Chapter Text
“I’ll be fine,” she reassured them. Calm. Cool. Collected. Monica nodded resolutely. Jimmy hesitated but then followed after the Captain, leaving with a look that lingered a second too long as she smiled back at him. It would be fine.
Argh. Focus. Darcy's mind was running a mile a minute, struggling to pay attention to her surroundings. Said surroundings were industrial blinking computers and machines stacked on top of each other, sort of reminiscent of Star Wars droids, except this was real and now and dangerous. And she, she was reeling.
Reeling over Monica's changing molecular cells and frankly her eagerness to go back inside the Hex (because either option certainly wouldn't be good in the long run, right?). Worried about Jimmy's confident plan to hotwire a car (she didn't doubt he could - she fretted about them getting caught and leaving her alone to face all this). She was an independent woman, but realistically, she knew this would only succeed as a team effort. She could volunteer to be the brains, but beyond that... Except, of course, now she was alone. And once again completely out of her depth - sure, she accidentally took Thor down with a taser and helped save the world in London, but really, this wasn't her world. Spies and agents and magic and government agencies with obvious malicious hidden agendas. She studied political science long enough to know how this would go.
A feeling of dread seeped in the quiet with Jimmy and Monica’s absence. And honestly, she was worried. They were a little too confident for how these things went. They were basically on their own now.
She heard a nearby vehicle start. So much for the hotwiring. She breathed deeply to steel herself. Now they were heading away, but she would soon catch up. She supposed she would have to steal one of the cars too. Hmm. Well, if that wasn’t just as nerve-wracking.
Darcy was only here as an astrophysicist, a citizen, apparently sassy enough to cause a problem and stupid enough to sneak back in, in a baggy poncho, sans beanie and honestly starting to notice the chill in the air from the rain. And the humidity. And the low level buzzing and feeling of electricity in the air. Her adrenaline hadn't slowed down since Jimmy threw the first punch (Um wow? File that under: Process Later) and she could only watch in shock, taking a few steps back, as Jimmy and Monica made up an impromptu decision - and plan - and now she was following it too. Err, whatever it was. She was determined to stay behind, which she now was, to help them with her hacking skills. It's what she could do, and she didn't care about getting fired. She was here as a contractor, possibly. She actually didn't know.
Darcy did know that what Hayward (That Dick) was planning was, well, it wasn't going to end well for any of them. Darcy trusted Monica and her track record, and Jimmy and his FBI training and honestly very sensible everything, but she couldn't help but wonder how long until her nine cat lives ran out. She survived New Mexico. London. The Blip. And again, she's throwing herself into danger, technically untrained, but unable to resist. Unable to resist the knowledge, the ability to help. She's done it before. Saved the world. Or at least, helped someone else do it. But in her gut, Darcy felt a sense of dread. This was Big. And the world’s heroes - the Norse god, spies, super soldiers, etc - were no where to be found. It was up to regular old humans now.
The buzzing of Wanda's nearby barrier grew louder. Darcy could hear it grating.
Wanda's Halloween Spooktacular episode aired (Darcy had Thoughts about missing it and the vital built-in clues it revealed about her brother showing up. but unfortunately that wasn't the most important task at the moment) while the outer boundary of the Hex grew increasingly angry. Or active. She heard it clearly inside the tent. She couldn't see how it continued to glow red, glitch red, with miniscule rainbow particles racing across it as it malfunctioned.
Typing away at the small laptop, trying to glean as much information as possible from the data, Darcy's fingers flew across the keyboard. She'd really rather be sipping coffee and eating chips with Jimmy while watching Wanda's cute family sitcom, you know, without the life-threatening possibilities that were soon to erupt. She wasn't stupid. (Note, the PhD.) She knew how these things went and soon enough, she would be too involved, too nearby to be safe. Suddenly, she missed her cat (staying at her mom's) with a fierceness.
A cold chill racked over her and a brief notion that they should be keeping these machines in better conditions, but that soon flitted away. At least, she noted before starting a the final leg of the firewall hacking campaign, she'd rather be here than facing any more SWORD agents like Jimmy and Monica might be facing - really though who were they meeting and why hadn't Monica texted Darcy the location yet?
Wowza. Focus. Her eyes danced across the small screen.
She again eerily felt like the room was too silent. Why wasn’t an agent monitoring this room? Okay. Attention back to the new data. She read on. Okay. Yikes. This was Avengers level stuff. This was, ugh, she couldn't think. This wasn't, Hayward was-.
Darcy felt very alone. She wasn't worried about getting caught, she didn't mind being alone per se, it was - what was the right word? Vulnerable? Especially as her unsettled feeling grew as the data increasingly revealed information that was Not Good, worrying information about Vision and the past few years. She was just a scientist, she decided, no hesitation at all, that Monica and Jimmy needed to see this ASAP, as soon as-
Commotion erupted outside. Her endless internal monologue silenced, suddenly listening. In the crevices on half formed thoughts were more runaway panicked thoughts, spinning in her mind, all with horrible possibilities, all tinged with that red magic glow. She heard shouts. Not of panic or anger - of surprise. And that's when she ran toward it instead of toward Monica and Jimmy.
She felt her feet slowing down but here eyes couldn't move away. Oh my god. The agents were pointing their guns. It would have been pretty - the red and blue and overlapping purple massive monolith solid glitching wall, if it weren't for Vision, trying to break through it.
OH my- the magic around him, holding him back, grew bright. He was clearly showing a feat of strength, slowly walking through it. Wait.
Darcy's eyes widened. He was grunting. The agents stood still. He was screaming. No. They didn't move. He was coming apart. NO. Oh no.
"Why aren't you helping him?" Darcy heard herself yell, she moved closer, already calculating how to help. The pieces wrenched from him, sucked back in, were too loud.
"STOP, he's coming apart!" She picked up speed, and then-.
The wind was knocked out of her as she was jerked back by an agent from the side. He was yelling at her, but Darcy fought forward as Vision's pain increased.
"What are you doing, help him!" She demanded. Vision was on the ground, crawling. Some agents took steps back. Some uttered phrases of fascination, others stood stoically.
"No!"
The SWORD agent wrenched her hand, shit, she felt the cold metal handcuff on it. Darcy still struggled toward him. Vision's blue eyes pierced her, staring resolutely forward, at her, as he made utterances she couldn't hear. The hex forcefield was so loud. Tiny bits of pieces flew back in like particles of dust as Vision told her, her because no one else was doing anything at all, what the fuck, that the people inside needed help.
Darcy felt her mouth drop open, oh my, NO, he wad disintegrating, just like the Blip - oh my god, just like her brother and Jane and -. He fell to the ground, she noticed her refused, refused to go back seemingly where it was safe. He wanted out. This didn't make sense. What was Wanda doing when she knew Hayward-.
Uh oh.
Darcy felt the vibrations from the eruptions in the ground before she saw the blast of red from the center and the instantaneous expansion outward, toward her, her eyebrows raised in fear, it was buzzing, the raw power too close. She wrenched her wrist. ohmygod. Hayward, at the center of the agents, took two steps back then started running.
Shitshitshitshit.
The SWORD agent next to her, WITH THE KEY TO HER HANDCUFFS, took off.
"Are you serious right now?!" She screamed. Too late.
Among the "go's" and the "move! move!" commands being shouted in panic, Darcy glanced at it. She was transfixed by the nearing wall. It was amazing. Several theories of astrophysics tugged in the recess of her brain. Her fear was strong. It was terrifying. It was picking up speed, toward her. What was it? What would it do? Darcy was stuck. Trapped. She didn't want to die, she didn't want it to hurt.
She turned briefly to the vehicle and tugged fruitlessly, shit, she was just a human, no superhuman strength or spy-like lock picking skills. A funny feeling was tingeing toward her, in the milliseconds as the Hex's outer boundary raced toward her like a solid wall. Feelings she was not unfamiliar with but didn't warmly welcome. Wanda. Grief, drowning, loneliness, fear, power, anger, desire.
The blue light was gone. Red light streaked among the black mass. It crashed through the SWORD equipment and lights and ohmy god it enveloped Vision. It was nearing her like a train, a solid brick wall. She couldn't hear the clinks of her own handcuffs as she tugged her wrists raw. Up close, oh my god it was too close, the red light was blinding. It was right there. If time slowed down, which it felt like, she felt the warm and frigid cold red wash over her and the grip on her mind and the pain and -.
"Oh fuck, fu-."