Chapter 5
“I don’t understand how you went to three and a half years of college and managed to not take a single science class,” Darcy could hear her mother’s disbelief despite the 1,500 or so miles and spotty cell reception. “Actually, I don’t understand how I didn’t notice that you hadn’t taken any of your science credits.”
Darcy rolled her eyes and sighed. “Why would you notice? I’ve been doing my own course selection the whole time, and only keep you appraised of my stellar GPA. Safer that way for everybody.”
“Careful, young lady, or you’re going to make me think you don’t need your dear old mom anymore.”
“I am pretty self-sufficient, you know,” Darcy sniffed as she tried yet again to make the coffee machine produce actual coffee and not the strange slime it started putting out that morning.
“That you are, honey. Although, I see that the modesty didn’t take,” Diane laughed.
“Yeah because modesty is totally something our family is known for…” Darcy gave the machine a hard whack, “And yes! I am the Master of my Domain and all kitchen appliances bow at my feet!”
“From the sounds of it, you’ve beaten the thing into submission?”
“Damn straight, Mother! Just in time, too, since Jane’s Yoda should be here soon. We’re taking him out in the Scooby Van tonight.”
Darcy grabbed the thermoses to double check that they were mold free. She wasn’t sure that this internship had taught her anything about science, but it certainly had taught her a hell of a lot about scientists.
Well, one scientist: Dr. Jane Foster.
When Dr. Foster had picked her up from the airport, Darcy hadn’t been sure what to expect. Betty had only asked for her resume and told her she’d take care of her credit situation. Two days later, she’d received a startlingly brief email from a [email protected] congratulating her on getting the astrophysics internship in New Mexico and telling her to be at the Albuquerque airport by 5 pm on February 1st. It had taken 4 ignored emails and one stilted phone call, number gotten through semi-legal means involving skills Darcy may or may not have picked up from her freshman year hook up buddy who was now in jail for allegedly hacking certain corporate bank accounts, before Darcy could get more information out of Dr. Foster like, oh, how long the internship would last and what the hell they would actually be doing.
So Darcy had been mildly apprehensive wheeling her luggage out of baggage claim, blinking at all the people milling about, realizing she didn’t even know what Dr. Foster looked like so finding her may prove problematic.
Or so she thought until, from the middle of the wall of people waiting for their loved ones, she heard some intense grunting, followed by the violent expulsion of a small brunette pushing her way to the front. She was wearing an alpaca sweater in the most garish shade of puke green that Darcy had ever seen.
Darcy wanted ten.
The ferocious, tiny tyrant braced her back against the throng of people, squared her shoulders, and yelled at the top of her lungs, “DARCY LEWIS!”
She didn’t know why she turned around to check that the woman was not talking to some other Darcy Lewis, but she could only blame it on being so startled. Once she realized she was being an idiot, she spun back around and rolled with it.
“DR. FOSTER!” she roared back.
Sure, a lot of people were giving them bewildered looks, but Darcy liked the cut of this lady’s jib.
Dr. Foster gave a nod of what Darcy thought was approval, grabbed a hand to shake, swiped one of the rolling suitcases, and was on her way.
All in all, they worked well together. Darcy didn’t know squat about astrophysics, but she was a hard enough worker that Jane didn’t seem to mind. Darcy had originally thought that Jane was uptight in all of her intensity, but after she took over the correspondence for the lab, Darcy changed her mind. A good chunk of the mail Jane seemed to get was stuffy, rude scientists belittling her work or worse belittling Jane herself.
Darcy thought that would make anyone a little intense and gave Jane considerable leeway when it came to social niceties after that.
Deciding to read Jane’s seemingly stand off-ish behavior as commitment to her research meant that Darcy began picking up a lot of the slack in general administration and, you know, normal human functions. She made it her mission to make it as easy as possible for Jane to go into Science! comas and found Jane to be an adorable, wee genius.
She wouldn’t say that they were friends, as they didn’t have much at all in common, but they liked each other well enough and were excellent co-workers.
However, as the visit of Jane’s mentor, Dr. Erik Selvig, loomed ever closer, Jane had become increasingly anxious. Their white boards had a now permanent pink tinge from constant erasing and rewriting, Jane’s hair got both more oily and more frizzy which Darcy thought was a phenomenon that deserved study of its own, and what had been quaint little note piles were quickly evolving into Hoarders level mazes. Darcy had banished Jane from the lab three hours ago to take a nap and a shower before Dr. Selvig got there.
Darcy carefully sniffed the pot of freshly brewed coffee and trusted that none of that slime was contaminating it. Pouring a cup, she whimpered “Down the hatch,” and took a swig.
“Well? Did it kill you?” Diane asked.
Rolling her eyes at her mother's lack of sympathy, she replied “Not as good as our stuff at home but better than Starbucks.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you were too spoiled.”
“No such thing! Sorry, Mom, but I’ve gotta go finish getting the van ready for our desert tour tonight.”
“Ok, I love you. Be safe!”
“Please, nothing ever happens here.”
Darcy would later come to regret saying that.
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“I think that was legally your…,” Darcy tripped over nothing, feeling faint, “ fault?”
Darcy had some adrenaline pumping through her. She had just hit a person with a van, but she wasn’t all that worried about the guy. There was no prickle at the back of her throat or encroaching shadow, so the dude was totally going to live. She knew that before she got out of the van, so she had moved on to the legal consequences of using your boss' car as a human whack-a-mole.
She wasn’t prepared for all of her blood to rush up and flood her head or for the sudden iciness in her fingertips. When Jane yelled for her to get the first aid kit, she gladly stumbled back to the van, trying to catch her breath. The further away she got from the man she’d just hit, the better she felt.
So either her sixth sense was broken, or something was seriously up with that guy. She looked over her shoulders to see Jane hunched over the man. First aid kits could wait, she needed to get Jane the hell away from him.
She reached them as he turned over.
“Woah, does he need CPR?” Darcy shakily spoke, hoping her mouthing off would have Jane snapping something back at her and taking her focus off the prostrate guy, “Because I totally know CPR.”
No such luck.
He flopped on his back like a beached whale, and she got her first good look at him.
He looked… wrong.
His skin was glowing, burning bright like she was 5 feet from the sun instead of 5 feet from a person. Except she didn’t think he was a person. People had energies that ebbed and flowed or souls that wavered or whatever it was that she felt when they died, but this guy… this guy was just leaking light from every pore. A quick glance at Jane and Erik confirmed her suspicion that she was the only one seeing the freaky-deaky glow worm effect.
Jane’s question of where he came from was a lot more chilling given what Darcy could see.
When the massive dude struggled to his feet and started clomping around, Darcy felt her panic increase even as she got off another quip about his hammered state. When he started in on their group demanding answers to nonsensical questions, Darcy was ready with her newly bought taser.
His declaration that he was Thor was accompanied by another angry burst of light from him, and Darcy discovered that she was more trigger ready than she’d realized.
She almost missed the fading of his glow as they loaded him up in the van.
He stayed dim.
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Darcy always won at poker.
She could bluff and lie and keep all her ticks at bay when she wanted.
So the hospital was a piece of cake.
Well, she was a little worried that she would end up spending a chunk of her trust fund on lawyer fees if charges were brought up, but she was way more concerned with the fact that she knew, in that same way she knew Grandma was gone or that she couldn’t save that boy in that fire or that the man was dying next in the hospital or that she could save Betty, she knew that the man from the desert was not human.
It’s not like she hadn’t realized there was more out there than just the lovely citizens of Earth. Mephisto really did not fit ‘human’ qualifications, but it was something else to randomly run into a total non-human. She thought it would keep her up that night, but she must have been getting better at these crazy situations. She went right to sleep.
Erik and Jane’s bickering awoke her the next morning. She had the tiny room off the main floor of the old car dealership Jane was using as a lab so could hear a pin drop even while burrowed in her blankets. She made it over to them as they started talking about an Einstein-Rosen Bridge and innocently asked what it was.
By the look on Erik’s face, you would have thought she’d asked him to drop trou and samba.
“I thought you were a science major?”
“Political science,” she corrected, straightening her glasses and trying her best not to feel insulted.
Jane muttered “She was the only applicant,” except she shrugged her shoulder and tucked her head like she was asking a question.
Jane was clearly terrible at poker.
Not for the first time, Darcy wondered what Betty had done to get her this internship.
Darcy wandered off and left Jane trying to justify her work, and by extension her actual self, to the man who was an obvious father figure to her. Something about how hard Jane was arguing, how much she wanted Erik’s approval sang to Darcy because she couldn’t help but support Jane by pointing out that they had an actual photo of that man careening from the wormhole.
As she watched Jane scurry off to retrieve the definitely not human man from the hospital, it occurred to Darcy that she maybe should have left well enough alone.
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Finding empty restraints was creepy.
Finding medical rooms destroyed by the person who had escaped the restraints was disturbing.
Finding said person by hitting him with the van again was kind of funny.
Finding that the dude was seriously cut was extremely pleasant.
Finding out that hot guys with chipmunk cheeks full of eggs, hamming it up for the camera gets you 239 likes on Facebook within the hour was excellent.
Finding out your brilliant boss gets flustered by handsome, yet vaguely rude dudes was amazing.
Finding out that she could mostly relax around him, even though he was totally not human even if he had stopped glowing, was reassuring.
Finding out that the government had taken her iPod was fucking stupid.
She had just put like thirty songs on there.
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Darcy was not happy that Jane was poking at the angry bear of a shadowy government agency.
For Jane’s sake, of course, but also because, hello, she was kind of ripe for government experimentation and all that.
Darcy was not to going to star in the real life X-Files, not even if you guaranteed her own Mulder.
The fact that Jane had driven Thor to the satellite site did not surprise her. Poor Erik was blindsided, but Darcy thought that was foolish. He’d seen Thor’s abs and should have known their power.
Still, it was obvious how much Erik cared for Jane and how much he worried because the fight they got in after he’d picked her up was eerily reminiscent of fights Darcy had had with her own mother growing up. Being privy to it was as bad as when she had been a kid over at a friend’s house only for the friend to get in trouble with their parents. She never knew where to look or whether to leave or where she would even go.
Erik yelled more loudly, and Darcy thought that this was exactly like that. Even if she went to bed, she’d still be able to hear them.
She buried her nose in one of Erik’s books from the library to avoid the awkwardness.
That Myeuh-Myeuh thing was staring up at her from the page. The happy exclamation she made about it was laying it on a little thick, but she was desperate to stop this pseudo father-daugher fight.
Chiming in about how primitive cultures would see aliens as gods was mostly about her proving she knew about things, too.
Jane did not have to look so shocked at her input.
Jane absolutely should not have looked so shocked when she later hacked the DMV as part of their rescue Maybe-Really-Thor-Definitely-At-Least-An-Alien-Dude plan.
Darcy had mad skills, yo.
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She woke up briefly to the sounds of people on the roof. It was Jane’s happy place when she needed a break from the world or from her assistant.
On the one hand, Darcy hoped Jane wasn’t banging Thor because alien biology seemed like something better left unexplored.
On the other hand, Darcy hoped Jane was banging him because the dude was hot as sin.
She stuffed her head under the pillow and let Jane be her own woman.
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It turns out Darcy’s totally okay with aliens if they made her breakfast.
She’s less okay with the dudes with mics on the building across the street spying on them.
They were only like fifty feet from the lab that had floor to ceiling windows, so she wasn’t sure who they thought they were kidding.
She honestly couldn’t resist waving to one while Erik chugged his alka seltzer. The government dudes went for cover like she’d shot at them.
Neat.
Erik went to presumably upchuck his eggs while Jane went to go change out of her pajama pants, leaving Darcy alone with the benevolent, giant alien.
He was staring at her so she thought that Jane might not have covered table manners yet in her etiquette lessons with Thor.
“Rude to stare, my man,” Darcy helpfully informed him.
He smiled that golden retriever smile back.
“I meant no offense. I was merely curious,” he titled his head in apology.
Ignoring the alarm bells going off in her head, a habit she should really get around to breaking, Darcy asked “Curious about what?”
Thor looked pointedly over her shoulder at the agents who were trying and failing to be more covert with their espionage.
“Perhaps now is not the time. But you are not what you seem, are you?”
Darcy Lewis had never had a tell, and she wasn’t starting today, not when it really counted.
“Don’t know what you could possibly mean,” Darcy said, serene smile in place as she got up to clear the dishes.
She was pretty sure it was respect she saw reflected in his eyes.
Thor’s friends showed up abruptly about an hour later, glowing so brightly that it hurt her eyes. She softly hummed shine bright like a diamond to herself as she went to get the broom for their shattered mugs.
Everyone in battle armor cocked their head at her, so she must not have been as quiet as she thought. Then they had yet another thing falling from space, and all hell broke loose.
The giant, fire-breathing robot tossing cars like they were bouncy balls topped her list of Scariest Shit.
Darcy was amassing quite the list.
She left the fighting to the professionals and worked with Erik to clear the down. She found a dog running scared, saved it, named it Baxter, and sent it to safety; all the while trying to avoid flying debris and being melted by stray flames.
As far as disasters went, she thought it was going alright. No one had died, the town was cleared, everyone seemed in one piece if a little battered, Thor said he had a plan.
The need to scream stopped her in her tracks.
She looked up to see Thor calmly walking to the DeathBot and drew blood with how hard she bit her lips trying to keep in the scream.
He was going to die.
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Thor totally didn’t die.
Well, actually, he did. She choked on her scream, but she still knew the instant his life went out. She could see it fade, even without the help of her voice or MSS visions. It dissipated from him like a mist: heat leaving a cooling body.
But then there was wind and lightning and there he was, dressed in armour and glowing again, a beacon through the smoke.
The burst of life where before there had been death made her skin itch like it was stretched too tight, but the sensation passed quickly.
Almost as quickly as Thor’s battle with the Destroyer.
Everything moved swiftly after that.
There was a lot of posturing from Agent Coulson, who will forever be known as Son of Coul, thanks to Thor, and an agreement over Jane’s research was reached. The political scientist in her noted that sweet victory was a great lubricant for negotiation.
Darcy was totally jealous that Jane gets to fly Air Myeuh-Myeuh the whole drive to the Bifrost site, but soon felt terrible about the pettiness at the sight of her boss’ face when Thor didn’t come back.
As they stood there in the last of the sun’s rays, Darcy gently shoved Jane’s shoulder with her own. “He would have come back if he could,” she said.
Jane clenched her jaw before answering.
“If he can’t get here on his own…”
She let her voice trail off as she smiled, eyes lighting up the way they always did before she started explaining something particularly sciencey to Darcy.
“We’ll have to help,” Erik chimed in from the other side of Jane.
Darcy threw an arm across her back, feeling Erik do the same.
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Sometimes nothing hits the spot like a cold beer alone in a dingy bar.
Two weeks AT, After Thor, was one of those times.
It wasn’t that she was working her ass off, what with having to learn Science! while also keeping Jane sane and alive, or that she was going to be in New Mexico indefinitely due to her many NDA’s and her unwillingness to leave Jane and Erik alone in the belly of SHIELD or that she didn’t get to walk at graduation or that she hadn’t been allowed to tell her mother anything close to the truth.
Any one of those things could drive a person to drink, much less the combination of all of them, but Darcy was handling it with aplomb.
No, the reason she was alone drinking now lukewarm beer in the only bar in town was because the constant surveillance by jackbooted thugs was driving her up the wall. They’d tried to be discreet about it, she would give them that credit, but it was pretty hard to hide from someone who could sense life itself.
She kept finding herself staring out windows at particular rooftops, unsure why until a mic holding automaton in a suit and sunglasses popped up.
Or accidentally tazing that agent when he tailed her in the grocery store.
Or glaring in the direction of an agent hidden behind Jane’s trailer in the middle of night until he finally came out of the shadows and slinked off.
As a coping mechanism, she’d started shooting them with spit balls. Juvenile, she knew, but after one agent followed her into the bathroom of a restaurant, Darcy reached the end of her rope.
She was batting a thousand with 13 newly spit balled agents in the last two days alone. Draining the last of her drink, she moved to get another but a fresh beer slid in front of her. Darcy looked up to find a man rocking a purple hoodie and a bandage across his nose.
She reached for her spit balling straw.
“Woah, woah, I come in peace!” the man held up his hands, palms forward.
She narrowed her eyes at him, and graciously put away her straw. It’d be bad form to punish the bringer of beer.
“I’m a little impressed you knew I was SHIELD,” he said as he made himself at home in the booth, sprawling with one leg hanging off the side.
“You guys are not as sneaky as you seem to think,” Darcy told him as she sipped up the foam.
He watched her for a beat.
“That’s the thing, we kind of are. Which is why we can’t figure out how you spot all of your tails.”
Darcy smiled wide, all teeth and sharp edges. “I’m observant, I guess.”
He let his eyes run down her face, rested them on her chest for a bit too long.
“You’re something alright.”
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Clint was a hilarious drunk.
She wasn’t sure why he had decided to get drunk if he had been sent to evaluate her, but he seemed like a dude who did what he wanted.
He was pretty unsubtle about what it was that he wanted.
"You a screamer, Lewis?" Clint tried to leer at her, but it came off a little more drunk puppy than Rico Suave.
If anything deserved a belly laugh, it was that. "Trust me, no one likes it when I scream."
He pouted, but was a decent dude and didn’t press. She appreciated that because she was totally hitting him up for archery lessons the next time she forced Jane to sleep through the day.
Her phone ringing interrupted him trying to convince her that SHIELD had Big Foot locked up in a lab in Wisconsin.
She sent him to the bar for more drinks as she answered.
“Hello?”
“Is this Darcy Lewis?” came a deep voice from the other end.
“This is she,” Darcy answers, only half paying attention because Clint had just doused himself with his beer and was muttering ‘Aw, no, beer’ to himself over and over.
“This is Detective Harris with the Raleigh Police Department. I’m afraid I have some bad news. I’m so sorry to have to tell you that your mother was found dead in her home today.”
Darcy's blood ran cold.