If Director Nick Fury wasn't yelling threats and exuding menace, he was completely grave, with every uttered syllable as ominous as could be. There seemed to be no in-between, not for Darcy Lewis, at least, who probably would have preferred the former while being faced with the latter.
"I trust I need not remind you of the typical clearance level needed for an op of this caliber, Lewis?" The director's tone was quiet and cold as his one eye scowled at Darcy, who tried not to fidget under his gaze. It was stronger than some looks that had two eyes to work with. Instead opting to nod curtly, hoping her heavy swallow went unnoticed, Darcy then moved forward as Fury completed the preparation of her mission.
Very slowly, he was closing and buckling the lid of a small box whose contents glowed green. She wasn't sure she wanted to know if she was at risk for radiation poisoning or anything insane, but the green glow wasn't even entirely staunched by the container. Potent stuff. It was supposedly a newly-developed weapon that neo-HYDRA agents were after like rabid dogs, and she was being entrusted to hand-deliver it to a SHIELD cell deep in the New York underground. Her eyes followed Fury's movements as he stuffed it inside a side satchel, the sort that would easily pass for a book bag of any old college student these days. There were some rock and roll patches on the outside, it looked a little worn, and there was even an American Government textbook shoved inside. Nice touch, for the Political Science major.
Then he was proffering the strap to her, and Darcy was slinging the bag over her shoulder as if it was just that, her school bag for the day. Nodding at Fury, she turned to leave, rolling up her sleeve to examine the high-tech watch she was sporting for the mission. It was strapped on over her woolen hand warmer, so she wouldn't freeze when she tried to reach someone, hitting buttons in cold New York night air.
Satisfied that it wasn't on Tokyo Time or set to the Cyrillic alphabet, Darcy then tested her earpiece. "Daddy Warbucks, this is Annie checking in. Over." She tried to smother a giggle at the contact phrasing, but a similar chortle echoed into her earpiece from the other end. "Annie, this is Daddy Warbucks. You're clear to go. And, the tap-dancing can start anytime too. I could use a performance. Over."
Whoever had put Tony Stark in charge of comms on her mission was an absolute idiot, but at the same time, the playboy genius was comforting. His jokes and refusal to balk at a situation anchored her confidence and kept her thinking straight.
"Annie, this is Thumbelina. Everything all clear so far? Over." Jane's voice, rendered crackly by the radio, was not enough to drown out Thor's baritone in the background, asking why Darcy was being called Annie by everyone. Descending a SHIELD staircase to a back exit, Darcy was suppressing laughter as best she could as she replied. "Thumbelina, this is Annie. Smooth sailing so far, just leaving the perimeter. Over." Stepping out into a darkening New York evening, Darcy shivered, pulling up the collar of her pea coat and patting the bag at her side to ascertain it was securely fastened.
"Copy that. Over." Jane's voice sounded relatively calmer, but Thor was muttering something as she spoke, something about Loki needing to know about this.
"Oy, Goliath, none of that. Rumpelstiltskin does not have clearance for knowledge of this mission. Abort. Halteth Thine Tongue. I dunno, uh, over." Tony was sounding a little more ruffled now, and Darcy frowned, already over the humor of Thor and Loki's code names.
"Daddy Warbucks, Rumpelstiltskin won't be told, Thumbelina's making sure of that. Over." Jane's tone was reprimanding, and Thor gave a little 'ouch' after a smacking sound. He hadn't learned how to operate the radio quite yet, and would clamp his hand down on the button so everyone could hear every little thing. That had led to many, many awkward moments already, when he and Jane were on recon missions together, bored.
Darcy calmed a little at the astrophysicist's words, who was herself a newly fledged agent. Loki certainly didn't need to know Darcy was on a dangerous solo mission, he'd try to intervene and things would go to hell in a hand-basket pretty quickly. Quickening her pace down the sidewalk, the intern-turned-agent tried to tune out the voices in her head – er, ear, as she scanned the street, eyeing alleyways with caution as she passed them. One hand steadied the bag slung across her shoulder, and the other was clutching her taser in her coat pocket.
All of a sudden, her radio started barking clips of noise, scuffling sounds that ended with one solid thud.
"Oh, shiiiii- Uh, Mission compromised, over." Stark's whelp was soon replaced by a chilling accent coming over the airwaves. "Agent Lewis. You didn't think to tell me about this little jaunt?"
Damn it. "Not sure who you're looking for, just little ol' Annie here! Over!" Darcy chirped in a faux-cheery tone, a shiver rolling down her spine as she crossed an old lumber yard to access a rundown subway entrance.
Loki was not impressed. "For every lie you tell, I'm going to make certain Fury puts you on a month of desk work. That is my department." She winced, picking her way over a stack of junk wood scraps. At least he had a sense of humor about his faults. Meanwhile, Jane, Thor, and anyone else on the comm channel were all unhelpfully silent. Maybe he'd disabled everything. Crap. That would suck, for the mission.
"Listen, Rumpelstiltskin, you don't run my life. If I get a mission, I get a mission, and I cooperate with the higher-ups and jump through all the hoops and commands to tell no one and stuff, okay? If that includes you, I'm sorry. But I have to concentrate right n-" Darcy cut herself off with a yelp as a man appeared in front of her, blocking the way to the old sub station. He held a knife, and was clad in a heavy-duty cargo jacket with a gray toque shoved on his head. He looked pretty menacing, as those things go. Something covered by static came over her radio, but she couldn't decipher it.
Narrowing her eyes, Darcy scanned with her peripheral vision as best she could, while she made a show of jutting out a hip and raising a brow. "Look dude, I just came from the longest trig class in history, and I need a shortcut home, so if you don't mind-"
"Oh, but I do mind, Agent Lewis." The man growled with a nasty grin, producing an ancient radio from his pocket and waggling it in the air. How the hell did a prehistoric relic even listen in on SHIELD chatter?
"M-my name's Annie. Annie Johnson," Darcy tried, attempting to side-step and gain entry to the steep concrete staircase she was aiming for. But the man matched her every step, stuffing the radio away and tossing the knife to what must have been his dominant hand.
"Hand over the weapon, and HYDRA will…Well, maybe cut an hour off your torture." The man smiled another smarmy grin, and Darcy heard a clatter on the other end of her radio. She realized she'd been holding down on her wrist comm, and that wasn't good.
In the meantime, the guy was inching forward, and Darcy shrugged her bag off, letting it hang idly in her left hand while her right clenched around the taser in her pocket. "Sure you wanna do this, buddy?"
"Oh, I do, girlie." The man muttered, jumping forward and slashing with his knife. Darcy dove to the side, hitting the ground hard on her left hip but pulling the taser and firing it as she did so. The prongs hit home in the guy's shoulder, sent him twitching to the ground. But a rustling behind her preceded another man rounding a scrap wood pile, and Darcy struggled to her feet as quickly as possible, ejecting the spent cartridge.
Realizing she didn't have another, Darcy clicked her tongue, trying to think fast as the second man eyed her warily. She figured charging him couldn't hurt, so she hurled the taser at his head, and the distraction of batting it away gave her an opening to move forward and swing her bag at his side. It caught him in the ribs, and as he fell to the side Darcy thanked the universe for hefty textbooks. She dashed past him, making for the slate-gray stairs that would lead to the rendezvous point, ignoring Tony Stark's interrogation. He'd apparently regained his radio, and she dreaded to think what that meant.
Hitting them, she lurched to the side, grappling for the railing to help speed her down the crumbling steps. She didn't dare glance behind her, but she could hear heavy breathing, and hoped her cargo wouldn't speed her down too much. Hitting the old yellowed tile that represented the old subway's waiting platforms, she started sprinting, cursing her chest endowments and the textbook that had been her savior a moment ago.
Ducking into a nearly pitch-dark side passage, Darcy stopped for a moment, assessing. She couldn't hear anything except her own labored breathing, which she tried to stifle with wool-clad hand over her mouth. Backing against the dark wall, she tried to slow her heartbeat, thinking of the blueprints she'd been shown and which way she could take. Peering down the dark passage she faced, Darcy shuddered, hearing a squeaking and scurrying towards the ground. Rats. She hated rats. But flicking her gaze back to the way she'd come, Darcy had to choke down a gasp, as the men from earlier appeared. With some buddies. A group of about ten men passed her hiding spot, their heads swiveling every which way as they sought her.
"C'mon out, girlie, there ain't no way you're gettin' that package to your pals," A hoarse voice called, someone else sniggering at his words.
Darcy took a deep breath, gauging how far past her they'd moved. "Cockiness is so blegh, boys," She declared, stepping out into the lit, albeit dimly, main corridor. The men turned as one and started for her, but she stepped towards the trench that harbored the old train tracks. This area of the tracks was, thankfully, an access stop, and so the tracks were lit for a few dozen feet, before they disappeared into a black tunnel to her left, in the direction of the thugs after her.
She'd miscalculated their ranks, though, because all of a sudden a strong wrenching movement stopped her progress by the roots of her hair, which screamed in protest. There'd been another man behind her, and he'd latched his hand right into her ponytail, which was probably not the smartest hairstyle choice for tonight. Easy to clamp onto, it was like she had a "grab me" sign posted on her shoulders.
Crying out with pain, Darcy was pulled around to come face-to-face with the man holding her. He had creepy pale eyes, a shaved head, and a blade in his hand that looked like the origin of tetanus itself.
"You're probably Russian," she offered with a smile. He paused for a second, and she jammed a leg into his groin, ripping her hair from his hands with a very, very painful tug. As quick as she moved, though, the man recovered in time to swipe his blade in her direction, and half of her ponytail was unevenly lopped off as it left his grasp.
"Aw shit, you've ruined my hair!" Darcy shrieked, a hand going to her hair and pulling the rubber band out of it. Some crackling speech came from her radio, but she wasn't paying any attention. The other men were perhaps a dozen feet away now, stopped to see how she'd fare with this man, and she shot a glance at them before raising the rubber band in her hand. As the man with the crappy barber skills charged her again, she shot off the hair band in her fingers, hitting him in the eye. He yowled with pain as she launched herself off the platform and onto the old tracks, thanking the universe again that she hadn't landed with her foot between rails and broken something vital.
Amid the barked orders above and behind her, Darcy started to scamper along the tracks, hitting the absolute darkness of the tunnel just as several crunches signaled the men had vaulted down after her. None of them seemed to have flashlights, so that was good, but neither did she. Her thoughts wandered to the glowey thing of destruction in her bag – it'd make a hell of a flashlight, bright as it was, but she'd also become a beacon for "come and get me". Biting her lip, Darcy stuck her arms out in front of her like a zombie, hesitantly feeling her way through the black corridor. She couldn't even see anything in the distance, like another stop, so this was gonna be awesome. Hopefully she wouldn't need a pee break anytime soon.
"Give it up! You probably didn't sign up for this, and maybe we'll let you off easy!" A voice yelled behind her.
"Yeah, off a twenty-foot bridge and not a hundred!" Another called, resulting in some more barks of laughter. Darcy grimaced, inhaling sharply when her hand scraped the brick wall. Latching onto it for balance and guidance, she kept on moving, her other hand securing the strap of the bag that was across her shoulder again.
Suddenly, a gun fired. The gunshot echoed deafeningly down the tunnel, illuminating a short distance as well. Darcy froze, hands patting down and across her person to see if she'd been hit. She turned her head slowly, in time for another gunshot to light up the tunnel. The men were only about twenty feet behind her, and shouted as they spotted her in the temporary dimness.
Trying not to hyperventilate, Darcy started to run. She figured she was safe to run, pressed against the wall as she was, as the tracks started a few feet further towards the middle of the tunnel. It didn't seem enough, and soon enough her breath was coming in sharp gasps, the bag on her shoulder a painful burning burden. She switched arms, panting, but she kept staggering on. The tunnel seemed to round a corner, and finally, she could see some weak light ahead. Panicking that it would illuminate her silhouette, Darcy picked up speed, willing herself on with thoughts of a promotion and saving mankind.
Finally, she made it to the next stop, dragging herself up some emergency stairs to make it to the platform again. She collapsed to her knees, certain twenty seconds of rest wouldn't hurt, and warily watched the black hole that was the tunnel opening. Sure enough, two men lurched out of it a moment later, blinking and disoriented. It didn't take them long, however, to look up and spot her, so she heaved herself to her feet, wavering. Her radio seemed permanently broken, or something, and she didn't think to check the screen of her comm as she stood, staggering across the old tile floor.
The more spry of the two men had already vaulted himself up onto the platform when she looked back, and she cursed loudly. She didn't have enough time to make it to the next dark patch, and so she raised the bag's strap higher on her shoulder, facing the man. He drew closer, pulling out a gun, and she groaned internally. Raising her hands cautiously, one much higher than the other to feign injury, she prayed for luck.
"Toss the bag this way, slowly." The man said, waving the gun.
"Why not just shoot me and take it?" Darcy challenged, absolutely certain that was not the sort of thing you said in these situations.
"It could activate it." The man murmured, eyes on the bag.
"And chucking it like a football won't?" She shot back. "Besides, one of my shoulders is hurt. Come grab it from me and you win." She let her arms slump like they pained her, the bag hanging slack at her side.
The man still had the gun raised in one hand, but all of a sudden, a chorus of yells resounded off the walls around them, emanating from the darkened tunnel entryway.
"What the hell-" The man started, but Darcy was already upon him, willing to take advantage of any distraction, even if unscheduled. Swinging her hand towards the outer side of his arm and disarming him like she'd been taught, she shoved him against the floor, planting the sole of her boot against his nose to pin him. "Don't move or I'll give you a very expensive plastic surgery bill." His muffled face groaned a reply, and she examined the gun idly, making sure she'd know how to use it, then hopped off him, warning him to stay down. She grabbed up the bag again and swung herself back down to the tracks, brows furrowed in concentration.
Two men were waiting for her, one looking unharmed but scared out of his wits, and the other sporting a charred jacket sleeve.
"What the hell?" Darcy started, before they noticed her, eyes having been on the tunnel opening. Mr. Scared recovered quickly, running towards her before she remembered she had a gun. Aiming for his leg, she fired, or would have, if the thing wasn't apparently out of ammo. Letting out a garbled shriek of rage, she settled for ducking to the side and swinging a leg under the man, sending him slamming onto the edge of the tracks with a bone-jarring crash. He howled with pain, and Darcy muttered "ouch" before slamming the gun into the back of his head to put him out of commission. The other man hesitated, his sleeve still suspiciously smoking, when suddenly a burst of…something, hit him in the back, and he dropped to the ground.
"Shit," Darcy muttered, thinking at last of her comm and fumbling at her wrist for it, stepping backwards as she did so. The mute button had been on all this time. Lovely. "Thumbelina? Daddy Warbucks?" She stammered, still staggering backwards and hoping she didn't trip. "Is, uh, anyone else supposed to be backing me up?"
"ANNIE." The sharp crackling of the radio made Stark's yell even worse in her ear, and she winced, cupping her earlobe with a palm. "Negative that, best to assume anything down there with you is hostile. I think."
She grumbled something back in reply, staring at the gaping blackness of the tunnel she'd come from, expecting a monster or something to charge her at any second.
Instead, she backed into a very solid form much taller than her. Whipping around with the gun raised only succeeded in trapping her hand in a very cold, relentless grip. But it wasn't painful, and Darcy's face grew disgusted at who she'd run into. "What're you doing here?!" Her shriek echoed down the tunnel, and as her hand was released and she dropped the gun, she huffed past her captor and started striding quickly towards the next tunnel opening.
"Is that the thanks I get for saving your life?" The accent behind her drawled casually, but she could detect the note of frustration and fear behind it. "You were quite outnumbered."
"Don't need saving. Never did, never will," she muttered, suddenly feeling very childishly grouchy. This was what started feminism, damsels distinctly not in distress, but who men thought were, she was sure of it.
"Darcy." His reproachful tone behind her lent her pause, but only for a second before she waved a hand in the air dismissively and kept walking.
"Not everything requires godly intervention, Milord." She uttered the last word like it was repulsive, and the footsteps following her stopped. Ten more paces, and she stopped too, turning to face him. "I'm sorry. That was mean. But this is my mission! Not ours."
"I only wished to protect you. They sent you on a near-suicide mission." Voice low, Loki looked like a beaten puppy, which he most distinctly was not, and she knew it was a façade. Her guilt knew it too, but didn't care. He also looked really good, clad not in his usual Asgardian finery but in a combat outfit similar to those that Hawkeye sported, a canvas jacket with the collar popped, tight leather pants with combat boots. The only thing that screamed Loki was the hilarious green scarf he had around his neck, probably a little jab of rebellion against the SHIELD wardrobe. Unf.
She caved. "Ugh, thanks, big guy. And come on. I have to do this." She turned and resumed her stumbling along the tracks.
"You have been entrusted with a dangerous weapon, all by yourself, and you are hardly qualified or trained." His voice was low, angry, as he somehow appeared at her side when he'd been a dozen paces away. "I do not understand Fury's decision."
"It was my call to agree, which I did. I was a prime candidate to go unspotted, at least for a while, to complete this mission," Darcy hissed back, grimacing at the blackness as she stepped in. Loki rolled his eyes, muttering about mortals always forgetting things before whipping up a orb of light with a flourish of his fingers.
"That's gonna give me away-" She started, but he shushed her with a finger to her lips, murmuring that his magic was distinguishable at a millisecond's notice, versus a flashlight or other form of "mortal illumination", and that unless she was secretly a feline, she could not see in this darkness. She was silent after that, trudging along and thinking of all the insults she was gonna shoot at him when she completed this mission.
Finally, a sign advertising "Fury-us Hotdogs" appeared, bright, new, and out of place in the decrepit old train system, and Darcy breathed a sigh of relief. Latching onto Loki's chilly fingers, she pulled him towards an emergency metal gate that sat at chest-level, shoving at it. It didn't budge, and she bit her lip, side-eyeing Loki, who glared and blasted it with magic. It opened, alright, considering the entire gate was a pile of dust after the blast, but Darcy kept a hold on Loki, scrambling up the steps to the platform level.
She started to forage around for an old electrical panel, hissing in celebration when she found it. Swinging it open, she entered in a code, and a cheerful beep swung that entire section of wall to the side, revealing a SHIELD surveillance room.
"Congratulations, Agent Lewis," a familiar voice called, and she spotted Coulson pacing among the manned computer monitors, nodding his approval. Her radio burst into life again, cheers from the entire Avengers team now serenading her. She dumped the offending bag onto the nearest available surface, scrambling for the black box.
As Darcy started to fumble with the buckles keeping it closed, Loki let out a hiss, snatching it from her grasp. "Are you quite mad?!" He said with alarm, holding it above her reach as she hopped in place, trying futilely to regain it. Then she settled for kicking gently at his shin. "Give it back."
He refused, until the entire room burst into laughter, Coulson included. Loki's eyes narrowed, and after a muttered shielding spell which Darcy felt was surely unnecessary, he snapped open the box. His expression went comically flat, and he pulled out a glow stick.
Like, a kid's glow stick. "Glow-Slow" was printed in childish block letters along its length, probably the brand. Darcy couldn't help it. Tears sprang to her eyes and she laughed until her ribs ached, an arm splayed across her abdomen as she tried to stifle it.
Loki was not impressed, a glacial gleam in his emerald eyes as they flitted to Coulson. "A training exercise?"
Coulson, still iffy on addressing Loki, conceded with a nod, not looking at the god. "Miss Lewis, you're in, but you just barely made it. I trust you understand that the men Mr. Magic here took out will detract from your total score?"
That sobered her up, and Darcy fell silent, jutting her lower lip out in a pout. "But I-"
"Cheated, essentially, Miss Lewis, and that will be addressed later. But for now, you have made it into the rank of Agent. Congratulations." With that, Coulson hit a button, doors at the far side of the room opening to reveal a lift that would take them back to the ground level.
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"I still cannot believe that was all contrived," Loki said, shaking his head as Darcy swiped her ID card to get back into SHIELD headquarters. "Those men, they actually harmed you-"
"They gave me a hair trim, and a few bruises, but if I'd ended up literally compromised, they wouldn't have stabbed me or shot me or whatever. Fury said they just put out an offer that anyone who wasn't afraid to gang up on a girl would get a bonus on their next paycheck, and those guys agreed I guess. I was told it wouldn't go off without trouble, or it wouldn't be a test at all. Boy, that bit with the hair band probably earned me mad points...Female ingenuity at its finest, man..." The newly-made Agent was grinning widely before she swiped a hand through her hair, frowning at the unevenness where the knife had removed several strands. "Fuuuhhwwahhghhghghhh I need to get this fixed."
"To take on a single mortal girl in an attempt to propel her to the rank of agent, I still don't-" Loki was still going, only silenced when Darcy turned to him, pulling him down by the lapels for a quick kiss. As she pulled away, she stretched up on her toes to ruffle his hair, which he pretended to hate. "I'm okay, thanks to you and mostly thanks to my kickass self, Loki. And I'm totally legit now. You know what that means?" She continued walking, and the dazed god blinked after her before falling back in step with her. "That means an upgraded taser, that means shoe shopping, that means gourmet tapioca pudding…"
Darcy continued rattling off the copious new benefits she would enjoy in her promoted status, and Loki let her keep going, pulling her close and pressing a kiss to her hair as they walked. Finally, they reached the main office where her things were, and she hurriedly snatched up her bag so she could go home for the night.
When the elevator hit the ground floor again and they were heading for the door of headquarters, Loki was staring sidelong at her. He did it until Darcy was annoyed enough to demand what he wanted, and he frowned, holding the door open for her. "There is just one thing we must discuss, then." He watched her shoulders tense up, but she just raised a brow and waited for him to continue. They hit the sidewalk and he put his arm back around her, his own brow crinkling up. "I do not understand why my code name is Rumpelstiltskin. Now, Thor's is comprehensible, even Doctor Foster's, and you are indeed a short, adorable girl like this Annie of lore, but why must I share the moniker of a shriveled-up, height-deficient magical wretch who demands the firstborns of mortal women?"
Darcy's snort startled a flock of pigeons as they crossed the street, and she had no answer.
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