Chapter Text
Darcy Lewis had a thing for tights. Her father had raised her with an all-consuming fear of skin cancer and, as a result, she had spent all twenty-five years of her life pasty as all hell and with sunscreen perpetually somewhere on her person. And it wasn’t that pale skin was bad, per se. Darcy was completely happy with it. It was just that tights happened to pull outfits together in a way that practically translucent legs did not. Darcy Lewis liked skirts and Darcy Lewis had white-as-a-polar-bear-in-a-snowstorm stems ergo Darcy Lewis had a formidable collection of tights.
As Darcy dove behind a mailbox, avoiding the gunfire that sprayed in her wake, she had a brief thought that she might need to reconsider her fashion choices. The wet sting on her knees let Darcy know that her landing had not been as graceful as one would hope of a junior SHIELD agent, and she mentally kissed another pair of tights – and just, really? These babies had been brand new and completely opaque – up to Thor.
She scrambled for her phone, trying desperately to ignore the shrieking groan this particular set of Doombots were making every time the Hulk managed to swat one out of the air. Seriously, those things were like iPhones, Doom seemed to come out with some new and improved version semi-annually. Only, he had seriously misjudged the release date on Bot 7.0 or whatever they were at now. The Fantastic Four were off dealing with some sea creature in Hawaii and so all Victor – Darcy subscribed to the Voldemort not You-Know-Who school of thought when it came to naming supervillians – had managed to accomplish with his new and improved robo-goons was scaring the absolute bejesus out of half of Times Square and causing Darcy to destroy yet another pair of perfectly good tights. Even with rent being taken care of by Tony freaking Stark, her pledge-level Salary was not going to cover the amount of hosiery she had been going through.
Finally spotting her Stark Phone (miraculously unharmed despite the less than athletic somersault she had taken to get to cover) Darcy punched in the first number she could think of. Thank Thor the first thing she had done as Steve’s 21st Century Tour Guide (or, officially, his Ambassador) was teach him how to operate a cell-phone. And if she had somehow neglected to inform him that emojis weren't actually a necessary part of modern-day textual communications well, it was only because who wouldn't love getting earnest texts from super-soldiers that ended with smiley faces, cacti, or monkeys. Darcy had no idea why, but Steve freaking loved his monkey emojis.
Voicemail. Crap.
“Steve!”
She liked to think this came across as a calm, yet urgent plea for back-up, but given that one of the Doombot 8.0s (they really were more advanced than last year’s model) had just vaporized the mailbox behind which Darcy was crouching, it probably ended up slightly more in the squawk-ish territory than she was comfortable admitting.
Executing yet another secret-agent roll (don’t say SHIELD never taught her anything) Darcy made for the alley behind her, pressing herself up against the bricks of the GAP store to her left, still cool to the touch even in the midday heat.
“Steve,” Darcy continued, practically conversationally, once she'd caught her breath. “Things are going to shit in midtown. Thought you should know. Also, if I get killed by a freaking Doombot of all creatures because you were too engrossed in a Star Trek marathon – and yes, I know I introduced you to it and yes, you should keep watching but it’s a really inopportune time right now– I will use my ghostly powers to ensure the Yankees win the World Series for the foreseeable future”
Electing to keep it short, and satisfied that Captain Bubblebutt would understand the seriousness of her threat, Darcy hung up and slid the phone into the pocket of her skirt. While on some level she was aware that the team likely already knew of the attack, Darcy still felt better having made the call. Yes, Dr. Banner was currently sending the bots to their mechanical afterlife, but that was only because the good doctor had elected to accompany Darcy on her midday coffee run. Coffee, which had been one of the first casualties of the bots. The Doombots had uncanny aim; just accurate enough to completely wreck Darcy’s day, but not so deadly that she was actually injured.
Focus, focus, focus, Darcy chanted as she dragged her thoughts from the spilled coffee to the more pressing matter at hand. Junior or not, she was an agent of SHIELD (and wasn't that the biggest plot twist fate could possibly have thrown at her but, as it turned out, where Thor went Jane went, and where Jane went Darcy went and where Thor went was the Avengers so here they all were) and so she really should not be hiding out in an alley while innocent civilians fled. Ignoring the sharp prick against her calf – it’s not a needle it’s not a needle it’s not some junkie’s discarded needle– Darcy took a couple steadying breaths and headed out into the crowd, grabbing the nearest couple of screaming tourists and shoving them toward the alley she had just vacated.
Grabbing her Taser, Darcy neatly short-circuited the nearest flying Doombot, sending him crashing into two of his brethren below him. Totally meant to do that. Darcy allowed herself a brief moment of awe at just how cool that had been and then flicked the switch to recharge her Taser (thanks to Tony and his need to play with all things mechanical, Darcy was now the proud owner of a Taser with seemingly unlimited charges) and aimed at the next flying piece of soon-to-be scrap metal.
She'd made her way through maybe ten of the suckers before they seemed to realize she was a threat. Really, Darcy was surprised it had taken the hive mind that long, although she figured compared to the Hulk she was but a blip on their radar. Regardless, they’d now deemed her worthy of extermination (oh joy) and about twenty turned on her en masse.
Shit.
Upping the voltage on her Taser – maybe with enough of a charge the electricity would jump from one to another, taking out a whole group at once – she braced herself against a garbage can and, ignoring the stinging in her knees or the way her world was starting to tilt sideways, took aim at the middle of the oncoming group. The shot took out a good three quarters of them – and didn’t they just light up like the fourth of July with all their circuitry spazzing out, she thought hazily – but the surviving bots were still coming straight after her. Slightly more worrisome was the fact that she was apparently incapable of standing anymore.
(Darcy had been drugged before. Once, her sophomore year of college, some asshole had apparently thought a great way to get laid would be to give her some Rohypnol. Thankfully, her friends had gotten her out of the bar once she’d started to sag, but Darcy still remembered the clawing feeling of panic rising up in her throat when she’d realized her body wasn’t responding, and that her mind wasn’t far behind.)
Slumping against the trashcan, and watching the bots approaching through narrowed eyes, she blearily wondered when it could have happened this time. She hadn’t had a chance to have even a sip of her mocha before the Doombots had arrived, and before that it had been tap water at the Tower.
Maybe the drugs would make whatever was about to happen next much more palatable, she mused. At the very least, even as the head Doombot raised his arm, and she felt the hum of electricity gather around it, being drugged meant that she’d just stopped giving a damn.
Darcy blinked. A slow, dragging of her eyelids that felt like it took several minutes to accomplish. Maybe it had, because the next time she got her eyes fully open, Doombot Asshole A – the one that had been about to shoot her – was currently wavering on his feet without a head, and Captain America – freaking finally, took him long enough – was punching the one behind it with enough force to send Bot B careening into Bots C, D and E. Bots F and G were decapitated with a spin kick. She’d taught him that, Darcy thought - if not triumphantly because that seemed to be past her right now - then at least a little smugly. And if by “taught” she meant show him the YouTube video of some MMA fighter doing that well, credit where credit was due.
Rolling her head to the side – like a newborn baby Darcy had apparently lost all ability to hold her head up on her own damn neck – she saw Natasha and Clint making quick work of any bot that had managed to escape the Hulk’s grabby little hands, and the Sam and Tony were catching any that tried to fly away.
She blinked again.
All the Doombots were finished. Lying in the street like some futuristic apocalyptic scene. Which, she thought sluggishly, wouldn’t all Apocalypses be futeristic? Given that it hadn’t happened so far, any that did happen would have to be in the future…
She blinked again.
Steve’s face hovered anxiously over hers, blurry without her glasses. Or was she wearing her glasses and he was blurry anyway?
“Darce? Darcy! Are you injured?”
In her head (because her body was now completely non-responsive and if Darcy had been any more with it she would have been worried about this development) Darcy tried not to giggle. Steve’s voice was coming out in slow-motion, and he sounded like one of the parents from Charlie Brown. She tried to reassure him, to tell him that likely all this was was an asshole barista and spectacularly poor timing, but before she could say anything she felt her eyes close again.
Tuesdays were the absolute worst.