Go Fuck Yourself
Avengers Tower - New York City - June 2014
When the alarm that announced Darcy’s location had finally been pinpointed went off, Bucky was in the middle of the first shower he’d dared to take since he’d arrived two days ago. He’d only forced himself to take this one because Tony Stark had given him a pat on the shoulder and proceeded to ask him if he knew what a shower was. When a man who literally forgets to eat on a regular basis starts telling you about normal bodily functions - that’s when it’s time to snap out of it. Cursing loudly, Bucky turned the water on full blast, and almost found himself flattened on the floor by the pressure of it. Quickly rinsing the shampoo out of his hair, he barged out, dressed himself in full combat gear, and skidded around the corner at the same time as Steve - who was struggling valiantly to do up the zip in an improbable part of his suit.
“God fucking dammit Stark and his stupid fucking inventions,” he was grumbling loudly, “Let me design your next suit Cap,” he said in a terrible approximation of Tony’s voice, “I’m just here to make everyone look cool,” If he wasn’t so worried out of his mind about Darcy, Bucky thought he might just find this amusing. He also thought if Darcy was here, she’d high five him for that and yell ‘Progress!’ in a ridiculously enthusiastic voice like she had the first time he’d used a toaster.
Before he could offer to help him with it, Maria Hill, the former Deputy Director of SHIELD, came jogging out of the same room that Steve had been occupying. Bucky watched in surprise as she planted a swift kiss to Steve’s shoulder blade before doing the zip up and pinching him right on the ass.
“We ain’t got all day, Rodgers,” she drawled, and gave him what Bucky thought must have been her version of a wink and striding ahead of him into the War room.
“So,” Bucky cleared his throat awkwardly, “Maria Hill’s on board too now, I guess,” Steve opened and closed his mouth a few times before giving that stupid little smile that Bucky knew meant he was head over heels and shrugging.
“She’s a valuable asset,” he said in a valiant attempt to be professional. Screw that Bucky thought absently, If Darcy were here she’d tell me to stop bein’ an ass and start being more of an asshole.
“Yeah, I’ll bet, punk,” he teased before winking and making his way into the room, leaving Steve standing in a stunned stupor outside of the door.
When he walked in, he noted that he wasn’t the only one who was geared up for a fight, Jamie and Jane stood at the front of the room, doing what Darcy would refer to as ‘Sciencing’. Deadpool was hovering nearby in his full suit with both Katanas sheathed at his back and his mask on. Thor stood at the window, observing the storm rolling in with a detached stare as he transferred Mjolnir from hand to hand. Bruce appeared to be doing breathing exercises in the corner. Natasha sat on the table at the end of the room cleaning her nails with a wicked looking hunting knife. Clint was methodically choosing arrows the place in his quiver with a dangerous shut off look on his face while Coulson sat nearby shooting him anxious looks. Tony stood near his fellow scientists in full Iron Man regalia, offering quiet advice occasionally and looking more serious than he’d ever seen him. Darcy’s Father’s stood in a huddle at the end of the room trading guns and knives and adjusting harnesses that contained almost as many weapons as Bucky himself was carrying.
When Steve entered the room, Tony’s head snapped up and he said something to Jamie before enlarging a map on the holoscreen. Bucky squinted at the map for a second before he realised he was looking at the border of Hungary and Ukraine.
“Fucking Europe,” he grunted, rubbing his metal arm absentmindedly at the thought of the cold that would no doubt creep into his very soul at being back in a place so close to where he was re-created,
“Fucking Europe,” Tony agreed, “I’ve got some information on the facility we think she’s in, but it’s pretty huge. It’s going to take everything we have to get through that amount of firepower,”
“I might… I might actually know some people who would be interested in lending a hand,” Bucky said, thinking of what she told him about the Hungarian Mafia and how they announced her a Daughter of the House of Balogh.
“Who?” asked Jane incredulously, and Clint left out a huff of laughter.
“Who else? The fuckin’ Mafia,”
Research Facility - Hungarian & Ukraine Border - June 2014
The first thing Bucky thought when he burst into action at the facility grounds was that he missed Darcy’s snarky banter as he cracked skulls together, she always made him feel less like the monster Hydra had awoken in him. The second was that he was glad she wasn’t there to see the way the people that cared about her were absolutely ripping through any resistance they met.
He saw Thor smack Steve’s Shield clean through three attacker's necks in one smooth swoop with his hammer on his left. Moments later, Clint stabbed an arrow through one assailants eye before yanking it out viciously and whirling around and loading it into his bow and firing it into a tank, causing it to explode. He saw Carl twist the neck of a man who had been creeping up behind his husband with a cold, detached expression, just as Jake himself shot a man in the forehead who had been fighting with Luke. Giving him a grateful smile, Luke turned and hurled a throwing knife into the back of a man who had been targeting Caleb. Finishing the cycle, Caleb raised his gun and shot a man who had been creeping up behind Bucky.
“Keep up, son,” he called jokingly before turning and launching himself into a flurry of kicks and flips that would make Natasha envious.
Bucky had to do a double take when he saw the woman in question clinging to the back of The Hulk and shooting her enemies down from above as he wreaked havoc and destroyed everything in his path. He wouldn’t have guessed it, but Coulson was a more than competent fighter, the man was holding his own with a wide array of guns and knives that were so well concealed even Bucky himself couldn’t tell their origin. His two companions that described themselves as inHumans were using their powers to alternatively startle and unbalance their foes before striking swiftly and with deadly intent. The asian woman who had yet to speak a word to anyone outside of her team was proving to be a most valuable asset as she tore through the opposition with her bare hands in a way that reminded Bucky of the women he had met in the Red Room.
Tony was using his Iron Man armour to scout the old castle that housed the research facility, but Bucky would hear the anguished screams of whoever got in his way over the comms, and he felt satisfied that not a single person that had anything to do with the capture of his girl was going to get away unscathed. Deadpool was slashing his way through the crowd with both swords moving so fast Bucky was barely able to track him, and heads were, quite literally, rolling.
Bucky himself was fighting the most viciously of them all, he dropped into a crouch as a bullet whizzed over his head, and when a grenade was lobbed in his direction, he shoved it in the mouth of the man who had thrown it and kicked him off of the cliff he was standing on. When he ran out of ammo in all ten of his guns, he resorted to using his knives. The large serrated blade he used gave a satisfying drag as he met each new opponent - but even through his battle haze, he knew that Tony was right. They were good, but they were outnumbered one hundred to one, and they weren’t standing around in a line waiting their turn for hand to hand chances. There were snipers up in the trees that Bucky was slowly eliminating, and countless foot soldiers that seemed to be coming in from everywhere.
Just as he was beginning to despair the lack of ground they had gained since the battle started, he heard the distinctive sound of heavily armed tanks rolling up. Turning around to appraise the newcomers, he couldn’t help the delighted grin that came to his face as a familiar head popped out of the hatch.
“We blow these fuckers to hell now, yes?” Ada asked, and Bucky laughed and called the others back over comms.
“Do your thing,” he told her, and then he got the hell out of the way.
When the rest of the guards were cleared out, Bucky was the first to kick his way through the heavy wooden doors that were separating the lab from the rest of the gloomy structure. He felt his heart beating rapidly as he looked around frantically for any sign of Darcy, and dropped to his knees when he saw the room was completely void of any life. In the middle of the room sat what was once presumably a large cage, but was now a pile of shattered glass. He was vaguely aware of the rest of the team filtering in, and of one of the Fathers letting out a loud curse and overturning a table angrily.
He jerked violently when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to see Steve giving him a sympathetic look.
“We’ll get her, Buck,” he said, and holy fuck did Bucky want to believe him. Nodding shortly, he staggered to his feet and moved closer to the wreckage that presumably once held Darcy. Stepping over a man who looked like he’d dropped a hairdryer in his bath whilst simultaneously sticking a fork in a toaster, he crouched down to investigate the scene. Over his shoulder, he heard Wade clear his throat loudly.
“Well,” he said a little too loudly, “If there are no more bad guys that need killing, I’m gonna go see a man ‘bout a horse,” When nobody replied, he heard the faint noise of somebody exiting, and went back to searching the area for any clues as to what happened.
“The scepter has been here,” Thor announced in a somber tone, “I can sense its energy still,”
“You can do that?” asked Tony, sounding a little fascinated despite the situation, and Bucky blocked the rest of their conversation out in favour of picking up a necklace that had been almost buried in the rubble. When he managed to extract it, he let out a low curse and sat back heavily, staring at the star pendant in his hand - he could remember the first time he had seen it like it was yesterday.
Old Town Square - Prague - Five Months Ago
“You’re wearing a star necklace,”
“Yep,” Came Darcy’s reply as she stared in wonder at the astronomical clock, “Man,” she breathed, “Jane would fucking love this,”
“Darcy,” he said, and it came out sharper than he intended, so she whirled and gave him an unimpressed eyebrow raise. “ are you wearing a star necklace?” he asked her, not quite sure why he needed to push the subject so much. Rolling her eyes at him, she pushed through the crown that were gathered in front of the clock and making her way over to the cart selling Trdelnik.Why
He waited patiently while she paid for her sweet and juggled her phone and purse for a moment before taking a big bite and closing her eyes with a sinful moan. By now he knew better than to try to speak to her when she was ‘experiencing life’, so he crossed his arms and smiled indulgently while she devoured the pastry. When she finally turned her attention back to him he was still staring at her expectantly and she made an exasperated noise and threw her arms in the air.
“You are so infuriatingly patient!” she told him disgustedly, and he made an amused noise and pointed to himself.
“Sniper,” he said as if it was all the explanation he needed to give, and really, it was.
After a few more moments of silence he poked her gently in the cheek and raised his eyebrows at the adorable growl she threw at him.
“So..? The necklace?” he prompted, and she gave one of her incredibly frequent gusty sighs.
“I don’t know! I just - ugh. It’s stupid and you’ll laugh at me,” she said, covering her face and peeking between her fingers at him.
“Darcy,” he said solemnly, prying her fingers from her face and staring into her eyes, “I swear to god I will not laugh at you,” Letting out a surprised laugh she smacked him in the chest.
“You’re an atheist, asshole,” she reminded him before grabbing the lapels of his coat and pulling him in for a selfie. Sighing indulgently, he made a face at her for the photo before straightening back up and tapping his foot on the cobblestones.
“Fine! God! Iboughtitsowecouldmatch,” she mumbled before becoming very invested in something on her phone and letting out a surprised squeak when he pulled her into a crushing hug and buried his face in her unruly hair.
“You’re adorable,” he teased her, although he didn’t let go. Slowly she wound her arms around his wait and sighed, again.
“Yeah, yeah, tin man. Laugh it up, I know you’re hiding a heart of gold in there somewhere,”
“I guess you’re The Wizard of Oz then,” he said softly.
Research Facility - Hungarian & Ukraine Border - June 2014
He was yanked out of his memories by a litany of impressive curse words flowing from Skye who was standing in the corner and holding an empty case with an odd shape in the foam.
“Guys… We have a problem,” she said. Of course we do Bucky thought grimly as he stood up and made his way over to her and motioned for her to explain.
“Well… when - an inHuman is created, they used something called an Obelysk to trigger the transition. And they keep them in cases like this one…”
“So what you’re saying,” Tony said, looking pale, “Is that she’s one of you now,” At this, Skye looked uncomfortable, though it was Thor who spoke next.
“Not all of those who enter teregenis process survive,” he said, a grave expression on his face, “But those who do rarely emerge as the same person that they entered as,”
Research Facility - Hungarian & Ukraine Border - A Few Hours Before the Attack
The next time Darcy came to, she was curled up in a little ball in the corner of her glass prison with her back to the wall. She knew, intellectually, that she should be much colder than she was, but decided that the possibly life threatening fever was the smallest of her problems. Oddly enough, she could hear a muted voices, but there didn’t appear to be anybody in the lab. Sitting up slowly, she tried to make herself look unassuming as she strained her ears to catch the whole conversation.
“You have gone too far this time!” Darcy recognized his voice from the first day she was in the operating room. “She has too much power,” he hissed angrily, and Darcy gave an absent minded stare at the flickering energy that seemed to be jumping from finger to finger of its own accord.
“Quite wrong, Von Strucker,” replied Creepy Little German Man (™), “She vill be ze perfect soldier! She is strong, she vill heal almost as fast as Captain Rodgers, and she possess ze power of ze gods!” Cocking her head to the side, Darcy considered this new information and decided she didn’t really mind possessing the power of the Gods, it sure seemed to work out for Thor.
“And if you cannot control her?” The man called Von Strucker asked, and without even seeing his face, she knew he was one scary dude, “You have failed before, Baron, it will not serve you well to lose this one,” Letting out an involuntary shiver at the ice in his tone, Darcy curled in on herself a little more.
“Ve have a veapon now zhat ve did not have before,” the little creep replied smugly, and a feminine European accent that Darcy went ahead and dubbed Count Creepular interceded smoothly.
“She will heed to reason, Von Strucker,”
------------
The first time someone actually entered the room, Darcy was sitting cross legged in the middle of the cube and watching her reflection in fascination as the bolts of electricity danced up and down her arms. It did not hurt her, it almost felt like a loving caress - gentle and warm.
“It is beautiful, is it not?” asked the man who belonged to the voice of Von Strucker. Turning her intense silver eyes on him she gave him a scrutinizing once over. He was a tall man, and Darcy wasn’t sure if he was bald by choice, or just unfortunate. He was wearing a monocle, of all things, and Darcy immediately disliked him. Well, even more than she did before he did whatever it was he did to her.
When she refused to answer him, he gave her a smile that seemed forced and unnatural, as if the muscles in his face were unused to the exertion.
“You do not like me, I see it in your face,” he observed, meeting her eyes unflinchingly.
“Well, you kidnapped me and strapped me naked to a table, so…” she replied, refusing to move from her spot on the floor and raising an eyebrow in his direction.
“It was regrettable that you had to enter the program in that way. My associate… He is - a little eager, when it comes to his passion, I am afraid,” he was clearly trying to play the sympathy card, but Darcy was having none of his today, thank you very much.
“You expect me to believe that a Hydra scum like you would have had me enter the ‘program’” she said, using quotation marks around the word program, “Willingly? What? You would have knocked on my door and asked politely? Hey Darcy, How do you feel about become a freak?,” she mocked in a bad approximation of his smooth accent. He surprised her by letting out a laugh at her antics.
“You think I am with Hydra?” he asked, giving her a more natural smile.
“You expect me to believe you aren’t?” she countered, and some energy cracked from her fingertips and hit the walls of its own accord.
“Hydra…” he began, seeming to consider his words before continuing, “It was a means to an end. A way to get what I wanted,” he explained, standing up and making his way over to her.
“And what do you want, Von Strucker?” Darcy asked, cocking her head and refusing to break eye contact.
“Oh you clever, clever, girl,” he breathed with a sinister smile, “I want people like you. And I want them all on my side, so that I may rid the world of its chaos, and its pain,” at this, he crouched down so that they were on eye level. “I want to change the world, to make it a better place - a safer place. And I want you to help me,” Darcy snorted loudly, rolling her eyes and rising above him.
“It’s funny,” she observed, “how much that little speech sounded like a Hydra tangent. You know, ‘We’re the good guys’ ‘We only want to help’ ‘We want to save the world’” she sneered, and he gazed passively up at her. “You lie to people, you tell them they’re doing good. You manipulate them. And then you use them up until there is nothing left but what you created. Well, guess what?” she asked, continuing on before he had a chance to reply. “You couldn’t break Bucky. And you’re not going to break me,”
Turning from him, she missed the glint in his eyes he stood and whirled, motioning through the two way glass at the end of the room.
“I was so hoping you would say something like that,” he told her, and his mouth curved up into a bastardized approximation of a smile, “After all, order only comes through pain. And I don’t think you’ve quite had your fair share yet,”
-------------
Several hours later, Darcy lay strapped to a table in her glass prison, staring unblinkingly up at her reflection in the roof. She had been sliced, she had been beaten, she had been hurting so badly that she had wished for nothing more than the sweet release of death. But she hadn’t given them the satisfaction of seeing a single tear. Breathing raggedly, she let out a tiny pained whimper as one of the scientists used a scalpel to make a deep cut along her collarbone, making an interested noise as it slowly sealed itself until it was nothing but an angry red line and a memory. He raised his head and gave her a bored look before asking the same question he’d asked every fifteen minutes since they’d begun.
“Will you yield?” Darcy could feel blood gurgling up in her throat as she struggled to hold back a cry at the fresh wave of pain when he slowly started pulling the deadly sharp needle he had shoved under her fingernail out.
“Go fuck yourself,” Darcy gave the same answer she had given every fifteen minutes since they’d begun. Nodding to himself slowly, he shoved the needle back in, and Darcy closed her eyes against the pain, thinking of her family and friends to dull the ache - even if it was for just a minute.
Lewis’ Residence - Wisconsin - September 2008
“Daaaad,” Darcy whined loudly, stomping her foot and crossing her arms.
“What?” came four different voices, all at different octaves and levels of ‘But I wasn’t doing anything wrong!’ Sighing loudly, Darcy pointed at Carl, who guiltily picked up the Glock that he had been sneaking into her purse.
“That Dad!” she accused, wrinkling her nose at him. From where he was packing up the car, Luke laughed loudly at his ex-husband.
“Were you just trying to sneak a gun into your teenage daughter’s college knapsack?!” he asked incredulously, and Caleb grunted loudly and slapped his forehead dramatically, while Jake sighed and took the offending weapon off of him.
“She’s going to college, Carl. Not ‘Nam in ‘65,” he chided, tucking the gun into the waistband of his jeans and producing a wrapped box. “Although, because I too, believe in thoroughly terrifying your prospective boyfriends even when I can’t be around to do it bodily,” he said grandly, flourishing the box in her general direction, “I got you a present,” Squealing loudly, Darcy bounced over to him and ripped the paper off.
“A taser!” she gave an excited yelp and wrapped her arms around his neck, “Thanks Dad!”
“Oh boy,” Luke joked lowly, “What a lame weapon,”
“Shoulda’ gotten her a rocket launcher,” Caleb agreed, crossing his arms and shaking his head at her. Huffing loudly, she hugged them all in turn once more before sliding into the car and waving to all of them before pulling out of the driveway and heading off to college.
“Why do I get the feeling we’re going to regret letting her out of our sight?” asked Jake rhetorically, and the others all grunted their agreements before heading off to drink beer and grill steaks.
The Middle of the Desert - New Mexico - August 2011
“Jane?” Darcy asked, and in return her scientist/best friend gave an almost coherent grunt from where she was lying on top of their van and looking at the stars. “I think you might be my best friend,” she told her thoughtfully, lifting up the bottle of tequila she was drinking from and squinting at it. “And if Thor doesn’t come back here, I will totally fight him for you. That is how much I love you,” A loud rustling noise followed by an ominous squeaking told Darcy that Jane was now probably leaning over the side and staring down at her where she was perched in the sand. Tilting her head back, she was met with the wide eyed gaze of one very drunk Jane Foster.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a best friend before,” the scientist confessed, and Darcy gave her one of her special ‘I-am-soo-fucking-drunk-and-adorable’ smiles.
“Thas’ ‘kay,” she told her, “We can figure it out together,”
Classified SHIELD Training Facility - C.L.A.S.S.I.F.I.E.D - June 2013
“Clint?” Darcy called from where she was standing in the middle of a room she had been directed to when she woke up this morning. “Hello-o? Bird brain? You here?” Noticing there were targets set up in the far corner of the room, she moved over to them slowly, and saw a bow sitting underneath a note. Do your best it said, with a funny drawing of her hanging upside down from the roof and shooting Iron Man in the butt. “Boy has issues,” she muttered to herself, smiling despite her irritation at being woken up at the asscrack of dawn.
Running her hands over the weapon lightly, she picked it up and flexed like he did in The Arrow. It hurt. A lot.
“Ow! Fuck! Goddammit shit! How does he do this?!” she cried, dropping it back down like it had bitten her. Above the clatter, she thought she heard a chuckle coming from the air vent directly above her and she immediately began concocting a plan. Grabbing the bow, which she now recognized as one of Clint’s personal favorites, and probably chosen because of how difficult it was to use, she made a mad dash for her room and ignored the indignant ‘Hey!’ coming from above.
Ten minutes later, when Clint came busting into her bedroom covered in dust, presumably from his hasty exit of the air vents, he found Darcy putting the final touches on his prized weapon with her bedazzler.
“Purple is your colour… right?” she asked, giggling like a maniac when he dropped his head into his hands and moaned.
“Aww, Bow, No!”
Statue of Christ - Rio De Janeiro - March 2014
“Darcy! Godammit, Darcy!” She could hear James hissing frantically behind her, but frankly, she couldn’t care less. She was Darcy Anne Lewis, and she was motherfucking going to scale this stupid statue. Even if it killed her. Or, more likely, got her incarcerated. Turning around and hanging from the pick she had embedded in his skirt (No matter what people said - it was totally a skirt) she raised her eyebrows.
“Are you going to come and take the world’s most epic selfie with me, or are you going to hang around down here and be the fun police all night?” she asked, and couldn’t help the huge grin that formed on her face when she heard him scaling behind her.
“Good decision, Soldier,”
Research Facility - Hungarian & Ukraine Border - A Few Hours Before the Attack
Darcy spent one last moment in the bliss of the past before opening her eyes and turning to look at the Torture Technician, who seemed to be perusing his wide array of tools on a medical trolley.
“Were you not loved as a child?” she asked suddenly, surprising him, if the way he jumped about a foot in the air was any indication.
“Is that of any matter?” he asked primly before turning back and picking up what looked like a jagged pizza cutter.
“So you weren’t loved. Were you a disappointment? Did Daddy and Mommy want a child who wasn’t a psychopath?” she taunted, and she reveled in the enraged look in his eyes for a moment before he slammed the instrument down in the place between her ribs, and all she could see, all she could feel, was the white hot searing pain again.
“That is quite enough,” came the feminine voice Darcy remembered from earlier, and all of a sudden, the pain had stopped. “They say you do not cry, my child, no matter the pain you feel,” she crooned, and Darcy found herself compelled by her voice - even as her brain was screaming at her to get as far away from this woman as she could. Instead of answering, Darcy raised her blood covered head and stared defiantly into the eyes of the newcomer.
“Oh yes,” the woman breathed, giving her a brilliant smile. Darcy was shocked to see you couldn’t have been a day older than she herself was, “You do have the spirit of a true warrior,” she continued, trailing her fingertips along Darcy’s exposed abdomen. They were glowing red, and Darcy found herself transfixed by the sight. “I think,” she said thoughtfully, gazing into her eyes, “That we shall call you the Ice Princess, For those pretty eyes, and that cold heart,” she was practically purring by now, and her hand had made its way up to her cheek. “Even an Ice Princess such as yourself has fears,” she said softly, cocking her head and Darcy watched in fascination as her red pupils seemed to glow. “Let’s take a look, shall we?”
The feeling that came over her body the second the other woman focused was indescribable. Suddenly, Darcy was transformed to a place where she was well, and she felt no pain. When she saw the scene unfolding before her, she immediately wished for the pain back - because it would be easier than what she was witnessing.
Her fathers were sprawled out in their favorite lawn chairs, watching over two young children as they danced happily through some sprinklers. A game in which Darcy used to participate delightedly when she was young. Carl reached a hand out and squeezed Luke’s. When he let go, he raised his beer in a salute.
“To Darcy,” he said quietly, and the others joined him, “Wherever she is, out there… I hope she’s happy,” The dread that filled Darcy’s body as he spoke was indescribable. Desperately, she threw herself at him, crying his name desperately.
“No! No! I’m right here! Do you hear me? I’m here! God, please! Please! Don’t give up! You can’t! I need you!” She cried, and Wanda found herself flinching away a little at the raw pain in the other girl's voice. Steeling herself against what she knew she must do, she put a hand on Darcy’s shoulder.
“They looked for you for about a month, but after that, they ultimately decided they needed to heal from their wounds, instead of keeping a false hope alive,” she said gently, and Darcy’s heartbroken cry tore through the air.
“No! You’re lying! They wouldn’t - they wouldn’t just abandon me! They couldn’t!” she cried, and Wanda’s hand tightened fractionally.
“Wouldn’t they?” she asked gently, and slowly, Darcy sank to the ground and covered her face with her hands.
She looked up in shock when she heard a new set of voices, laughing loudly and joking around.
“Jane?” she asked, stumbling to her feet and looking around wildly as the new scene began to set itself. They were in a lab, this time, And Darcy watched with a bitter taste in her mouth as she saw Jane and the Science bros sitting up on their benches, laughing at some science joke that Darcy probably wouldn’t have understood.
“Okay Science bitches, It’s time to get this party started!” Exclaimed a perky looking blonde girl that Darcy had never seen before. She strode into the room wearing an awful knitted jumper and matching hat - and hey that was her thing! - and produced a bottle of tequila from behind her back. Reaching into a box, the strange girl pulled out the mug Darcy had bought herself in Tromso and immediately dubbed her own forever and ever.
“You mind if I use this?” she asked Jane, who glanced at it for a second with a strange look on her face before smiling and nodding vigorously.
“Sure thing,” she said, grinning when the blonde tossed her the bottle of tequila.
“Rad, this is why I love you, bosslady,”
“A few months after you disappear, Jane is going to decide she doesn’t like how quiet her life is without you,” Wanda began softly, and Darcy moaned loudly, shaking her head vigorously and covering her ears. No matter how hard she tried to block it out, Wanda’s voice seemed to pierce her very soul. “So she hires a new intern, she’s quirky, she’s smart, she’s everything you were and more. She and Jane share a suite in the Avengers tower when Thor is off planet,”
“No!” Darcy insisted mournfully, “You’re lying. This isn’t real! It isn’t real!”
“Oh little dove,” Wanda sighed, “Don’t you see? It is real. I am simply trying to show you the way,”
The next time she opens her eyes, she was met with a small reprieve. She saw Clint and agent Coulson, standing side by side and leaning on eachother, smiling at something behind Darcy fondly. When she turns, though, she feels her stomach drop out. Because there, in the shooting range, holding a bright purple bedazzled bow, was the girl with powers that had almost killed her in Rio.
“A little higher there, rookie,” Clint called out in the same tone of voice he used to use with her when they were training. Darcy was beginning to think she might rattle her head loose if she shook it any more. But she couldn’t help but feel like everything was so wrong. She knew this was a trick - it had to be… didn’t it? Turning to face Wanda, she made a mournful little noise.
“Why?” She asked, and it came out like a question and a prayer all at the same time.
“I do not control the fates, little dove. I merely see them,” Wanda told her, and at this Darcy hurled some of her powers at the wall angrily.
“No!” She screamed, “You’re lying to me! Get out of my head!”
“Very well,” Wanda sighed, and Darcy found herself standing in an apartment with beautiful views of the Empire state building. Staggering down the stairs and towards a couch where she could see two men shoving playfully at each other.
“Bucky?” she asked, and her voice cracked as he turned and grinned at her. He was breathtaking, he had cut his hair short, and his blue eyes twinkled happily as she started walking towards him. Only to realize she wasn’t the one he was staring at. Behind her, Natasha Romanov descended the stairs she herself had just walked down, looking stunning in a pair of Yoga Pants and a T-Shirt of Bucky’s that Darcy herself had once claimed.
“No,” Darcy begged, “Please, not - not him too,” Closing her eyes tightly against the sheen of tears, Darcy finally gave in, sinking to the floor and staying there as she heard the squealed laughter of the tickling war that was taking place meters from her.
When she opened them again, she was back in the lab, and as Wanda slowly lifted her hands from her face, a single tear tracked its way through the sweat and blood that marred her skin. Letting out an anguished scream at what she had lost, Darcy sat up, ripping free of the bonds that had been securing her and letting off a blast of energy so intense that the cage shattered around her and rained glass on her head. Wanda watched on with wide sympathetic eyes as she fried the man who had been torturing her for hours, dropping to her hands and knees and breathing heavily.
“Don’t worry, little dove,” Wanda said gently, laying a hand on the back of her neck. “I will make it all go away now,” It was a testament to just how broken Darcy was that she didn’t even raise a finger to defend herself as she felt it all drain away.