Chapter Text
There was significant damage done to Darcy’s memory banks. The most harmed files were the older ones, the ones storing her earliest memories. Everything from her first five years of existence were completely burnt out, with massive holes in everything until the year Tony wiped her and sent her off. He’d managed to transfer what was salvageable into a new drive, but he was concerned it might not be enough.
She wouldn’t really remember Tony’s mother, and would have bits and pieces of Howard and Jarvis. Tony sat in his darkened living room alone, swirling the melting glass in his drink, he wondered if he should write her new memories, different memories. Ones that would make her more of a sister than the nanny she’d been made to be.
[1975]
“’Kay’mdonebye!”
“Anthony.”
The boy paused at the door, hesitated, and gave a great heaving sigh as he turned around. “Miss ‘Ewis…”
“Mr Jarvis went through the trouble of making dinner for you – one of your favourites. You will finish the green beans on your plate and then you will thank him.”
“But Miss ‘Ewis, I got a project and I’m almost done!” The all-important project. Tony had a million of them.
“You will finish and thank him.”
“You don’t eat beans!” As if the fact Miss Lewis didn’t eat somehow excused Tony from the task as well. It didn’t.
(Especially since Howard was fine tuning a stomach-sack and waste capabilities for her, thus rendering null Tony’s most-used argument against eating anything green.)
“You will finish what’s on your plate and you will thank Mr Jarvis for making it for you.” Her tone of voice was even but brokered no room for an argument. This was a tactic she’d had to learn in the five years she’d been with the boy – the less wiggle-room Anthony was given, the less he was likely to wiggle out of things.
Little Tony growled and scrubbed his hands through his hair. Miss Lewis eyed it and determined that the boy could certainly do with a wash.
‘Tomorrow. Vegetables is enough of a fight for one evening.’
“Fine!” Tony pouted as he stomped back to his chair and flopped himself into it. He grabbed his fork and began violently stabbing every-single-green bean on his plate. He shoved as many of them into his mouth as he could – wanting to get the whole horrible experience over with – before repeating it with one more forkful. He glared at an impassive Miss Lewis as he chewed, not even bothering to close his mouth like he knew was manners. As soon as he swallowed – making the appropriate face to express his utter disgust – he popped off his chair again and stomped over to the kitchen door.
There, he stopped. It was Miss Lewis who made him eat the green beans, not Jarvis. Jarvis was cool and fun and he knew all of Tony’s favourite things. Miss Lewis probably made him make the green beans. Tony swung the door open carefully, still not entirely sure how to properly say thank you.
“Jarvis?” The tall, thin man was standing at the sink, apron and rubber gloves on as he battled the soapy pots and pans from making dinner. Tony rushed him before the man could turn around, wrapping his arms around Jarvis’ waist and hugging him quickly, tightly. “Thanks for dinner, Jarvis.”
And Tony dashed off again, running back through the door, not even pausing to stick his tongue out at Miss Lewis as he sprinted back to his room. Miss Lewis sighed and shook her head at his disappearing form before waltzing into the kitchen.
“Edwin, you look like you’ve been hit with a brick.”
The butler jolted and turned to her, still looking a bit stunned. “You know, I can count on one hand the times that boy has voluntarily hugged me.”
Miss Lewis smiled. “Maybe he’s growing.”
Edwin’s face softened, a cautious hope dawning across his features. “Maybe he is indeed.”
[1977]
The noise started right as Maria began guiding her guests out to the terrace. A guttural, metallic scraping came from Tony’s wing of the mansion, prompting Maria to glare at Miss Lewis until she excused herself from tea to find out what it was. It would have been horribly rude if Maria left herself; plus, these were her friends – her very wealthy and important friends – and Maria enjoyed showing off to them. Which she couldn’t do if she was chasing that boy around. She’d have to remember to thank Howard for finding Miss Lewis to do it for her.
The halls were large and empty as Miss Lewis made her way towards the continuing sound. They were tastefully decorated, though Miss Lewis’ programing registered them as ‘impersonal’ and ‘expensive’.
‘It’s just as well I don’t have eardrums,’ she thought to herself outside Tony’s playroom door. She knocked – a perfunctory motion – and entered into… a mess.
The lab Tony had set up for himself was perpetually in ruins, glass and metal shards scattered all over everything. There were holes in the walls, burn marks on the floor and ceiling, and if Howard hadn’t reinforced every inch of this house with the strongest vibranium/steel alloy he could muster outside of Captain America’s shield, Miss Lewis was sure that Tony’s wing would have come down around his ears long ago. There in the middle of the disaster zone crouched a boy with an adult-sized welder’s shield over his face and industrial ear mufflers strapped on via duct tape so they wouldn’t slide off. Miss Lewis inspected the walls carefully once more before going around and unplugging every single machine – many of them Tony made himself. It took three outlets before Miss Lewis found the one powering the noise-making… thing Tony was working on.
The boy’s head popped up once things had gone silent. “Hey!”
Miss Lewis didn’t say anything until he’d shifted the face shield so he could glare at her and the earmuffs slid back.
“Do I want to know what you’re doing up here?” Tony, still glaring, held up a tubular device with wires hanging out of either end. “And that would be…?”
“’M making a lightsaber.”
“Ah.”
“I can do it!”
“I don’t doubt you – you’re incredibly brilliant. If anyone would be able to make a lightsaber, Anthony, it’d be you.”
“So why’d you unplug my things?”
“Because while I know you can make a lightsaber, right now isn’t the time for it.”
Tony’s face shifted into suspicion. That usually meant someone was in the house that he wasn’t supposed to bother. “Why?”
“Your mother decided that since she’s in California, she’d like to invite some of her friends for lunch. They’re in the garden.”
“Fine, I don’t wanna go to go outside anyway,” Tony grumbled, hands reaching out to pull the tape from his hair. Miss Lewis bit her lip for a moment.
“Alec Guinness is here.”
Tony looked at her and frowned.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
The boy’s eyes lit up for one glorious moment, before dimming again. “If he’s here as one of mom’s guests…”
“I’m sure I could speak to him quietly, see if maybe he wouldn’t mind talking to you for a moment.”
Sir Guinness didn’t mind at all, as it turned out. Even better was that he quickly realized that this was something of a covert operation, not to be brought to the attention of Maria Stark. They met in a tiny alcove in the garden, away from the other guests, Tony clutching his half-formed lightsaber tightly in two grimey hands.
“Sir Alec Guinness! Oh man. Hi! I’m, I’m Tony. I’m making a lightsaber. After Star Wars, I watched The Ladykillers and Murder by Death, but I fell asleep during Lawrence of Arabia – it was really long and you weren’t in it a lot. But you were Marcus Aurelius in The Fall of the Roman Empire and Miss Lewis let me watch bits of that. I liked that one – there were a lot of fight scenes.”
“Oh! Quite the fan, then, are we? Well, I’m certainly pleased to meet you, Tony. You’ll have to let me know if you manage that lightsaber – the props department took mine at the end of the film.”
[1991]
The car crashed on a Saturday. The funeral was the following Saturday. Tony and Miss Lewis fought the Monday after, and Darcy was booted out that Wednesday.
“But… where will I go?”
“Go west, Fievel. Or south or north, or wherever you want – just get the hell out!”
“But-“
“OUT!”
Darcy was in pieces when Steve and Bucky got down to Stark's lab. Her legs were on one table, hands and arms separated on another. Tony was headfirst in her torso, and her head was on a table by the door.
"Well, this isn't weird at all," Steve muttered to himself, looking around and trying to reconcile the vivacious Darcy Lewis with the bits and pieces of stuff scattered around on workbenches. The smell of motor oil and burning plastic took the place of the body wash she changed on the regular. It was discordant and strange, but also… hopeful. It meant Darcy was being fixed, that Tony was working on making her better, and that sort of made up for all the weirdness.
“Cap,” Tony shoved his work goggles up onto his forehead when he noticed the soldiers come in, “what brings you to my cave of wonder?”
“Uh,” Steve flapped his arms for a moment, blushing a little. “I had a few minutes before my next meeting and I thought that, um…” Steve cast his eyes around the lab, searching for a reason that wouldn’t sound too pathetic, but Tony saw through him anyway.
“You thought you’d see how your girlfriend was coming along?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Steve protested, cheeks flaming red.
Tony’s smile turned wicked. “Yeah, she is. But whatever. Tell me about the new Avengers training program and I’ll tell you about Darcy-Do.”
As Tony and Steve started updating each other on their respective projects, James wondered over to one of Darcy's arms and inspected it. He poked at the wires and metal and fake skin and wondered if Stark would make fake skin for his arm. That might be nice... If he ever wanted to go out. One day. In the future. Later.
There was a rolling stool a few tables away. James, figuring Steve's girl shouldn't be alone, caught his friend's eye as he reached for the stool. He kept eye contact as he rolled it over, head cocked to the side and asking silently if Steve wanted to take a seat and stay awhile.
Steve shook his head. "I can't," he said sounding genuinely pained about it. "I'm meeting with Natasha and Hill about the new facility."
James hesitated then started rolling the stool over to the table Darcy's head rested on. He sat on the stool slowly, his eyes still on Steve. As much as he wanted to stay with Steve (everything made more sense when Steve was around, so James made sure he was always around), James thought meetings were boring. He’d much rather stay in the lab with the pieces of Darcy and watch the Stark work.
Steve lifted his hands and shook his head. "It's Tony's lab, Bucky. You'll have to ask him if you can hang out."
(Oh, well then.) James turned his unblinking murder-stare to Tony and very deliberately put his hand on Darcy's hair. Darcy’s hair was very soft and he couldn’t help it when his fingers started to slide through the strands as he stared her brother down. (Stark wouldn't tell him to leave if he glared hard enough.) (Very, very soft hair.)
Tony seemed to weigh his options. Barnes was batshit and superhuman, but Tony had replusors and a panic button and all the toys and gadgets he could get his hands on… In the end, Tony shrugged. “Sure, whatever. But I pick the tunes!”
Steve paused just beyond the door. If Tony picked his usually shrilling metal rock to work to, things might get ugly fast. Bucky hadn’t responded well to many forms of music since he’d been released from the hospital. But Steve smiled as the opening chords of Night Ranger’s ‘Sister Christian’ flooded the lab.
Before everything with Ultron, Darcy had introduced both Steve and Bucky to 80’s rock ballads, and Bucky really seemed to like them. Steve didn’t get the attraction – he was still marveling at the musical colossus that was Frank Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack – but seeing Bucky enjoy something new for the first time was worth putting up with screeching guitar riffs and growling lyrics.
Darcy had teased that maybe for one Halloween, she’d dress the three of them up as one of the bands from the ‘80s – with the big hair, gaping shirts, and tight leather pants. Steve had Googled some of them – Winger, Cinderella, Skid Row, Def Leppard – and while he hadn’t been thrilled with the men’s apparel, the girls from the videos were… Well, Darcy would be a knockout in any era.
It became a habit for James to be in the lab when he wasn’t with Steve. He had to keep an eye on Stark and Steve’s girl – it was a mission, however small, that he needed to do. That was his job now, and James felt better somehow with a job to do. It helped that Tony started leaving little mechanical puzzles by Darcy’s head for James to fiddle with. This served two purposes. The first was to help keep the man’s murder glare off Tony – working on Darcy was hard enough without Steve’s guard-dog breathing down his neck. The second was to get an idea of the fine motor functions of James’ metal hand.
It could be argued that sniper fire requires fine motor skills more than one-on-one close combat does – a shooter has to be aware of their weapon and their surroundings when taking a long-range shot. However, the motion to fire is ultimately the same – a shooter still curls their finger in and back no matter what type of gun they’re firing. It’s more difficult to hit a target from a great distance because a shooter needs to be more aware of wind resistance, potential risks and moving obstacles, the pressure on the trigger; not because the physical act of firing a weapon is strenuous or difficult. It wasn’t the same as threading a needle, or re-wiring a circuit board, or even breaking down and cleaning a gun.
And Tony was naturally a curious animal, so he started leaving little doo-dads for James to tinker with. Boxes with turn mechanisms on the top that needed to be opened in a certain order; gears that had been put together out of sequence; little bits of things Tony had been working on that needed to be cleaned - if the dude was gonna take up space, he might as well be useful.
As Tony worked on Darcy’s physical body, he kept tabs on what James was and wasn’t able to do. James primarily worked the puzzles and more delicate movements with his right hand – using the flesh and bone with nerves to tell when the box clicked open or if the gears were flush and connected properly. The left hand – the one without nerves or knowledge of pressure and sensitivity – was mostly used to hold things steady as James worked on them. That meant that while James’ style of shooting and fighting was ambidextrous, he was still right-hand dominant.
Which was information Tony was sure would come in handy one day.
“You aren’t going to change her, are you?”
“I could. Want her more interested in space? Want her to be able to help you with all your equations and theories or whatever you theoretical nerds do?”
“… No. I have people who are paid to help me in the lab, people who worked really hard to be there. Plus… she wouldn’t be Darcy, you know? If she liked all that stuff. So, um… Don’t change her. Just make her Darcy again.”
Tony was silent for a moment before leaning away from the circuitry of Darcy’s left foot. He rubbed the back of his wrist under his nose (no, that was not teary-feelings he was having, shut up) and looked up at the woman who had just disappeared from the doorway.
“You’re a good friend, Dr Foster.”
Pepper stood outside the glass walls of Tony’s workshop, arms crossed over her chest. The metal floor was cool on her bare feet, which was a relief from the perpetual summer she seemed to exist in since the Extremis thing. Tony had told her he’d be right up after dinner… four days ago. Instead, he’d been locked in his lab, surrounded by robot parts, trying to re-make something that maybe… maybe he shouldn’t.
“The dead are dead, Tony,” she muttered under her breath, wishing she could say it to him and that he’d believe her. “Darcy is gone. And maybe it’s better off that way.” Because what would have happened if Ultron had been successful in re-writing her programming? What might happen if someone from AIM or Hammer Industries or Dr von Doom found out that she was a robot? While Darcy herself was harmless – and could even prove to be an aide when Tony or the Tower were under attack – the very fact that she existed potentially put the whole world in danger. It was Tony’s suits all over again – people wanted them for the destruction they could cause, not the protection they were built for. Tony had agreed with her about the suits, especially after Extremis. But he hadn’t seemed to learn – not even after Ultron backfired so spectacularly. And Pepper couldn’t make herself watch this backfire, too.
She turned from the lab and padded back to the elevator. Tony would probably still be in his lab tomorrow, which would give her more than enough time to finish packing. She’d bought an apartment in British Columbia and a visa that would let her stay there for however long she wanted. Happy would drive her to the airport early Monday morning, and even with a layover in Toronto, she’d still arrive in Vancouver just after noon. Another smaller plane would take her to Graham Island where she’d spend at least the next few months in the tiniest town of Port Clements. Pepper felt she’d earned a sabbatical, and a bit of anonymity if she could find it. Was she running away? Yes – she wouldn’t deny that. But after everything…. Maybe running away wasn’t a bad thing.
The door slid opened and shut silently, a large body passing through with barely any sound. One hand grabbed a stool and rolled it up to one of the metal worktables, the one with a head on it. It was connected to a torso now, which was a vast improvement though still super creepy seeing as it’s chest cavity was open and there were no arms or legs. The hips were off on another table, arms and legs on another still. The man situated himself so he was looking at her face (god, couldn’t Tony have left a sheet or something to cover her with?).
“Hey Darce. You might have caught the argument, but Rhodey carted Tony off an hour ago. He hasn’t been doing so well since Pepper left.” Steve ran a hand over his head and looked down at his lap. “I keep thinking that you’d know what to do, what to say. You grew up with him, didn’t you? You understand him, so you’d be able to help. At least, more than the rest of us. I know Tony and I fight a lot – we have different ways of working, different everything, really – but he’s a good guy. It’s hard to see him like this.”
Steve looked at her again and reached over to brush her hair back. “Bucky likes visiting with you. You know he’s been by at least once a day for the past month? We’re supposed to be setting up a new training facility up state, but he keeps disappearing and showing up in Tony’s lab. He was so out of it when Tony put his arm back together, I guess this is all pretty new and interesting for him. You’re probably the first person he knows who’s even a little bit like him. Well, aside from me and Natasha.”
Steve’s mouth quirked up as he thought of something. “You’ll never guess what Clint did the other day. Okay, so we were out in the woods, right? Training Wanda and Vision on stealth tactics. Vision caught on pretty quick, but Wanda was having a harder time.”
In the end, the only thing Tony added to her memory banks were the recorded conversations of Steve coming to visit her while she was broken. He’d been a real dick to her, so giving her a chance at happiness – giving her the knowledge that someone loved her, and allowing her to make an informed choice if she loved him back – was kinda the least he could do.