Chapter 4
What does a girl with creepy visions wear to stop a cyborg assassin?
If you’re Darcy Lewis, the answer is her Wonder Woman pajama pants colored a bright enough yellow and red that they glowed in the moonlight.
Cursing her thoughtlessness, Darcy did her best to hide behind one of the many oak trees outside the building housing Dr. Ross’ office and checked her watch.
12:30.
She wasn’t a moron. She had a plan.
The only problem was timing, and she had to get it right.
Darcy had thought about going in and getting Dr. Ross to leave with her, but what could she have said to persuade her? She was pretty sure a scientist would take a lot of time to convince and that was time they did not have.
Not to mention that she wasn’t eager to show her party trick to someone who experiments for a living.
There was also the issue of the scary dude with the metal arm. Darcy had taken some self defense, but she doubted that she’d be able to hold her own against the Arnold wannabe so the element of surprise was going to have to suffice.
She was getting the best taser money could buy once this was all over.
Culver University was incredibly proud of their on campus security which is why it had taken approximately 0.2 seconds on their website to find the response time for campus police was 3 minutes.
So at 12:37, Darcy called 9-1-1, asked to remain anonymous, and reported a suspicious character entering the building. She made a big fuss over all the guns he was packing, even though she hadn’t technically seen any in her vision. Darcy figured it was the best way to insure someone higher ranking than old man Stan with his golf cart came to investigate. Stan was great for herding drunk frat boys, but she didn’t want the sweet, legendary campus security guard anywhere near this.
The operator perked up at the news that the man was armed.
“Guns, you said?”
Darcy checked her watch again.
12:38.
“Yes, a lot of guns. You need to get here now. This guy looks dangerous.”
With the sound of fingers racing on a keyboard in the background, the operator responded “Ma’am, I’m sending help now. They’ll be there soon.”
Darcy looked at her wrist.
12:39.
“They won’t be here in time,” Darcy said and hung up.
She took off at a dead run.
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Darcy had looked up Dr. Ross’ office before, yes, but she had not wanted to need that knowledge. She should have known that advertized response times were not the actual response times.
“Stupid,” she huffed to herself as she took the stairs two at a time, “So stupid.”
The third floor hallway was dark with the exception of a faint glow coming from a cracked door at the end.
Darcy was so out of breath she couldn’t even appreciate the hilarity of running towards the bright, white light.
She busted through the door with nary a thought nor a plan, but Darcy’d always been quick on her feet.
She was right about him being armed to the teeth. The metal hand around Dr. Ross’ neck never wavered as he let a knife loose as soon as the door opened inwards.
Adrenaline and her preternatural knowledge of the scene she’d find were the only reasons she was able to duck out of the knife’s path in time.
The thud of the knife in the door hadn’t finished resounding before he had a pistol drawn and aimed at her head.
Darcy did the logical thing.
She screamed.
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He hadn’t seen someone dodge a knife of his in…
He couldn’t remember.
But he doesn’t think it’s happened often.
If ever.
So he drew his gun.
Harder to dodge a bullet.
Well, he could, but this girl was clearly a civilian.
She did have a hell of a set of lungs going for her.
There was something about her that had the hair on the back of his neck raising, though.
He was a millisecond from putting a hole in between her eyes when he was distracted.
Not from his mission.
Dr. Ross was seconds from unconsciousness.
Seconds after that to death.
Mission said to make it personal.
Nothin’ more personal than strangling somebody.
But his trigger finger wasn’t moving.
Not when he didn’t know where the hell this fog was coming from.
Could be a biological agent.
His mask would take care of that.
His eyes darted around.
A hole suddenly appeared in the wall, the edges hazy.
The hole showed snow, but it had been warm when he came in, hadn’t it?
The sound of a train horn ripped through his head.
Unbeknownst to him, his metal hand was relaxing around Betty Ross’ throat.
The hole showed snow and mountains and a train car with a chunk blown out of it.
He stood transfixed.
His arms were limp at his side.
Couldn’t even register the girl dragging Ross off.
He just stared at the window.
He could hear a man yelling from it.
Could hear him yelling “Bucky!” over and over.
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‘Note to self: scream vision questing is a totally great distraction technique,’ Darcy thought to herself as she tugged an incoherent Dr. Ross to the elevator. There was no way she could haul another person down three flights of stairs in a timely manner, so she had to hope that whatever trance that hobosassin was in would hold long enough for them to get the hell out of there.
She shoved the good doctor in and slammed the button, heart pounding in her ears as she kept an eye on the hall through closing doors.
Dr. Ross slumped in the corner rubbing her red neck. Darcy practiced keeping enough air in her chest in case she needed to yell again.
And tried really hard to ignore ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ playing through the speakers in the small space.
“What was that?”
Dr. Ross’ voice was more of a breathy rasp. Having the daylight’s choked out of you by a metal hand did that to you, Darcy guessed.
“Dude tried to kill you. Piss anyone off recently?”
A part of Darcy thought she shouldn’t be quite so glib, but Jesus, she’d just faced an honest to God assassin. Who does that?
“Actually, that part doesn’t really surprise me. I’m talking about you screaming, and then the… portal? That came out of nowhere?” Dr. Ross’ voice evened out, and she pushed herself from the wall.
Darcy had really hoped the doc had been too out of it to notice that.
“Um?” Darcy was too wrought with adrenaline to care about being convinving, “You were hallucinating?”
Didn’t help that she sounded like she’d sucked down a whole balloon’s worth of helium.
The elevator doors opened, and Darcy carefully peered out. The lobby was well lit, and she saw no scraggly haired men so she grabbed Dr. Ross’ hand and booked it to the exit.
They’d cleared the building, and were running under the cover of the oaks when the sirens rang out.
“Thank God, it took them long enough,” Darcy sighed.
Dr. Ross stopped them at the edge of the trees and levelled her with a look.
“You didn’t call the police while we were in there. So you had to have called them before. Which means you knew what was going to happen.”
Darcy had seen a lot of movies and watched a lot of television. She definitely had seen enough to know that whatever the hell she was, she would make a tantalizing study for the right parties, and she was not down to be anyone’s guinea pig.
Some of that must have shown on her expression because the next minute Dr. Ross’ face had softened. “I’m not going to… do anything to you. I just have a habit of talking out loud. Figuring things out, I guess,” the sirens were getting louder and she turned her head in their direction, “Look, I know what happens to special people. I’ve seen it first hand, and it isn’t something I would wish on anyone. I won’t say anything. Promise. But you need to get out of here before the police get here. The less you’re implicated, the better.”
Dr. Ross put her hand on Darcy’s shoulder, and ducked her head to meet her gaze.
“And thank you. You saved my life. I won’t forget that.”
She gently pushed her, signaling that she should get going.
Darcy nodded, the events of the night finally creeping up on her, a delayed wave of fear and anxiety finally crashing through her. Her breathing was starting to hitch, and she needed to run if she was going to get out clean.
But first, “You’ll be okay, right?”
Dr. Ross smiled, and Darcy thought the kindness remarkable.
“I’ll be fine. Go.”
Darcy went.
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By the time she got back to her apartment, it was only 1:40. Theoretically, she could have gotten some sleep, but massive adrenaline rushes and subsequent crashes are really only good for breaking down in the shower and not for a restful night.
She spent hours huddled on the couch in her living room, jumping at every noise outside her window. When the sun came up, Darcy was curled in a ball, freezing but still too scared to put a blanket on in case she needed to move quickly.
At 10, she had finally rationalized to herself that if someone was going to come after her, it would have already happened.
At 11, she convinced herself to get up off the couch and into the shower.
At 12, she’d cried out most of the water in her body and had the worst hangover of her young life without any of the pleasantries of having been drunk.
At 1, she had dressed, eaten, and mostly stopped shaking.
At 2, she left the apartment.
It was fine to break down so long as you got back up.
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“Mission report, soldier.”
“There was… snow.”
The asset had almost been sighted by university cops. It was absurd. Their greatest weapon, kept hidden for almost 70 years, nearly exposed by glorified rent-a-cops.
Untenable.
“There was no snow. It’s 72 degrees outside. Mission report.”
The asset clenched its jaw, a defiance that ought to have been beaten out of it by now.
“There was snow. And a mountain. And…”
There was that defiance again.
“And what?”
“Bucky.”
Alexander Pierce was too old, had been at this too long, to let any of his surprise show on his face. The asset had it’s moments, sure, but it had never truly remembered anything.
Not while under his command, at least.
There was little to do but wipe it and put it on ice.
Later, in his office on the top floor of the Triskelion, he was going over the report that supporting officers had put together on the failed assassination of Betty Ross.
It was a pity that she had survived. There was some poetry in using her death to lure out the Hulk. SHIELD knew where he was, of course, but Fury refused to take action while the monster was seemingly under control.
The death of the woman he loved, Pierce had thought, would be enough to break that control. And Pierce had quite a lot of experience in breaking people’s control.
Now, however, there was too much scrutiny on Ross given that gorilla she called a father and his protective tendencies. Pierce could admire his tenacity, but the man’s tunnel vision was a weakness waiting to be exploited.
The report said that an anonymous 9-1-1 call had come in claiming to have seen an armed character enter the building. Authorities found Betty Ross, injured but stable, outside the building. She claimed she had fought her attacker off, but that was clearly a lie. She’d have more than just a bruised neck if she was telling the truth.
The asset itself had been useless in piecing together what happened.
Something had triggered it, the question was what.
The 9-1-1 call had come from a student, Darcy Lewis, according to his sources. It was an anomaly that the asset had been seen by a civilian.
Pierce hadn’t gotten to where he was by ignoring anomalies.
Darcy Lewis.
He wouldn’t forget the name.
-------------------------------------------
It took Darcy a week to work up the courage to go see Dr. Ross. She could have let it be, she supposed, but she didn’t like leaving a variable unknown.
Dr. Ross was back in her office, although Darcy wasn’t sure why she didn’t leave for a less murder-y atmosphere.
But hey, to each their own coping mechanism.
Darcy knocked on the open door, startling Dr. Ross from her notes.
“Oh!,” her blue eyes went even more Disney, “It’s you!”
The jazz hands Darcy threw up were excessive, but she was nervous and should be forgiven. “Tada!”
Dr. Ross generously gave her a chuckle for her effort.
“I thought maybe I should swing by and, you know, at least introduce myself. Given that you’re keeping my secret and all?” Darcy peered at her over her glasses.
“Lips are sealed. Yours is honestly not even the strangest thing I know, believe it or not.” Deciding not to think about that too deeply, Darcy took a seat in one of the overstuffed chairs in front of her desk.
“Excellent. Darcy Lewis, pleased to meet you under way less stressful circumstances,” she said, extending her hand.
“Betty Ross. Please call me Betty.” Her grip was firm and soft and the most comforting thing Darcy had felt in days.
“Nice to meet you.”
Betty tidied up her notes a bit, and then leaned on her elbows towards Darcy. “I feel like I should be doing something more than just thanking you. I’d be dead if you hadn’t intervened.”
Darcy felt a slight blush in her cheeks because gratitude for heroism is totally flattering. “Eh, don’t worry about it. All in a day’s work. Unless you wanna give me my six science credits or something because they’re the only thing I need to graduate and I so don’t want to take Geology 101.”
It was meant to be a joke, but Betty looked thoughtful.
“Actually, I think I know someone who could help with that. As long as you don’t mind the desert.”