Now Darcy was a queen of rolling with the punches and keeping the peace even when everything else went to hell, living with the Avengers had weirdly calibrated her to more or less be their handler when not keeping the scientists alive. As such she pretty much realized immediately that something was up with her, she had been binge eating excessive amounts of food, enough to compete with the good captain. There was this awareness of herself that she had not had before, most notably she was extremely aware of her teeth.
Also, she had the faint sense that something was lurking in the back of her mind like she had forgotten something and was not quite ready yet to remember it. But nothing was hurting, she didn’t live in the tower and had no need to explain to the rest her new habits.
She let it be, no harm no foul.
So it continued for almost a month, Darcy was almost sure that whatever was going on was alien-related, the unexpected sharpness of her senses and reflexes had surprised a lot of people as of late, catching the cup of tea a second before it hit the floor when Bruce in his haste to note down some breakthrough, forgot it was there and knocked it down. When she had pulled Jane away from a falling machine that had not been properly secured when she had made Tony duck away from a flying whatever propelled by an explosion caused by a malfunctioning suit.
But at the monthly mark, something changed. She had clocked out, the scientist three put to bed like toddlers and she was walking to her apartment some 20 minutes away because for some odd reason when had felt like taking the long way home. There was something in the air that spelled change, and she suspected it had something to do with the hidden consciousness that she had sensed beneath her own. It never surfaced enough for her to touch it, but she could feel it now. Rising from the recess of her mind like a butterfly from a cocoon.
She could admit to herself that the first time she had really realized what was going on, she had freaked out a bit but as the days had gone by and the only thing she really felt form the other was burning curiosity, her nerves had been forgotten.
Still, perhaps it was time they met for real, keeping her feet moving Darcy did the thing that made more sense at the time, a quick breath and then.
“Hello” it was but a whisper from her, but it felt better to vocalize her greeting rather than simply think it.
Nothing for a second, and then.
Hello, weird human.
Darcy did not get the expected disgust she had come to expect from people who called her weird. The voice that answered was gravelly, it echoed inside her head in a strangely pleasant way but there was no infliction that indicated any specific gender.
“So you are my passenger, pleased to meet’cha I’m Darcy”
...I am Sleeper
“Sleeper? Cool name is it because you kinda slept in the back of my mind for a whole month”
No, I don’t know the reason. My sire named me such.
That night Darcy learned quite a bit about things even the Avengers did not know, the Symbiote who had been hitching a ride in Darcy had not intended to stay long but the moment they had made the jump from a passing dog to Darcy, they had felt a sense of right that had been hard to ignore. And then by the time they had realized, quite a few days had passed. Sleeper grew to like Darcy, even before meeting truly.
After that, Darcy kept her new passenger from the rest of the Avengers, she had been hesitant to reveal her friend in fear that they would see them as a threat and then She would be forced into a very bad situation. Sleeper agreed, Darcy was theirs, there was no one who was forcing them away from the sassy brunette.
Things did grow more complicated though, accepting to fully bond to the Symbiote meant that her body required certain caloric intakes that could not be satisfied by normal food, the month before their greeting Sleeper had been snacking on the fat stored in her body but now that most of that had been consumed they faced a dilemma. Her co-driver had promptly informed her of what was her option, eat someone. Eat a human.
It was the main diet of his race, other beings. Because as spacefaring goo, they lacked certain chemicals to keep themselves alive while planetside. Chemicals that human bodies made in spades.
Though accepting of the running commentary in her head, and of Sleeper’s more aggressive tendencies, Darcy was having trouble with this one.
As it was the choice was out her hands, in a bid to compose her head and have time while she talked to Sleeper about her worries in eating humans she once again decided to walk home, of course, fucking HYDRA attacked her while on the street.
There was no one around when a heavily armored truck screeched around the corner, but it spilled 6 guys in heavy-duty body armor and guns pointed directly at her.
She felt the moment when Sleeper spread across her body, her brain started pumping adrenaline and the blood on her system felt slick and heavy.
“Lewis, come peacefully and we shall not harm you” the one who was obviously the head honcho shouted from behind the wall of agents surrounding her.
But Darcy would not be herself if she did not snipe something at the guy, and lately, she had been feeling a lot safer with Sleeper prowling in her bloodstream.
“Yeah no I’ll pass”
One of the agents apparently had more anger issues than the Hulk because that tiny remark had him growling and launching himself at her as if to tackle her to the ground. There was a moment of anger not her own and then the guy was in the ground, screaming bloody murder as he clutched uselessly at what remained of his arm.
“Did we just…?”
He attacked us first
Darcy nodded dumbly but could not help but look at the remainder of the arm that was clutched in her tiny hand, she had felt Sleeper move her body but had not objected. The symbiote had protected her. But she had still felt the moment the arm had given in to the stress it was being put under, the snap and tear had felt no different than snapping a chicken wing. She came back to the present when the scream stopped, the man falling unconscious from the pain and shock.
IT triggered the other agents to raise their guns to her, but it was too late. Darcy was already in the move, or well Sleeper in control of Darcy’s body. Black tendrils of black and poison green emerged from different parts of her body, dealing with the agents and their leader in minutes. By the time she came back to control her body all were dead. Limbs tore and necks snapped.
Now lets bite all of their heads off and pile them up over here.
“That is oddly specific” but she was still trying to deal with the carnage at her feet.
Pile of bodies, pile of heads.
“We can’t leave the bodies here” the Avengers would definitely find out about this eventually but if they hid the bodies it might buy her some time.
“You wanna eat them?” really it was a no brainer, even if it made her mad uncomfortable.
You didn’t want to.
I was true, she had been struggling with this particular condition of her new headmate but a look at the HYDRA agents that had tried to snatch her off the street and anger started to form in the pit of her stomach. She was a handler for the Avengers, she had read the reports pulled by Natasha on the Winter Soldier, she had seen the face of Steve when he tough no one was looking, she had seen Natasha in her more vulnerable moments, the anger grew and then transformed into something else.
She was hungry.
Sleeper was hungry, but she could recognize her own needs and this was all her. In the moments since their bonding, Darcy had become somewhat obsessive over her teeth, brushing them all the time and running her tongue over them when she was deep in thought. This was finally the realization of her complete fusion with the predator in her head.
“They are bad guys, we can eat bad guys” and she means that for them both.
There was nothing else to be said.
Sleeper came out to the surface, her body being covered by the oily slick of the symbiote, taller and stronger. There was nothing left of the agents in a matter of minutes.
After she was back into her usual shape, calm as a cucumber she climbed into the truck and drove it far away to be abandoned. She was not okay, they both knew that, but with Sleeper with her, Darcy knew she could handle everything the world decided to launch at her. They will need to train, to become one as they moved.
We got us.