Chapter 8
They were barely outside of city limits, giant van careening along the interstate in all of its rickety glory, before Jane nearly ran them off the road. She’d been trying to work her phone and drive at the same time which was a habit that Darcy had tried everything short of violating the Geneva Conventions to break in Jane.
“We did not just narrowly escape one bloody death only to die in a fiery wreck,” Darcy lunged across the center console, trying to wrestle the phone away, “Give that to me!”
“No! I’m calling Coulson!” Jane screeched back, hunching her shoulders to block Darcy’s questing hands.
At that news, Darcy fell back into her seat, small ball of dread weighing down her stomach. She couldn’t look at Jane. “Why are you calling SHIELD?”
Jane didn’t notice how small Darcy’s voice was or how it shook. She was too busy trying to dial while simultaneously keeping an eye on the road. “Because I need to tell them that we quit,” she said, letting out a triumphant squeal as the call went through.
Darcy, still running on her adrenaline high, had the phone out of the scientist’s hands and the call cancelled before the first ring.
Jane huffed at her, sending stray fly-aways that had escaped her ponytail everywhere like a small astrophysicist Medusa.
“Quitting? We were just attacked!” Darcy was flabbergasted that she had to remind her.
Jane had the audacity to roll her eyes. Apparently, it would take more than an assassin to rate with Dr. Foster. Thinking back to her multi-hour break down after her first run in with… Bucky, Darcy was equal parts impressed and worried at how blasé her friend was being. Jane finished her Cher Horowitz impression with a spot on “So?”
“So?!” Darcy wailed, “We can’t quit after we were attacked! SHIELD can protect us!”
Jane stilled, disregarding watching the road so that she could turn her Serious Face on her passenger. “Darce, SHIELD will not protect us. It will not protect you,” she turned back to the road before continuing, “We weren’t attacked. You were attacked. For all we know, it was someone in SHIELD.”
The thought of all those dead agents had Darcy putting up a token protest, but Jane was not to be deterred.
“We can’t risk it. SHIELD is powerful and completely covert. We have no idea who or what is in play. What we do know is that these are the people that disappeared Bruce Banner. The people that took Eric off to Frigga knows where. We haven’t even heard from him in months, Darce… And those are just scientists, special only because of their brain. Imagine what they might do to you? I don’t know how you got those powers or what they even are, but I’m smart enough to guess. I know what people like SHIELD could do if they knew. I won’t let them take you, too.”
Darcy’s tears had started half-way through Jane’s speech, echoes of Betty’s ‘I know what happens to special people’ pulling at her common sense. Jane patted her on the head like a wayward puppy and held out her hand.
Darcy gave back the phone.
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“So you’re telling me that we were attacked by an unknown assailant, we lost three agents, we know nothing about the attack because all of the camera feeds were inexplicably erased, and even though our lead researcher into interplanetary travel was, allegedly, conveniently at the Wal-mart one town over during said attack, she has still resigned?”
Fury could feel a headache brewing behind his one good eye. He wished it was anyone but Coulson in front of him because terrifying someone sounded like an excellent way to alleviate his frustrations. Sadly, he’d stopped intimidating Coulson years ago, back when Carter was still director and had sent them to Oslo for an undercover op that went FUBAR. It was hard to be scared of someone when you’ve huddled bare ass with them for warmth under a single tarp. The Oslo mission had held the unofficial title of ‘Biggest Fuck Up’ within the agency until Barton and Romanoff’s disaster in Budapest.
“That’s what I’m saying, sir,” Coulson shrugged at Fury’s raised brow, “Right now, it’s all the information we have.”
“Then get more.”
Coulson nodded, but questioned “And how do you want to handle Dr. Foster?”
Fury sighed. “It’s been over a year, and she isn’t getting any closer to cracking that bridge. Our priority has to be Selvig’s work with the Teseract. Cut her loose, but keep eyes on her,” he said, rubbing a tired hand over his head, “What about that assistant of hers? Lewis? Could we turn her?”
“Barton’s assessment says she’s loyal to Foster.”
“An assistant’s salary isn’t much. Could we use that angle?” Fury thought aloud, but Coulson shot the idea down.
“She has family money. I don’t think she’s our play. I think hands off surveillance might be best, given our luck before. If we need to down the line, we can send someone deep cover. Boothby from Applied Science might be good for that. Level 4, physicist.”
Fury agreed, and sent Coulson out. There were bigger worries than a rogue astrophysicist. Hell, that was putting it lightly.
He looked at the records scrolling across the screen on the far wall in utter disbelief; that he could be in disbelief was a surprise in and of itself. So many years clandestinely moving chess pieces on a global scale had unconsciously made him start to think of himself as omniscient. He’d developed an ego, he realized now, an unseemly pride. Carter would have smacked him for it, and he would have deserved it.
Deserved it because here he was, king of his damn castle and blinded by his own vanity; because he was shocked, maybe even offended by what he was seeing; because his pride was wounded.
He leaned against his desk as he absorbed what he was reading. Someone had authorized transport, personnel, and a large, mysterious cargo that needed what looked like an enormous power source; all of this flown to Puente Antiguo, New Mexico. Landed just before the attack on the SHIELD base, took off just after.
SHIELD had secrets upon secrets, a complicated web with what was supposed to be one puppet master: Fury. There should not be a single thing happening within his agency that he didn’t know about, that he didn’t authorize himself.
Except he never authorized this, had never fucking heard about any of this.
The only reason he was seeing any of it now was because whoever had authorized all of this had made a pretty careless mistake. The action reports that had to be filled when taking out equipment of this magnitude had been initiated when leaving, but not completed when they returned. The system had flagged the unfinished paperwork and brought the abnormality straight to the top, Fury himself.
None of this should have been possible. It didn’t make a lick of sense to him, that was for damn sure. Someone was using SHIELD resources for their own agenda, and that was unacceptable. Nick Fury would find the fox in his hen house, and he’d make them bleed every secret they had.
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To their surprise, SHIELD had accepted Jane’s resignation with little fuss. Rather than look a gift horse in the mouth, they packed their shit, got the hell out of dodge, and ran back to Culver. Darcy still felt incredibly guilty that they were leaving New Mexico despite Jane telling her approximately three million times that they had gotten all they could from Puente Antiguo.
It was that guilt that had made her begrudgingly acquiesce to Jane’s demand that they go all Scientific Method on Darcy’s powers.
She deeply regretted that decision.
“Hold still!” Jane grabbed Darcy’s ponytail for leverage in keeping her head immobilized, “You know, if you’d let me shave your head, then we would get much better readings.”
Darcy spluttered in outrage until she saw Jane smirking in the corner of her eye. “You’re kind of a jerk, Janie-pants.”
Slapping the last electrode in place on Darcy’s forehead, Jane laughed. She went over to the EEG machine and said, “I’m just trying to get you to loosen up. You’re too jumpy.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry that being experimented on makes me nervous! This is exactly what I was trying to avoid, you know, but the mad scientist that I’ve been so afraid of turned out to be my best friend! Et tu, brute?”
“You are a ridiculous human,” Jane didn’t even look up from her calculations, “You’re not being experimented on, you big baby. You’re being observed because we don’t know enough about your abilities. Knowledge is power, so stop pouting.”
Darcy pouted. “Where's Betty? Her bedside manner is way better than yours.”
The woman in question walked in the lab at that moment, surveying the scene in front of her and sighing, “Darcy, stop pouting. I brought pizza.”
She walked up to the EEG machine and fixed one of the knobs that Jane had missed. The astrophysicist shot her an appreciative smile, but Darcy was more focused on the pizza in Betty’s hands.
Once back at Culver University, Jane had carefully fallen back into her academic life, plus one assistant. They weren’t so naïve as to assume that SHIELD had really backed off and were trying to act accordingly. Luckily, where Jane and Darcy were inexperienced with government meddling, it was old hat to Betty. They’d brought her in after Darcy had come clean about her first encounter with Bucky. Jane had taken the story in stride, but that had more to do with the fact that when Betty had reached out to Jane about Darcy taking her internship, Betty had only said Darcy needed to get out of town to escape a delicate and dangerous situation. At the time, Jane had assumed the situation was more along the lines of toxic romantic relationship and had agreed immediately. Cyborg assassins had never crossed her mind.
Now that everyone was on the same page, Betty was all too happy to help them. Darcy thought it was partly because she was a genuinely kind person and partly because the scientist in her couldn’t resist learning about the unknown. It didn’t matter; Darcy was just glad to have Betty on their team.
It had been Betty who had hooked them up with lab space under the guise of her and Jane having a joint research project on the theoretical effects of gamma radiation on Einstein-Rosen Bridges. It had been Betty who had implemented Bug Sweep Mondays, and it had been Betty who found most of the tiny microphones. Watching her pretend to be a klutz so she could spill drinks on the bugs was second only to watching a sleep deprived Jane build Napping Nests out of whatever her hands could reach.
In the end, the three of them had a pretty good gig going. They were learning about what Darcy could do and were as secure as they could hope to be given their circumstances.
While the two scientists finished their set up, Darcy tried to sneakily slink over to the pizza boxes. Problem was that no one could really be stealthy while attached to a multitude of electrodes via their face.
“No, ma’am! That is for after Science!” Jane slapped Darcy’s hand before she could grab the cheesy goodness.
Darcy pouted again.
They ignored her.
Finally, they finished with their preparations. Betty smiled at a petulant Darcy. “Alright, Darce, let ‘er rip.”
Darcy took a deep breath and screamed.
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Alexander Pierce went about his business as usual. He’d managed to create one hell of a base of command for Project Insight from an old SHIELD cargo ship. HYDRA’s time in the sun was coming.
Nick Fury found his first true lead in the Lemurian Star. It was too soon to send anyone in, but it gave him enough to go on to start making plans. He was close to the bottom of this, he knew.
The Winter Soldier slept, dreaming for the first time in decades, everything red, white, and blue.