words | darcy/tony, soulmates
At eighteen, Darcy was known primarily for being the shy, introverted girl from Oregon, totally unsuited to her pre-law major at Culver University. She celebrated her nineteenth birthday with little fanfare, a few well wishes, and went to bed late like any other normal day.
At twenty, Darcy had earned a reputation for bold and reckless behavior that had everyone scratching their heads in confusion. In the span of just a year, she had turned into a whirlwind of brashness and mischief that made itself felt most keenly in her Chemistry 2100 class, when she experimented with a chemical reaction that nearly burnt down an entire wing of the building.
Miraculously, Darcy was let off with little more than a fail grade in the class and a slap on the wrist. She was actually rather disappointed, in fact – Darcy was hoping for something more than just near academic suspension and a lifetime ban from the Culver lab buildings: her soulmate words.
What the hell do you think you’re doing?
On Darcy’s twentieth birthday, the mess of dark lines on her wrist had condensed into eight words, small and cramped and seared into the delicate skin above her pulse. Twenty years of waiting – and she had no desire to wait any longer, not if she had anything to say about it.
At twenty-two, Darcy was six science credits shy of graduating with her political science degree. She was the only applicant for Jane Foster’s summer internship in New Mexico, and she had figured that suffering though one boring summer in the desert was worth more than another semester’s worth of student loans.
Besides – she had to think of other ways she could meet her soul mate, now that raining havoc on Culver’s campus was no longer an option.
Five weeks later, Thor happened – and getting herself into trouble took on a whole new meaning.
At twenty-four, Darcy hadn’t given up, per se; she had just grown up. One fire-breathing robot, two alien invasions, and three attempted kidnappings on Jane meant that the world wasn’t all fun and games – and Darcy was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.
Later, when SHIELD exploded from the inside out and the world scrambled in the ravages of the subsequent shit-show, Thor quietly spirited Jane and Erik into Stark Tower, insisting that Darcy come along too. He had dropped the three of them off in the labs before leaving with a dramatic whirl of his cape, but fancy machines and holographic doo-hickeys didn’t distract Darcy from zeroing in on the red and gold armor pieces, scattered across the floor under the lab bench.
She was trying to shove her arm into a gauntlet when someone demanded, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“What does it look like, genius?” she tossed back without pause, and at the stilted silence that followed she looked up, freezing in place.
“You said my words,” Tony Stark breathed.
She dropped the gauntlet, beaming at him as she took a step forward. “You have no idea how long I’ve been looking for—”
“I can’t, kid.” He held up his left hand to stop her, and her blood ran cold. The gold ring on his fourth finger glinted at her; the grimace on his face said everything. “I won’t. Not to Pepper.”
At twenty-six, Darcy woke up in Stark Tower, in an apartment too big and too empty for just one person. She turned on the television as she finished the last bit of cereal in the box, emptying the remnants of the milk carton into her bowl – when she finished her breakfast, she washed the dishes and put them away.
She listened as the news reporter spoke about the Sokovia Accords, changing into street clothes and stuffing her ratty old pajamas into her duffle. She left the TV on as two faces popped onto the screen – one dark eyed and dark-haired, the other blonde with blue eyes – separated by a blurry screenshot of a black-clothed figure with a metal arm.
Her phone chimed once – a text.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Lobby in five.
She typed a reply, before leaving the brand new StarkPhone on the coffee table, along with the three credit cards he had given to her, all unused and unsigned. Her mind ran over the expensive dresses sitting in the closet, the unopened wine bottles in the refrigerator, and all the fancy toys and electronics sitting in a pile on the bed – as if gifts and material objects were enough to make up for the fact that she had a soulmate that didn’t want her, let alone one that never even spoke to her beyond that first, disastrous conversation.
Darcy dropped a sealed envelope with his name next to the phone, looking up at the TV for a moment more, her eyes fixed on her soulmate’s face. She breathed, once, twice – then picked up her bag and slipped out of the apartment.
DARCY LEWIS: I’ll be there in two.