New York for Stark-powered grants after the shitstorm that was London because her internship ended (twelve and one) months ago and she has (craves) nothing else. The new and improved yet-to-be named version of SHIELD (which may as well be the old one) gives her some cramped apartment in condolence (bribe) for the iPod they never returned, a gopher hole for Jane’s permanent gofer. Motherfucking suits, she thinks, and ignores the fourteen cameras placed throughout her living spaces.
(She doesn’t need to question anything, because she knows already, the mongrels – wait, shit fuck –)
Darcy moves in on an empty day where the sun refuses to turn its head and Jane and Thor have fucked off (hah) somewhere. She bangs around her sparse belongings and tries to ignore the state her life has come to. A voice in her head sounding suspiciously like him tsks and tuts and says, oh Darcy, wasting yourself here?
Yeah, fuck you, she thinks back, just a tad hysterical. Just because she didn’t want to be the government (How blasé a term, a different, but wholly familiar voice chimes in) or a member of the Scooby-Doo gang doesn’t mean she’s not doing important things. She likes helping Jane. She likes filing things in intricate systems only she can understand and taking care of the smart but socially-impaired. She likes correcting the math Jane fudges up on her week-long science benders and secretly translating Jane's works into every language she knows. It doesn't matter that she doesn't get glory or power or fame. She's helping in any way she can, however little that may be. She doesn’t need adventure. She doesn’t need a buzz. This, this job and this life, is all she needs – all she wants, even though those thoughts stick like cracked, melted sweets to the corners of her brain.
(Ha, ha, ha.)
.
Darcy's running back and forth between the biochemists and Doctor Banner' personal lab when it happens, because this has been her life (she is so convinced she stabbed Caesar in the past life) and by the ways things have been going down, shouldn't she have known?
(Improbable, he sniffs.)
She smells it first. A mixture of rubble and dust clog her nose and the nauseating perfume of smoke and ammonium nitrate lines the air and into her lungs. A large rumble of shifting building follows soon after along with the screeching cry of bending metal. Oh shit, she thinks.
“Oh shit,” she says.
“Code Red-16,” JARVIS’s voice booms. “Code Viper. Please evacuate the building immediately through the emergency exit.” A flash of light and the halls glow with the arrows that point to the nearest escape.
Her feet are moving before she knows it and by the time the numbers stop flashing before her eyes she is already running through the halls with her best Pepper Potts face to the very end of Floor 37, Section BC-32.
“Ms. Lewis, I believe it is of your best interest that you quickly leave the premises instead of going farther into the destruction.” JARVIS intones. Translation: Ms. Lewis, you dumb motherfucker, get the fuck out right now, you shit.
“Sorry, girl’s gotta do. Tell the Dream Team to come as quickly as possible, ‘kay?”
JARVIS begins his request again but is cut out by the sound of another explosion. Darcy takes this as a sign of his agreement, and her feet move past a jog and into a run as she prays for the strength she knows she'll never have.
.
Before she even enters the lab, Darcy knows that the scientists (Doctor Simons, biochemist extraordinaire with two children [eldest is expecting, was going to get a call sometime this week even though he already knew], married for twenty-seven years to a loving wife who never hesitated to stuff him with food; Doctor Fredrickson, chronic nail-biter and youngest of three, graduated from Ivy at seventeen, ready to show the world) are dead, mere casualties to gravity’s unjust ways. She quickly enters and her eyes zone in on a large, hulking figure slowly emerging from a brush of rubble and shatter test tubes. Glass crunches her foot and she winces. Shit.
The man’s eyes snap up, and a vicious, almost comically villainous grin unfolds across his face. He advances towards her (part of a new group as seen from the clear uniformity of his crisp un-emblemed clothes; unplanned attack: disorganized and lucky as hell, seriously, fertilizer and oil?) in quick lurching steps. She takes a deep breath, and the comforting numbers start to scroll through her head at breakneck speed (but not quick enough, four minutes twenty-eight seconds, stallstallstall).
(Leaning on his right left – bruising and straining of left leg from impact of a faulty explosion [78.273940121 percent], will put his weight into left arm [favored arm even without injury] to hit harder [Varsity boxing in high school, trick of trade], swing one and two, duck and roll, dodge left, dodge down, gun in right pocket, two [expected] bombs strapped to the inside of left boot, three minutes, not enough -)
MOVE, her brain screams, and she barely makes it out of the way of Dark, Tall, and Mean Left Hook’s fist (miscalculation, should not round numbers even in dire situations, stupid, stupid, shit, oh god, -) before she ducks and kicks him right in the shin of his left leg with the point of her heel. Darcy skitters across the room as the man howls with pain and throws herself behind a fallen desk to the left of her for cover. In the back of her mind, she thinks that maybe, just maybe, those private self-defense lessons the Black Widow offered would have been a good idea (in the front of her mind, she knows that lessons would have bought her little more than three seconds worth of time.)
Darcy gets up. The man is stumbling across the room towards her. His bad leg is holding him back, but she knows that she should not just blindly throw herself at him (should not, could not, will). Two minutes, thirty seconds, twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty -
“Hi,” she says. He lunges at her.
She jumps out of the way quickly, and swirls herself around and headbutts him in the stomach. A rough gasp is pulled out of his mouth, and he scrambles for something to hold on to, which also happens to be her hair. She crashes to the floor with him and her foot twists in a way no bone should and she tries not to throw up or scream. He pulls her up by the strands of her hair and this time, she does scream, because, shit, that hurts, and she’s going to die.
She’s going to die.
“Bitch,” he snarls, and Darcy can’t help but spit in his face, because why the fuck not. He slaps her hard and her head spins. She wonders if the rest of them are safe. (She knows they are safe.)
He pulls a knife from inside the sleeve of his arm. The man presses the knife against her neck and she chokes on her breath. Her vision grows hazy, obnoxiously bright, and yup, this is her life, passing the fuck out before Asshole Mcgee slices her throat Thanksgiving turkey style, Darcy Lewis: hero of the hour, everybody. Noise buzzes and roars and crashes through her ears and one minute twenty-six seconds, twelve...
“Lady Darcy! Are you alright?”
A small beep cuts off Tony Stark’s ill-fitted flight units (his math was way off) and a rush of air brushes over her crumpled body. “Christ. Did you toss half the lab on the guy?” he says. Darcy sighs in relief. She has never been so relieved to hear a smarmy bastard speak in her life.
“Man of Iron, Lady Darcy’s safety is of utmost importance. She is a shieldmaiden of lightning and it is my duty to protect all those who are under my domain.” Thor rumbles, in his ever-comforting infomercial shout of a voice.
She looks at them. They look at her.
“Oh,” she breathes, almost tumbling over a chunk of ceiling in her haste to get up. “You’re early.”
.
Darcy opens her eyes to blinding morning light and is hit with the clinical scent of the hospital ward of Stark’s Avengers Tower. Jane is beside her, nails digging into the skin of Darcy’s arm. Thor stands to the side, near the window, his blond hair shining in the sun like a shampoo commercial.
“What - What were you thinking?” Jane says.
(The floor was not evacuated yet. Despite my gross incompetence in fighting, my ability to read an opponent’s moves through – through my predictions - was highly beneficial to stalling until a member of the Avengers could appear to helpfully take out the enemy. Also, I’m a giant idiot. Whoops.)
“I, uh,” Darcy licks her lips, “got lost. And he was there, and uhm. Yeah.”
Jane gets a look on her face, the Jesus-Christ-Darcy-you-are-so-fucking-dumb-how-do-you-not-choke-on-your-own-breath before going melty around the eyes and pulling Darcy into her arms.
“Next time you’re running, okay?” Jane buries her face into Darcy’s neck. “When I heard, I thought, I thought that it would, that you were,” Jane sounds a little berserk, and Darcy understands, because it is hard to not go a little crazy after hitting a god with a truck and then having to shut up about the suits taking away all your shit and said god falling out of the sky and Tony Stark giving out jobs like Oprah gave out plasmas and New York blowing up. “Just run away next time, alright?”
Darcy wraps her arms around Jane. “Your wish is my command,” she replies, solemn. Thor smiles, and the glow of it seeps into every corner of the room.
It doesn’t even hurt when Jane smacks her on the back.
.
Not-dead not-Agent Coulson is the next to visit.
“I heard about your actions during the attack.” he says, and oh, shit. “They were very commendable.”
“I’m not joining your– your spy thing,” she blurts out, in another timeless edition of Darcy’s mouth does not correspond with her brain half of the time. She pulls the blanket over head, willing her bed to swallow her body into the earth like the jello cup she dropped on the floor the day before. Coulson sighs, a mixture of exasperation and fondness that sounds so much like –
Darcy peaks out from beneath the covers. Coulson’s face hasn’t moved, but the slight twitch in his index finger (he has a meeting in ten minutes, her brain screams, throw him off your scent) shows that he is only mortal. “And what makes you think I was planning to offer you a job, Ms. Lewis?”
“Uh. Nothing, I was just getting ahead of myself, you know how the drugs are. Ha. Ha. Well, if that was all, thanks for visiting.”
“The drugs seem to be right on board, Ms. Lewis.” he replies, and wait, is he smiling? “I’d like to extend a starting job as a junior agent. If you manage to pass our preliminary exams, your clearance will be upgraded and your status will be that of an official agent of SHIE – of our initiative.”
“I bet you have a great dental plan, but I truly don’t want to. It’d be like… working with my cousin, which, ew.” And it would be like working with him - with them. It really, really would.
“I understand -” he says. He walks quietly toward the exit, but not before turning around, his smile now a full-blown, shit-eating smirk. “- even though you have no cousins on record.” The door closes with a soft click.
Darcy gapes. Of course he’d take time to erase them from the leftover SHIELD files, because duh. It hadn’t been difficult when Darcy broke into their databases for Thor, so it must’ve been a daytime stroll for his 'people.' And he, he must have, would have helped.
“Those little shits.” she says, and is incredibly annoyed by how impressed she feels.
.
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“Coulson – hey, about before – your super spy stuff? I’d like to be a part of it. Thanks. Call me back. Cool. Alright, I'll hang up no -”
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So maybe she’s being a little vindictive. But you couldn’t fault a Holmes for being that way – not really.
Not at all.