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It was Natasha’s idea that Darcy should learn how to fly a plane.
Darcy called it the How to Be An Independent Woman in a Superhero’s World Learning Series. The first lecture in the series had been on the importance of a good foundation in self-defense. When Darcy and Jane had first moved into the tower and before they’d even been formally introduced to any of their new housemates, Natasha had approached them in the lobby with the instructions to be ready and warmed up in the gym on the 49th floor at 3 PM. Ever since, the scientist and scientist-wrangler had a standing appointment, twice a week, to improve their self-defense skills.
Self-defense, by Natasha’s understanding, was not limited to combat techniques or weapons training. “It’s not just about staying alive or getting away,” Natasha intoned, raining down her wisdom on the bowed heads of Darcy and Jane as they worked away at the locked doors she had assigned them. “It’s about being able to hold your own as a woman in a male-dominated field. It’s about taking other’s underestimation of you and using it to your advantage to gain the upper hand.”
It was a multi-faceted thing, self-defense, that always seemed to be changing. One day they would be picking locks, the next they would be picking perfumes. “Your scent is very important,” Natasha lectured. “And different scents are necessary for different missions.” Natasha’s lecture series also covered seduction, surveillance, and now a pilot’s license.
Jane had bowed out long ago. “I appreciate it, I really do,” she told Natasha, showing a surprising amount of courage for someone telling the Black Widow ‘no.’ “But I didn’t come here to be a superhero, I came here to do science. You’re great at your job, now let me be great at mine.”
Natasha had nodded, then turned to Darcy. “And do you want out too?”
“Absolutely not,” Darcy had answered enthusiastically. “I want to be a superhero, the science is only secondary.”
Now, however, Darcy was reconsidering that stance.
“Every woman should be able to drive her own getaway vehicle,” Natasha intoned.
Darcy bit her lip, considering this advice and her options. “Yeah,” she said slowly, “but a plane? I mean, is it really necessary? Doesn’t that seem like field agent stuff?”
“Why don’t you ask Clint about the time he broke his arm because that idiot insisted he knew how to ride a horse?”
“Point taken.” Darcy didn’t make a move to walk closer to the single engine prop plane waiting on the tarmac on Tony’s private hangar outside of the city.
“You’re not afraid of heights, are you,” Natasha asked.
“No!” Darcy yelped. “ You’re afraid of heights!”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Natasha countered calmly.
“I know,” Darcy muttered. “That’s so cool.”
They got in the plane and then nothing. Darcy wouldn’t move into the co-pilot’s seat; she hung by the door with her legs dangling out, her knuckles white on the frame. After an hour, Natasha sighed for the umpteenth time and said, “The lesson’s over.”
“Phew,” Darcy chirped pleasantly, hopping quickly--and easily--back onto solid ground. “That was a good start, don’t you think?”
Natasha leveled her with a flat look. “Next time, we are leaving the ground,” Natasha promised. Darcy took it as the threat it was and swallowed nervously.
Their second trip, they left the ground but Darcy refused to leave the jump seat or open her eyes. She listened to her iPod the whole time.
It took ten lessons before she even agreed to touch the throttle levers--“But isn’t this a good pace we’ve got? Why do need to go faster?” “To leave the ground, Darcy” “Yeah, that doesn’t sound advisable.”--and another five before she agreed try the control wheel.
All in all, she’d only been up in the air maybe two dozen times--and still another two dozen away from feeling comfortable about this fact--before she had her first solo flight.
Like most things, it was Natasha’s fault. She’d oh-so-casually-- too casually in Darcy’s mind and subsequent retellings--mentioned that there was a facility upstate they would be infiltrating later this week. Easy stuff, in and out, even Darcy could do it.
Darcy’s ears had perked up, a fact Natasha had quickly picked up on. “But you shouldn’t,” she had cautioned sternly. “Just because you could, doesn’t mean you should.”
“Got it,” Darcy answered with a snappy salute.
“No, really,” Natasha had warned. “Cap would kill me. Don’t do it.”
“I hear you loud and clear,” Darcy had agreed, walking out of the room backwards.
“Why are you walking like that? You don’t have anything behind your back.”
“Absolutely not,” Darcy had agreed. “I hear you. I won’t go.”
Natasha’s eyes had narrowed and she’d opened her mouth to say more but Darcy had already turned the corner and sprinted away.
Everything had been going fairly well--she’d taken a train out of the city, then an Uber from the train station, she’d fibbed her way past the receptionist, picked a lock on an Employees Only door in record time--just like Natasha had said it would. Until the door to the office she was currently rifling through opened.
“What are you doing here?” Steve demanded.
Darcy looked up from the file cabinet whose lock she was picking. “Espionage stuff,” she answered, but she sounded unsure, like she was hoping he wouldn’t ask her for more clarification.
“Of all the things,” Steve growled. “Did Natasha put you up to this?”
“No,” Darcy promised, this time sounding certain. “She told me stay away.” She shut her mouth quickly, realizing her mistake.
Steve’s eyes narrowed. A noise behind him reminded him that now was not the time to get into this. “Come on,” he ordered curtly.
“How’d you get here,” he asked, looking around for her getaway vehicle.
“I took an Uber,” she responded. He stared at her for precious seconds they did not have to waste, her answer incomprehensible to him. She shifted her weight guiltily. “How did you get here,” she fired back.
“I parachuted in,” he answered, eyes scanning the horizon as his focus returned to the mission. “Nat dropped me off a few miles away and we were supposed to rendezvous back there.” He cast a doubtful look at her. “I don’t suppose you could make it.” It wasn’t a question and she huffed indignantly at the assumption, even if it was a true one. “Besides, she hasn’t made contact. Something must’ve happened.”
For the first time, the magnitude of the situation hit Darcy. This wasn’t just some simulation to test her skills, but a real live situation where she was out of her depth.
She cast her gaze about desperately. A plane had been conveniently left halfway across the tarmac.
“Let’s take the plane,” she exclaimed, grabbing Steve’s arm. “I can fly it!”
Steve rolled his eyes but was already heading that way. “ I’ll fly it,” he corrected.
“I can fly it,” Darcy persisted, keeping pace at his elbow. “Natasha has been teaching me!”
“Being taught something is not the same as being an actual pilot,” he reminded her as they jogged, barely breaking a sweat in direct contrast to her panting that she was doing her best to hide. Maybe it was a good thing they weren’t headed for the rendezvous point; who knew how far “a few miles away” actually was to a supersoldier.
They were halfway to the plane when the building behind them exploded. They heard it first, then a wave of heat hit them from behind and knocked them onto their stomachs. Darcy skidded a few feet, skin breaking on her forearms and left cheek as she tumbled. Her head spun wildly and it took her a minute to register that a chunk of concrete was inches from her nose.
By the time she’d processed that her head had nearly been flattened, she barely had time to identify the whistling of impending shrapnel before she felt something land on top of her. There was a metal clang and a groan and the body that had just pulled itself on top of her went limp.
“Steve,” Darcy asked, squirming experimentally to see if she was still alive. He didn’t budge. Her head was squarely under his unmoving chest and she was beginning to panic. “Steve,” she shouted, thrashing in earnest now.
She managed to wriggle out from underneath him. On her knees, she examined his face-down body. He’d shielded her with his body and him with his shield but it looked like he hadn’t fully covered an essential piece of his skull. It was a bloody mess, with bone fragments mixed in with pieces of plaster.
“Oh shit,” she whispered, her words muffled as she covered her mouth with both hands as her stomach rolled dangerously. “Ohshitohshitohshit, this is bad. This is bad, bad, bad. Oh shit. Steve?” She removed one hand from her mouth to prod gently at his shoulder. “Steve? Can you hear me?”
He groaned in response.
“Oh shit,” she shrieked, rocking forward to land on her hands and lower an ear to his head, listening for breathing. Some of his blood got on her hair. “Shit! You’re alive! Steve! I know this is an inopportune time and, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t move anyone with such a serious head injury, but, do you think, maybe, you’re in a state where you could drag yourself over to that plane?” He groaned again. “No? Okay, I’ll drag you then.”
It took some creative maneuvering which involved her butt spending too much time in his face as she tried to leverage his arms over her shoulders, but she finally got his torso across her back, wearing him like a cape. She moved in staggering lurches as he returned to conscious in incremental amounts.
She was panting and drenched in sweat by the time they reached the plane. It was a single prop engine, similar to the one that Darcy had first learned on, a small miracle she sent a quick prayer of blessing upwards in the direction of any deity that deigned to catch it. She slid the door open and rested his butt on the edge of the plane.
“M’shield,” he groaned, his body healing enough to keep him conscious but not enough to keep him coherent.
“Oh, right,” she cried. She let go of him abruptly and he fell back with a loud, anguished groan. She cringed. “Sorry!” she cried as she sprinted back and scooped up his shield.
“Shit, this is heavy,” she mumbled as she ran back to the plane, lugging his shield with both arms. Steve had managed to roll onto his stomach and pull himself into the plane so that only his feet dangled out the door. She rested the shield on the floor of the plane next to him, bent his knees so that his feet were inside the plane, and climbed in after him.
It took some more maneuvering to get him into the jumpseat and strapped in. She continued to fuss over him, making a makeshift cushion out of her sweater, until he snapped, his words slurred, “Jus’ fly the plane, Darce.”
“Fine,” she sniffed. “Hope you don’t hit your head on takeoff.”
She slid into the seat nervously. “What’s first,” she whispered to herself.
“Wha’ was tha’?”
“Nothing,” she sang. She took a deep breath. “Okay, Darcy,” she said, a touch quieter since Steve’s hearing was apparently fully functioning. “You can do this.”
“You said you can fly.”
“I can fly,” she retorted shrilly. “I just, maybe, don’t have my license yet.”
Natasha had once told her that the key to anything was confidence. She’d technically been referring to cooking but the sentiment seemed to apply here. She was as prepared as she was going to be and Captain Debilitating Head Injury wasn’t going to be galloping to the rescue any time soon. She had enough of the requisite skills to be able to do this passably well, or at least not kill them immediately.
She moved confidently, flipping switches and checking gauges. The engine hummed to life. She did some quick calculations to make sure they’d have enough gas to make it far enough away from here.
The plane moved slowly down the runway. “Faster,” Steve instructed from the backseat. Darcy increased the speed slightly. “Faster,” he said, louder. She gritted her teeth and notched up the speed. The end of the runway was approaching. On the other side, a line of trees.
“Faster,” he shouted. “Faster, faster, faster.” He kicked the back of her seat with his boot, punctuating each shout.
“Stop shouting at me,” she yelled back.
“Don’t kill us,” he retorted.
They lurched off the ground and rose shakily, missing the tops of the trees but a distance that was far too close. Steve groaned again but it was a different sort of groan. Not a I’m-going-to-die-from-this-painful-head-wound sort of groan but a I’m-doing-to-die-from-this-painful-plane-crash sort of groan.
Seconds later, there came the sound of him vomiting. So maybe it was actually a motion sickness sort of groan.
“You’re not helping the situation,” she shrieked as the plane wobbled higher. “I’m nervous enough without you making me feel worse by throwing up.”
“Well, the next time I lose half my skull shielding you from falling shrapnel, I’ll do my best to skip the whole concussion/vomiting bit,” he growled from the seat behind her. She risked a quick glance backwards to see that, despite the vomiting, he didn’t seem quite so close to death’s door. He wasn’t slurring his words and his head was no longer steadily leaking blood. She could still see his cracked skull and she winced.
Eventually, she managed to level the plane out. After a few minutes of cruising, she spotted the field that he must’ve landed in. In one corner of the field rested the helicarrier.
If she timed it just right, she could probably land the plane without hitting the trees that lined either end of it. As she banked the plane to the right, she risked a glance back at Steve. He was leaning with his head back against the wall, his eyes closed. He opened one as he felt the plane begin to turn.
“Why are we heading back?”
“We’re not heading back,” she answered.
He looked around, straining at his seatbelt to see out the window. “We’re not landing there.”
“We are landing there,” she corrected him.
“You can’t,” he pointed out.
“I can,” she answered with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Besides, the helicarrier is down there. Natasha is down there. We have to land. We’re not going to make it all the way back to the city in this plane. I wouldn’t even know where to land!”
Steve didn’t look pleased with her logic.
“You know what they say,” she joked. “You spend the first month learning how to fly and the next two months learning how to land.”
“That’s not a thing anyone has ever said,” he said flatly.
“Hold on,” she suggested.
Their landing was beyond bumpy.
At one point, Steve would later swear, the plane bounced so hard that the nose left the ground again before slamming back down and lifting the tail.
“No,” Darcy had corrected him, “you’re thinking of Paul Walker making that jump in Fast & Furious 7. We were in a plane, not a car.”
“I’m never getting in any vehicle with you ever again.”
When the plane did finally come to a stop it was missing half a wing and faintly smoking. There was a deep divot of churned dirt and grass following them across the field. Natasha was sitting on the ramp of the helicarrier.
“I’d give it a six out of ten,” she shouted across the field as they emerged. Steve held on to the side of the plane as he threw up again.
“Do I get my pilot’s license now,” Darcy shouted, slinging one of Steve’s arms around her shoulder and leading them in a hobble across the field.
“Who needs a license,” Natasha asked, rising to help them. “Now that you’re over your fear of heights, do you want to learn how to fly the helicarrier home?”
Steve swooned.