Bygone

“Will you teach me to fly?” Tony asks her. He’s sullen because Maria made him come outside. He wants to be in Howard’s lab, but Howard is working on neurotoxins. “Mom already said you could.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you’re a naturally distrustful person?” Tony suggests.

“Do you know Peggy?” Darcy asks him, making her circle around the pond. She’s suddenly put in mind of her own childhood, being forced to take walks with the adults after holiday dinners before dessert could be served. Hell, she’s the boring grown-up.

Tony shrugs his shoulder. “Aunt Peggy comes around sometimes.”

“She says I’m an excellent judge of character.”

“And my character says I’d be shit at flying?” Tony asks, scoffing.

“What do they teach you at that school?” Darcy asks him. JJ had been so sweet at his age.

“Not flying.”

“If your mother tells me it’s okay, in person,” she adds, because she’s talking to Tony Stark here, “I’ll give you some lessons.”

“In the jet, right? Not in something boring.”

Darcy splits her time between the two male Starks. She tries to keep Howard sane in the lab, but he’s hot on the scent of a new discovery. When he’s not in the lab he’s short with everyone from his family to his employees.

And she takes Tony up in the jet. She teaches him about the gauges. More often than not he declares them stupid and asks why they aren’t put together this way or that. Once he tried to dismantle part of her dashboard while they were in-air.

She hadn’t planned on ever letting him take control. She’d leave that for Falsworth in a year or two. But he’s an insanely quick learner and can talk her through every movement she makes.

So three weeks after they begin, she hands the controls over to him and he takes them up, in a wide circle, and brings them back down all on his own.

Howard barely reacts when Tony tells him, and Darcy kicks him hard under the table.

“Sorry, sorry. I’ve just got to get this down.” Howard says, already pushing up from his seat.

“Howard, sit down.” Maria says. “Howard!”

Maria watches him leave, then stares down into her lap. Then she looks up with a strained smile. “That’s wonderful, darling. Perhaps your father can arrange for more lessons while you’re at school?”

Tony shrugs his shoulder.

Later he tells Darcy he wants her to keep teaching him.

“I might not be able to.” She tells him, before rushing to reassure him. “I want to. Of course I want to.”

“Then why can’t you? People find a way to do the things they want to.” This is said almost sourly.

“I don’t really have a choice.” Darcy says, but she can see that he doesn’t believe her. “Something happened to me, and it makes me leave where I am and pop up someplace else. It happened in a laboratory.”

“In my dad’s lab?”

“No.” Darcy bites back a grimace. It had happened in Jane’s lab.

She nearly loses her balance. Jane. She hadn’t thought of Jane in so long. Sweet, terrible, genius idiot Jane. Is someone feeding her?

“Where will you pop up? Dad will come get you.” Tony says, drawing her attention back to him.

“It’s not that simple. It’s not just places, but years. Your dad has been taking care of me for years and years.” Darcy looks up at the sky. The leaves are changing, and she can remember a fall day years ago with JJ and a bright yellow leaf. “My friends are dying now. My best friend died, that’s why I’m here. Your mom and dad came and got me and brought me here.”

“You’re a time traveler?” Tony asks, for once his air of disinterest completely dropping away.

“Kind of. I don’t know how it works. But at any time, I could disappear, and I’ll reappear years from now.”

“So someday I’ll be older than you.” Tony purses his lips. “That’s cool.”

Darcy looks away. She’s not about to explain to him the ways that it’s very not cool that people keep aging on her.

“How old are you now?” Tony asks.

“Twenty-five.”

“Thirteen years. That’s all it would take.” Tony nods his head. “Can you do thirteen years?”

Thirteen years. How old would Howard be then? Peg and the Commandos? Hell, what about JJ?

“Woah. Are you okay? Should I get my dad?” Tony looks up at her with just a hint of a child still in his eyes. So certain that his father could handle anything.

“Fine.” Darcy forces a smile that she can tell Tony doesn’t buy it. He’s a shrewd kid. “It’s just that I don’t want to skip anymore years. It’s really hard. I want to stop.”

“Maybe I can fix it. Mom said we had to take care of each other.” Tony offers, nodding to himself. Then he cocks his head. “What if you taught me a barrel roll? Would that make you feel better?”

She’s standing on the mansion steps, saying goodbye to Tony who is headed back to his boarding school, when she leaves. Howard, Maria, and EJ are all there.

“It’ll be alright, kid.” Howard promises.

“Thirteen years!” Tony shouts.