Chapter Text
Before the door opens to Erik’s apartment, she takes a moment to collect herself and close down her senses. There’s no point going in hot if she can help it, but the events of her day make it impossible to close off completely.
The door opens and Jane rushes out to hug her. Darcy steps back, holding up her hands. “I can’t,” she says, and even though Jane doesn’t understand, she lets her arms drop.
“Thank you for coming,” Jane says, wringing her hands, and Darcy resists the urge to ask her to tone it down. Up close, Jane’s worry is already battering at the flimsy barrier Darcy’s created, and the intensity of it is pricking at her head. Darcy takes a step back.
“You paid for me to get out here,” Darcy says, striving for the cool calm of indifference. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and tries to strengthen her walls. “How is he?”
“He says he’s okay.”
“But obviously he isn’t.”
Jane wraps her arms around herself, looking down. “No. Come on in, he’s in the kitchen.”
Darcy follows Jane into the small apartment, taking in the sparse walls and bare tables. Other than Jane’s mess on the couch, Erik’s space is remarkably clean. Even if she couldn’t feel his suffering through the walls of the apartment, the lack of controlled chaos, the lack of any signs of science, would have been enough to tell her that something was wrong. Even from here, she can feel him. He’s projecting his feelings everywhere, and she hopes she can withstand the onslaught. She closes her eyes and tries to sort through the emotion.
Concern, different than the man on the street’s. This one radiates a sharpness that comes with desperation. Jane. The grasping claws of guilt, the swirling storm of self-loathing, the relentless undertow of hopelessness, the insidious tendrils of shame. God, it’s worse than she’d thought. For a split second, Darcy debates getting the hell out of there. He feels almost as strongly as the man on the street and it hurts almost as much. She’s poised to run, before she calms herself enough to think. If she could help a stranger, she can help a friend, so she steps back and tries to shut down. Strangely enough, it’s the thought of that stranger and the contentment she left him with that helps her center enough to build a wall with enough strength to at least block out the worst of what’s seeping through the walls.
“Erik,” Jane says, her voice soft and coddling. It reminds Darcy of how people talk to upset children or wounded animals. She would hate that tone if it was directed at her, but she tries to remind herself that Jane is completely out of her element here and she is trying her best. And maybe this is the best way to go forward in this case. “Look who’s in New York! Darcy’s here, if you’re up for company.”
A spike of resentment cuts through the thick layer of Jane’s worry, and Darcy tries not to flinch. Okay then. Not taking that approach. She steps into the kitchen and finds Erik sitting quietly at a small table, a steaming cup of tea in his hands. It’s still filled to the brim, and Darcy wonders if he’s just using it to warm his hands, or if Jane made it thinking it might make him feel better. The tea obviously isn’t helping. Everything he’s feeling comes rushing at her. His eyes are shadowed, like he hasn’t slept in days, he looks terrible, and she tells him so.
“You look like hell.” The wave of emotion is cut by a flare of surprise, and something that’s not quite amusement but it’s as close as Erik can likely get at this point.
“Darcy!” Jane exclaims; she looks like she’s ready to push Darcy back out the door, but Darcy gives her a look. You called me, it says, and Jane knows that she doesn’t know how to handle this side of Erik on her own so she stands down.
“Jane,” Darcy responds mildly. She looks at Erik and his cup of tea, feels Jane’s emotions, and they seem heightened by Erik’s and vice versa. Darcy makes a decision. “Don’t you have some fancy new job going on?”
Jane is startled. When she opens her mouth she can almost hear Jane say, “Why are you asking about me when you’re here for Erik?” but remarkably, Jane remains quiet.
“I remember you telling me about it over the phone,” Darcy continues. “Stark Industries. That’s a big deal. Why don’t you go in today?”
Jane shoots a glance at Erik. “I can’t.”
“Sure you can. Erik and I will keep each other company while you’re gone.” Darcy slips into the chair across from Erik, struggling to keep her head clear. “It’ll give us a chance to catch up.” It takes a little more convincing, but Darcy is saved from having to stomp her foot, point to the door, and yell “out!” when Jane finally relents. She isn’t happy, but Darcy doesn’t care. She’s here to help Erik, and as much as she loves Jane, Jane’s anxiety isn’t helping him. So she isn’t surprised when as soon as they hear the door click, Erik’s shoulders slump the tiniest bit in relief.
“How’ve you been, doc?” she asks when he looks at her.
“Did Jane call you?” It’s the first thing he’s said since she got here, and his voice is low and raspy with disuse.
She doesn’t bother lying to him. “Yes.”
“So you’re here to worry at me, too,” he says with a frown, but Darcy shakes her head.
“No. Jane loves you and she means well, but I’m here to keep her from smothering you in concern. Also, I like New York. Might be looking for a job.” That’s a lie, but it’s a relatively harmless one.
His eyes are shadowed when he says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to your graduation.”
“That’s alright.” She says with a small smile. “ You had your own things to deal with. And thank you for the card.” Because even after being mind-controlled by a Norse Alien God thing, Erik was compassionate enough to think of other people.
He shifts the mug from hand to hand in agitation, tea sloshing over the sides. He doesn’t seem to notice the hot liquid splashing on his fingers. “Do you know what I did?”
“I know what you were made to do.”
“Does it make a difference?” Her heart breaks a little, because before all of this, Erik would have been confident in the answer to that question. That crack is enough to let some of his darker emotions seep in and Darcy has to force herself to close it off. This isn’t the time for that, not yet.
“It makes all the difference.”
Erik is silent for a long while, and she thinks maybe it’s time to do what she does when he finally speaks again. “They all tell me it wasn’t my fault. Objectively, as a scientist, I know that.”
“But as a person, it doesn’t help any, does it?” she asks quietly.
His eyes are bleak as they look into hers. “No. Are you here to fix me?”
“You don’t need to be fixed,” she says firmly, covering his hand with hers and siphoning away a tiny bit of the negative emotion. “And I’m here as a friend. We don’t have to talk about things you don’t want to.” She pats his hand again, absorbing a little more of his hopelessness, shoving it down, gathering up her own little store of happy thoughts and sending it his way. She putters around his kitchen, looking for brownie ingredients, and draws information out of him as she bakes. Every once in a while she’ll brush against him, subtly drawing in his emotion, putting hers back in. She does this until she feels drawn and tired, but he looks better, and she reminds herself that’s why she she’s here. She puts a brownie in front of him and they chat about Culver.
“Thank you for coming, Darcy,” he says a few hours later. “I feel…better.”
“Must be the brownies,” Darcy says with a lightness she doesn’t feel.
“And the company. Thank you.” He’s sitting up straighter, eyes brighter, the feeling radiating off of him is lighter than before. When she comes back tomorrow, she knows it will be bad again. What she’s done isn’t permanent. It’s just a dose of medicine, to mask the symptoms while his mind attempts to heal, but maybe he’ll actually sleep tonight. It’s a start.
—
Steve wanders into Dr. Banner’s lab, still thinking about his encounter with the girl on the street. For the first time in a long time he feels…good. It worries him because he knows it isn’t real. He knows what he feels—what he should be feeling, and this isn’t it. He searches for the grief and anger and guilt that’s been his shadow for months and he finds a ghost of it, flickering somewhere in the depths of his mind and he wants it back. Not because he likes how it feels, but because he knows it’s real.
“That’s a very serious face you’re wearing, Captain.” Dr. Banner is looking at him, a faintly amused smile on his face that hides so much of what’s beneath the surface, and Steve wonders if anything like this has happened to him.
“Have you ever gone from feeling one thing to feeling the opposite in the blink of an eye?” Steve asks.
Dr. Banner raises a brow. “Mood swings?” A hint of concern tinges his voice, and Steve shakes his head.
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s only gone one way so far. I went from feeling…bad to feeling better.”
“Drugs, Cap?”
“No. It was strange. I was walking back from lunch and there was this girl…”
“There always is,” Dr. Banner says with a small smile.
“No, she touched me and suddenly I felt…good.”
Dr. Banner smirks. “Well, see Cap, sometimes when a man finds a woman attractive…”
Steve rolls his eyes. “Not that kind of good.” He struggles to find the words to explain it. “It was like she took out the bad and put in something better. I’m feeling good, but I know I’m not supposed to.”
“Where did she touch you?” Dr. Banner asks, all business now. Steve holds up his hands for him to examine, and Dr. Banner pulls on his glasses as he looks more closely. “No sign of puncture marks anywhere. It could have been something topical. I could run some blood tests—“
“No. I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Not yet anyway. Do you think it could have been her? That she might have done it?” Steve doesn’t know why, but that’s the explanation that feels right. Whatever happened felt connected to her and the moment her hands had tightened over his.
“People can do a lot of things,” Dr. Banner says quietly. “I wouldn’t discount it.”
Steve nods thoughtfully, thinking of bright blue eyes and soft, warm hands clasping his. “Is she…do you think she’s someone we should worry about?”
Dr. Banner smiles again. “Ah, yes. A villain whose power is to fill people with happy thoughts.”
“You never know.” He decides to lay the question aside for now. The burden of his guilt, his anger, his grief…all of that is temporarily off of his shoulders. Instead of questioning why, he’ll let himself breathe for a while until it comes back. And it will come back. He feels the ghost of it strengthening, solidifying, but for now he’ll just let himself be a man, unburdened by history.
There are millions of people in this city; he wonders if he’ll ever see her again.