Bygone

Where is Darcy Rogers?

How Does the World Come Back from Attacking Its Heroes?

US Secretary of State: Kill Captain America’s Wife on Sight

Ross: Greatest mind of our generation is ‘an acceptable loss’

Darcy is digging through the past six years, devouring everything she can find. She watches footage of the battle of New York. She sees gut wrenching cell phone footage of Sokovia. Next she’s seeing Jane hounded by the media outside her lab, first about Thor and then later about Darcy.

The Earth’s Avenger Thor Speaks as Prince of Asgard: on Asgard Jane Foster is recognized as both one of the greatest minds in the universe and as the future queen.

What if Thor takes the Avengers off-world?

US Department of Veterans Affairs and UN International Court of Justice: Winter Soldier was Prisoner of War and is not a war criminal

In between fluff pieces and tweets sent to Captain America about companies getting him up to date by sending him free samples, she sees paparazzi pictures of Peggy’s funeral. Then she reads a political opinion piece on how likely Thor is to leave Earth based on the previous years events, and then gets lost watching the Malibu house break off the cliff and fall into the ocean.

The Ethics of Time Travel – To Change the Future or Not – Or Did Darcy Rogers do enough?

Will the Avengers abandon the Earth that betrayed them?

Why should Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Ant Man and the Falcon come out of hiding after their basic human rights were violated?

There are entire articles about what responsibilities Darcy had when she went back in time, and if she lived up to them. Moral debates were had on late night TV. There was a brief attempt to charge her with war crimes for not doing more.

The Smithsonian put out a call for citizen historians to help sort through the SHIELD data dump, and historical records for pictures and mentions of Darcy.

There was an entire exhibit as a follow up to one they had on Captain America. She sees photos of herself in the Prescott’s backyard, at the Stark Mansion with Maria, Howard, and Tony. Sitting on the wing of an airplane next to Falsworth. Pictures she’d never seen before. There are even interviews, one from Gladys Prescott-Boyle, that old bat. She walks all over the poor interviewer.

Ross asked who will hold Avengers accountable; Who holds him accountable?

Darcy Rogers completed fifty-four air missions and nineteen ground engagements, official investigation finds.

Ross' Department of Defense Embassy in New York is rejected by White House: Secretary Ross does not determine or create US Embassies and is operating outside of the law

The media storm surrounding the Winter Soldier’s discovery, and later unmasking as Bucky. SHIELD falling at the Triskelion. Tony unveiling clean energy. Thor’s interviews, in the beginning friendly and open, and then later, after he returned to find the Avengers in shambles and Jane under attack, angry and foreboding.

Hank Pym vindicated in defense of Darcy Rogers – All charges dismissed against time traveler

The only Avenger to fully support cooperation with the UN now on the run; Tony Stark declared fugitive by Ross while Ross himself is investigated

Lost in Time: When is Darcy Rogers Now?

She sees a tall magenta man called Vision standing next to Tony in a damn pull over sweater and slacks. The growing push for more accountability, and good old fashioned fear mongering. She goes back to 2010, re-watches Tony called on by Senator Stern to hand over the suit.

She’d seen it at the time. She and Jane had cheered. After their experiences, it had been hella awesome to see a scientist tell the government to go fuck itself. Plus, Darcy had been all about that sass.

Now though? That’s her Tony sitting in that seat. That’s her Tony who has found his purpose, who lifts his chin. Who says he is Iron Man. And at the end he says he tried to play ball with these ass-clowns.

And she thinks on what could have made him sign the Accords. With fucking Ross. Of where he had to be emotionally to think he was doing the right thing. Because no one makes Tony do anything, ever. And he always follows his heart. If his heart can’t be fucked to show up, he doesn’t fake it. He’ll be an asshole about your asshole uncle dying on you.

Something made him think signing the Accords was the right thing to do. And Darcy reads about Tony taking a nuke into space, and free falling back to Earth. She reads about him creating an army to protect the world, and it turning around and doing the opposite.

She sees something that looks like a real friendship between Bruce Banner and Tony, but then Banner leaves. Tony doesn’t do so well on his own. He shares that characteristic with Darcy. She wonders if Tony is feeling as lost as she is. 

Stark Industries CEO subpoenaed: slams Secretary Ross “I may not know where Tony is, but I do know that you should be ashamed of yourself”

She’s Back! Darcy Rogers shot during escape from US Department of Defense Embassy in New York during riots.

White House confirms: Secretary Ross gave order to sabotage Dr. Jane Foster’s lab

Darcy pushes the tablet away, rubbing at her temples. Jane sleeps on next to her. Darcy isn’t surprised – apparently it had been over two days since Jane slept during the final push to bring Darcy back.

Back.

It doesn’t matter how much she looks at the two scans, or reads through Jane, Helen, and Tony’s research, she can’t quite believe that she isn’t going to feel that familiar tingling again and be pulled away.

She also can’t quite believe that Steve is supposedly out there. It simply does not compute. She’s back to trying to make her mind accept that her Steve is Captain America. Even still, her heart aches in her chest. Hope flares so dangerously that she wants to cry.

And Bucky? She’d lost the battle with her stomach when she’d seen his name, then done a search. Every detail stabs at her heart, and she thinks of Rebecca.

She’s lost. Untethered. She could have trusted Peggy’s word. Peggy who had dumped that vial of Steve’s blood. Peggy who had always told her straight, for better or worse. But Peggy is gone, the last person that tied Darcy to the past.

She needs Tony. He needs her too. The pictures and video she’d seen of him before he’d gone into hiding had reminded her of the way he’d looked after Howard and Maria died in the accident. And a part of her can't believe that it really is over. Another part of her resists the idea of Captain America, all of those doubts resurfacing about her Steve being... that. And maybe she can think on it, even as her heart rears back in white hot fear, but first she needs Tony. She needs a goddamn anchor in all of this, and Tony sure as hell needs one too.

Jim is hospitalized, and Stark Industries is spending millions on spinal injury research. From what she can gather from the media, and she knows just how trustworthy it is, Tony and Pepper had separated even before the Accords.

Needing an escape, she’d buried herself in reading them. The Accords. There isn’t anything too outlandish in them. It’s hundreds of pages of dry legalese that adds up to a whole lot of somewhat reasonable sounding regulations.

The danger lies in how vague they are, and how easily they could be amended. Darcy isn’t the only one that’s noticed this. The Accords have been torn apart ever since they’d been signed.

As far as Darcy can see, Jane is right. Public sentiment has turned. There have been protests and riots.

Wanda Maximoff has become an international cause, a refugee from Sokovia, imprisoned in a maximum security prison and strapped into a straight jacket. Best estimates put her age between twenty-one and twenty-four. The picture of her in the straight jacket is splashed all over newspapers and magazines almost as much as the picture of her at a political protest with her brother.

The United States hasn’t managed to state an official position, but France, Wakanda and twenty-three other nations have already derided the Accords and Secretary Ross.

Through it all, something thrums in Darcy’s blood. It stirs at the back of her mind. Whispers along with every thought. Steve. Steve. Steve.

Suddenly she’s closer to days with the reddish light of the sun bouncing off the bricks of the apartments next door, and the sound of Steve making the coffee in the morning while she’s still dragging herself out of bed. His nimble fingers helping her pin her hair in place since she’d still relied on Rebecca for that before she’d moved across the alley.

Feeling every bump of his spine as she trails her fingers down it, and leaving kisses over the sharp jut of his collar bones.

“Lady Darcy.” Sten’s voice is quiet and even. He stands just inside the doorway, and again Maggie is at his back. “You are awake.”

Darcy nods and sets aside the tablet. She carefully climbs off of the bed, trying not to wake Jane. Even still, she brushes a hand down Jane’s leg, unable to believe that she’s really seeing her again.

“You should eat something. A meal has been prepared.”

Darcy glances back at Jane again. She almost doesn’t want to leave the room. Like Jane might disappear, or this could all be a dream. But she’s starving, and she can’t hide forever.