Cruel Vengeance

Avengers Tower

September 2011

“Miss Lewis?”

Darcy scowled at Loki. “I thought I told you to call me Darcy.”

“My apologies.” He inclined his head. “On Asgard, it is customary to address anyone with whom one has an… undefined relationship with their formal title and surname.”

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” Darcy said, and slid him a glance. “That’s another idiom. Expression. Remember Rome?”

Loki smiled. “Vividly.”

Darcy snorted. He’d spent a week hung up on the Roman Empire, its rise and fall, the chaos and brilliance and idiocy of its various leaders.

“I rather wish I had come to Midgard more frequently in my youth,” he said. “If only to have seen more of your history with my own eyes.”

“Did you come here often?” she asked, genuinely curious. Maybe Asgardians were the root of more ancient pantheons than just the Norse…

Loki shook his head. “I should not be here now. My kind are not welcome on Midgard.”

Wait a second. “Your kind?” Darcy repeated, turning to look at him fully, her mind briefly drawn away from the meeting she should be in. “We like Asgardians. Well. Like fifty-fifty. Given that you and Thor are our benchmarks.”

Something that could only be panic flashed across Loki’s face. “Ah… I was merely referencing my actions in New York. Humans do not take kindly to those who attempt to subjugate them.”

Darcy narrowed her eyes at him. “I see.” There was something more going on here. She was sure of it. Loki, the God of Lies, had let something slip, and she wasn’t going to squander her advantage by pushing him. He’d only clam up. No, she’d wait and do what she did best: collect the pieces, put them together, and make her move when no one expected it.

“We’d better go in,” she said, and reached for the doors to the common area.

“I’ve made my choice,” Maria was saying. “I’ll stay here as private security. And we’re going to start moving after Hydra bases immediately.”

“I’ve already gotten an offer from the CIA,” Sharon said quietly. “I’ll let you know what I decide. But I’ll keep your secrets either way.”

Tony glanced at Steve, who nodded once.

“I got a few locations off their files,” Tony said, pulling down a screen and dismissing the question of Sharon’s trustworthiness. “But from what I’ve gathered, they had some kind of last resort program instructed to delete or hide certain files in the event of a mass decryption.” He shook his head. “I was close to getting in already when you goons razed SHIELD to the ground, and I was finding some things that were not in that data dump. But what I did find… I think Pierce was Thanos’ ally.”

Ringing silence filled the room.

“Uh. Sorry. Who’s Thanos?”

Darcy squinted at the guy who’d spoken. Cute, late twenties probably, African American. Pretty built. She noted the way his eyes tightened when he glanced across the table at Bucky. Hmm, some rivalry between Steve’s new friend and his amnesiac old one. That should be interesting.

No one had noticed her yet. Darcy knew how to tone down her presence when she had to, and watching the group interact for a moment, uninterrupted, was valuable. With these new variables in the mix, Barnes and Maria and Wilson about to take a more active role in the Avengers and possibly Sharon as well, she wasn’t sure what the group dynamic was going to do.

Loki touched her shoulder from behind, lightly, and Darcy waved him off impatiently behind her back.

“Thanos,” Steve said heavily, “is the extraterrestrial entity responsible for the invasion of New York last spring.”

“Hold on. That was Loki,” Maria said, leaning forward. “We all saw him. Steve, I was under his control. You expect me to believe-”

“Hear us out, please,” Darcy said, striding into the room. She swatted Loki away, leaving him behind the doors. “We’ve heard from a… credible informant… that Loki was under the control of Thanos via the scepter.”

Maria shook her head. “That’s not possible. This was all Loki’s doing, and if you think otherwise, you’re insane.”

“I’m afraid they must all be mad, in that case,” Loki drawled.

Darcy spun around. “Idiot!” she snapped. “You were supposed to wait !”

“What the fuck -” Maria yelped, leaping to her feet. Her chair hit the floor with a bang.

“I refuse to be relegated to the corridor like a child while you decide my fate,” Loki replied. He planted his feet and met their gazes haughtily, chin raised.

Darcy dropped her forehead into her hand.

“Maria–Maria, please–” Clint reached for Maria’s hand.

She tore it away. “You knew about this–this insanity?” she snapped.

Clint winced. “Uh. Yeah. He’s been here for a while–”

“Three and a half months, actually,” Loki said smoothly. “If we’re being precise.”

“ Not helping ,” Darcy hissed.

Maria stared at them all. Her incredulous gaze flicked between Tony, Steve, Clint, Bruce, Jane, Natasha, Barnes, and found no ally in any of them. Sam, at least, was confused, but Darcy thanked God he wasn’t shouting and posturing too. Seemed he’d follow Steve’s lead before anyone else’s.

She’d anticipated this. But Loki, the goddamn drama queen, couldn’t just wait and let her do things smoothly .

Fucker.

“Maria. Let us explain,” Steve said, raising his hands.

Maria’s fingers twitched toward her thigh and the pistol strapped there.

“ Maria. ”

This time, because it was Clint, she listened.

Maria slowly sat back down. “Someone start talking,” she said coldly. “Or I shoot him in the face.”

Loki smiled, raised his hands. “You may try.”

“ Please shut up,” Darcy said. “Seriously? For like two minutes?”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Loki replied.

Darcy elbowed him and walked over to her seat. “That’s ‘pot calling the kettle black’ you’re thinking of. Don’t use idioms until you get them right. And no more talking.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Loki said, smirking, and took the seat next to her.

She looked up and realized everyone was staring at them.

Darcy cleared her throat and plowed on. “So. Maria. Last June, I got a call from a reporter from CNN who’d been bugging me for weeks, but then he said he had important information about a threat coming our way from the always-charming Secretary Ross. I agreed to a quick meet in a cafe down the block, where my new reporter buddy turned out to actually be Loki in disguise. We dragged him back here and struck a deal: he’d tell us the truth of what happened in New York, since things hadn’t seemed quite right, and in exchange, we’d offer him shelter. Like a pet. We almost got him a kennel but went with one of the spare guest suites instead. He’s been living here in secret ever since. Even let Jane and Bruce do some blood work.”

“Which we haven’t actually gotten to test yet,” Bruce said.

Darcy shot him a look.

“But we will soon,” he amended.

“Thanks, Brucie,” Darcy said with a grin. He chuckled and she turned back to Maria. “So yeah. That’s pretty much the whole story in a nutshell.”

“Admirably succinct,” Tony said drily.

“I try,” Darcy said, sitting back in her chair.

Maria frowned. “This is impossible.”

“Maria, in the nicest possible way, you’re not seeing this one clearly,” Darcy said. “We talked about all this last spring. How weird the whole invasion was. Loki being under someone else’s control explains all that. He was fighting it and trying to give us a chance. He gave Selvig the order to build in a fail-safe to the portal. You said yourself you didn’t know how that would’ve been possible under the influence of the scepter.”

Maria’s frown deepened, but she didn’t respond.

Loki leaned forward, hands on the table and turned up in what Darcy recognized as a gesture of openness and sincerity. It was probably very deliberate. Classic negotiation technique.“For what it’s worth, Miss Hill, I apologize for my part in the psychological and physical ordeal you endured.”

“I’m sure,” Maria snapped. She glared around the table. “And you all believe him?”

Sam Wilson raised his hands. “I just got here, don’t look at me.”

“I do,” Steve said steadily.

Clint blew out a breath. “As do I.”

“Yet you kept it a secret.”

“We didn’t want you to have to lie to Fury,” Steve said.

Tony shrugged. “Also, we weren’t totally sure that you were more loyal to us than to him. So there’s that.”

“Seriously, Tony?” Darcy said. “That’s not helpful right now.”

Maria rubbed her forehead. “You expect me to live in the same building as the man who enslaved me. Darcy. You’re insane if you think this will ever happen. I would die before I repeat that experience.” She shuddered. “I won’t forget, and I won’t forgive. What he did is unforgivable. Do you have any idea how horrible it was? To be… unmade.”

Darcy was unnerved, though she made sure not to show it, by the naked pain visible on Maria’s face for a fraction of a second.

“I do.”

Maria twitched and glared at Loki.

He ignored her expression. “I know precisely how it felt. The most intimate violation imaginable, far worse than anything Thanos could have done to the physical. I know precisely what it was to be unmade, and I lived every day under the shadow of not only my own anguish but yours as well, and Selvig’s, and that of every other person whose mind I controlled. You are correct. It should not be forgiven, and I will never forgive he who did it to me, but the blame lies with Thanos of the empty spaces between the realms, not with me.”

Maria didn’t seem to know what to say.

“Good to clear the air,” Tony said. “Maria? Still planning on shooting him, or have we convinced you?”

His nonchalant tone didn’t match the tension visible in his shoulders, in Steve’s jaw. Darcy didn’t know what they would do if Maria tried to shoot Loki. Which side they would choose. Which was a problem, because she knew what side she’d be on, and she had no illusions about her ability to go toe-to-toe with Steve Rogers and Iron Man.

Maria slowly sat back down.

Clint reached for her hand and she pulled away. The archer looked hurt for a bare half second before he tucked the expression away and faced forward again. Darcy noticed, and saw that Natasha did, too. There was some friction they’d have to work out.

“And then there’s Fury,” Bruce said.

The table fell momentarily silent.

“No one knows where he is?” Steve asked.

Natasha shook her head. “He is a brilliant secret-keeper. Between Clint and Maria and myself, we can get some headway on SHIELD’s safe houses, and probably a few of Fury’s as well, but he’s definitely got off-the-grid bolt holes we were never told about. It’s only logical for a man in his position. I know I shot Pierce; I saw him go down with a bullet in his head and two more in his chest. He’s not coming back. I don’t know if I hit Fury, or if he survived the Triskelion’s collapse.”

“I’ve already started on changing security protocols around here,” Tony said. “In a week, we should have things altered enough. He knows our old rules through and through.”

“You think he’d come after us?” Jane asked, frowning. Darcy knew her friend was loathe to believe such a thing of a man she’d counted as an ally. Jane had few allies and fewer friends; this betrayal would cut her to the core.

“Yes.” Maria didn’t hesitate. “Fury’s got a vindictive streak ten miles wide. It’s part of what made him so good at what he did: everyone was afraid to cross him because they knew he’d always be looking for payback. Even years later. And that was for things like leaking the fact of a mission in Yugoslavia to the press, or some crime gang getting in his way overseas. We just took down his entire life. SHIELD, Hydra, gone. His cover, his financial resources, his legitimacy, his ally. And we let the whole world know we did it.” She smiled without humor. “Forget ‘come after us’. Fury won’t rest until he’s got his revenge or he’s dead.”

The words hung in the air for a long moment.

“Natasha?” Steve asked.

She nodded slowly. “That’s an accurate assessment.”

“I agree,” said Clint.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Darcy mumbled.

“I’ll have JARVIS running facial recognition on all my piggybacked satellites, but I wouldn’t count on anything,” Tony said. “Fury’s an expert in avoiding surveillance, and I can’t get into the really high-level kind, the satellites that might actually be able to find him, without government help. And since we’re not working with SHIELD anymore, we don’t have that kind of legitimacy.”

“So it’s a waiting game,” Clint said.

Steve nodded, looking unhappy.

“Darcy?” Tony said, changing the subject. “How’s the press handling it?”

She shrugged. “Mostly they haven’t moved on from holy-shit-what-is-happening yet. Most news outlets have like, prepared files and stances on this catastrophe or that bill or whatever, but then something huge comes along and there’s like twenty-four hours where they don’t know what to do except babble about how unprecedented this is and make wild guesses. It’s been less than two days and this is an expose of magnitude that dwarfs Watergate and Clinton’s rape trials and Iran-Contra put together. Give it… eh, probably tomorrow morning they’ll be screaming about how they knew it all along.” She snorted. “Some of them will say this is proof that like the CIA, NSA, FBI, and all those are evil, some will say they knew it all along, some will say it’s a cover-up of a bigger story or an excuse to take out SHIELD or that it was a terrorist attack and the government is trying to hide the fact that we failed to stop it happening.” Darcy caught Loki’s look. “Hey, I’m not saying those things are reasonable, but reasonable isn’t usually a word attached to the media in this fine world.”

Steve pressed his fingers to his temples. “I’m so glad we have you to handle them,” he mumbled.

Darcy smirked at him. “Yeah, I’m pretty much fantastic.”

“In the meantime…” Bruce said.

“Right. While we try and track Fury, I’ll start prepping an assault on this base,” Steve said, pointing at the map Tony still had behind him. “It’s the biggest one we know of, operating on SHIELD’s dime but fully staffed by Hydra.”

“No one’s found the scepter yet, and there’s definitely stuff that wasn’t in that data dump,” Tony continued. “Nor was there any record of the scepter or Chitauri tech actually in the Triskelion, which there would’ve been if it was there because Hydra couldn’t hide much actually in the SHIELD headquarters. This Hydra base should either give us the scepter, or a new lead in tracking down where it actually is.”

Darcy knew what they were doing: talking, focusing Maria and everyone else on this new goal. And it worked. Maria managed to relax a bit as they moved into a discussion of military things, assault patterns and who they could use as support, things she knew but Darcy tuned out of. She was a political creature, not a bang-bang-punching-and-kicking one.

Instead, she focused on Sam Wilson. He was the least predictable variable in this equation; she didn’t know him at all. He was engaged with Steve, Tony, Natasha, and Maria, more talkative than Barnes–who barely said a word–and seemed really straightforward. Open, honest, probably not a good liar. Good steady ballast for all these volatile personalities. He’d be good for Steve, and Darcy thought Barnes could probably use a friend who wasn’t eighty-plus years old. And he’d already managed to help Tony. The bags under Tony’s eyes were at least a little smaller.

Look out, world , Darcy thought with a small smile. We’re coming together, and then we’re coming for you.