Bygone

“What is this place?” Darcy follows Tony across a tiny tiled balcony to the door. Vision lands just behind her.

“It’s not ideal, but it works.” Tony opens the door, revealing a cramped living room that looked to be straight from the seventies. “No! No! It’s me. We talked about this. Don’t spray Darcy either.”

“DUM-E.” Darcy squeezes around Tony to greet the bot. “Look at you. You’ve still got the fire extinguisher. You’ve been keeping Tony safe, huh? Thank you, buddy. Good job.”

“No.” Tony shakes his head, pointing at Darcy as he steps out of the suit. Despite the fact that he's definitely more muscular than he had been over a decade ago, he's also too thin. There are dark circles under his eyes, and he wears his exhaustion like a second layer of clothes. “No. Stop that. Stop encouraging him.”

U beeps and his motor whirs, and DUM-E rolls backwards, one of his wheels rubbing along the wall in the tight quarters. Every wall that Darcy can see has black marks from the bots’ wheels. U pokes her in the stomach repeatedly with his claw.

“Careful.” Darcy warns, passing her hand over his motor casing. “I’m hurt there.”

“No!” Tony shouts, hand up and cramming himself between Darcy and DUM-E. “Does she look like she’s on fire? Then that won’t help.”

DUM-E lowers his extinguisher with a sad sounding beep.

“Just- Come on.” Tony takes her arm, lightly tugging her forward. “And watch your step if you go off the path. Everything on the path is taped down for those two idiots, but- Damn it, what is this? Who did this?”

They’re in another cramped room. This one has a crude hole in the wall, like Tony climbed in the suit and just started punching until it was big enough to walk through. Cables and wires run through the bottom of the hole. In the next room, Darcy can see more computers and screens, intermixed with the furniture that appeared to have been here when Tony arrived.

Darcy takes another look around, bending a little to peer down a hallway that looks to end at the kitchen. There are old rugs on the floor, and what furniture that has been left in place is also old and worn. There are bookcases and black and white pictures of strangers. Most everything is coated in a fine layer of dust, and a not so fine layer of broken plaster.

“Tony, where are we?”

“This actually kind of works.” Tony motions with a cable. “I mean, it’s stupid, but it works.”

“Tony. Where are we? Who lives here?”

“What? Oh. No one.” He starts throwing things off of an armchair covered in mauve velvet. “Do you need to sit? You should sit.”

“Tony.” Darcy waits until he looks at her, then points a finger and moves it in a slow circle. Because the apartment is pretty much destroyed. There are small holes in the ceilings for wires to run through, there had been a fire in one corner, and the wood floor has been pulled up along one side of the hallway.

“It was my grandad’s place.” Tony’s eyes dart around. “I came here a couple times with mom. He hated dad.”

“Julian?”

“Yeah. Stuck up asshole. Moved here in the late seventies so he could hide his money.” Tony motions to the windows, where beyond the tidy street of apartment buildings snow covered mountains kept silent sentry. “Plus, have you seen the view?”

“No one will look for you here?” Darcy toes a copper coil out of the way, stepping closer to him.

“You know no one cared about mom. And if they did, it was only because of the ‘abandoned by her father as a child that’s why she’s so immoral’ angle. No one ever bothered to find out who he was, or that he came back around eventually.” Tony leans over to tap at the buttons on a keyboard screwed into the wall. “Besides, he died in ’94 and no one has managed to track this place down or connect it to him.”

Vision floats into the room, apparently deciding hovering a few inches above the floor is safer than walking. U rolls over to him, attempting to poke him in the stomach. Instead, U’s claw goes straight through Vision’s stomach and the bot emits a high toned sound of alarm.

“Be nice, Vision.” Darcy examines the bread of a sandwich sitting on a plate with four bolts and two hex screws. It’s practically halfway fossilized. She knocks it into what looks like a trash can.

“Nice of you to stop by, by the way.” Tony says, watching as U attempts to poke Vision again. The bot balks twice before actually following through, and when his claw actually connects, it makes another alarmed sound. Tony rolls his eyes. “Where have you been? Gap year? Mission trip? Or did you find-”

“Stop being a jerk, Tony.” Darcy interrupts before he can go too far. “Tony, he’s your brother.”

“What? No.” Tony laughs. “You don’t get to do that. That was a one-time deal, Mom did it, and just no. No.”

“Darcy, that is unnecessary.” Vision says. “Tony is-“

“Your brother. I did a good speech about it earlier, growing together, shit fan, codes, stuff like that, but that’s gone now and don’t you two push me, okay?” Darcy shoves a hand through her hair. “I mean. Tony.”

Tony’s eyes widen from the glare he had been giving Vision. “Hey. Hey. Whatever, it’s fine. Sure, why not. He’s mostly Stark anyway. C’mon. Tell her, Vision.”

“Yes. That connection will be as good as any other to explain our convoluted relationship.” Vision catches her elbow and gently guides her to the chair.

“Steve?” Darcy’s hand clenches around Vision’s wrist and he stills. Because this is the moment. Her heart clenches painfully in her chest, she can’t breathe, and this, this moment is going to change the course of her life. “Is he really – You’ve seen him. Is it really him? Is it true?”

“Is what true? That Rogers is-“

“Flamingo.” Vision says firmly.

“What?” Tony’s rant comes to an abrupt stop.

“Flamingo.” Vision repeats, carefully wrapping an arm around Darcy’s shoulders, like he’s not sure he’s doing it right. “That was the safe word the two of you established on July 17th, 2004 to stop unwanted direction or details in conversation. Now, answer her questions about the husband she has been told is alive decades after she thought he had died.”

“What- Shit.” Tony sits on the arm of her chair, “Shit. Darcy. Sorry. What? What do you need?”

“I know what was printed in the news, and in the released SHIELD files. I don’t know if it’s actually him. Is it really him? Is he the same?” Darcy stops there, releasing a shaking breath.

“It’s really him. One hundred percent confirmed. I don’t know if he’s the same as he was.” Tony trails off, simply sliding into the chair with her when her shoulders start shaking, wrapping his arms tightly around her.

“Why am I crying like this? It’s not like someone died. The o- opposite.”

“It’s a common reaction to shock or emotional trauma. You may also experience-“

“Flamingo.” Tony says on a sigh, ending Vision’s explanation.

Once she’s staved off something she’s really starting to suspect is an anxiety attack, Tony suggests food and moving the party into the upstairs study. It’s the least touched of all the rooms Darcy has seen, despite the bundle of cables running straight up through the middle of the room, and the two holes that entailed.

She eats both her own frozen burrito, and the one she insisted Vision try. He spits out his first and only bite.

Darcy peppers them with questions about the Steve they know. Tony acts cagey as fuck several times, and it only increases her anxiety, and her fear that something is wrong. Other than the whole big bad headed for Earth to possibly end all life. Honestly, she can’t even bring herself to really care about that. It’s abstract to her.

She’s about to demand he just spit it out when a series of alarms go off. A yellow light starts flashing, followed by a wailing siren. It nearly scares Darcy out of her skin, and the arm cuffs unfold again, covering her hands. She looks down at them, then at Tony.

“Yeah, we’ve got to talk about this shit right here.”

“Someone crossed the perimeter.” Tony says, standing quickly.

“Maybe it’s the others? If they drove fast?” Darcy suggests hopefully. She’s tired of running. She shakes her hands, trying to make the metal gloves recede, but then another set of alarms start going, and she gives up.

“That’s the north side of the building.” Tony calls back to them, already headed towards his suit.

A tense fifteen minutes later they’re admitting Dr. Banner into the apartment. He looks nothing like his staff picture at Culver. He’s scruffy, dressed in baggy clothes, and has a chin full of stubble.

His hands are jammed awkwardly in his pockets as he looks around the narrow hallway. His eyes follow along some of the wires stuck to the walls like spider webs.

“Frankly I thought you’d be more tanned.” Tony says as the face plate goes up.

“I’ve been looking for you for two months, ever since I checked the news and saw... everything.” Dr. Banner clumsily catches the nozzle of DUM-E’s extinguisher and points it away.

“Yeah, yeah. We broke up the gang. International fugitives-“

“You and Pepper broke up?” Bruce cuts him off. He clearly knows how to deal with Tony. And is concerned about more than just Iron Man.

“You can stay.” Darcy declares, stepping out of the half bath she’d ducked into. It offered her both the chance at a surprise attack, and also an escape route through the crescent shaped window if it came to that.

“Darcy.” Bruce’s eyes widen, then he straightens, like someone had jabbed him with a pin. “I’m sorry, that was very informal of me. We haven’t met.”

“Same circles.” Darcy shrugs, holding out a hand. Bruce shakes her hand with much of the same hesitance to touch that Vision had. These guys are going to kill her. Darcy uses her light grip on his hand to pull him a little bit closer, giving him a quick one-armed hug. He smells like tea, sweat, and aftershave.

“Brucie, this is Darcy. Darcy, Brucie.” Tony turns and leads the way back down the hall, shooing DUM-E and U out of the way, the metal boots of the suit crunching over bits of plaster. “I have all your shit, by the way. From when you flounced.”

“Is he okay?” Bruce motions for Darcy to proceed him through the arched doorway. He grimaces and scratches the side of his neck. “Are you okay? I saw- Lots of things.”

“We’re all a mess here. It’s like a theme.” Darcy watches Tony first step back out of the suit, then flip open a rolling suitcase and pull out three bottles of whiskey. “Ah yes, emotional healing.”

“No.” Tony shakes his head, kicking a rolling table topped with a stack of tablets so it rolls into the side of the musty green couch. “We’re skipping right over the Stark method of avoiding our problems, and getting right to solving them. Due to time constraints. Over-aggressive blue faced rock collector up there and frankly unacceptable living situations and what not. I’m pretty sure Thor said he was blue.”

Darcy’s stomach flips over. A part of her wants to say that she’s had enough of solving her problems and she wants a goddamned break. It’s a big part of her. But the rest of her realizes that no one else in this room is walking on rainbows. They could play one hell of a game of sob story one-upmanship, no one would win, and then they’d still have to solve their problems. “Rain check?”

“You know it.” Tony plunks the bottles on a coffee table with lion’s heads carved into the legs. “Well. Let’s save the world. Again.”