Bygone

Sharon is driving, and Tim is riding at the very back of the truck with Hogun. Jane and Thor are sleeping while Sif rides in front with Sharon.

Darcy is meant to be sleeping as well, but she’s not tired. As best as she can figure, she’s hours away from Tony. That knowledge has her wired with energy.

She plays with the bangles on her wrist. She says his name again, and the same coordinates fill the display. Quietly, with a pounding heart, she whispers Steve’s name. Nothing happens.

She shouldn’t be surprised. She’d seen the fight. Zemo had probably planned to use it just like he had the recording of Howard and Maria’s deaths. To incite rage and pain.

They hadn’t been pulling any punches. When Steve had raised that shield over his head, she’d been afraid. Even though she knows Tony survived, that image with haunt her dreams. Along with Maria’s hoarse, terrified cry for Howard.

The quiet metallic sound, followed steady clinking, draws her eyes to her hands, which are now encased in metal plates. Shock chases away the urge to, well, punch something. She turns her hands palm up, staring at the individual plates that run up each of her finger, letting out a slow breath.

The arm cuff looks no different. Not any smaller. Which makes her wonder if it can go up her arm as well. Which would be creepy as fuck, to be swallowed up by metal. She lets out another breath, then shakes her hands.

The metal plates retreat, folding in on themselves until she’s left with only the arm cuff again. She drops her hands back into her lap. Another thing to talk to Tony about, on a list that’s so long she’ll go mad thinking about any of it.

“Do you sleep?” She asks Vision, when she catches his eye for the third time in as many minutes. Maybe he needs a distraction just as much as she does, and she feels bad for being weirded out by him. Besides, if there’s a little bit of Jarvis in there, Darcy owes it to the AI to show a little kindness. If there’s a lot of the AI in there? That would be a whole other thing.

“I do not require sleep, in the same way that humans do.” He says quietly. “However, I have recently discovered that my mind does benefit from a respite from wakefulness.”

“So before that, you’d been awake for months?”

“Yes. Initially I did attempt sleeping to see if it had any physical effect. When it did not, I ceased the activity.”

“Huh. And for the past couple months you’ve been figuring things out? Trying new stuff?”

“I have been searching for Wanda.”

“Wanda.” Darcy repeats as he looks away.

“Did you know that I am the one responsible for Colonel Rhodes’ injuries?”

“There were some files. I read that it was a mistake. Friendly fire.” When he looks at her again, his guilt is obvious. As is his confusion.

“I did not think I was capable of making that kind of mistake.” He looks down at his hands. “I do not know what I am. I must face the real possibility that I am a danger to my teammates and those I...”

“Wanda.” Darcy touches his knee. “You care for her.”

“Perhaps. I – Yes. I care.” The mechanisms in his eyes spin, narrowing his pupils. “I had hoped to find her. To study the phenomena and gather data, to understand. But maybe it is for the best that I failed.”

“Dude. You’ve gotta lighten up, okay?” Darcy pats his knee again. “Most people don’t take on trying to figure out the meaning of their existence for a few decades at least. You live, you breathe-“

“Actually-“

“Nope. You have a heart? You think. You have just as much a right to be here as the rest of us, bumbling along, having crushes,-“

“Crushes? I think you misunderstand-“

“Nope. Having crushes, figuring out how much sleep you need, making mistakes, and trying your best. Okay?”

“There are others who do not share your views.”

“Oh believe me, I know.” Darcy sighs. “And you too have a right to your own opinions, but please, try for me to make them good ones, okay?”

“I remember you. I have Jarvis’ memories, if you would like to simplify it and call them that. Darcy Barnes. Clause thirty-three. Antonia Maria Stark-“

“Antonia? Are you fucking serious?”

His lips curve into a small smile.

Darcy shakes her head. Antonia. Tony is an asshole. “Well, that’s kind of cool, I think. That you remember me from back then, since I remember part of you.”

“You helped build me. You programmed Jarvis.”

“I helped program Jarvis. Here and there. I kind of blipped out for a good chunk of the process.”

“So you could be considered one of my creators. Helen Cho has been called my mother, and Tony my father.”

“Huh. What do you think about that? Do you see Helen and Tony as parental figures?”

“I do not...think so. Although Helen has been very helpful understanding the biological parts of my physical form.”

“But definitely a no on the Daddy Stark?” Darcy studies his expression. “Or are we talking daddy issues?”

“I do not know how to reconcile my creation and my day to day life.” He turns more towards her. “But you had a hand in creating me. You wrote the code that built Jarvis, that gave him guidance and agency. You gave him ethics. And some form of that exists in me today.”

“What do you want from me here?”

“Guidance.”

Darcy leans back against the boxes as the truck bumps over a pothole. She looks around the truck bed. Tim and Hogun are actually talking, their voices a low rumble. Jane and Thor are sleeping curled together, Jane drooling on Thor’s chest.

“I met Tony when he was twelve.” Darcy tells him. “He was, as you probably already know, uncommonly intelligent. A prodigy, when it came to computers and machines. He was also emotionally withdrawn, spoiled, and lonely.”

Vision says nothing, watching her steadily and waiting for her to make her point.

“Maria Stark was the one who decided to introduce us. Before that, I had never seen Howard’s son. But after Rebecca died, I was lost in my grief. And Maria saw that we were both lost and hurting, I think, and she introduced us and told us we were siblings. Right off the bat. That we would take care of each other.”

“So,” Darcy continues, her voice a little husky with emotion, “he was twelve, and I was hurting. And after JJ and Andrew, Tony came. I couldn’t be what I had been, and so with Tony I became something else. We grew together. Maybe you grew with us. I feel like Tony and I, we’ve been elbow deep in each other’s code.”

Vision’s head tilts.

“If you want, when I see Tony I’ll tell him you’re our brother.”

“A synthetic life form-“

“Nope.” Darcy grins. “Dude, do I have to tell you, too? Is there that much Stark in you?”

“I am not certain I can handle the emotional aspect of a sibling relationship. I cannot, after all, properly consume alcohol.”

“Oh, Vision throwing some shade over here.”

He actually ducks his head to hide a smile. Darcy thinks he looks pleased.

“It’s too late now. You’re stuck with us.” Darcy tells him. “Your first brotherly duty is to tell me important news that won’t give me nightmares. I know, I know, what new Disney movies are there? Tell me there wasn’t another Shrek. Oh, fuck. Tell me there is another Finding Nemo.”

Vision puts a hand on her wrist, quieting her as he looks up towards the roof of the truck.

Darcy reaches for her taser and Thor shifts, hand wrapping around the handle of Mjolnir. Not as asleep as she’d thought.

“It’s Tony.” Vision speaks loudly enough to be heard at both ends of the truck. “He was able to lock onto the signal your arm cuffs put out.”

Darcy flips their position, now gripping his wrist. Probably too tightly. “Can you get me up there?”

“Yes.”

Darcy looks to Jane, who is looking right back. “I’ll see you there?”

“See you there.” Jane responds, with a tremulous smile.

Soon Darcy is clinging to edge of the open door, trying to keep her hair out of her mouth as the road flies by beneath them. They’ve got a short window before the road straightens again and they’ll have the eyes of the other drivers on them.

“How would you like me to carry you?” Vision asks, somewhat awkwardly. If she wasn’t jumping out of her damn skin at the thought of seeing Tony, she’d think it was adorable. He motions to her legs, bending a bit. “I could,”

He breaks off and makes a scooping motion with one arm.

“I would prefer the whole don’t know how to dance thing?” Darcy wraps an arm around his neck and puts one of her feet on his. “Would that be okay?”

“Of course.”

Lift off is a lot smoother than she’d expected. It’s almost jarring simply because it’s not.

“Can you see him?” Vision asks, nodding his head to one side.

Darcy can’t, it’s dark again and the sky is black. But she holds out one arm, like that could bring him faster.

And then she does see him. What had looked like just another trio of stars becomes a pair of eyes and a glowing chest. Rocketing closer.

When he reaches them, Darcy falls against him. The metal of his suit is hard and cold compared to Vision, and there aren’t any places to easily grip. But he wraps both arms around her, and that stops her from slipping.

The gold face place flips up and there he is. He looks thinner. More tired. Older, but not as much as she was afraid of.

It takes her too long to be able to focus on his words, and he’s looking at Vision by the time she makes them out.

“Is she okay?”

“Fine.” Darcy touches his cheek, and his dark eyes snap back to her. Eyes she knows. “I’m fine. Just really needed you. You do remember me right?”

His eyebrows scrunch together. “Remember you? Why, did something happen to make me forget?”

Darcy just shakes her head.

“Okay. Okay.” He looks around. “Look, let's get back to the homestead before someone figures out we’re up here.”