“Hey! I know you!” She’s on her way to the grocery store, empty canvas tote bags swinging from her arm, when she spots Sam freaking Wilson with a throughly disgruntled looking man and a dude with terrible dress sense on the street near the apartment she’s renting in Latvia.
Sam falters slightly and Mr Disgruntled gives her a long, level glare, openly assessing her from her knit cap down to her combat boots. She suppresses a shiver and meets his gaze while snapping the gum in her mouth.
“Look, lady, now’s not the time...” Sam starts to wave her off but she steps closer, crossing the street with little regard for traffic or pedestrians.
Narrowing her eyes, she tilts her chin up and finds the courage to poke him as hard as she can in the chest, “Oh, you’re right there. Where were you five months ago? Not in Westview, that’s for sure.”
The blank look on his face throws Darcy for a moment. She isn’t sure what’s worse; Sam knowingly abandoning Wanda and Vision or Sam being in the dark about Hayward’s shady project. The Latvian street is pretty quiet still but a couple of people are staring at the four of them and she knows from experience that it doesn’t take long until curious people start bringing out their phones. She and Sam are going to talk one way or another and it isn’t going to be an easy conversation.
“My apartment is two streets that way.” She gestures with her head, “Let’s go. You can bring gruesome twosome with you.”
“And why the hell would we do that?” Disgruntled dude growls at her and she doesn’t miss the way his fist clenches and unclenches as he speaks.
Darcy fixes him with her very iciest stare, the one she used to use on Foster and Selvig when they were being bratty about leaving the lab, “Mr Avenger here doesn’t know or doesn’t care that Wanda Maximoff imperiused a whole town to play The Brady Bunch with dead Vision. Literally. Either way we are going to talk about it and I’d rather not have it recorded through InstaStories.”
She can’t tell if the men believe, or even understand her, but a nod from Sam finds her leading the way to her second floor apartment. It’s an Airbnb she’s rented for a month while doing some research on CMBR and equidistant between the university library and a nearby observatory. The tiny sitting room, housing an uncomfortable sofa and two overly stuffed armchairs, barely holds the three men and she ends up perching on the rickety coffee table. Sitting next to any of them is not something she feels comfortable doing.
“First of all, who the hell are you?” Sam is tense but Darcy isn’t about to feel sorry for the guy just yet.
She bites back, “I’m Doctor Lewis. I was consulting for SWORD on the Westview Anomaly. You hear about that?”
“Nope. Mind filling me in?”
It takes a good ten minutes to explain even the basics of what went down in Westview and that’s without talking through her private theories on Project Cataract. After a few minutes, she’s certain that Sam knew nothing about New Jersey and once she mentions Hayward, both Sam and his leather jacketed companion bristle with anger. She’s guessing they haven’t got a great relationship with government officials going rogue.
With Sam caught up, she wants some answers of her own, “So, you want to introduce me to your friends? Maybe tell me why you’re over here in Latvia. I’m guessing it’s not a stag party. ”
“Barnes.” Sam raises an eyebrow, challenging Darcy but she stays silent, “Zemo.”
“Baron Zemo.” The guy smirks and leans back into the sofa. She knows from experience it’s a power move; the sofa is deeply uncomfortable.
“Just to confirm, that’s James Barnes aka The Winter Soldier and Helmut Zemo? The guy who Yoko Ono’d the Avengers and got imprisoned. Because that is a hella bad combination and I dip Cheetos in strawberry milkshake.” The resulting silence says everything she needs to know, “Cool. You guys eaten at all? I’ve got some Piragi in the fridge. Also some instant coffee or tea, I think.”
“How’s Wanda?” Barnes asks, ignoring her offer of refreshments.
Darcy wrinkles her nose, “She’s grieving. I never met her but I was fully invested in her sitcom life. Clearly her and Vision were the real deal when it comes to relationships. My guess is she could do with someone to be with her for a bit. I was hoping that one of you might be able to help her, you know, challenge some unhelpful thoughts.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Sam scoffs and Darcy crosses her arms, mind whirling at his response.
“It’s the clinical way of putting it. Haven’t you both had multiple rounds of therapy? It’s been all over the news. Counsellor for the VA and you-” She switches her gaze to Bucky who looks equally as sceptical, “It’s part of your pardon. I’m not a psychologist but you don’t think Wanda might be catastrophizing just a little bit?”
She almost can’t believe what she’s hearing but is it possible that Sam and Barnes have no idea what she’s talking about? Wanda created the Hex a few weeks after the Snap but it’s been six months now. From where she’s sitting it looks like in half a year of therapy sessions or, almost worse, years of counselling, no one has brought up actual therapeutic techniques to help these men. If she’s right, and she really hopes she’s wrong and the healthcare system hasn’t completely failed them, it’s all she can do not to bounce over and hug them.
“You - Zemo. I don’t care if you’re a Baron; you’re on coffee duty. Kitchen’s that way.” She shoos him off the sofa and shuts the door. “Barnes, I’m going to ask you a question but you are in no way obliged to answer, understood? In fact, you can tell me to go take a long walk off a short pier and I won’t be upset at all.”
The sheer fear in his eyes makes her chest ache and she feels for this poor man, “What happens in your therapy sessions?”
“Three rules.” He grinds out, unable to meet her eyes, “Don't do anything illegal, don't hurt anyone, and tell them I’m not the Winter Soldier; I’m James Bucky Barnes.”
She sighs, “Rules for what?”
“Making amends. I gotta list.”
“And you, Mr Counsellor, you think this is alright?” She turns to Sam who nods to Barnes.
“Damn superheroes.” Darcy swallows down her anger, “Anything else?”
“She... tells the truth. I’m alone, no history, no family. It’s sad.” He finally meets her eyes and she wants to hunt down the therapist who told him that.
“She had no right, Barnes, no right at all to talk to you like that. She’s got you doing the AA twelve step recovery process like you’re an addict. The whole point isn’t to berate or belittle you; it’s to give you the skills to make your own decisions and strategies to deal with what life throws at you. Do you guys know Dr Selvig?” They both nod and she continues, “He opened up the portal in New York. You think he’s going around to every person injured in the attack and asking forgiveness? Sure he feels guilty but it wasn’t his damn fault. I helped him with his CBT all the time I was getting my doctorate. Alright, he still has a frightening aversion to pants and there was the Machu Picchu incident but the life and death stuff? He can cope with that now.”
She moves across the room, settling herself on the sofa. There’s the sound of water being poured in the next room so she knows her window is closing. She’s got seconds left to get her message across to them. “You superhero types, you blame yourselves for everything that goes wrong or even might go wrong. You take responsibility for things that are out of your control. You think in black and white; you’re either wrong or right, good or bad but that’s not how the world works. That’s not helpful for anyone. I’m no expert but I am damn certain that telling a patient they’re sad and alone is complete trash.”
“I didn’t know she’d said that, Bucky.” Sam’s voice is soft, “That’s not right. I never trained all that much. We never had the funding so I just did the best I could for the guys down at the VA but we never gave opinions like that.”
“Look, drink some coffee and go do whatever superhero business you came here to do. Just promise you’ll look after yourselves as well. I’ll give you my number in case you need someone to talk to about space science or, you know, other stuff.”
She grabs a nearby postcard that’s earmarked for Erik and scrawls her number across it with a swirly ‘Darcy’ underneath. To her surprise, it’s Barnes who pockets it. Neither man manages a thank you and she doesn’t expect it or even want their thanks. Instead she just smiles at them and retreats back to the coffee table.
When Zemo enters with the terrible instant coffee, it’s the work of minutes for them to knock back the caffeine and be on their way. They’re deliberately silent on why they’ve broken him out of jail or what they intend to do in Latvia. She only hopes that something she’s said resonates with them.
“Check in on Wanda.” She tells them as they head out the door, “And stay safe, you hear?”
She’s left with three empty coffee mugs and a feeling of worry in the pit of her stomach. Really she should carry on with her day of grocery shopping and housework but instead she finds herself heading back to the lab. A few more hours on CMBR won’t hurt and maybe, just maybe, she might be one step closer to finding Wanda...