Chapter 17
Darcy was proud that she didn’t immediately crane her neck around, even though that’s what her instincts were demanding now that they were on alert.
“Who?” she asked under her breath, carefully getting up without breaking Bucky’s view of the entrance. She shored up her nerves and put on a sultry smile, giggling loudly. She started pushing him to a door marked Employee’s Only, hoping that anyone watching would think they were any young couple looking for a bit of privacy.
Bucky caught on quickly, throwing his arm low around her waist and letting her guide him back, burying his face in her neck like he was nuzzling, but instead softly talking in her ear while keeping an eye out.
“HYDRA by the looks of them, small team, probably more coming.”
Not having to fake the shiver that ran down her from the way his lips tickled her skin as he spoke, Darcy playfully shoved him backwards into the door.
“Then let’s get out of here, soldier,” she cooed to the disgust of an older gentleman who shuffled away from their affectionate display. Darcy went back into Bucky’s chest to give him cover as his metal arm broke the lock on the door, both of them slipping through hastily.
It was the entrance to the employee parking garage, but they didn’t get more than a few steps before men with guns came out from their hiding places. Bucky shoved Darcy behind him and pulled a gun from Frigga knew where to take aim at the man stalking forward from the rest of the formation. Darcy moved her head from behind his back to get a better view.
“Rollins,” Bucky sneered.
“Winter Soldier,” the man, Rollins ,replied, “Time to come home. Lucky you, I got orders to take your girlfriend, too.”
“You didn’t bring enough to take us,” Bucky said, which Darcy thought was optimistic considering there were like fifteen dudes with big ass guns, not to mention the group inside. She could just shift them to MSS, secret identity be damned in the face of immediate danger, but Bucky seemed to sense her plan because he gave her a warning squeeze with the arm holding her back and nodded ‘no’.
“Don’t need that many,” Rollins laughed, letting his gun drop, “Just need one word: Sputnik.”
And with that, Bucky crumpled into a lifeless heap at Darcy’s feet. She was on her knees soon after, hands hovering, unsure what to check on him first, when she heard the unmistakable cock of a gun.
“Up, little lady. Or not. You could make this more fun for me; it’s not often I get called out to grab pretty things like you,” came Rollin’s lecherous voice.
Darcy’d been in dangerous situations before, against gods and monsters, but having the helpless man underneath her fingertips and the knowledge that the men in front of her were responsible for all of the hurt that he’d suffered, that they were going to do it all again to him and probably to her, made her blood boil.
She felt rage build within her, the likes of which she’d never felt, and took a deep breathe that tasted like ice and sulphur.
Her vision was blanketed in black gossamer, her body chilled to the touch, all the while that rage surged through her.
She looked up at Rollins and smiled.
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Stark Industries’ DC office had a fleet of armored black SUVs, all meant for SHIELD but now with no place to go. Convenient, given the Avengers had confiscated one of them for their high speed drive towards the Smithsonian.
Nat was absently weighing the pros and cons of later stealing one of those cars as she scrolled through police chatter on her phone. If the Winter Soldier went on a rampage, it was better that they knew before rushing in blindly, exactly what Rogers would do without her foresight. Sooner or later, she’d have him thinking with his head rather than his hormones, but Natasha had her work cut out for her until then.
She heard the hard whisper of Sam convincing Steve to change into normal clothes from where they were stuffed in the trunk space, “You really want to greet your long lost BFF in turquoise scrubs?”, and snorted to herself, feeling the arm of something soft, a hoodie maybe, swat her in the back of the head. Her phone caught her attention soon enough. There was a bank being robbed by armed men exactly two miles East of the Smithsonian and a bomber with hostages in a hotel lobby exactly two miles North.
“That can’t be a coincidence,” she muttered, but Jane, who was seated next to her in the back seat, heard.
“What can’t be a coincidence?”
Nat explained the perfectly equidistant disasters over the muffled sounds of Sam and Steve tossing clothes around.
“That’s a distraction. Pulls police presence in two directions away from the Smithsonian,” Clint thought out loud.
“HYDRA. They’re going for Bucky,” Tony concluded, pressing a few buttons, and suddenly they weren’t on the street anymore.
“Are we flying?” Jane asked through gritted teeth.
“Aye,” Thor confirmed from the passenger side in the front, cramped even with the roomiest seat in the car.
“Why weren’t we already doing that?” Jane glared a hole into the back of Tony’s head.
“It’s not exactly inconspicuous, Janie dear,” Tony said but got a swift punch in the arm from Jane for his condescension. Natasha smiled approvingly and patted her knee as a reward. Jane never lifted her glare from Tony, but gave a quick nod to the spy.
“Who gives a fuck about being inconspicuous?!” roared Cap from the trunk, furiously trying to get his head through the appropriate hole in a T shirt, but had twisted it around his torso too far. The rip echoed in the car.
“Right, on it, ETA 3 minutes,” Tony says, chastened.
Nat popped another piece of bubble gum and checked her gun, not missing the way Jane gave it a longing look before glancing back at Tony.
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His body was filled with lead.
At least, that’s what it felt like. Bucky could still hear everything around him, could still feel everything, but his eyes were glued shut, and he couldn’t move.
Distantly, the thought that being immobilized should be panicking him occurred because immobilization had always meant incredible pain, but all of his panic was usurped for the woman who’s warm hand he could feel resting on his back.
Darcy.
Why wasn’t she running?
Why wasn’t she leaving?
Why wasn’t she going to that other place, the place where she could be safe?
Why?
Why… was it so quiet?
Actually, no, he could hear footsteps, fifteen of them so HYDRA’s men, their footsteps… backing up?
That wasn’t right. He tried to wrench his eyelids open, to see what was happening, but to no avail. Darcy’s warmth left his back.
Then the screaming started.
It was so loud, from every angle, that he almost missed the tingling in his fingers, feeling slowly creeping back into them.
The only thing keeping him sane was that the screaming wasn’t Darcy’s high, nasally husk, all of the yells were deeper baritones. Bucky frantically kept trying to move his hands, anything, but was only capable of frenzied twitching. An improvement, but he needed more; he had to help her.
Finally, Darcy’s voice broke through the chaos, right when Bucky got his arms to move like he wanted them.
“Boy, did you guys pick the wrong girl,” her voice rang out, relieving him to no small degree even if there was something wrong with it. More vibrato than she normally had, a little louder, but definitely still Darcy’s.
Bucky finally got his eyes to open, only to find his girl standing over him, normally porcelain complexion covered in red swirls that writhed in waves down her exposed skin and her blue eyes now black all over from lid to lid, the soldiers edging away from her and shakily pointing their weapons with sweating, trembling hands.
It was the most beautiful sight Bucky’d ever seen.
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There were two dudes in the back that were literally pissing in their pants, and the rest reeked of fear.
Darcy loved it.
She hadn’t known how caged she was before, before her anger let the beast free. She could see, could feel so much more. Never had she understood what the big difference between species was, aside from Asgardians glowing a little more than your usual human, but she got it now that it was painted right in front of her face.
These were humans, mortals, and terrible ones at that; their auras wafting from them clouded with every bit of death and pain they’d caused seeping from their every pore, all for Darcy to witness.
It was liberating.
“You’re covered in it, you know,” she drawled casually as she strolled towards Rollins. He was just as scared as the rest of them, bitter to her nose, but was trying to hide it.
Men and their pride.
He raised his gun, shouldering it more securely, but Darcy wasn’t bothered. She could disappear before he landed a shot, of that she’s positive. Bucky’s energy was coming back, steady and sweet at her back. It shouldn’t be long before he’s up and mobile.
“Covered in what?” Rollins spat at her.
“Death, duh,” she laughed, stopping just short of the muzzle and looking up at him from under her lashes, “It’s fitting.”
“You’re talking crazy,” he stuttered, “I don’t care what you are, bitch, but get on the ground before I blow your brains out.”
She ignored him and continued, “It’s fitting that you’re so familiar with death because I’m going to gift you with yours.”
He flinched, just a brief tightening of his jaw and clenching of his teeth, but it’s enough. His men have moved back so far that Darcy’s confident Bucky’s out of the range of fire.
Pushing the barrel into her chest, Rollins said, “I’ll kill you before you kill me.”
“You misunderstand,” she hummed in that perfect pitch, the one that blinks her out of sight and straight to MSS.
She watched Rollins gape at empty air, watched some of the men turn tail and flee as she walked the few feet to reappear just behind his shoulder.
The scream someone let off as she rematerialized was music to her ears. Rollins didn’t have time to twist around before she was humming in his ear, hand around his throat, “I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to show you exactly how you die so you walk around for the rest of your life looking over your shoulder: cursed, a paranoid and broken wreck of a man.”
With that, she stole him to MSS, one look confirming that Bucky was standing and ready to do his own special brand of damage.
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Bucky was choking out the last of the remaining men, the ones that hadn’t run for the hills like cowards, when the wall of the parking garage collapses inwards, revealing a blonde man with a raised hammer behind it.
“Uh,” Bucky stalled, looking from the newcomer to the purpling HYDRA agent in his arms. He let the man drop and fell into a fighting stance, a default in the face of the unknown threat.
More people, and one shiny red and gold robot, crowded in the gaping hole behind the blonde behemoth, and, to Bucky’s horrified surprise, Steve came pushing through the rubble.
Mercifully, Steve got shoved aside by a small brunette woman running full tilt towards Bucky, yelling her head off.
“Where is Darcy?! Where is she?!”
Dropping out of his aggressive stance, the Winter Soldier went on the defensive against a woman who couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred-twenty, but her aim was true and her fists were sharp.
He was saved by Darcy herself, who chose that moment to pop out of thin air with a sobbing and prostrate Rollins in all her otherworldly glory.
The woman, who Bucky had to assume was the infamous Jane, immediately stopped her assault in favor of dashing to Darcy, stepping on Rollins rather than over him in her hurry, landing a hard heel to his upper back. Once she was within arms reach and close enough to have a proper look, Jane halted suddenly, seizing Darcy’s face and dragging it down to her own.
“Darce,” she began, squeezing the face between her hands so hard that Darcy cheeks and lips puffed out like a fish, “Did you know that your eyes are totally black and your skin is doing a red watercolor impressionist thing right now?”
“No,” Darcy replied through her puckered mouth, “I did not. That’s new.”
“Huh,” Jane said, and then threw her arms around Darcy for a tight hug. Darcy returned it, and as they stood there holding each other, Darcy’s features faded back into her normal human self.
“So definitely not my daughter,” the robot said from the hole in the wall.
The red head that had been on the bridge, the little spider, answered while holstering her gun, “Still could be. Maybe she got that from her mother?”
The robot groaned.
“Bucky?” snapped his attention from eavesdropping, and there Steve was, standing there with a hopeful smile that made him look like such a dope.
Like a…
“Punk,” Bucky sighed, “You’re a punk.”
Steve laughed, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “And you’re a jerk,” he returned, voice only slightly waterlogged.
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Mephisto had always hated space. It was so… unending.
Perhaps that was a quality that would impress someone who couldn’t traverse the multiverse at their leisure, but seeing as he could, unending just seemed messy.
Still, he had to admit that the Titan’s rocky outcrop was good for dramatic effect. The floating throne was maybe over the top, but Mephisto was realistic enough to know he didn’t have a leg to stand on. His own throne was made from the gilded bones of his enemies. The golden skeleton parts shone brilliantly in the light of hell-fire.
The throne before him was empty, but Mephisto knew its master to be about.
“Love what you’ve done with the place,” he called out, “It’s so uninviting, truly inspired.”
“Mephisto. Now what deal could have enticed you all the way to my domain? Surely you know my soul is my own,” came his reply.
Thanos walked out from a hidden chamber, door blending smoothly into the stoneface after it swung shut. The floating chair lowered, presumably so it could be used, but Mephisto cut Thanos off at the pass.
“This may come as a shock to you, but your soul is of little value to me beyond how entertaining it would be to extinguish,” Mephisto smiled sweetly then offered a hand to help the Titan to his seat like he was helping a child to their chair for dinner. Thanos growled and sent the throne back to it’s high sentry.
“You show great disrespect. I would watch your tongue.”
“This is me watching it, Thanos. You are harboring an enemy to my realm. Release Loki to me.”
“Your realm?” Thanos scoffed, pacing along the ledge, “You think so small, of realms. It will be your downfall. Loki is long gone from here; I assume off scheming and simpering as usual.”
“I know he was here, and he cannot be far off. Give me the prince.”
“As I said, I know not where he is,” Thanos repeated, “Though I wonder what crime he could have committed against Hell? Asgard, surely, along with Jotunheim and Midgard, but Hell? What connection could there be?”
Mephisto remained quiet, calculating. How much did Thanos know?
“This was brazen, even for you with all your flamboyance. What could make you act so foolishly?” the Titan continued, pacing all the while.
“Do not forget your place. I am a King,” Mephisto warned.
Thanos stopped in front of him, cracking a hard grin. “King, eh? The age of kings is over, demon. It’s a new day. The dawn of a Titan.”
Not able to restrain the laugh, Mephisto chuckled. “Do you have any idea how many snot nosed little brats have tried to take me on? Please,” he chided, “Like you’re the first.”
Thanos tightened his fist, brandishing the gauntlet adorning his hand, but Mephisto took note of the lack of infinity stones, six empty holders.
“Oh, I am just shaking in fear. Whatever shall I do?” Mephisto intones, peering at the gauntlet, “Maybe if you actually had the stones to power it, but really? What use is a bow without an arrow?”
“Soon enough, devil,” Thanos seethed, “I’ll have so much more than arrows. I do not have your prize, so leave now.”
“If I find that you are keeping me from Loki, I will be back, and I won’t be quite so pleasant,” was Mephisto’s parting shot as he faded into the shadows of the rocks.
In truth, the meeting had only proven what Mephisto already knew to be true.
He must find a way to get to Darcy.