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Weapons Management Specialist
After the terrifying events of New Mexico, Darcy Lewis accepted a very unusual offer from Nick Fury. One that she couldn’t say no to. Literally, she couldn’t say no to it. He said it was the only way she could get her six credits in order to finally finish her bachelors. And honestly, the job title was a lot more impressive than Unpaid Intern.
Darcy Lewis, Weapons Management Specialist .
After Thor hopped onto that shimmering rainbow bridge in the sky, Jane Foster and her knowledge and proprietary technology were considered weapons. So Director Fury simply asked Darcy to manage her.
The astrophysicist and her intern were taken to SHIELD headquarters in New York after packing up in New Mexico and spent about eight hours signing non-disclosure agreements. Darcy had been waiting idly in a hallway for Jane to be finished, when she heard the incessant chipping of ice. She tracked the source of the obnoxious noise down and found a low level SHIELD agent diligently chipping away the ice around a large metal disc that looked suspiciously like that long missing World War II hero’s shield. The hot one with the earnest face.
She nodded at the helpless agent before going back to where her suitcase was, already picked through by at least half a dozen SHIELD agents. She pulled out the hair dryer and went back to the ice picking agent who hadn’t gotten any further.
“Stand aside,” she said with no small amount of authority.
Phil Coulson tracked her down an hour later, and the shield was not only thawed, but it had also been buffed and shined. Fury had offered her the unofficial position of Weapons Management Specialist shortly after that.
And she did pretty awesomely right up until the London Convergence. When the dust cleared, and Thor decided to take Jane on a honeymoon of sorts across the universe, Darcy found herself standing in the Triskellion, with Maria Hill giving her a delightfully blank look.
“What am I supposed to do with you?” Maria asked without malice.
“I’m a Weapons Management Specialist,” Darcy had answered back quickly.
Maria’s eyes went wide and she turned to the corner of the room, where Natasha Romanoff was hiding in the shadows.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Maria asked the spy.
“Barton says not,” Natasha shrugged, walking into the light and giving Darcy a small smile that might have looked dangerous to another person. Darcy seemed to take it as it was intended, and smiled back, looking just a little bit star struck. “He says he saw her budge Mjolnir once.”
“Impossible,” Maria scoffed.
“Not with my hands,” Darcy shook her head adamantly. “I sort of sweet talked it, and it fell.”
“You sweet talked it and it fell,” Maria repeated in disbelief.
“Thor hung it on the peg with my coat, trapping my coat, and I run kind of ridiculously cold,” Darcy explained, her words coming faster and faster as she went. “So, fifty degrees in London is still super cold to me, and I had to run out and get coffee, because Selvig and Ian had drunk it all during an all night bender, and you do not want to see Jane in the morning without coffee. So I just sort of told Meuh Meuh what I thought about her. How she was awesome, and badass, and so patient with Thor when he really just lets her sit while he galivants off around the galaxy and then holds up his mighty fist and expects her to come running. And how it was nice that he was hanging her up and off the floor now, but she really deserves like---a cushion, or a hammer bed. Then that got me thinking that I should make her a special pedestal, and I promised I would if I could just get my coat and----”
“The point Lewis?” Maria interrupted, again, without any malice, but instead a small smirk.
“The hook she was on just sort of broke, like she got heavier and it broke,” Darcy shrugged. “And I got my coat. And then I totally made her a pedestal. Royal purple velvet cushion on antique cherry wood.”
Maria rolled her eyes in a fond sort of way. She’d read the file on Darcy Lewis. The civilian had spunk. And with all the NDA’s forced upon her in the last two years, she didn’t really have a way to go out into the world and use the degree she had finally earned.
“Let me see what I can find for you.”
“Who in the hell gave you confetti darts?” Steve grumbled at Barton just after he let one fly after the end of a successful mission thwarting a weapons smuggling ring off the coast of Jakarta.
“Weapons management specialist back at headquarters,” Clint grinned, letting another arrow fly up in the air. When it reached its apex, it unloaded its offering: purple and silver glittering pieces of confetti that were quite pretty to look at in the light of the full moon.
“Fury and his circus of crazy people,” Steve grumbled.
“The Weapons Management Specialist isn’t crazy,” Natasha disputed as she appeared next to Steve from out of nowhere, looking up in appreciation at the confetti,. “She’s actually pretty adorable.”
Steve sighed and wondered how quickly he could get away from the well-meaning but definitely unnecessarily interfering Black Widow.
“She got me very comfortable bracelets for the Widow’s bites,” Natasha admitted casually. “You should see what she could do with the shield.”
“Hmmm,” Steve made sure to make the noise as neutral sounding as possible as he looked for a possible escape from unwanted matchmaking. “Oh look, a bad guy.”
“I got them all,” Clint insisted as Steve took off running. “Jesus, Cap, that’s a sea turtle! Don’t hurt it!”
Steve walked into the nursing home to the sound of laughter. Raucous laughter. He’d visited Peggy twice a week for the last three months he’d spent in DC, and he’d never heard such a sound in the building, much less coming directly from Peggy’s room.
He cautiously stood in her doorway and looked up to where Peggy and three of the nurses were pointing and laughing at the news report on the television. The reporter was barely keeping it together as he announced,
“Manhattan was treated to a very special late Valentine’s Day present today, when our resident superhero suited up to handle a routine Doombot annoyance. You’ll see that Tony Stark has decided on a redesign of his classic red and gold suit with more... romantic colors.”
Steve chuckled at the footage of Tony in bright pink Iron Man armor decorated with a stenciled on shiny white hearts.
“She strikes again,” Peggy sighed with laughter. “My friend gave me pictures of the five different eye patches she gave Nicky Fury. My personal favorite was the one that had the pretty jewels on it.”
“Who strikes again, Peg?” Steve questioned from the door.
“Natalia’s already told you about her, you stubborn mule,” Peggy didn’t waste a minute in teasing him, indicating that today was certainly a good day for her mind. “Weapons Management Specialist. I wish I would have had her back in my day. She’d of handled that OTHER Stark just fine.”
“What the hell is this?” Steve looked down at his shield as he, Natasha and the rest of the Strike team prepared for their mission on the Lemurian Star. Natasha only smirked at him while most the Strike team rolled their eyes.
The shield in his hands was his real shield, it wasn’t an imitation. The usually vibrant red, white and blue were muted and darkened though. Expertly so.
“Bitch from weapons,” Rollins grumbled.
“Excuse me?” Steve looked up at the Strike member, who had the good grace to look a little ashamed at being heard. The tone of Steve’s voice and the dangerous arch of his eyebrow was one step away from making Rollins wet himself. “Did you say something, Rollins?”
“Cap, No, I just, there’s a Weapons Management Specialist,” Rollins shrugged. “She---messes with weapons.”
“Rollins is just pissed cause she turned him down,” Rumlow laughed it off. “And then reversed the charge on his baton so he zapped his own ass.”
“She’s the one responsible for the color of the stealth suit,” Natasha said just soft enough for Steve to hear. “Convinced Fury you needed something that wasn’t a giant target.”
“Thought she was only responsible for weapons,” Steve blinked down at Natasha curiously.
“Rogers, you kind of are a weapon,” Natasha whispered. She shrugged and gestured to the shield, “She figured the shield should match.”
“Is it permanent?” Steve wondered, unable to complain about the suit or the shield. It would definitely get him shot at less .
“You’ll have to ask her,” Natasha grinned before walking towards the quinjet that was ready for them.
Steve never got a chance to ask. When he came out of debrief, the shield was waiting in its usual place, looking just as it had the day Howard had handed it to him proudly. And then everything had gone to hell and when the dust settled with SHIELD gone and Hydra exposed, and Bucky .
It was a month after being released from the hospital before Steve thought about the mysterious Weapons Management Specialist again. It was in Atlanta, on a sweltering July night, and he knew that Bucky had been half a block away and he had almost gotten a jump on him when the moonlight glinted against the shield and Bucky took off like a bat out of hell and hopped into a nearby car.
“That thing should have an on and off switch,” Sam grumbled.
“It used to,” Steve sighed. He nodded and shook his head, knowing that once Bucky took off, it would be another month before he got close again. He looked to Sam and gave a small shrug, “Want to go to Manhattan for a quick recharge?”
“Do you remember when your suit was sabotaged?”
Tony stopped his fiddling with the margarita machine he had been so eager to show off to Sam, and openly glared at Steve. Downright glared at him, with real anger that Steve didn’t think he’d ever seen on Tony’s face before.
“Are you insulting me right now? Don’t be a prick, Rogers,” Tony grumbled. “My defenses have never allowed for sabotage.”
“Your suit was pink with pretty white hearts,” Steve reminded him with a smirk.
“That wasn’t sabotage,” Tony laughed. “That was a redesign option from Weapons Management Specialist Lewis.”
“Lewis? I thought it was a ---a woman,” Steve shook his head.
“ Darcy Lewis,” Tony clarified. “And she’s a helluva woman.”
“After SHIELD fell, do you know where she wound up?”
Tony’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open a little. He shook his head as if trying to shake the cotton from his ears then laughed. He put his hand over his mouth, changed his stance in a jittery sort of motion and then laughed again.
“Romanoff should never be bet against,” he finally said in whispered wonder.
“What?” Steve furrowed his brow, frustration clear and building quickly. “Is Miss Lewis alright?”
“She’s fine ,” Tony insisted. “Better than fine. Maria gave her the heads up and she managed to evacuate civilian personnel from the Triskelion before you crashed three helicarriers into it.”
Steve felt a large cool feeling of relief wash over him. And he nodded. Tony looked more smug than Steve had ever seen him look, and that was saying quite a lot. Steve decided it was worth it to ask, “Do you know where she is now?”
“Consulting,” Tony answered, a shit eating smirk on his ass.
Steve rolled his eyes up to the penthouse ceiling and refrained from sighing heavily.
“Why d’you wanna know?” Tony kept going. “Need to get your shield polished, Cap?”
“You know what, I don’t even know why I bother,” Steve shook his head in disbelief as Tony chortled with laughter and repeated Steve’s words in a high pitched, mocking tone. “I think I’ll go have a visit with Pepper. Let her know what an uncouth asshole you’re being about someone I’m guessing consults with Stark Industries quite often.”
Steve smirked as Tony immediately stopped teasing. Steve continued to smirk as he walked away with intent, as Tony began stuttering and demanding for him to stop.
The anonymous tips as to Bucky’s whereabouts were an odd thing to get, and he figured it was Natasha sending them. But then they arrived when she was standing next to him and Steve gaped at his phone.
“Can you tell me who is sending me these?” Steve wondered.
“Sure, let me just use my magic powers,” Natasha said dryly, pulling Steve’s phone from his hands and holding it up to her forehead. She made a few humming noises and nodded sagely, “Weapons Management Specialist.”
“ What ?” Steve whispered. “How is she---what is she---”
“It’s her job to manage weapons, Steve. It was a made up job to begin with, but she kind of picked up the ball and ran with it,” Natasha admitted truthfully. “She’s currently working upstate at the facility Pepper is building for the Avengers, organizing weapons and finding new ones.”
“Bucky isn’t a weapon,” Steve whispered forlornly.
“Steve, to you, he’s not,” Natasha agreed. “To me---he is not.”
Steve looked up at the real emotion in those few words and gave a small nod in acknowledgement.
“And maybe that’s why we can’t track him,” Natasha sighed. “Darcy is looking at this logistically. Tracking him down is part of her job, the goal being to add him to her cache of weapons, which we are both a part of by the way. If you had ever let me introduce the two of you, you’d understand that once he was in house, she’d treat him like a beloved and cherished friend.”
“Yeah,” Steve nodded. He gestured to his phone and asked quietly, “You want to ride along with me?”
“Of course.”
When one of the Weapons Management Specialist’s tips finally led them to Bucky, it was in Romania, and he finally agreed to stop running away. They brought him home, to the mostly empty upstate New York Avengers Facility and worked on fishing out the rest of the malicious programming left over in Bucky’s rapidly healing mind.
Steve waited two weeks after they’d arrived, when Bucky had given Steve a look he hadn’t gotten since 1944, meaning that Steve had to vacate the premises so Bucky could make time with a dame. It had helped that Natasha had given Steve a similar look, and Steve had retreated to the common room, looking around for something to do.
His shield looked extra shiny, standing against the wall. Certainly shinier than it had looked before and he couldn’t help the small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. Darcy Lewis, Weapons Management Specialist had been lying low since Bucky had been brought home, at the request of Bucky himself. The fewer untrained civilians around, the better. She’d been hidden, but she hadn’t been idle.
He grabbed his shield and made a run for it, heading outside where a fine mist had begun falling from the sky and landing on new grass. It took him less than half a minute to have the shield filthy with mud.
He put the shield back where it had been before, along with a note.
“Seriously?” Darcy sighed as she worked at getting the deeply entrenched mud out of the straps on the back of Bonnie Sue. She wrinkled her nose at Captain America’s iconic shield, a weapon she had been familiar with for nearly two years. She’d gotten so used to handling the maintenance of the shield that she had definitely named it.
And talked to it some times.
“He doesn’t appreciate you, Bonnie Sue,” Darcy said softly. “He doesn’t appreciate the work it takes to keep you shiny and perfect. You’re a benevolent and kind lady to keep protecting him when all he does is get you shot at and dirty.”
Darcy dug out her intricate tools, ones that she had had to use to clean the leather strap of Mjolnir many a time. She was on a time limit. She’d noticed the shield, dirty and caked with dried mud less than an hour ago in the common room that Bucky had personally told her she was welcome to visit whenever she wanted to in the future, his acknowledgement that he was safe for human consumption.
And there Bonnie Sue was, dirty as could be, with a cheeky note asking for her to meet the owner of the poor, muddied shield for a picnic lunch down by the pond.
She worked as quickly as she could, while still being thorough, and by the time Natasha strolled by Darcy’s office, tapping her watch, Bonnie Sue was looking as good as new.
“Have fun,” Natasha said softly as Darcy hoisted the shield up into her arms and made a run for it. Natasha arched a devious eyebrow and called after her, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“You have stubble burn all over your neck AND below that, Nat!” Darcy yelled back. “Tell Barnes to shave or to ease up on the devouring of Russian treats!”
Steve looked over the picnic basket again, wondering if he shouldn’t have taken Sam’s advice and just gotten pizza instead. It did seem sort of hokey and sentimental to have a basket full of fruit and cheese and wine and other assorted delicacies, but Steve was an old fashioned kind of guy.
Besides, if lunch went well, he would definitely suggest pizza later. He picked out one of the little dark chocolates from a container in the basket and popped the whole thing into his mouth, savoring the burst of sea salt caramel. Pepper had told him they were the Weapons Management Specialist’s favorites, and he had to admit they were worth every pretty penny he had paid for them.
A delicate clearing of the throat had Steve gulping down the morsel of chocolate and popping up to his feet as he turned around and saw his shield, sparkling and beautiful, carefully placed in front of the face and body of the woman who had been taking care of it off and on for the last two years.
“Hi,” he blurted. “Uhm---you’re, Darcy?”
“Hi,” the shield dropped just a bit and the most beautiful blue green eyes came into view, sparkling with a little bit of laughter.
“Thank you,” Steve said genuinely. “For---for everything.”
Darcy let the shield drop more. She loved Bonnie Sue, but she was seriously too heavy to hold up for long periods of time without serum enhanced muscles. She aimed a gap tooth grin at Steve, who lit up with happiness in return. And suddenly, all the scraping and shining and long nights scanning worldwide security cameras for Bucky Barnes was worth it to Darcy.
“If you ever coat Bonnie Sue in mud again, we are going to have serious words,” Darcy said with a playful sort of sternness.
“Bonnie Sue?” Steve blinked curiously.
Darcy made a little noise of exertion as she lifted the shield again.
“You named my shield?” Steve chuckled a little.
She gasped and pet the edge of the shield reverently. “It’s alright Bonnie Sue, don’t be upset. He didn’t mean anything by it. He knows you deserve a name.”
Steve laughed at that and shook his head. “Darcy Lewis, you are---a little crazy.”
She nodded gravely in response.
“I think that I like crazy,” Steve smirked. He took a step forward and took Bonnie Sue from Darcy’s arms. “So I promise you, Bonnie Sue, that I will never bury you in mud again---”
“You buried her?!?” Darcy gasped.
“And I won’t do it again,” Steve promised. “So long as your caretaker promises to stick around for a little. Or for a while.”
“We’ll see,” Darcy pursed her lips in an effort not to grin again. She looked past Steve and the shield to the picnic basket. “If you keep your hands off of those chocolates, I might stick around forever.”