Chapter Text
Darcy decided she needed to decentralise herself after the third vision made her drop a bowl of cereal.
Not dramatically. Not in a poetic, bowl-shattering, milk-across-the-floor, omen-of-doom way. It was worse than that. She had been standing in Tony’s kitchen at 7:18 in the morning, wearing Phil’s old S.H.I.E.L.D. sweatshirt, Freya’s green socks, and the expression of a woman who had not yet forgiven consciousness for returning. Clint had handed her cereal because Bruce had declared that coffee without food was not nutrition, despite Darcy’s extremely compelling argument that coffee was emotionally nutritious. Tony was arguing with JARVIS about whether HYDRA warehouse duct tape footage could be preserved as “training material.” Phil was reading a report beside her, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers. Freya was making tea with careful focus, still suspicious of the kettle because Tony had explained it badly on purpose.
Then the bracelet burned.
Not full vision-burn. Not the Vanaheim horror, not half the universe falling away in one unbearable sequence. This was sharper, shorter. A wound opening for three seconds.
Darcy saw a moon split open over a city of red stone. Saw soldiers in black armour moving through streets while civilians ran toward temple doors that did not open fast enough. Saw a woman with four arms holding two children behind her body as blue light filled the sky. Saw ships descending like judgement. Saw Thanos’s hand lift, slow and certain, not yet with all six stones, not yet with the final weapon, but already so calm in violence that Darcy wanted to claw the serenity from his face.
Then she was back in the kitchen, cereal on the floor, milk splashed across her bare feet, Clint’s spoon frozen halfway to his mouth.
Nobody moved for one second.
Then everyone moved.
Phil caught her elbow. Freya had both hands on her face. Tony was already shouting for scans. Bruce pushed in with the soft voice he used when panic had to be treated as a medical contaminant. Natasha appeared in the doorway, silent and ready. Fury’s name appeared on the nearest screen before anyone called him because JARVIS had apparently decided that Darcy’s visions now counted as a building-wide escalation category.
Darcy breathed through it.
Three counts in.
Four counts out.
Again.
Phil’s hand on her elbow. Freya’s thumb at her cheek. Clint crouching to pick up the bowl because someone had to handle the cereal tragedy and Clint Barton understood field priorities. Tony’s voice, fast and too sharp, bouncing off lab systems. Bruce saying, “Darcy, stay with us. Tell me what year it is.” Natasha watching the windows as if Thanos himself might have followed the vision through.
Darcy swallowed.
“Friday,” she said.
Bruce blinked. “What?”
“It’s Friday, right?”
“No,” Tony said, voice cracking. “It’s Tuesday.”
Darcy closed her eyes. “Great. Hate that. Time is fake.”
Phil’s grip tightened. “What did you see?”
Darcy opened her eyes.
Everyone was looking at her.
That was the problem.
It hit her with brutal clarity, standing in spilled milk with cosmic genocide still flickering behind her eyelids.
Everyone was looking at her.
Again.
For the vision. For the translation. For the next step. For the framework. For the warning. For what needed to happen next.
And Darcy Lewis, who had built an interrealm alliance out of snacks, plain language, trauma honesty, and extreme irritation, realised that if she kept being the centre of the web, the whole thing would tear the moment Thanos pulled hard enough.
That was how you lost.
Not because one person failed.
Because everything depended on one person not failing.
“No,” Darcy said.
Phil’s face sharpened. “No what?”
Darcy looked down at the cereal, then at the room, then at the screen where Fury’s one eye was already staring at her with terrible focus.
“No,” she said again. “We’re doing this wrong.”
Tony froze. “We are? Because I thought we were doing pretty well for the category of universe-level murder prevention with surprise Nazi kidnapping garnish.”
“We’re doing better,” Darcy said. “But not enough.”
Freya went still.
She heard the shape of it first.
Of course she did.
Darcy stepped carefully out of the milk puddle because nobody needed a slip-and-fall prophecy follow-up and took the towel Clint silently handed her. Her hands were shaking. Fine. They could shake. Shaking was not the same as stopping.
“Everything still comes through me too much,” she said. “Realm contacts. Warning packets. Translation. Strategy. Vision interpretation. Emotional triage. Everyone keeps checking with me because I built the first framework, and that made sense at the start, but now it’s a liability.”
Fury’s voice came from the screen. “Explain.”
Darcy looked at him. “If I’m taken again, drugged harder, killed, compromised, off-world, unconscious, vision-locked, or just asleep for once in my terrible life, the network slows down. That cannot happen. Nothing in all of this should depend on one person.”
The kitchen went quiet.
Darcy’s voice hardened.
“This is how you lose.”
Nobody argued.
That was how she knew they knew.
The decentralisation meeting began twenty-three minutes later because Pepper Potts could produce a governance session from thin air faster than most people could locate their shoes.
Darcy arrived with damp hair, clean socks, a fresh notebook, and the furious energy of a woman who had decided fear could become an org chart if cornered properly. Phil sat on one side of her, Freya on the other. Tony was across the table, unusually quiet. Bruce had medical scans open but was also listening in that deep, careful way of his. Natasha and Clint flanked the back wall. Fury and Maria were there in person this time, which meant things had moved from “serious” to “someone is about to weaponise a spreadsheet.”
The board read:
DECENTRALISATION — NO SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE
Tony stared at it. “I hate that this is correct.”
Darcy clicked the remote. “Good. Suffering builds alignment.”
Pepper’s mouth twitched. “That sounds like something Fury would say.”
Fury looked offended. “I’d make it shorter.”
Maria, already typing, said, “Probably ‘suffer faster.’”
Clint whispered, “That’s definitely a mug.”
Darcy ignored them because if she let the room become funny too early, she would lose the sharp edge she needed.
“We need direct lanes,” she said. “Not Darcy-as-switchboard. Not Darcy-as-translation-layer. Not Darcy-as-everyone’s favourite doomed admin fairy.”
Tony lifted a hand. “For the record, I hate that phrase.”
“Good. Internalise the lesson.”
The board shifted.
Lane 1: Forge / Technical Defence
Darcy pointed to Tony and Clint. “Tony, Clint, you connect directly with Eitri.”
Tony blinked. “Me and Legolas?”
Clint pointed at himself. “I bring what to the dwarf forge relationship, exactly? Charming cheekbones and snack logistics?”
“Field usability,” Darcy said. “Tony will design something brilliant that requires three hands, twelve updates, and a user manual written by an angry moon. You will tell him whether someone can actually deploy it while bleeding in a corridor.”
Clint considered this.
Tony opened his mouth.
Pepper said, “She’s right.”
Tony closed his mouth, deeply betrayed.
Darcy continued, “Eitri respects practical design. Tony brings innovation. Clint brings reality. You two work with Nidavellir on shield anchors, civilian barrier nodes, portable ward systems, and non-pain-compliance restraints. Natasha feeds into restraint ethics and field use, but she’s not primary. I am not primary. Eitri should not need me to ask Tony a question.”
Tony leaned back, expression shifting despite himself. The idea of direct access to Eitri was clearly making several parts of his brain throw a party with dangerous lighting.
“Can I ask him about the blade?”
“No.”
“Can I ask him about star-metal?”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask him whether murder baton was ever on the table?”
“No.”
Clint raised a hand. “Can I ask him for arrows?”
Darcy paused.
Tony stared at him.
Eitri, somewhere across the realms, probably felt a disturbance in craft ambition.
Darcy sighed. “Yes, but Pepper gets procurement oversight.”
Clint grinned. “Acceptable.”
Pepper made a note that somehow looked expensive.
Darcy moved on.
Lane 2: Healing / Compromise / Civilian Resilience
“Bruce and Pepper,” Darcy said. “You connect directly to Signe.”
Bruce blinked, surprised. “Me?”
“Yes. Signe understands trauma in magical and bodily systems. You understand what happens when a person’s body becomes a battlefield and everyone else calls it a threat.”
Bruce’s face softened, then went carefully still.
Darcy gentled her voice. “We need protocols for compromised people that are humane and safe. Mind Stone exposure. Coercion indicators. Magical bindings. Panic management. Civilian triage. Shelter design. Pepper handles governance, scaling, resource flow, and making sure healer-circle wisdom doesn’t turn into twelve disconnected pilot programs no one funds.”
Pepper nodded immediately. “Signe leads clinical-magical principles. Bruce translates to Earth medical and enhanced-person protocols. I build adoption and operating model.”
Darcy pointed at her. “That. Exactly.”
Bruce looked at Pepper. “We should include trauma psychologists.”
Pepper said, “And emergency management.”
Bruce nodded. “And disability-access planning for shelters.”
Pepper was already typing. “Agreed.”
Darcy felt something in her chest loosen.
There.
That was what she needed.
The work moving without her carrying every part of it.
Lane 3: Nornheim / Intelligence Currents / Deception Detection
The board changed again.
Lady Maerwyn, Orven Deep-Reed, Seer Ilyr → Fury, Natasha
Fury’s eye narrowed. “You’re giving me the river court.”
“I am gifting you a migraine with strategic value.”
Natasha’s mouth curved. “And me?”
“You can tell when a room is lying before the room knows it’s a room.”
“True.”
“Nornheim moves warnings through metaphor, dance, music, and current. Fury handles intelligence architecture and compartmentalisation. Natasha handles human behavioural translation, deception, compromise indicators, and making sure Nornheim’s beautiful slippery nonsense becomes actionable without becoming stupid.”
Fury stared at the names. “Lady Maerwyn is the smug one?”
“Yes.”
“Orven?”
“Warm, dangerous, laughs at insults if they’re well-structured.”
“Seer Ilyr?”
“Bird Man.”
Natasha’s eyebrow rose. “Bird Man.”
“He may arrive through windows. Do not encourage this.”
Fury’s expression went flat. “He comes through my window, he’s getting a badge and a warning.”
Darcy considered that. “Honestly, he might enjoy both.”
Natasha smiled. “I want the first meeting.”
“Exactly why you’re assigned.”
Fury looked at Darcy for a long moment.
Then nodded.
“Good lane.”
Maria typed it in.
Darcy clicked again.
Lane 4: Earth Preparedness — No Realm Strategy Without Home Strategy
This was the one that made the room change.
Not because the others had been easy, but because Earth was not a realm of nine courts, one forge-king, healer circles, or river seers. Earth was seven billion people, thousands of governments, competing militaries, secret societies, corporations, cities, rural communities, hospitals, satellites, refugees, political theatre, denial, greed, courage, and absolutely not enough time.
Darcy looked at Fury.
Then Maria.
“I need a meeting with both of you,” she said. “Not later. Now.”
Maria stopped typing.
Fury leaned back. “You have us.”
“Good. Which Earth bodies are actually useful?”
Tony sat up. “Define useful.”
“Capable of acting before catastrophe, keeping secrets where needed, mobilising people where needed, and not turning the Infinity Stones into a procurement opportunity or campaign slogan.”
Tony grimaced. “Short list.”
“Exactly.”
Fury’s eye was cold and focused now. “Sorcerers.”
Darcy pointed. “Yes. They need to be contacted immediately. No more ‘reported anomalous practitioners’ nonsense. If the Time Stone is on Earth and they have it, they are already in the fight whether they admit it or not.”
Jane, who had joined via tablet because she was supposed to be resting and had ignored that instruction with academic violence, said from the screen, “I want to speak to them.”
Tony pointed at the tablet. “Same.”
Fury said, “No.”
Jane’s face darkened. “Excuse me?”
“We don’t know their threat posture.”
Darcy cut in before Jane could turn into a peer-reviewed explosion. “First contact should be Fury and Natasha, maybe Phil, depending on what we know. Not Tony. Not Jane. No offence.”
Tony and Jane both said, “Offence.”
Darcy ignored them. “They have hidden for a reason. We don’t open with scientists demanding access to their shiny green time rock.”
Jane muttered something about anti-collaborative wizard culture.
Phil spoke. “We need a contact path.”
Fury nodded. “I have old files. People who forgot they were looking. Locations that moved. Names that don’t stay in databases.”
Tony stared at him. “You are far too calm about that sentence.”
“I’m not calm.”
“You look calm.”
“I’m working.”
Darcy pointed at Maria. “Sorcerer contact plan. Priority one. But respectful. We need alliance, not seizure. No Stone demands. No threats. We ask what they know, tell them what we know, and establish whether the Time Stone is secure.”
Maria nodded. “Lead: Fury. Support: Natasha, Coulson. Technical briefing standby: Foster, Stark, Banner.”
Jane opened her mouth.
Maria looked at the tablet. “Standby.”
Jane closed her mouth, furious but tactical.
Darcy turned back to the board. “Mutants?”
The room went quiet in a different way.
Fury’s face gave nothing.
Which meant something.
Tony looked at him sharply. “Nick.”
Fury did not blink. “There are enhanced populations not tied to known incidents.”
“Mutants,” Darcy said.
“Possibly.”
“Fury.”
His eye moved to her.
Darcy’s voice was steady. “If there are people on Earth with abilities, communities, networks, leaders, schools, underground groups, anything—Thanos’s snap would take them too. His forces could target them. Governments could panic and target them first if we mishandle the warning. We need to know whether there is a trusted contact. Not to recruit an army. To prevent them being blindsided.”
Natasha’s expression had gone still.
Phil’s too.
Fury tapped one finger against the table. “There are rumours. Disappearances. Intervention patterns. A school in Westchester that never looks the same twice on satellite.”
Tony slowly turned. “A school.”
Fury stared at him.
Tony stared back. “You had secret wizard rumours and possible superhero school rumours and decided what, your calendar was full?”
Fury’s voice was flat. “Yes, Stark, between alien invasions, HYDRA infiltration, and you inventing new forms of liability, I failed to personally tour every rumour in North America.”
Pepper said, “Focus.”
Tony pointed at Fury. “This is not over.”
“It never is with you.”
Darcy rubbed her forehead. “Mutant contact plan. Extremely sensitive. No government blast radius. No registration vibes. No ‘hello, please declare your powers for apocalypse paperwork.’ We need someone who can approach without making them think this is a trap.”
Natasha said, “That may not be S.H.I.E.L.D.”
Fury nodded slowly. “Agreed.”
Phil said, “Could be through a trusted intermediary.”
“Find one,” Darcy said. “Quietly. Carefully. If they say no, they still get the warning in a format that does not expose them.”
Maria typed. “Mutant outreach: discreet identification of trusted intermediaries. No registry. No compulsory disclosure. Warning-first.”
Darcy exhaled.
“Wakanda,” she said.
Tony’s expression sharpened.
Fury said nothing.
Pepper did. “They are isolationist.”
Darcy looked at her. “Officially.”
Tony leaned back. “Oh, this is going to be one of those conversations.”
Fury’s eye moved to the board. “Wakanda is not what it appears.”
Darcy nodded. “I assumed. Everyone with a suspiciously quiet global profile and too-clean borders is either hiding poverty, weapons, aliens, magic, or better infrastructure than they want anyone to know about.”
Tony pointed at her. “That is disturbingly good geopolitical instinct.”
“I work with consultants.”
“Same thing, darker suits.”
Darcy continued. “If Wakanda has advanced technology and strategic independence, they need to be warned. But not approached like a resource to be extracted.”
Fury’s expression was unreadable.
Darcy met it. “I mean that.”
“I heard you.”
“No vibranium grab.”
Tony looked offended. “I didn’t say vibranium.”
“You thought it loudly.”
Pepper said, “He did.”
Tony muttered, “This room is hostile.”
Phil said, “Wakanda may respond badly to S.H.I.E.L.D.”
“Most sensible people do,” Clint said.
Fury ignored him. “We may have diplomatic channels through the UN, but that’s too visible. Intelligence contact risks insult.”
Freya spoke for the first time in several minutes. “Then approach through respect of sovereignty. A warning sealed to their ruler, not a request for aid. Give them the dignity of choosing what to reveal.”
Darcy pointed at Freya. “Yes. That. No ask at first. Only warning and invitation to contact if they choose. Maybe attach enough technical evidence to prove this is not a scam without exposing Stone locations.”
Pepper nodded. “I can help draft tone.”
Tony looked at her. “You’re terrifyingly good at ‘we know more than we are saying but politely.’”
“Thank you.”
Maria typed. “Wakanda: sovereign warning packet. No resource ask. No tech ask. Contact optional. Delivery route TBD.”
Darcy looked at the expanding board.
Sorcerers.
Mutants.
Wakanda.
Then she added, “Other Earth bodies. Space agencies. Select scientific institutions. Emergency management. Hospitals. Power grids. Communications networks. Food supply chains. Religious and community leaders eventually, because mass panic will kill people before aliens do if we do this badly. But staged. Compartmentalised. Need-to-know at first, then public readiness framed without saying ‘cosmic genocide’ until we absolutely have to.”
Bruce nodded. “Public health model.”
Pepper said, “Crisis communications model.”
Fury said, “Continuity of government.”
Tony said, “Orbital defence.”
Jane said, “Stone physics.”
Natasha said, “Compromise detection.”
Clint said, “Evacuation routes people can actually follow when scared.”
Darcy smiled faintly. “See? Everyone talking to everyone.”
Her bracelet warmed.
Everyone noticed.
The room held its breath.
Darcy closed her eyes.
The vision came like a blade through silk.
This one was not as short.
A black ship over a field of glass.
A child with silver horns hiding beneath a broken cart while boots passed by.
A planet with blue oceans turning red at the edges.
Thanos standing among kneeling survivors, speaking softly, almost gently, as if explaining mercy to those he had already cut in half.
A woman with a shaved head spitting blood at his feet.
A blade lifted.
A crowd forced to watch.
The vision snapped sideways.
Worlds. More than she could count. Conquests before the final plan. Armies broken. Populations halved manually where Stones had not yet done the work. The ideology rehearsed through slaughter until the universe became a math problem in his hands.
Then—orange light again.
A cliff.
Wind.
A figure falling.
Darcy gasped.
Phil caught her before she hit the table.
Freya was there too, one hand at Darcy’s wrist, the other at the back of her neck. Bruce moved in. Natasha closed the blinds without being asked. Tony’s face had gone white with rage. Fury stood, one hand flat on the table, eye locked on Darcy like he could physically hold her in the room by will.
Darcy’s breath came hard.
“Conquests,” she managed.
Phil’s voice was low. “Slow.”
She shook her head. “He’s already been doing it. Not with all six. Manually. Armies. Half by hand, by blade, by selection. It’s not theory for him. It’s practice.”
No one spoke.
Darcy swallowed, nausea rising. “He’s rehearsing.”
Tony turned away.
Bruce’s face crumpled for one second, then steadied.
Fury’s voice was quiet. “What else?”
Darcy looked at Loki.
He stood near the back of the room, face bloodless.
“Orange again,” she said. “Cliff. Someone falling. I couldn’t see who.”
Loki’s eyes closed.
Thor, who had been silent near the doorway, stepped toward him. “Brother.”
Loki did not move.
Darcy’s voice shook. “We need the daughters. Whoever they are. We need to find them before he does that. Or before he uses one of them. Or—”
She stopped.
Because she could not say it.
Phil’s hand tightened on her shoulder.
Fury looked at Maria. “Daughters become priority tier.”
Maria nodded, pale but typing. “Priority tier.”
Darcy pulled herself upright.
Phil did not let go.
She did not ask him to.
“This is exactly why it can’t depend on me,” she said. Her voice was raw now, stripped of polish. “The visions are going to keep coming. I don’t control them. Sometimes they’ll help. Sometimes they’ll knock me flat. Sometimes they may be wrong or symbolic or incomplete. We cannot build a response model where everyone waits for Darcy to see the next horror.”
Fury’s eye held hers.
She looked around the room. At Tony. Bruce. Pepper. Natasha. Clint. Phil. Freya. Thor. Loki. Maria. Jane on the screen, silent and pale.
“Everyone needs to be talking to everyone. Eitri should challenge Tony without me. Signe should tell Bruce when our protocols are stupid. Nornheim should frustrate Fury directly. Natasha should be able to call Ilyr and tell him his metaphor is operationally useless. Wakanda should hear from Earth without me drafting every comma. The sorcerers need to be in the room. Mutants need warning without being exposed. The watchholds need signal routes that work if I’m dead.”
Phil’s face went hard.
Freya’s hand tightened.
Darcy hated saying it.
Said it anyway.
“If I am dead,” she repeated, softer, “the network still works.”
Tony stood abruptly. “I hate this meeting.”
Darcy looked at him.
His eyes were wet and furious.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. I hate it.”
Pepper reached for his hand.
Tony let her take it, which told Darcy exactly how much.
Fury’s voice cut through, not unkindly. “She’s right.”
Tony looked away.
Fury continued, “No single point of failure. Not Darcy. Not Stark. Not me. Not Asgard. Not any Stone holder. We build cells, lanes, redundancies, dead drops, signal protocols, succession authority.”
Maria was already expanding the board.
Pepper leaned forward. “And emotional redundancies.”
Fury looked at her.
Pepper did not blink. “People fail when they are unsupported. We have seen that repeatedly. If Darcy is vision-hit, who interprets? Who documents? Who checks her medical state? Who tells the network? Who stops Tony from making decisions while panicked? Who supports Phil? Who supports Freya? These are not soft questions. They are operational.”
Natasha nodded. “She’s right.”
Darcy looked at Pepper with sudden, fierce love.
Tony whispered, “God, you’re attractive when you’re terrifying.”
Pepper did not look away from the board. “I know.”
Clint raised a hand. “I’ll stop Tony.”
Tony turned. “You’ll try.”
Natasha said, “I’ll stop Tony.”
Tony pointed at her. “That I believe.”
Darcy laughed once, weak but real.
The board grew.
Lanes. Leads. Backups. Contact protocols. Emotional contingencies, because Pepper Potts had apparently decided feelings were now infrastructure and no one was brave enough to argue. Sorcerer contact plan. Mutant warning approach. Wakanda sovereign packet. Realm-to-realm direct connections. Watchhold alerts. Vision capture protocol. No-map rule. No solo bird-following rule, annoyingly still present. HYDRA reactivation lane, because apparently they had all remembered the Nazi snake problem again and would now be making that everyone’s problem.
By the end of the meeting, Darcy was exhausted.
But the work was no longer sitting on her chest.
It was moving.
Tony and Clint had a forge call scheduled with Eitri, with Pepper quietly attaching “usability review” to every deliverable. Bruce and Pepper had a healer conference with Signe, who had already sent back a message that said, Bring the green one and the tired girl if they are being stupid about rest. Nobody knew whether “green one” meant Bruce or Loki, and Darcy suspected Signe had done that on purpose. Fury and Natasha had accepted a Nornheim current-call with Lady Maerwyn, Orven Deep-Reed, and Seer Ilyr. Fury had asked whether the bird could be made to use doors. Natasha had said, “Let him try the window.” Fury had smiled in a way that made Darcy worry for interrealm diplomacy.
Maria had three Earth outreach workstreams moving before lunch.
Sorcerers.
Mutants.
Wakanda.
Not solved.
Not even close.
But moving.
At the end, Darcy remained seated while others filtered into tasks around her. Phil stayed. Freya stayed. Of course they did.
Loki lingered too, near the door.
Darcy looked at him. “You saw something when I said daughters.”
He was silent.
Thor stood behind him, not touching.
Finally, Loki said, “Gamora. Nebula.”
Names.
Two names.
The room, somehow, grew colder.
“They were children when he took them,” Loki said. “Or near enough. He made them compete. Rebuilt one when she failed. Favoured the other when it suited him. Called both daughter. I do not know where they are now.”
Darcy closed her eyes.
Orange light.
A cliff.
A fall.
“We find them,” she said.
Loki’s expression was bleak. “If they are alive.”
“We find them,” Darcy repeated.
Fury, from the far end of the room, said, “Add it.”
Maria added it.
Find Gamora and Nebula. Priority tier.
There it was.
Another thread.
Another life.
Another way this could not depend on one person seeing one vision too late.
Darcy leaned back, shaking.
Phil’s hand covered hers on one side.
Freya’s on the other.
This time, Darcy did not try to pull the whole web into her own hands.
She let the strands pass outward.
To Tony.
To Clint.
To Bruce.
To Pepper.
To Fury.
To Natasha.
To Maria.
To realms and watchholds and hidden schools and possible sorcerers and a nation that might be far more than it claimed.
A network.
Messy. Dangerous. Imperfect.
Alive.
And harder to break than one woman standing alone with a burning bracelet and a notebook.
Darcy looked at the board and breathed.
“Good,” she whispered.
Phil’s thumb moved over her knuckles. “Good?”
She smiled, exhausted and grim.
“Decentralised terror,” she said. “It’s a start.”