Bygone

Darcy isn't sure what to expect from a bag compiled by Maggie and Tony.

It’s a bunch of sweet tasers. Bracelet taser, necklace taser, earring tasers. Actual handheld tasers. Lipstick taser. And the lipstick actually works and is a boss color. Tony had apparently had a field day doing his spy movie gadget guru best. Her heart sinks when she doesn’t find a cell phone. Only another pair of bracelets, two metal bangles that are overly heavy for their size.

From Maggie there’s also a pair of Berettas, a bullet proof vest, a burner phone, and a collection of fake IDs and passports and disguises to match.

Darcy returns to the bangles.

Maggie doesn’t have any idea what they do, and is uneasy with Darcy even touching them. Darcy tries twisting them, she looks for a finger print scanner. She even tries talking to Jarvis.

“Ah!” Sif smiles, shooting a slightly imperious look towards Maggie. “I may be of help, Lady Darcy.”

Darcy looks up from the two bangles. “Okay. But please just call me Darcy.”

Sif’s smile widens. “Thank you, Darcy. I will make certain that you never regret the trust and friendship you have placed in me.”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean, yes, we’re friends. Live through an incinerating death bot together, instant friends.” Darcy hurriedly assures, as Sif’s smile had dimmed. “I just mean that I wasn’t asking anything, okay?”

“You do not have to ask.” Sif again looks towards Maggie, then picks up one of the bangles. As if to hammer the point home that she is not afraid, Sif tosses it from hand to hand. “Now, as I said, I have knowledge that might be useful to you. The Good Jarvis helped to provide the spirit for the one called Vision. Now there is Good Friday.”

“Good Friday?” Darcy repeats even as she curses internally. Jarvis had still been having quite a few issues with bugs when Darcy left Tony in 2004. But already Tony had treated him more like a friend than an unfeeling machine. And Darcy had her doubts about the unfeeling part.

If Jim is out of commission while he heals, and Pepper has left Tony, Darcy really didn’t like hearing that Jarvis is gone as well.

“Friday. Stark’s new AI, runs almost every operation at the Tower, and possibly also the Malibu house, though that’s currently unconfirmed. Female voice, Irish accent. Not as receptive to SHIELD presence as Jarvis was.” Meg reels off. “So far, impossible to hack. Beautiful, really.”

“Shocker.” Darcy mutters, thinking of how government agencies had been treating Tony lately. Acceptable loss. Darcy hopes the new AI is giving them all hell.

So Darcy tries talking to Friday in her bracelets. Nothing happens. Finally, she shrugs and puts them on. Unable to resist, she does a Wonder Woman pose.

“Rogers, that might not be a good idea.” Maggie warns. “There isn’t any guarantee that Stark learned his lesson after Ultron, and we have no indication when he placed those bracelets in the bag.”

“He put them in after Ross declared him a fugitive.” Jane looks around the living room with narrowed eyes and accepts the helping hand Hogun offers her as she steps over Meg’s computer cords. “Is there coffee?”

“Just made a fresh pot.” Lewis motions with his cup. Darcy shakes her head at him, rookie mistake.

His brow puckers in confusion, but then Jane reaches him and takes his mug. Understanding dawns as she gulps it down. Jane hands back the empty mug and continues towards the kitchen.

“You saw Stark after the Accords?” Maggie looks up from her tablet, eyes tracking Jane.

Jane gives her a slightly withering look, and passes her with another word. Hogun follows after Jane. The strange vibe between the Asgardians and the team makes a little more sense.

They are probably taking their cues from Jane, and Jane doesn’t like government agents to begin with, but these ones showed up and demanded an all access pass invoking Darcy’s name. It’s actually pretty amazing they’re not camping out in the hall.

They all freeze at the sound of a distant explosion, then Tim is changing the channel on the TV. Darcy realizes the picture is damn near perfect, despite the TV being the same one she’d picked out in the sixties. She’d spent hours with her arms buried in that thing to get it working in 2004, but no way those repairs had held up. Tony must have modified it for her.

Tim stops on a news channel and leans forward in his seat. Jane comes to stand next to Darcy, a cup of coffee in one hand and a sandwich in the other. She offers a bite of the sandwich wordlessly.

Darcy shouldn’t be hungry, but she is. Probably more energy bullshit.

“It was another attempt on Avengers Tower. It failed.” Meg has one earbud in, and her head is cocked. “Ross’s troops are ignoring a cease and desist order, on the grounds of no one having authority over them.”

Outside the window, more smoke rises. Darcy can see at least six helicopters. It looks like a dystopian movie outside her little tower. She can’t see Avengers Tower from her window, but she can see the smoke. The scene on the television shows the glass of the building completely unaffected by the explosives.

“We need to get out of New York.” Jane says quietly. “I promised Thor we would leave if there wasn’t a reason we needed to be here.”

Darcy’s eyes become stuck on the screen as she sees the riot, she sees herself and Jane running through the street. She sees Jane fling herself in front of Darcy, arms spread.

“Jane.”

“It was nothing. Thor pretty much promised to shove his hammer up the ass of anyone who even looks at me wrong.” Jane twists her lips into a smile despite the tremor in her voice.

“Sniper on the East-side Trade building got you.” Meg taps at one of her laptops. “Got him on camera. He’s wearing Army Ranger gear, but that doesn’t mean anything right now.”

On the television screen Darcy jerks backwards and red blooms on the front of her shirt. She doesn’t remember that. She does remember the guy that tackles her against the side of the truck though.

The news anchor comes back on, saying that no one knows where Dr. Jane Foster and Darcy Rogers are right now, or Darcy Roger’s medical status. A clip is shown of the president, condemning the actions of the special forces.

“Activity at the entrance.” Meg abandons her laptop for a pair of tablets. “Facial recognition software confirms it’s Agent 13.”

“Sharon.” Lewis clarifies. “Meg let the CIA thing go.”

“Lewis, on me.” Maggie unclips a gun from her hip. Darcy moves automatically, but realizes Maggie didn’t mean her. Maggie looks to the Asgardians. “I suppose you’ll be coming as well?”

“Aye.” Sif shares a look with Hogun, then moves to the door with the two SHIELD agents.

“So where are we going?” Jane keeps one eye on Meg’s security feed.

“I really expected for there to be a phone or something in my bag.” Darcy brushes her fingers against the pouch still strapped her body. It contains her pager, but at this point continuing to ping Tony isn’t smart. She’s safe, and if he’s getting them he at least knows she’s back.

Jane steps closer, and speaks lowly. “He took a lot of stuff out, after all of this. Phones can be tracked, and after Ultron he’s not trusting his own tech. Not with you at least, because you’d have no idea about what happened.”

“Don’t remind me. You probably know more about tech stuff than I do right now. I mean, look at how thin these tablets are. Oh hell, I sound like a grandma.” Darcy groans.

“Other things would have sent a signal to the closest Avenger. I think you had directions to a couple of Clint and Natasha’s safe houses in there. Keys to all of Tony’s properties that Friday couldn’t get you into. But those are all under government surveillance now, and Clint and Natasha were on Steve’s side by the end of things.” Jane stands firm when Darcy leans against her. “The bag is a lot emptier than it had been.”

“I need to find Tony.” Darcy tells her. She pauses, mouth open, at a gentle vibration at her wrists. “Tony.”

It happens again.

“Darce?”

Darcy looks down at her wrists. When she touches one of the bangles, the metal finish fades and instead a screen appears. It’s coordinates. Her laugh comes out as more a cry, and Jane wraps an arm around her waist tightly.

Darcy tips her wrist towards Jane.

“Okay.” Jane squeezes Darcy. “We’ll go find him.”