Bygone

Her naps in the car are likely to blame for her inability to sleep through the night. Darcy wakes in the quiet cabin to find Jane beside her, one of those clip on book lights clipped to her hair.

“You look like one of those fish, uh, anglerfish.”

Jane turns to look at her, the light bobbing. “I missed your weird facts.”

“Mmmph.” Darcy swallows against her dry throat. She’s tired of waking up feeling hungover without getting to have any of the fun. “I missed your face.”

Jane taps Darcy’s arm with a half full bottle of water. Darcy accepts it, stretching and looking around the plane. Hogun is sleeping in the aisle, and Darcy can see a few more lumps in the dim light cast from the cracked door to the cockpit.

The low murmur of voices draws her gaze to the back of the plane, where she sees Meg and Sharon lit by Meg’s laptop screens. Meg is insistent, and Sharon is shaking her head. Darcy drops back low in her seat.

There’s a pile of... scrolls. There is a pile of scrolls in Jane’s lap. Jane tips the one she’s got unrolled towards Darcy. The ink shimmers, and Darcy’s eyes trace intricate illustrations of constellations she’s never seen before and a cityscape along the left margin.

She feels the slightest twinge of uneasiness, whereas before everything about Asgard had fascinated her. It’s just that the stars have been a constant for her, all these years. Unchanging, fixed in the sky above her, the same ones she’d taught Steve, and picked out of the sky like a game with Rebecca out at the country house, and helped JJ scribble with crayons.

Darcy shakes it off before Jane notices, focusing on the rest of the scroll.

There’s a lot of writing, in tiny print, and it looks somewhat similar to hieroglyphs, calligraphy style.

“You can read this?”

“Mostly. It’s really complicated, and I’ve been pretty busy. But I wanted to learn, to prove Thor right.” Jane shrugs, rolling the scroll back up. “There are doubters other than the king that think I won't be able to be a good queen.”

Jane’s hand makes a fist around a gold pendant Darcy doesn’t recognize. “I mostly worked on it in between doing the energy research, but then Tony and I realized we were both working on finding you and teamed up. All my time went to that.”

“Thanks.”

“You don’t have to thank me. Not for that.” Jane shoves the scrolls into a red bag Hogun had been carrying. “Especially when I can tell that you are so not okay.”

“This? I’ll-“

“And I’m not talking about the bullet wound.” Jane interrupts.

“Call me on my shit why don’t you, Jane Theodore.” Darcy mutters, but pats Jane’s knee. “I’ll be fine, I promise. I just need to find Tony.”

“Not Steve?” Jane asks hesitantly, and then continues when Darcy only looks down at the water bottle now in her lap. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. There just isn’t very much about the two of you. Two pictures and a marriage license. A couple interviews, but I know how people can be about getting on TV.”

“I did love him, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Darcy shifts, ignoring the way her side protests. “It’s just- I need to see Tony. This doesn’t even seem real most of the time. If I see Tony, I’ll know it’s real. I know that sounds crazy, but that’s where I am right now.”

“Okay.” Jane whispers. “Okay. Do you want to get some more sleep?”

“No. I think I’m going to head up to the cockpit. See what exciting advances in the field of aviation I’ve missed.” Darcy stands. Now nerves dance along her spine. Nervous energy zings through her veins. She feels like she’s one false step from breaking in half, cracking right open, a mess of exposed nerve endings and a throbbing, broken heart.

Jane follows silently, and they skirt carefully around Hogun.

In the cockpit, Tim is happy to explain everything to Darcy. Some things she already knows, others she just needs a refresher, and some are completely new and freaking awesome.

Darcy immerses herself. Peggy had been right about staying busy. And all of the controls, the strange way the engines propel the plane since they aren’t fixed in place, it’s all a handy way to keep her brain busy.

Jane brews a pot of coffee. After an hour Tim hands the controls off to Darcy and reclines in his seat. Hogun joins them, his sleepiness making him seem to glare.

Another hour’s passing finds Tim showing off. He can catch whatever Lewis throws at him, and even gets Hogun in on it.

“Could have gone pro tennis, won state in high school.” Lewis explains. “Went to Juilliard though, for piano. Made his mama cry, and he plays for her over the phone now, once a week. Total mama’s boy.”

“And proud of it.” Tim catches the shoe Lewis throws at him behind his back, then snags the cell phone Hogun throws. He has to drop both into the pile accumulating at his feet to catch the earphones and paperback book Lewis throws immediately after.

The door to the cabin slides open and Meg takes in the scene. “Oh, good. They started up the circus again. Did Lewis show you-“

“Girl, don’t think I won’t tell your dad about that loose floorboard in your room.” Lewis says, hand clamped over her mouth. Meg’s eyes narrow and flash dangerously.

“Can we try for a smidgen of professionalism here, guys?” Maggie squeezes behind Meg, her curls now tied back with a blue headscarf. “At least until she realizes you have actual skills. Tell me Lewis didn’t do the cheeto eyebrow dance thing.”

“She didn’t know about that until now, thanks.” Lewis releases Meg and wipes his hand on his pants.

“We need more coffee.” Maggie looks around the cockpit. Lewis salutes her, grabs his empty mug from the pile of Tim’s catches, and heads back towards the pot. Maggie holds out a tablet to Darcy. “There are a few things you should see. Hope van Dyne and Pepper Potts just moved Pym Technologies and Stark Industries’ headquarters temporarily to France. The stock market crashed.”

Darcy tries flicking the video up onto the windshield, and grins when it works. It turns out working with Tony prepared her for living in the future better than she’d thought.

“I’m in love with her.” Polly sighs, leaning against the back of Darcy’s chair as Pepper Potts stands at a podium, speaking over the shouts of the media representatives.

“You’re in love with Amanda, and you’re never allowed to break up with her because I’m in love with her Nan’s banana nut cookies.” Meg corrects. “Are you guys still fighting over the Wagoneer? I’ll buy her a new car, just stop fighting. Where will I go for Christmas?”

“You’re not buying her a new car, she wanted that abomination, she’ll live with it. And don’t think I don’t know it was you who issued that recall on ’87 Grand Wagoneers purchased in North Carolina but now in Arizona.” Polly dodges Meg’s kick without taking her eyes off the screen. “And we’re fine. Now shh before Maggie separates us.”

“You are all worse than my children.” Maggie accepts a steaming coffee cup from Lewis as Darcy clicks over to another video, this one showing a woman with a short, dark bob standing in front of a glass walled skyscraper. Hope van Dyne, the news feed says, CEO of Pym Technologies.

“Amanda’s in love with her.” Polly offers Darcy a small bowl of trail mix. “We like to watch their press releases and root for them to get together. I bet Amanda’s flipping out now that they’re actually working together. It could happen.”

Darcy controls the urge to grimace. From afar, Pepper and Tony had seemed so well matched. And once she saw them together, admittedly before they’d actually gotten together, Pepper had been such a good force in Tony’s life.

That didn’t mean Tony was a force for good in Pepper’s, but Darcy might have a hard time letting Pepper go.

“van Dyne would definitely treat her-“

“Tony is my brother.” Darcy interrupts Lewis, unable to help herself. And she’s not sorry. “More, he’s a man that saved New York and possibly the world. He is a man that is loyal to his friends, who has publicly worked to change because he wasn’t happy with who he was, he is a man who tries to do what is right.”

Jane sets a hand on Darcy’s knee.

“When your grandfathers needed better care than what existed at the time, he funded new research programs. You don’t have to like him, but in my presence, you do have to respect him.”

“There’s something else.” Maggie says in the new silence. “Someone released the files grandma kept on you. Everything she had on you, all of the evidence of your existence that she smothered, official timelines including the dates you arrived and left. I thought you should know.”

Darcy flicks over to a search page, types in her name.

The people dissecting Peggy’s files know more about Darcy than Darcy does, it seems. It only adds to how surreal everything feels to Darcy right now. There are people out there writing features on her tragic romance with Steve, remarking on how if the lab accident had occurred only a year later, Darcy would have gone back in time knowing that Captain America was recovered from the Arctic Ocean and lived. Twelve months, they marvel.

Andrea Grunheldt with the New York Times writes that Darcy spent six years and ninety-seven days in the past. Darcy had never counted, maybe because she didn’t really want to know.

Brandon Smith at the Huffington Post writes that Darcy and Steve are divorced according to New York state abandonment laws, and Keith Welker writes a rebuttal detailing that the abandonment must be committed willingly and not due to military deployment.

There is a photo series that focuses only on Darcy and Rebecca’s friendship. Another that aims to depict Darcy as a member of the Stark family, justifying the fact that when Darcy ‘arrived’ she automatically inherited a third of Stark Industries-

“What?” Darcy straightens. “Go back. A third? A third of SI?”

“I thought you would have seen that already.”

“No. Jesus, Tony.” Darcy turns off the screen. “How long until we get there?”

“I can’t give you a solid estimate. We’re going to have to land at some point, unless we want to explain our presence in France’s airspace.” Maggie takes the tablet back. “I’ve got contacts in France keeping an eye on things so we can find a good route.”

“Hey guys, we’ve got incoming!” Tim is suddenly all business.

“Paired with the change in barometric pressure out there, and those impressive storm clouds, I’m going to guess it’s Thor.” Meg leans forward, pressing a button on the communications panel. “Unidentified aircraft, please state your intentions and identify yourself.”

“I am Vision, accompanied by Thor. We search for Dr. Jane Foster.”

Darcy figures it’s good she was already sitting. Because it’s Jarvis’ voice.

Tim turns to look at Jane, then Maggie. After a nod from Maggie, he motions Jane towards the dash.

“Hello, Vision. This is Jane.”