Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jane wasn't sure, really, what to make of her new position at the School and Home for the Intelligent of Exemplary Learning and Development (or SHIELD, as everyone else called it). Vice Principal Coulson has assured her that she'd be able to continue her focus on studying wormholes and gaining access to uncharted corners of the universe. She'd only be required to teach the minimum of four classes per week: two 5th grade science classes, an 8th grade general science class, and the 12th grade Honours astronomy class. And Jane had been given a TA to assist with lesson planning and grading - all Jane would have to do was lecture and approve whatever Darcy came up with. So that was pretty great. But the school...

Jane wasn't against mutants. She didn't care, really, because it had no bearing on her research. Right now, mutants were funding her research, so that was certainly a plus in their column. She had to admit, though, that sometimes it was... a little weird.

Like her TA. Darcy Lewis could mimic everyone and everything, and it was a bit off-putting when she parroted Jane's own voice back to her. Though it was also kind of convenient when Jane was ducking calls from her alma mater. Darcy was a lot better at politely saying 'no, I won't be donating to the alumni fund' than Jane was.

Jane's students (when she looked up from her research long enough to notice them) were all very bright. But one of the seniors liked to hand assignments in by stretching his arm from the middle of the room rather than walk from his desk to hers. And another student would rather make herself invisible than be called on, which Jane didn’t exactly understand because according to Darcy’s notes, Susan Storm was extremely gifted in astronomy and had the potential to really take off in the field. So Jane would call on her anyway if the girl was marked down for attendance. But Susan’s brother (one of the 8th graders) set himself on fire when he was bored. Jane would be in the middle of her lesson and suddenly Johnny would be on fire again. It was horribly distracting (and terrifying), which Darcy explained might be the little fucker's point.

Most of her students - when they were behaving themselves - could easily be taken as non-mutants, but not everyone. Like one of her 5th graders, a dour little boy named Ben, who was covered in thick, pebbly skin the colour of macaroni and cheese. Or Jenny Walters, who was unnaturally strong and green, though still a very attractive 8th grade girl. Jane liked Jenny because she would thump Johnny the firebug in the arm whenever she saw he was about to start something. Jane would have to reprimand Jenny because violence wasn't condoned in the classroom, but she tried to keep her discipline tactics on the smaller scale and Jenny always got full extra credit points.

So teaching mutants when she herself wasn’t one could get a little strange. Jane had always been a minority in her field – being the only woman in advanced and potentially intergalactic astrophysics was something she was proud of, though Jane knew she stood alone. And even now among her fellow teachers, Jane was a minority being a non-mutant.

The sedate biology teacher, Dr Banner, was born with the ability to turn into an unnaturally strong, giant green rage monster. Which made Jane shudder when she thought about what his Terrible Twos phase must have been like... his poor parents. When he wasn’t teaching, though, Dr Banner was working on the mutant genome. He specialty had been genetics before he left the public sector and Jane loved getting into discussions with him about his work.

A hyperactive man named Tony Stark could manipulate metal and electricity, and he used his abilities to help in his shop class… when he could focus long enough to actually teach class. Like electricity hitting metal, Tony was sharp and bright but not entirely focused without a conductor. Jane thought it was pretty lucky that he had a few around him. One was his wife Pepper Potts, who taught English and Composition. Pepper glowed like an ember, the light shifting and undulating under her skin. Jane noticed a few times that the space around Pepper was always slightly warmer than the rest of the room, and she wondered if the woman really was on fire from the inside.

Steve Rogers could teleport himself through space - and time if he concentrated hard enough. He taught art, but subbed in for history and sociology when needed. He was a little shy, but had a surprising amount of sass in him. Jane noticed he went blow-for-blow with Darcy when it came to snappy comebacks and one-liners.

The actual history teacher, an ex-Airman named Sam Wilson, could fly. He’d been born with wings, great big brown-feathered wings the span of which was akin to a small plane. Though these days he only had one real one while the other was mechanical. Sam explained to Jane on the first day that he'd been injured in Afghanistan and Stark had built him a new prosthetic wing so he wouldn't be grounded for good.

The gym teacher, Clint Barton, was great for stopping fights before they started. Having supernatural eyesight meant he could see everything - even the smallest shift in a person's body language that meant they were about to start a conflict. Jane didn’t know exactly how far his range was, and doubted if anyone really knew for sure. He could sink a paper ball into the wastebasket from any point in a room, though.

Clint's partner Natasha Romanov was the school councillor. She'd had the most experience gaining control and confidence in her ability to shape shift, and all the self-identity problems that can come with that, so she tended to spend her time with the more high-risk students. She was surprisingly kind given her initial suspicious greeting. Natasha had stared at Jane for five minutes after they’d first been introduced, then left and as far as Jane knew, she didn’t see the shape shifter for the rest of the day. Then again, how would Jane know?

Finally, there was Thor Odinson. He was the leadership and sociology teacher for the upper grades, and he had the sunniest smile Jane had ever seen. He was a kind, sweet, and intelligent man who could call down a tornado to level a town and kick up enough of a lightening storm to knock out power in the tri-state area when he was angry. Darcy teased Jane all the time for having a crush - Jane would be more amused if it wasn't true. But that was okay because Jane frequently teased Darcy back about how she wanted to jump Steve's bones.

The only other non-mutant on staff that Jane had met had been Col. James Rhodes, another retired Airman who had taken the position as the school's math teacher. He was a very nice man with a quick mind and a long-suffering disposition that Jane suspected came from being friends with Tony Stark for a prolonged period of time.

Chapter Text

It was a lovely day for a wedding. Really, it was a beautiful spring day, the kind with puffy clouds, bright sun and a gentle breeze. And the terrace on Stark Tower had been very tastefully decorated. Branches of dogwood in early bloom graced the entryways and gauzy white streamers hung from the walls. The reception area was set up just inside – a few chairs and tables for the small number of attendants. It was to be an intimate ceremony, with only a few friends and loved ones to witness the union.

The groom at the altar looked very handsome, he and his best man in neat white shirts and black vests, with red and gold pocket squares adding a dash of colour. At the other end of the aisle, the other groom waited with his escort, looking dashing in a grey vest with light purple pinstripes. At the head of the altar to officiate, Bruce stood in a pressed shirt and slacks, looking a bit confused but determined to do his best.

“What the hell am I doing here?” groused a national icon in the guest seating area. Darcy looked up from her program at Steve and smirked.

“We all got shanghaied, solider,” she teased. “Tony and Clint pulled a fast one on all of us.”

“But they’re dogs!” Steve hissed under his breath. “How the hell do they know they’re getting married?”

“There’s a part of the ceremony that allows for protests,” Natasha told him from his other side. “If you truly doubt the bond and commitment between Lucky and Hooter, I’m sure you’d be welcome to voice it.”

Steve huffed and pushed a hand through his hair. He was so cute when he was frustrated and clueless that Darcy had to reach out and pat his leg.

“Don’t worry,” she told him. “There’s a brunch and an open bar to look forward to after this. Thor told me he’s supplied some industrial-strength paint remover from Asgard, so you have that to look forward to, at least.”

Steve looked at her, one eye brow up and a smirk playing around the corners of his mouth. “Paint remover?”

“You know, the hard stuff that burns like a mother going down. I’ll be your drinking buddy if you need one.”

“It’s eleven in the morning. I’m not sure getting sloppy drunk is a good idea.”

Darcy shot him an incredulous face. “Steve, this is a wedding for Clint and Tony’s dogs. I think we’re allowed to get a little drunk.”

Steve ducked his head and laughed a little under his breath. “Yeah, maybe.”

On his other side, Natasha hid a grin. This was a stupidly elaborate plan just to get Steve and Darcy together, but she couldn’t deny that Tony’s crazy plans tended to yield results.

Chapter Text

Bruce kept the card tucked in his wallet for two days before he called. He’d been in the library looking up alternative ways to manage the Other Guy – anger management, self-help, and meditation guides only went so far. The card had been tucked into the back pages of A Guide to Modern Dads (because yeah, when the Other Guy wasn’t smashing things, Bruce figured he was a bit like a kid).

Franklin Nelson
&
Matthew M Murdock
Attorneys at Law

There was a phone number highlighted in faded orange neon and an address for a neighborhood in Midtown West. Bruce didn’t want to speculate too much about what a business card for a lawyer was doing in a parenting book, but something told him to hold onto it. That something sounded a little like Pepper, and a little like Steve – the way their voice changed and got a bit soft and earnest when they spoke about how General Ross really should be involved with the rebuilding of Harlem and Culver University, and how Bruce deserved reparations for having his life threatened and having to go on the run for so long. Bruce didn’t really want anything from Ross – the man was rotten and had nothing Bruce wanted – but the people of Harlem… many of whom were still displaced and struggling with insurance companies… those people could use some help. And if Bruce had to be the face of that… well, there were worse things.

So Bruce kept the card and sat on it for two days before he figured out what he wanted to do with it. He didn’t call them from the Tower, though. Tony meant well, but this was something Bruce needed to do on his own, not have Tony throw money at. Bruce walked six blocks to use a convenience store payphone instead. It was a male’s voice who answered, sounding a little annoyed like he’d been arguing with someone right before he picked up.

“Nelson and Murdock.”

“Uh… Hi. My name is, um… I’m Dr Bruce Banner. I found your card in a library book and, uh…”

“Dr Banner? Bruce Banner?” The voice perked up and Bruce steeled himself, knowing what the next jump was. “The Hulk?”

“Y-yeah. Um… How-how well do you guys do with uh… high profile cases?”

There was a pause on the other end. “Depends on how high you want to go.”

“Uh…" Bruce scratched the back of his head, suddenly feeling foolish. "The US Army? There's one General in particular, but uh... yeah.”

There was a longer pause and Bruce could hear clacking and shuffling down the line. “Why don’t we set up an appointment for you to come down, Dr Banner. Bring all your thoughts on what you’re looking to accomplish and whatever won’t get us thrown in jail for knowing it, and we’ll see what we can do for you.”

“You-you think you’ll be able to take my case?” This seemed entirely too simple.

“Dr Banner, I don’t think you know exactly how much we really want to take your case. If this is about helping the people of Harlem rebuild their homes, a person would have to be deaf, dumb and stupid to pass this up.”

“I thought it was ‘deaf, dumb and blind’?”

“Eh,” the voice chuckled. “We can work with blind.”

Chapter Text

Phil was working in his home office when he heard it. The grinding and squealing of strings, and the pounding beat of a frighteningly familiar song. It was easily recognizable – his partner played it at unspeakable decibels down in his basement workshop all the time – but this, while familiar, was… not the same. Phil exited his office slowly, moving carefully down the hall as he followed the sound, and came to a stop in front of his daughter’s bedroom. He pushed the door open slowly, almost afraid of what he’d find.

Darcy sat, face twisted into a fierce expression as her cello jerked wildly with every swipe of her bow. Across from her, the friend she said was coming over was playing with equal intensity. Sheet music for each was set to the side, forgotten as they worked to memorize the piece. It was fascinating and terrifying to watch them play. Finally, with a breathless flourish and a triumphant shout, they finished.

“Ha!” his daughter stood and brandished her bow as her friend (Skylar? Sk-something) laughed. “We’re gonna kill it!”

“What, exactly, will you be killing?” Phil asked, almost afraid of the answer. Darcy turned to him, eyes bright and grin so much like Tony’s.

“Pops!” Darcy hopped over to the door and hugged her father, careful of the instrument still in her hand. “I didn’t know you were home. Skye and I are covering Thunderstruck for the talent show on Tuesday,” she explained. “Dad got us the sheet music. It’s gonna be great!”

Phil nodded slowly. “You’ll blow them all away,” he said as encouragingly as he could. “They won’t know what hit them.”

Darcy smiled again, that radiantly maniacal beam she’d inherited from Tony’s father. “Dad already bought you guys tickets and he sent one to Audrey, too, so it’ll be a whole family thing with all the parental units.”

“That was very kind of your dad,” Phil squeezed her shoulder and started backing out of her room. “I’ll let you two keep practicing, but I’ll be in my office if you need anything.”

“Coolio, pops.” Darcy turned back to her friend as Phil closed the door behind himself.

“At least it’s a classical instrument,” he muttered to himself as the grinding and squealing started up again.

Chapter Text

“I don’t know, Darcy. I’m really not looking for anyone right now.”

A dissatisfied huff carried over across the phone line. “Look, Jane – I know Thor was great and had ‘a mighty hammer’ and all, but he’s gone. Packed up and left for Sweden a year ago. He isn’t coming back, at least not any time soon. It’s time for you to move on. Now I know you don’t know Tasha, but I know Tasha, so if she says this guy checks out then he's good. The only thing I’d be worried about is the fact that he’s divorced, but Tasha says that was finalized years ago and he’s over it.”

“Darcy,” Jane groaned, but her friend ran right over her.

“Just be at The Big Bean on 20th and Market at 2 o’clock tomorrow, okay? I’d help you get ready but Steve and Bucky are a little anal about me being on time for our study group.”

“I’m sure they’re anal about something, but I don’t think it has to do with studying international trade policy.”

Darcy sighed wistfully. “If only. Anyway, Big Bean on 20th and Market.”

“At 2pm, got it.”

“And don’t wear flannel!”

“No flannel – yup.”

After saying good byes and hanging up, Jane se the phone back in the cradle and flopped back against her pillows. The cotton felt nice against her bare skin and she still pulsed between her legs in a lovely, satisfying way, but the afterglow was gone. Luckily, her bed partner padded back into the bedroom, dropping his cell phone onto his pile of clothes as he went, and shucked his purple boxers before climbing back under the covers behind her.

“Darcy set me up on a blind date tomorrow.”

“How funny,” he said, moving close to rub his lips against her shoulder. “Natasha set me up on a blind date tomorrow, too.”

“Mine’s with an ex-Army sniper. He consults with the government about security now.”

She felt him smile against her skin. “Mine’s with an astrophysicist who studies black holes for NASA.”

An answering grin crept across Jane’s mouth as she turned over to face him. “He got a divorce a few years ago, but it doesn’t seem to back up on him.”

He ducked his head and ran his nose over hers, nuzzling her gently. “Her ex-boyfriend left a year ago, but she seems okay.”

Jane slid her hands down his chest, scratching a bit on the sparse hair covering his finely toned muscles, and shifted closer. She looked up and paused. His eyes – those bright blue eyes that had first caught her attention hard and fast – were shining. He looked as happy as she felt.

“I think I like you a lot, Clint,” she whispered, almost afraid to break whatever bubble they’d created. “I think it’s time to stop sneaking around.”

Clint smiled, wide and a bit crooked, and tugged her over so they were flush front-to-front. “I think I like you a lot, too, Jane. And yeah, if our friends are setting us up to date each other, we should probably stop sneaking around.”

Chapter Text

Natasha was pretty sure this whole thing was Thor’s fault.

It started when he found the Apples to Apples deck in Clint’s hall closet. They’d been hiding out at the Barton family farmhouse for three weeks when sudden downpour pushed them all inside. So the big guy pulled a Thor-a the Explor-a and went digging. After a quick run-through of the rules, everyone got into it. But you could only play the same game 11 times (on average; Nat counted) before you start looking for new entertainment. Uno cards came out, followed by Life, Guess Who, Connect Four, Scrabble, Janga, and Risk.

But they should not have played Monopoly. The signs were on the wall with Risk, but they ended it civilly enough that when Steve brought out the board and fake cash everyone was at least a little okay with it.

Tony was a tyrant and Steve started quite a few yelling matches with him over his bully tactics. But Nat was sneaky good at breaking his runs and stealing his money, so that soothed Steve’s ruffled feathers… until she also started taking Steve’s money. Bruce was convinced everyone was cheating flat out, and made no attempts to hide his seething contempt for any of them. Thor declared war upon all the other players at least twice – Clint was the only one angry enough to take him up on it.

When Fury and Hill came to collect them a few days later, they still weren’t talking to each other. These were the earth’s mightiest heroes… who couldn’t even get their shit together over a child’s board game.

Chapter Text

No one was quite prepared when Thor returned to earth holding a small, frightened boy in his arms.

“This is my brother,” Thor told them, his voice far softer than the Avengers had ever heard it. His head was tilted to the side as he frowned at the pale, shivering bundle he held. “Our father has decided that this is a suitable punishment, to re-live his life as a human child, never knowing the splendour of our home, the gifts Asgard has afforded us. Loki has squandered them, taken them for granted, and so our father has taken them away.”

“And his… ?” Clint circled his hands and flicked his fingers as he tried to think of a word that didn’t sound stupid. He kept his face carefully blank – he had his own opinions about Loki, but this was a little kid. Thor understood Clint’s gesture, and his concerns.

“Loki’s power was great, but the AllFather’s power is greater. The magic that had been born in him as a child, that he had fostered and grew with study, has been stripped from him. He is now as any other human child would be.”

“And who will be caring for the child?” Natasha asked. Her face was impassive but her tone was hard, and Loki burrowed further into Thor’s chest.

“The duty has been passed to me, and my Jane if she will.”

Jane had been less than impressed – she certainly wasn’t ready to play mother, not to her own kids and not to anyone else’s – so when the call came a week later for the Avengers to assemble, little Loki had been passed off to Darcy. Jane figured that corralling a kid couldn’t be any harder than corralling a bunch of ornery scientists when they’re hard-core science-ing, and if there was one thing Darcy was really good at, it was corralling people.

Darcy, ever one to roll with the punches, had just shrugged and took a company credit card to FAO Schwartz. And by ‘company card’, Darcy didn’t check to see if it was Stark Industries or SHIELD – both could handle the dent she’d make in their petty cash funds. So, without even feeling bad about it, she splurged on Hot Wheels cars, plastic swords and Nerf balls. She bought plastic dinosaurs and dragons, action figures and Transformers, racetracks and space rockets.

Then she hit just about every kid’s section of every bookstore in town. She bought books about pirates, dinosaurs and woodland animals; about planes, trains, and anything else with a motor; Harold and the Purple Crayon, Goodnight Moon, and So You’re Raising a Two-Year-Old: A Dummies Guide to Parenting. Darcy even found a copy of the Children’s Book of Virtues that she’d loved as a child, as well as a funny bunch of poems that taught manners.

The CVS down the block had the required bathroom supplies for little boys, and Old Navy had clothes in Loki’s size. Darcy let the boy pick out his own Chucks, though, which had been both a brilliant idea and a heart wrenching experience. The look on the boy’s face as he lingered over a pair of emerald green converse, looking up at her as if he wasn’t sure if he was really allowed to choose for himself, had torn Darcy’s heart in two. But the smile he’d given her when they left the store, brand new shoes on his feet, had been… wonderful.

Of course, it hadn’t all been wonderful. The Avenger’s mission had lasted two weeks, and Loki’s pleasant disposition only made it to the middle of the first.

“Loki, you need to eat your vegetables, please.”

“No, I non’t wannem.” Loki’s face was scrunched up in a miniature mock-up of a thunderous scowl. Darcy kind of wanted to laugh – he was so cute – but he’d been ornery and stubborn all day and he needed to finish his lunch.

“You need to eat them, please.” The parenting book had suggested a firm but gentle ‘no nonsense’ tone when dealing with disagreements. Kind of like how she spoke to Bruce to get him to step away from the Science for a while. And Darcy knew that negotiating wouldn’t work anyway – the kid was two. There was a reason they were called the ‘Terrible Twos’.

“NO!” Loki squealed, throwing his fork to the ground. “I non’t wannem!” The plate with the offensive food followed the fork. It seemed like the book’s advice wasn’t going to be working today.

“Loki, we don’t throw things,” Darcy tried again. “That’s two, Loki – you yelled at me and you threw your food. It’s time for a timeout.”

“I NON’T WANNA TIMEOUT!”

Loki was well on his way to having a truly spectacular meltdown when Agent Coulson appeared out of no-where, like an angel from the mists… or a super ninja from the elevator. He scooped the child up and sat Loki in the timeout corner, crouching down in front of the tiny chair Darcy had put there.

“Loki, yelling at Darcy like that is wrong. You will stay here, in this seat, for two minutes.” Phil pulled out a stopwatch out of his inner suit pocket and set the timer, then showed it to Loki so he could see. “When the timer is up, you will apologise to Darcy and you will finish all of your lunch.”

And no one went against Phil Coulson when he gave the ‘dad’ look.

Phil stood and walked back over to Darcy. “You were doing really well,” he told her softly, looking as innocent as he could. She just stared at him. “Seriously. Tantrums are hard and you handled it very well.”

Darcy rolled her eyes, mostly at herself, and shook her head. “At least Jane doesn’t throw things at me. At Tony, sure – the dude’s an asshole nine times out of ten. But I’ve never needed anyone to come in behind me and –” she flapped a hand over her shoulder at the little boy who was glaring at the corner and trying not to sniffle.

“Well, maybe you do – with this at least. Having a… support team couldn’t be such a hardship, would it?”

Darcy snorted. “Sure – you gonna airlift me outta here when he starts really going?”

He smirked. “I’m sure something could be arranged.”

Phil started hanging out with them a lot more after that, even when Thor returned and Jane came up for air. Thor tried to do his brotherly duty and raise Loki as their father had intended, but more and more often the boy had ended up in Darcy and Phil’s care. It was easier, really – Darcy and Phil had more stable schedules and Loki seemed to actually listen to them. So no one said anything.

Chapter Text

Tony could put up with a lot of weird bullshit. Being a master bullshit artist himself, he knew when to call it out and when to call it a day. He could handle just about anything – after the terrorists, Obie’s sudden but inevitable betrayal, the poisoning, Vanko, almost dying in an alien invasion, almost losing Pepper, and his own creations playing Whack-A-Mole with his buddies, it wasn’t all that surprising what Tony could take in stride.

So Tony could totally deal when his dad – the astonishingly young 1950’s Howard Stark – popped into existence in the middle of Tony’s floor in Avengers (cough*Stark*cough) Tower. Some Dottie woman had pressed a button she shouldn’t have, apparently, on some experiment Howard had been working on and ended up throwing Howard 65 years into the future. He wasn’t the dad Tony remembered hating growing up, so setting aside those pesky ‘why didn’t you love me’ feelings was pretty easy (“Yes, Pepper, I’m over it”). The Space-Time Continuum was pretty important not to fuck up, so he’d be working with Tony, Bruce and (surprisingly) Thor to figure out a way back to the 1950s so he could build SHIELD and Stark Industries and meet Tony’s mother and time would move forward as it should. All of that was swallowable. Weird as fuck, but Tony could deal.

Seeing his thirty three year old dad swagger out of Darcy Lewis’ room – Darcy Lewis, Howard’s soulmate… with Howard’s words on her and everything – seven in the morning looking like he’d just won the gold in the Sex Olympics... that was toeing the line. Just a smidge.

Tony hadn’t been in the room when Howard met Darcy. He’d been in DC fighting with Congress (again) about Steve and the Avengers and Ultron and aliens. But JARV replayed the whole thing for him, perverse creature he was.

Darcy came into the lab, doing her purposeful stomping hip sway that said she had Shit To Do. She and Jane had been in Sweden doing research on the rainbow connection when Howard appeared, so there was a metric shitton of work to catch up on. So while she knew Howard Stark had suddenly arrived in 2015 (Steve wouldn’t shut up about how great it was to have his friend back; Tony wouldn’t shut up about how weird it was having his dad around and younger than him), she hadn’t actually met the dude.

“Making a run, guys – coffee, tea, or me?” That was her typical call-out when she was going to Starbucks. She started saying it that way at first because it made Bruce flustered in a cute fluffy!scientist way, but now it was just habit. This time, Bruce just smiled and gave his usual request for a green tea.

“How about you, Tin Man? Coffee, tea, or me?” 'Cause, you know, Tony and Howard looked freakishly similar, especially from behind. No one could blame her for mistaking one for the other.

That didn't explain why the video showed Howard’s back going ridged. He turned slowly to face her and Darcy’s eyebrows hiked, realising her mistake. Howard gave the Science!Wrangler a clear once over and put on his most charming grin. “That really what’s on the menu, dollface?”

Darcy jolted as if shocked by her own taser. “Well… you’re not Tony. Also, hi. Who are you?”

“Howard Stark.” He put his tools down and grabbed an oil rag to wipe his hands before offering one to shake.

“Darcy Lewis,” she answered, sounding like she’d been hit on the head with a baseball bat. “So… my soulmate is Tony’s dad.”

Howard shrugged, still smiling and holding onto Darcy’s hand. “Eh, I won’t be having Tony for another twenty more years – in my time, anyway. Which leaves me plenty of time to get to know you, soulmate.”

In his not-office later, Tony leans back and shoves greasy hands through his hair. 

"Fuck."

Darcy shifted out of sleep to the feeling of calloused fingers tracing the spiky scrawling words up her inner thigh. She sighed and snuggled closer to the man next to her.

“’Swrong Howard?” She felt him shrug and nuzzled the word scrolling down the inside of his bicep.

“Just thinkin’, Darce.”

“Thinkin’ sad things?” she asked, lazily placing a hand on his chest and petting him gently.

“I don’t want to go back,” he admitted quietly after a moment. He’d been in 2015 for two months, and with Thor’s help and the science from Asgard, they were just around the corner from a major break-through to send  Howard back to 1950. “You’re here, Steve’s here… all the advancements and the amazing technology – Darce, I don’t want to go back.”

She sighed and moved so they were flush front-to-front, her head butting up under his chin. Darcy wrapped her arms and legs around her soulmate and held on tight. She waited until he held her before saying anything.

“I don’t want you to go back either.” She’d been thinking about this since they met, and cried in the shower and on Jane’s boney little shoulder about it at least a gazillion times. But Darcy was mostly resigned to their separation by now. “Someone needs to build Stark Industries for Tony to inherit so he can become Iron Man. Someone needs to make sure Tony gets born – you need to fertilize that egg, Howard. Someone needs to help build SHEILD so they can find Steve under all that ice and from the Avengers and save the world. I have to lose you so all that can happen and that sucks so hard, Howard. I mean, that really, really sucks. But it has to happen.” That’s what she told herself, what Jane told her when Darcy started crying again. And she hated it – she hated it so hard – that the past never mentioned Darcy at all, that Howard would eventually marry and have a child with someone who wasn’t her. That was… that was really, super sucky. Howard said nothing – she was right, after all. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and held her tighter.

In the end, well… it wasn’t really the ‘end’. Tony knew what happened in Howard’s life after he went back to his proper time. There wasn't even a mention of him being lost in the history books, so they knew their calibrations were right - he went back to exactly the time he came from. And well… Tony got a kid brother out of it. Philip Jarvis Stark-Lewis was born eight months after Howard left. And he turned out to be a pretty cool kid. Darcy disappeared when PJ was fifteen, though. Thor was gearing up to launch an interdimensional search party when PJ told everyone that he knew exactly where his mother was, that she was safe and happy, and that everything was essentially fine. Kid had a poker face like none other, which should have tipped Tony off. 

Because when PJ was a twenty year old kid, he managed to hop back in time with nothing but some fake credentials – grade-A fake creds, the kind that could slip past the insane amount of security checks needed to join the Army Rangers and eventually get into the ground-floor of a secret government agency – and the vintage Captain America cards Howard left for Darcy.

Tony put up with a lot of weird bullshit.

In 2022, Darcy is thirty four, her son is seven, and she finds out that she’s actually Maria Stark. Well, not right now, but eventually.

She creates a whole new identity – cribbing a driver’s licence for Thor way-back-when was kid’s stuff to what she could do now – and waits until PJ is old enough to understand before explaining it to him. The worst thing in the world would be to leave her sweet baby in the dark, thinking he was an orphan and that his mother didn't love him anymore. And, well... technically, when she went back in time, she was orphaning him (she really isn't looking forward to 1991), but she made sure PJ knew everything before making any moves. Plus, history showed she waited anyway. Howard and ‘Maria Collins Carbonell’ meet in 1964, and 'Maria' is well documented at being forty two at the time. Seriously, high-five future self for leaving such great ‘in character’ notes.

And when she stumbles into a twenty one year old PJ in 1985, she damn-near tans his hide because no, she is not impressed by his forgery skills and his best friend is a dickbag for pulling him into the Army where he might get shot. And then actually getting him shot in 2012. But PJ smiles a sad little smile that Darcy knows will eventually turn into his placid ‘nice agent’ face, and says that he wanted to meet his dad and see his mom again. Phil (‘cause her baby is going by Phil these days) isn’t introduced to his little brother, but promises to keep a close eye on Tony. They know the HYDRA car crash won’t happen for another handful of years yet, but Darcy and Howard are glad to know that Tony – brilliant, erratic, amazing Tony who will never listen to anyone until he meets Rhodey and Pepper – will be looked over in some capacity.

Even if it’s very literally by Big Brother.

Chapter Text

There was something… familiar… about Dr Foster’s assistant. Steve had a memory for names and faces (and dates, times, positions of enemy bases…) so he would certainly remember if he’d ever been briefed or introduced to Darcy Lewis before now. But… he hadn’t. So he couldn’t figure out why she was so… familiar. It was like his brain wanted to believe that he’d known her once, but Steve had never known her at all.

At least, he was pretty sure.

Dianna Lucilla, freedwoman of Lucianus Catilius Severus, was very old. So old that Dianna Lucilla wasn’t even her name any more. It hadn’t been her name for over 1700 years. Thanks to some handy trickery from a silver-tongued deity, Dianna Lucilla had been… ‘blessed’ with immortality. Apparently, the foreign god had just lost the last of his children and needed some ‘cheering up’. And now she was stuck, forever about-ish 19-20 years old. Never to age, never to grow up, forced to watch the world move and change around her… all for some exiled, antlered idiot’s shits and giggles.

Anyway, Dianna was Darlene now – Darlene Lucas. It was 1916 and Darlene had a date. Well, Darlene always had dates, but this one was special. This one was with an officer – Sargent Thomas Barnes. He was the most handsome man in Shelbyville, Indiana and the smoothest talker she’d met in a long time. With all that thick, dark hair and those happy blue eyes, it was awfully hard to say no to Tommy. Darlene didn’t even bother trying anymore – she’d always give in.

Which is how Tommy had talked himself into walking her back to Mrs Beaker’s Home for Young Women after the pub had closed and Darlene’s shift was over. And into Darlene’s room; “Just for a cup of coffee, Dar – I promise.” (Her roommate was out, thank Venus). And into Darlene’s bed.

And when Mrs Beaker saw Tommy sneaking out of the window the next morning… well, it only made sense to marry him. He was heading to New York anyway – it sounded like America was going to enter the war in Europe, helping out all those other armies, and Tommy was already an officer.

Darlene didn’t know she could get pregnant.

Telling Tommy had been a study in facial elasticity. Some of the faces that man made when Darlene spilled her story had never before been seen in the history of mankind.

But Sargent Thomas Quincy Barnes wasn’t a quitter. And he loved Darlene Lucas – really and truly – no matter what time she’d been born in. So after a night of heavy (heavy) drinking, he woke up and decided to keep loving Darlene. For the rest of his life, if not the rest of hers.

Really and truly.

Sarah Rogers was a saint. Plain and simple. Her husband was a drunk, her son was always ill, and she spent all her time that wasn’t chewed up caring for her boys in a hospital caring for dying men and women. Darlene didn’t know how Sarah did it.

“It’s just what needs to be done,” Sarah told her with a sigh. Her Irish lit danced softly, tragically above the sound of little Stevie’s wracking coughs.

“Good lord knows your Joseph isn’t doing much to help out around here,” Darlene groused. She swatted her eldest on the bum as he zipped past, dearly coveted chalk and board clutched tightly in his hands.

“You make sure you don’t bother that poor child too much, Jamie Barnes,” she commanded, dredging up the memory of a tone she used to hear from Lucianus Catilius Severus forever ago. Little Jamie, nary 5 years old, skidded to a halt and shot her a devilishly innocent grin from over his shoulder.

“You know me, ma,” he sassed. “I’m an angel!”

And with that, he dashed off again. In young Steven’s room, the coughing became interspersed with exclamations of boyish delight as they doodled and made up stories. Darlene tsk’d and shook her head as Sarah ducked her head to hide her grin.

“All cheek and hellfire, that one,” Darlene griped. “Just like his father.”

Sarah scoffed. “Just like his mother.”

Darlene thought for a moment then grinned. “He is, isn’t he?”

Joseph Rogers passed away not long after Stevie’s 5th birthday, so the child started spending even more time at the Barnes’ apartment. Sarah would drop her son off right before her shift, filling Darlene in on whatever ailment had struck the poor little one during the night. Soon enough, Stevie Rogers was practically one of her own growing brood.

He was a good boy, though hard to keep out of trouble. He and Jamie would traipse in from school, books and boards tumbling out of their grasp as they tried to keep each other standing.

“Ma, I swear – the Kowalski brothers really did start it this time!” Jamie would say, wincing as Darlene prodded iodine into the cut on his cheek.

“Mrs B,” Steven would wheeze, frail hands shaking as they held his chest, “they were bothering Polly Donovan. It was wrong!”

“Yes, it was,” Darlene grumbled back, pushing a bit of dark hair out of her face, “but there are other ways to defend people than with your fists. Especially when you can barely hold them up!”

Darlene sighed as she came into the kitchen. “Steven, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. That table isn’t yours – you can’t take up the whole thing.”

“Sorry Mrs B.” Stevie started gathering his prints and sketches closer to his chair, straightening them as he went. Pencils and bits of charcoal rolled onto the floor, shavings and dust floating down after them.

“We’re very proud that you’re in college, Stevie,” Darlene said, stooping down to gather them. Steve really couldn’t with his bad back. “It’s what your mother wanted for you and I’m glad you’ve followed through. We just need to find you an assignment area that isn’t so… central.”

Steven’s thin shoulders moved a bit under his threadbare shirt. “I like working in the kitchen, Mrs B. It’s where everything happens in the house.”

The boy’s work was very good. He’d captured moments around him – Rebecca, Lucy and Katie dancing around after Rebecca got her first date with the Johnson boy; Jamie leaning back in one of the chairs, tossing a baseball up to the ceiling while he listened to the game on the radio; Tommy coming back from a long day, boots and overalls covered in stone dust and concrete. And there was herself, flashing a sassy grin from over her shoulder as she stirred a pot at the stove.

She would have made a comment, but Jamie burst through the door, smile wide and eyes burning with excitement.

“You’re looking at the next American War Hero, ladies and gents: Private James Buchanan Barnes!”

The paper in her hands was thin, brittle. The type ink was a little runny – it was raining when the postman had delivered it that afternoon. Darlene hadn’t moved from her spot at the kitchen table, where she’d sat to go through the mail earlier. Tommy sat across from her, grasping her hand tightly as he tried to calm his stuttering breaths.

Dear Mr and Mrs Thomas Q Barnes,
I regret to inform you that your son, James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th Infantry Regiment, has been reported dead in the Alpine region of Switzerland on December 2nd, 1945. On the behalf of the Secretary of Defense, I extend to you and your family my deepest sympathy in your great loss.
Signed,
Cpl Todd A Smith
Undersecretary

After so much time on earth, Darlene was used to loss. She never thought anything could hurt this much.

Darlene buried her Tommy, then her daughters Rebecca, Lucille, and Catherine one right after the other.

It never stopped hurting.

Eventually, though, Darlene Lucas Barnes also had to ‘die’. Instead of creating a new persona immediately as she typically did, Darlene decided to hide for a little while. The world was changing a bit quicker than before – rumblings of espionage and communists plagued the horizon. Safer to wait it out underground, below the radar, until she remembered how to flow with time once more.

Changing her identity in the information age was a little more difficult than it had been before. Official record had Darlene Lucas Barnes dying about five years after her husband. She’d been 60 years old. Darlene had gotten extremely good at aging herself after so long – a combination of some medieval-era make-up tips and carefully padding her clothes. But once a person was dead, they were dead, and since Darlene couldn’t actually die, she had to disappear for a while.

So the 1960s came and went, and the 70s were fun, but around 1980 she wanted to go back to Rome – Italy now. Northern Italy was as beautiful as it always had been, but it was such a different country than the one Darlene – Dianna Lucilla – had lived in. Traveling as she was was pretty convenient, really – a few documents were “lost” or “stolen” and Darlene L Barnes became Darcy Lewis, a recently graduated high school student who was backpacking through Europe before she began school in the fall.

Darcy travelled for a few years, never staying in one place for too long, until she felt ready to go back to the US. It was 2006 and just about time for her to actually start college anyway. She’d never really gone before, so this would be in interesting experiment.

College was cool. Darcy thought the 1970s were a blast, but the 2000s were shaping up to be the best era ever!

Seriously: little phones people could carry in their pockets; the internet; unlimited access to the sum of all human knowledge; the internet; every song in the entire history of music just a few clicks away; cat videos; the internet!!!

History classes were boring – she’d lived through a bunch of that shit, and if she got a few test answers wrong here and there well, it was all a very long time ago.

Whatever.

Lit classes were fun, though Darcy spent most of her time knitting rather than taking notes. And forget about math or science – calculus wasn’t her thing when it had been discovered, and it wasn’t her thing now. Don’t even ask about chem.

Art classes… art classes made her think of a small, sickly little boy who always stood up to bullies and didn’t take guff from anyone. They made her think of her own little boy, robust and healthy, dogging after that little firestarter to keep him out of too much trouble.

Darcy tried to avoid art classes when she could.

But political science classes… whoo! Somehow, learning about communist spies and toppling governments and antiquated policies was a lot more fun than living through them. She took as many of those classes as Culver would let her and then some. It was way better than being a slave or bargirl or barista or waitress. Which she still was – living through The Great Depression had left a few scars, one being Work While You Can.

Of course, taking all the classes she liked and not taking the ones she didn’t like left room for the administration to tell her that… well, that she had to take something she didn’t want to. Which is how she ended up in an RV with Jane and Dr Selvig, driving across the US to look for a star.

Or something.

The Thor thing was weird.

Darcy knew gods existed. She’d been raised lighting fires and giving tribute to Vesta, knowing what happened when Jupiter turned an eye to human’s affairs, and to never make Juno angry. She even knew foreign gods existed, not only because story books told her they must have, but because one had come down and fucked with her life to give himself something to laugh about. Darcy might not be the little girl who lit fires for the hearth of Lucianus Catilius Severus anymore, but a person never loses the belief they were born with – not really. So Thor happened and it was weird, but she handled it.

But then Steve Rogers popped up out of nowhere in New York. And since Jane was being sent to Norway, Darcy talked herself into the project and went with her. Like hell she’d stick around after that – she’d mourned that boy, loved him like a son, raised him when Sarah passed. She’d gone to his memorial service, where his marker was right next to her own son’s. The dead don’t come back, and seeing little Stevie all grown up, alone without Jamie… Darcy didn’t think she could deal with it. It was a small world, though, and when two people are involved with the same shadowy government agency, the chances of them meeting increased exponentially.

Tony Stark wanted Jane and her work out from under the SHEILD umbrella. That meant having it under the Stark umbrella. What Tony Stark wants, he gets. And where Jane goes, Darcy follows.

It was bound to happen sometime. That’s what Darcy kept telling herself. They worked for/with the same people, lived in the same building, knew the same bunch of crazy scientists…

Since moving into Stark Tower, Darcy had resigned herself to eventually seeing little Stevie Rogers again. Yeah, okay – he wasn’t the sick little boy in the back room of the Roger’s apartment anymore, but he was still her ‘second son’. He was still the only one who knew Jamie the way she did, if not a bit better.

Not that he in any way indicated that he recognized her. Which was good in the long run, she supposed. As far as Darcy knew, she wasn’t on SHIELD’s radar for anything other than being Jane’s assistant. They didn’t act like they knew she’d been alive for more than 1850 years which, you know… that was good.

One thing she was sure would give her away, though, were the dinners she made everyone on Thursdays. Darcy always made dinner for everyone on Thursdays – Thor was always around (harhar). And if there was one thing she had learned to excel at, it was one-pot meals. Everything for dinner went into the same pot, and the same burner was used to make a simple dessert.

Tommy had been a mason after the Great War and they had been diligent enough in putting money away that when the stock market crashed in 1929, they were still able to afford food for the family. It was luck rather than any foresight, but Darcy had still been glad for it. It only made sense to extend the courtesy to Sarah and Steven – Joseph Rogers drank whatever pay check Sarah had been able to bring in, so they never had enough for themselves.

Darcy was sure she’d slip eventually, though. Steve Rogers touted an eidetic memory since being injected with his super serum, and Darcy only had so many recipes in her arsenal.

In the end, it wasn’t the food that gave her away. It was a morning after a Science!bender and Darcy was tired as hell but couldn’t sleep any longer. She shuffled out into the common kitchen and started the coffee pot. In the back of her mind, Darcy registered Steven sitting at the breakfast table, files and papers strewn across the whole surface. Without even thinking about it, she slipped.

“Steven, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. That table isn’t yours – you can’t take up the whole thing.”

“Sorry Mrs B.”

And just like that, Darcy was wide awake. Behind her, she could feel Steve freeze and his eyes begin to burn a hole in her head.

“Oh shit.”

Chapter Text

They were caught in some bizarre tableau, neither really prepared for whatever they imagined might happen if they moved. Darcy knew it was bound to happen, that Steve would find out, that she’d somehow give herself away – it was just the way the world worked – but like this?

“I haven’t even had my coffee yet,” she sighed, shoulders slumping as she hung her head.

Behind her, Steve was silent. So silent, in fact, Darcy was minorly concerned he’d had a brain aneurysm. Carefully, she peaked over her shoulder. Steve’s face was frozen but his eyes were bright.

“You okay over there?”

That seemed to snap him out of it. “JARVIS, enact privacy protocol 107-I-R.” His voice was tight but Darcy couldn’t tell if it was ‘I’m so happy I’m gonna puke’-tight or ‘I’m so mad I’m gonna puke’-tight.

“Code phrase, Captain? And I caution you: Sir has changed it back again.” JARVIS managed to sound sincerely apologetic about it.

Derailed, Steve frowned at the ceiling. “I thought we made it so he couldn’t do that anymore?”

“Sir has always had a nasty habit of re-writing things, Captain.”

Steve grimaced, looking genuinely pained. “Fine.” Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders. “Privacy protocol 107-I-R, code phrase… ‘I’m a yankee-doodle-dandy.’”

It was bitten out so bitterly, with such vehemence, Darcy choked on laugh.

“Oh god! Sorry!” she stuttered, turning to face him fully and trying to compose herself when she saw him glaring at her. “Tony’s really an asshole, making you say that every time you want to have a personal conversation.”

“He just doesn’t like that I don’t want him listening in on things,” Steve told her, giving an uncomfortable shrug. He stood from the table and approached her slowly. Darcy almost felt like she was under a microscope with how closely he was looking at her.

“Mrs B is dead,” he said carefully, like he wasn’t sure of the answer.

Darcy gave a slow nod, eyeing him to see what he'd do. “According to several official records… yes. Darlene Barnes died in 1958, quietly in her own bed. She was 60 years old.“

“And according to you?”

Darcy bit her lips. “According to me… It was the right time to move on.”

Steve was looking at her very closely now, practically standing on top of her. It felt like he was looking for something, some sign that she really was who he remembered. Whatever he was looking for he must have found because one minute Darcy had both feet firmly on the ground and the next, she was swept up into a rib-crushing hug with her toes barely brushing the kitchen tiles.

“I’m so angry,” Steve mumbled into her hair. “I can’t believe you lied to me about something so big – you were like a second mother to me, and all this time you never once let me know I wasn’t alone. But right now… Right now, I’m just can't believe you're actually here.”

Telling Steve, as it had been with telling Tommy Barnes, was an interesting study in facial expressions. Tommy had him beat in terms of how many new ones he made, but Darcy could tell that Steve was trying not to react more than anything. It just made the poor boy look constipated more than anything else.

But he took it, and took it well. Then he yelled at her for being a lying liar who lies. Which she was so she didn’t get too snotty about it. And really, it felt good to tell her story again. It felt even better to be able to tell it to someone she cared for, someone she watched grow… someone she was sure she’d lost forever.

Steve and Darcy holed up in Darcy’s rooms for the afternoon. Since the privacy protocol was still up, Steve would be notified if something of national importance happened, but they wouldn’t be disturbed aside from that. Darcy had a few boxes in her closet that held mementos from various ‘lives’ and time periods – things she collected to remind her of the people she’d loved and had to say good bye to.

One of those things was a photo album of Tommy, Jamie and the girls. It had been kept in a storage locker in Midtown while Darcy had been travelling overseas, but she took it out when she and Jane moved into the Tower. She figured Steve would want to see it once he found out. And she was right – he held that album like it was made of pure spun gold and delicate glass. He poured over every page, every picture.

Here was a young Darlene and Tommy Barnes on their wedding day, and again in front of their apartment building on the old block. Then Darlene with Sarah Rogers, each pregnant and fit to burst on a sunny spring afternoon. Tommy and Joseph Rogers on one of Joseph’s rare sober days, sitting on a building stoop and eating sandwiches. Steve paused at that one.

“Could you… could you tell me about him?” he asked. “My dad?”

Darcy baulked. “Umm…”

“It’s just, I remember my mom telling me stories about him,” Steve said, almost guilty-sounding. “But that was such a long time ago.”

“Sarah was a saint,” Darcy told him first and foremost. “Your mother was a saint, taking care of everyone the way she did. Your father…” Darcy frowned. She really didn’t want to paint too poorly a picture of the man, but she didn’t want to lie either. “Your father, before the war… Actually, you remind me a lot of how he was before the war. He was always getting into trouble, but for the right reasons. He and my Tommy – Mr B to you – they were stationed together for a while. Tommy would come home after training or something and he’d have so many stories about how Joseph got into it with one of the other men over something. There was this small man who’d joined up – a young kid who really shouldn’t have been in the war, but he wanted to serve. Joseph took him under his wing, I guess, and was always getting into scraps defending him. I don’t think the kid made it home the way Tommy and your father did, though, because after the war…” Darcy shook her head.

“Tommy always tried to get your father a job on whatever site or project he was working on. Joseph would be fine for a week or two, but then he’d start drinking and he just wouldn’t stop. Now we know what it’s called – post-traumatic stress disorder. But back then? It was just drunkenness. I mean, he’d always been a bit of a drinker – couldn’t be Irish without downing a stout or whiskey on the reg. But I think something he saw or went through with the war broke him somehow.” Darcy pushed some of her hair out of her face, mostly to give herself time to think. It had been such a long time since she’d thought about any of this. She honestly hadn’t thought of this in decades.

“When he came home, your mom tried holding him together, tried keeping everything going like she had before.” Darcy trailed off, remembering the constantly drained look on Sarah’s face during those early years.

“He was never violent,” Darcy recalled, still lost in all those memories. “Joseph Rogers was nothing if not a loving husband and father. When you were born, he was proud as could be. Crowed to bring the sun up. Even after he came home from the front, he’d just babble about how great you were, how much he loved his wife. How much he knew he didn’t deserve either of you. He was just… broken, and sad.”

Steve was silent at he studied the smiling man with light hair in the photo. “Doesn’t sound much like the way ma talked about him,” he muttered, voice a little choked.

“Sarah knew him better than I did,” Darcy defended. “I only really knew him after the war. Sarah had a whole life with him before Tommy or I met either of your parents.”

Steve said nothing, just looked at the photo for a few more moments and then turned the page.

“Lucy had such a crush on you,” Darcy cooed, tracing the edge of one of the photos. It was of Steve and her children grinning up at the camera, smiles wide like little gremlins. The boys were about 12, with her daughters 11, 9 and 5 respectively. Lucy and Steve were close to the same size, the girl clutching his arm to her side. “Your mother and I were sure you’d end up getting married when you were older. And Lucy did, too, for that matter.”

“Me and Lucy?” Steve sounded incredulous, but Darcy smirked.

“Oh yeah. Luce had the whole thing planned out by the time she was like… maybe 7 years old? It was gonna be the biggest wedding in the history of weddings. She was devastated when you joined the army.”

“She got married, though,” Steve remembered. “Right? I mean, the file on the Barnes family mentioned her getting married.”

Darcy shrugged with a bit of a grimace. “To the younger Kowalski boy, Frank. He was an alright guy and they did okay for a few years. Lucy got sick before they had any kids though – cancer. She died a year or so after that.”

Steve frowned and bit his lip. He studied the young girl next to him in the picture, her smile almost maniacal in its glee. He remembered her curly hair, her wide mouth always shooting off some nonsense, the dreams she had about what grown-up life would be like.

“Did she ever get to be a hair dresser?” he asked. “I remember that’s what she wanted to do – make women look pretty.”

Darcy smiled again, pride showing through. “Yeah, she did. Best one on the block, my Lucille.”

Afterwards, they ended up on Darcy’s couch watching old-school Bugs Bunny cartoons. Steve lay with his head in Darcy’s lap while she stroked his hair – just like when he was 10 and too sick to go to school but Sarah had to go to the clinic and couldn’t stay with him. His big arms were wrapped around the photo album.

“Do you miss them?” Steve eventually asked. His voice was a small, sad thing, and for a moment Darcy just wanted to gather him up in her arms and hold him forever.

“Yeah,” she said instead. “Sometimes more than others. I miss a lot of people, though. The thing is, Stevie…” Darcy sighed as she searched for the right words. “The thing is, the dead are dead. They don’t come back. The best we can do is remember them, how much they loved us and us them, and move forward.”

Steve was silent for a moment, lost in the colourful shenanigans on screen.

“You’ve had to do that a lot, I guess,” he eventually said. He sounded almost like the small child he had been, that she occasionally remembered him as.

“Yeah,” she confessed softly, running her hand over his head and smoothing his hair back. “It’s the only thing to do.”

“Pardon my intrusion,” JARVIS gently lowered the sound on the tv, and sounded genuinely apologetic about having to do so, “but Dr Foster is on her way up.”

“What time is it?” Darcy asked. Steve hadn’t made any movements, and a quick glance down showed the poor boy was sound asleep.

“It’s just past 7 in the evening, Miss Lewis.”

“Aw crap.” They’d missed dinner. And more importantly, she’d missed work. “Make her promise not to yell if she wants in – Steve’s asleep.”

“Of course, Miss Lewis.”

Jane blustered in anyway, irate that she’d been left alone with Tony and Bruce all day.

“Where have you been!?” she whisper-yelled. Well, at least she was being quiet for Steve.

“It’s been a day,” Darcy explained, motioning to the hunk of American hero curled on her lap like a child. “We got caught up in some stuff.”

“You left me with Tony!”

“I had stuff!!”

Steve snorted – freezing Darcy and Jane in their argument – but resettled, still asleep.

“Why is Captain America asleep on your lap?” Jane asked, as if she was only now realising Steve was there.

Darcy considered for a moment. Jane didn’t know about the 1850+ year-thing. Thor didn’t know his brother used to go around ‘granting’ immortality to humans for his own personal enjoyment. Perhaps it was best to keep it that way for now. “I told you – it’s been a day.”

“Someone’s got a boyfriend!” Tony sang when he saw Darcy in the lab. “I heard a certain Busty McGee was ensconced in her rooms with our resident All American Boy. C’mon, we're pals – dish.”

Darcy frowned. She’d changed that boy’s diapers; there was no way she’d be able to think about him in bed. “Me and Steve? Ew.”

“Ew?” Tony scoffed. “You’re the one huddled on the couch with him, missy. Tell me – does he really taste like apple pie? I mean, big and blonde has never really been my type, plus I’ve got Pepper, but I’ve been dying to know.”

She wasn't even going to bother asking how he knew about Steve being on her couch - Jane was defenseless against Tony and didn't have the same privacy protocols as JARVIS. Darcy just rolled her eyes and flapped her hands in his direction. “Shoo, fly. Don’t bother me.”

“Oh come on,” Tony wheedled. “Be a pal. Be a sport.”

“I’m going to ignore you now.”

“Inquiring minds need to know!” he tried again. “This could be a matter of national security.”

Darcy turned her back on him and started highlighting bits of data for Jane.

“Oh fine. Have it your way. I have better things to do anyway. You know, super genius philanthropist stuff. Like saving the world.” In the window across from her, Darcy saw a reflection of the 'super genius philanthropist' waggling his butt at her on his way out.

'I work with a bunch of weirdos.'

“Hey, Sam?” Steve paused in his morning run and waited for his friend to catch up. Sam bent at the waist in front of him, panting heavily, and motioned for Steve to continue.

“If, uh… Okay, so, have you dealt with veterans families much?”

Sam frowned but nodded, still winded.

“Okay.” Steve nodded to himself and searched for the words he wanted before continuing. “So, say a soldier who was declared MIA was found alive. What, uh… what would you -would you say to their family?”

Sam stood up and rubbed the cramp in his side, thinking for a moment. “What family are we talking about?”

“Like… a mother whose son has be presumed dead for… for a very long time.”

“Any idea what’s happened to the soldier while he was missing?”

Steve paused. “The worst.”

“I’m not sure, man,” Sam admitted after a moment. “Every case, every family is different, you know? You always want to be gentle about that kind of thing – it’s a huge shock for any one, but especially if they’ve already mourned their solider and let go. There’s gonna be a grief period – it isn’t the person they knew who’s going to be coming back. Certain things change a person, sometimes fundamentally, and it’s important to recognize that. If it really has been such a long time, chances are they’re going to have to rebuild a relationship. They’re both different people, even if they are family – even mother and son.” Sam took a big breath, mostly to stretch his stomach muscles. “Why? Who do you know?”

Steve, deep in thought, shook his head. “Just asking for a friend.”

The Tower’s privacy protocols kept private conversations from being recorded.

They didn’t drown out the screams and crying – the utter anguish – of a mother’s grief.

Tony didn’t know why it was so important that Steve and Darcy take a trip to DC, but he suspected it had something to do with the break down she’d had earlier that week. He (or rather, Pepper) sent a limo to pick them up from Regan National Airport.

The walk through Arlington Cemetery was silent, even though the paparazzi circled like vultures outside the gates. They wanted to know why the sudden trip, who the woman under the big hat and veil was, why Steve kept an arm around her shoulder, why he was in his old WWII uniform. Guards at the gate kept the reporters out and made no mention as Steve and Darcy walked through. They walked past rows and rows of markers, pristine stone sentinels keeping watch over the manicured lawn of the graveyard, until they found the one they were looking for.

Darcy had been here only a few times before – once when it was put up and a few times in March for his birthday.

James Buchanan Barnes
New York
SGT
US Army
World War II
March 1917 – December 1942

They stood there quietly for a while, remembering James before and during the war.

“My baby boy is dead,” Darcy choked out after a moment. “And the dead don’t come back. I know that.” She turned her face up to Steve and behind her veil he could see her face streaked with tears, her blue eyes rimed red. “But if you can bring… even the tiniest part of him back, Steven… you do it. And you be careful, but you better take down anyone who tries to stop you.”

There was steel behind that grief, an anger in her Steve had never seen before. It shocked him so much he found himself nodding before he even registered the movement of his head.

“Of course, Mrs B.”

Chapter Text

Steve set off to find Bucky not long after he and Darcy returned from Arlington. Darcy was trying to pull herself back together, get back into the swing of things with Jane and Science, so they weren’t able to spend much time together. One evening, though, Darcy caught him outside the communal kitchen.

“Everything will be fine,” he promised her. “Really. We’ll bring him home, I swear.”

Darcy shook her head. “Steven, listen to me. This is more than just a street fight. This is bigger than the Kowalski boys harassing Polly Donovan because she grew boobs before the other girls.” She bit her lips and took a breath, looking up at him. And didn’t he look just like Sarah, ready to martyr himself to save the whole world. “I want my son back, but not if the price is losing you, too. I want both of you to come home, do you understand me? And not in a pine box.”

There was a flinty look in her eyes, one Steve recognised from the first time she’d sent him to war. It didn't have the same fury as when she had looked at him in Arlington, so he hoped that maybe she was starting to feel more like herself again. Either way, he couldn't tell her no.

“Yes ma’am.”

They kept Bucky in a coma for a month and a half after bringing him back to the Tower. Steve and Darcy took turns keeping watch, much to the confusion of everyone else. The doctors said that Bucky might be able to hear them, so Steve and Darcy would talk to him, play him music and read to him when they were with him. For his safety and the safety of everyone who came to his room, Bucky was kept secured to his bed with reinforced straps in case his body metabolised the sedation drugs too quickly and he woke up violently.

Darcy hated to see him like that, but she understood why it was necessary. Steve hated it too, but again, he knew how much Bucky was likely to fight once he woke up.

It was very late when Steve entered Bucky’s hospital room. A battered, English-and-Latin copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses had been tossed onto a near-by table. Darcy was curled up on a spare gurney next to her son’s bed, one hand on his human arm as if to assure herself in her sleep that he was still there. Or maybe it was to assure Bucky that he wasn’t alone. Either way, it was late and Darcy needed to sleep in a real bed.

“Darcy,” he whispered, gently touching her shoulder. “Darcy, wake up. Hey… Mrs B.”

She jolted under his hand, gasping as she woke, her hand flexing on Bucky’s arm. “Oh. Steve… what time is it?” Her voice was hushed and husky with sleep.

“It’s 2 in the morning, Darce,” he told her. “You need to go back to your room. Come on, I’ll take you.”

Darcy shook her head and pulled away from the arm he was trying to put around her. She looked down at the man still comatose. “I don’t want to leave him alone. What if he wakes up and no one’s here?”

Steve bit his lip. “It’ll only be for a few minutes, Darcy. I’ll come right back, I promise. But you need a real bed now.”

Darcy hesitated, but eventually she nodded. “Okay.” She bent down and kissed her Jamie’s forehead. “Goodnight, sweetie. I love you.”

The doctors wanted to bring Bucky out of his coma slowly, in increments so they could monitor his brain functionality and responses. The super serum he’d been dosed with didn’t allow for that. Within a few hours of backing off the sedatives, Bucky was wide awake and fighting the restraints holding him down. He bucked and pulled, breaking skin on the edges of the steel-enforced leather. They almost drugged him again before Steve stepped in.

“Hey! Hey, Bucky.” Wild blue eyes landed on the Captain as Bucky panted and strained, looking like a trapped animal. “Bucky, you’re safe. You’re okay. No one here is going to hurt you.”

Bucky didn’t respond, but laid still. His body was still tensed, still ready to fight back as much as he could, but he didn’t move as the doctors checked his vitals. He kept his eyes trained on Steve while the doctor’s worked, jaw clenched tight, never wavering his focus.

Outside the hospital room, Darcy watched alone. She wouldn’t let herself go into her son’s room until all the doctors were finished; she didn’t want to be in the way. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.

“I used to do this for your father, you know,” Darcy murmured, whipping the round, soft bristled brush in the mug to thicken the lather. “I even found the same shaving cream soap we bought for you – that goat’s milk stuff? Found it in the Vermont Country Store catalogue. Man, they’ve got everything from way back.”

Darcy carefully started painting Bucky’s jaw with the creamy soap, and tried not to be hurt by the weary look in his eyes. “Anyway, I did this for your pop all the time. You might not remember, but you and your sisters liked watching me do it in the kitchen – giving him a shave and a hair trim over the sink. You and Lucy in particular. Lucy wanted to make the whole world pretty. You just knew that shaving was what men did, and boy you couldn’t become a man fast enough. You wanted to do everything your pop did.”

Darcy looked down at her tools and sighed. “Now, this would be better with a straight razor, but I don’t want to freak you out or hurt you by accident. So I’m going to do this with a safety blade, okay?”

She held it up so he could see it, turning it this way and that so he could inspect it from all sides. There was no indication that Bucky understood anything she said, which hurt and was slightly disappointing, but the show must go on. He did have that soap on his face, after all. And he needed to know that not everyone was going to hurt him. “Okay. I’m going to work from the side closest to me to the opposite side – don’t want to drag my dress through all this soap.”

Darcy kept up a gentle stream of chatter as she worked, keeping her voice soft and her hands steady. She spoke mainly of the past and how he had been as a boy. The fights he’d been in, the way he was with his sisters and with Steve. She talked about his job with Tommy as a mason before the war and the letters he’d sent home once he’d been deployed.

“Your father was so proud of you, Jamie,” she told him as she finished. “He loved you so much, and he was so proud of everything you did. If he were here now, even after all this time, he’d still be proud of you. And so am I.”

She wiped the leftover cream from his face and washed it gently, patting him down with a clean, dry towel afterwards. Darcy sat back and inspected her work.

“There you are,” she breathed. “There’s my son.”

Outside the room, behind the two-way mirror, Clint Barton was gaping at the scene and the voice coming from the safety intercom that was always on.

“JARVIS, tell me you got that.”

“As a security measure, I record all goings on not directly under privacy protocols, Mr Barton.”

“And that?”

JARVIS seemed to hesitate. “Neither Miss Lewis nor Sergeant Barnes are qualified for the clearance necessary to require one.”

“Oh thank fuck.”

“Okay!” Tony called out over the din. “Some one has to explain this to me. What’s going on with Hot Lips and the Superdudes? Is she banging one or both of them?”

“Not both,” Clint corrected. “She called Bucky her ‘son’ and had a shit ton of stories like… like a real mother would have.”

“You listened in on her private conversation?!” Jane, who felt she was really the only one there to defend Darcy since she couldn’t do it herself, was appalled. “How dare you!”

“The records on one Darcy Lewis don’t begin until the early 2000s,” Natasha added, skimming her Stark Pad as she spoke. “She popped up out of nowhere in Northern Italy and wandered her way through Europe, ending in England right before taking a flight to Virginia to start school at Culver University in 2006. Upon further investigation, the background information she provided on her paperwork to SHILED and to Stark Industries, while identical, didn’t hold up.”

“And Bucky’s mom is…” Bruce floundered for a delicate term but found none.

Natasha flipped through her information again. “While the early life of Darlene Barnes is hazy at best, she definitely died in her bed in 1958,” she confirmed. “She was cremated and her remains are buried next to her husband’s at Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.”

“So Darcy Lewis is an unknown who has wormed her way into our midst, possibly for nefarious purposes,” Tony extrapolated. His nervous hands snatched a laser pointer from a side table and he began fiddling with it, the red light blinking rapidly in and out of existence. He wished Pepper were here instead of at some stupid conference in Tokyo – she would be calm, cool and level headed and he kind of needed that right now.

Jane let out an aggravated huff, tossing her arms up to flap them down at her sides. “Darcy hasn’t wormed her way into anything!”

“This is very strange,” Natasha mumbled to herself, frowning at the images on her Stark Pad. Clint and Thor moved to hover over her shoulder. She manipulated the images on the screen for them to see. “Look.”

On the right was a photograph of the Barnes family from 1925. Thomas and Darlene Barnes posed in front of their apartment building with their children, James (8), Rebecca (7), Lucille (5) and an infant Catherine in Darlene’s arms. On the left was a picture from 2011 of Darcy holding up a puppy. It was the same woman in both photos, differing only in style of dress and quality of photograph.

“Holy shit.”

“Could we not simply ask the young woman ourselves?” Thor supposed, still looking closely at the screen.

“Ask who what?”

The group turned as one to the communal living room entry. Steve and Sam stood there, gym bags in hand, Sam significantly sweatier than his blonde friend.

Tony pointed with his presentation laser, the red dot landing dead centre on Steve’s chest. “Steven, share with the class – who is Darcy Lewis?”

Steve shrugged, careless. It was an effortless but practiced move, like he’d been expecting a point in time where he’d have to lie about this. “She’s Dr Foster’s assistant. She’s nice.”

Tony was unimpressed. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with her now, young Steven.”

“Perhaps, Captain,” Thor stepped forward, “you could shed some light on what you know of her?”

Steve looked down at Sam, who shrugged. “I know about as much of Darcy Lewis as any of you do.”

Clint made a disgusted sound and shook his head. “We know something's up, Cap,” he said, looping his way around the furniture to the front. “I heard her call your pal ‘son’ and she had all these stories like he really was her son. What’s going on?”

“She has been acting strangely since just before you both left for Arlington,” Natasha added cautiously. She recognized the look in Steve’s eyes, that hard look that said no one was getting any information from him about anything. “Steven, if you’ve been compromised –”

“Look,” Steve raised his hands to stop her. “You guys want answers about Darcy, you’re gonna have to ask her yourselves. It’s her story and if she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”

“You’re sure it isn’t your story too?” Natasha asked, flipping through her Stark Pad before showing it to him. On the screen were two pictures: one of a pair of 10 year old boys, Steve and Bucky, leaning against either side of Darlene Barnes; the other of Darcy Lewis posing next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Steve’s lips tightened and Nat cursed herself for pushing too hard. Steve could be such a mule when he put his mind to it.

“Like I said, you’re gonna have to ask her yourselves.”

After much debate, Natasha was voted to get the skinny on Darcy. She wasn’t emotionally involved like Jane or Thor were, and Clint and Tony weren’t as skilled as getting information as Nat was. Bruce would just sit there and wait for Darcy to say something, which wasn’t nearly as effective as he thought it was. Naturally, the only way to get anything out of Darcy was to ambush her.

“I have been looking for you everywhere,” Natasha said as Darcy turned on the lights one evening. She’d slipped through one of Darcy’s outer windows, slinking through the living room to wait on the couch. She had been curious about Darcy’s things, but resisted the temptation to go through them. The girl would tell her everything she needed to know.

Darcy gasped, dropping her keys and the box of take out she’d ordered to the front desk.

“Holy shit,” she breathed, clutching her chest and waiting for her heart to even out. “What do they teach you in spy school? Lurking 101?”

“Lesson number one: ’Lurking is best done in the dark,’” Natasha recited, playful smile on her lips. She decided to start with a friendly approach, then move on to more direct methods as the interview went on.

“I should know better,” Darcy muttered, picking up her things. “Spies do spy things.”

“They teach you that in college?”

The brunette huffed out a chuckle. “First lesson of non-lurking 101. Hey, I got extra Thai – you want some? Yellow curry tofu and dragon noodles.”

“Sounds wonderful if you don’t mind sharing.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, what’s this all about?” Darcy asked, moving to set her things on the table. “I mean, it’s cool but… you don’t typically just appear in my apartment for dinner and to brush up on your lurking.”

“You’re right.” Apparently it was time for the ‘direct’ portion of the evening. Natasha pulled up the photographs on her Stark Pad and slid them across the table as Darcy came back from the kitchen, plates and napkins in her hands. “Care to tell me a story?”

Darcy paused and looked down.

“Man, they were some cute kids,” she sighed after a moment. Darcy sat heavily in her chair, abandoning the plates and Thai to a corner for later (much later) and leaned her elbows on the table. She scrubbed her face with her hands and pushed her hair back as she gathered her thoughts. “Okay – story time, then Thai. Though I warn you, we’ll probably have to reheat dinner once all this is done. Anyway, once upon a time, in about 160 AD or thereabouts, there was a girl named Dianna Lucilla.”

Natasha was silent when Darcy had finished. It was a lot to take in, the enormity of it all. But, given the circumstances of her own life, she knew how to roll with things. “So what do I call you?”

Darcy shrugged. “Whatever you’d like. Dianna, Darlene… Steve calls me Mrs B every now and then, like he used to. But I’m Darcy Lewis now.”

The redhead considered that for a moment before asking her next question. “Do you still pray to your gods?”

“Sometimes?” answered Darcy with a frown. “I mean, not really. But occasionally I guess.”

“And you knew who Loki was when he attacked New York?”

That one wasn’t answered directly, only with a head jerk to the side. Natasha read guilt and unease in Darcy’s posture, the slide of her eyes and the set of her shoulders.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Darcy bit her lips, fiddled her fingers on the table top, and Natasha’s eyes narrowed.

“You didn’t say Loki's name when you were telling your story,” she realised. “You only mentioned that he wore an antlered helmet and was exiled, from a place you’d never been to before.”

Darcy’s hands clenched into fists.

“You can’t talk about him directly, can you?” This was less of a question and more a confirmation. The immortal woman nodded once anyway. “That’s very fascinating. I’m sure Thor will be interested in hearing about this.”

Darcy let out a sigh of release, and like a snapped rubber band she sprawled her torso over the tabletop. “You have no idea how terrible it was to know and not be able to say anything. Thor’s such a cool guy and I couldn’t even tell him the answers I knew he needed! I so wanted to help and I couldn’t. It was horrible!”

“Back to the issue at hand, though,” Natasha redirected. “You didn’t think to tell any of us about your connection to Steve or the Winter Solider, either.”

Darcy looked up, a baleful expression set on her face. “Seriously? Who the hell would believe me? I’m a woman from the Roman Empire who was given immortality because someone was having a bad millennia. My son and pseudo-son – born in the early 1900s, beeteedubs – were super-serumed in WWII. I thought they were both dead, but actually one of them was turned into a bionic Soviet-turned-MegaNazi assassin and the other a symbol of Freedom and the American Way. Both of them stumbled back into my life within the past year and a half. You wanna ask me again why I didn’t say anything?”

Natasha’s face was blank. “You live with a WWII-era super soldier, a Norse god who is the crown prince of his alien world, a boundary-pushing genius astrophysicist, the most powerful business mind in the world, a specially engineered assassin spy, an almost super-human sniper with a fetish for archaic weaponry, a brilliant chemist who has the ability to literally turn into a giant green rage monster, a genius billionaire with nothing better to do than build himself flying suits of armour, and a man who routinely flings himself off of buildings for fun because flying in planes is boring.” She paused for a moment. “You wanna tell me again why you didn’t say anything?”

Darcy had nothing to say to that, except: “Hey, you want Thai food? I’d kill for some Thai right now. Oh wow! Thai food, right here on the table. How handy.”

The first time Bucky spoke, it was to ask Steve what year it was.

“Um… It’s, uh, it’s 2015, Bucky.” Steve sat down slowly next to the bed, both men eyeing each other carefully. When Bucky didn’t say anything else, Steve felt it might be okay to prod. “What else would you like to know? Um, you can ask me anything.”

Bucky squinted at Steve. “I know you.”

Steve smiled a little, his shoulders relaxing. “Yeah, you do. I’m Steve Rogers. We grew up together, fought in a war side-by-side. You’re my best friend.”

Bucky waited a beat. “I tried to kill you.”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, you did. They, um… HYDRA had you brainwashed so you barely knew your ass from your elbow. They told you to kill me.”

“I wanted to kill you.”

That was hard to hear, but Sam had prepped Steve for it. “That was the brainwashing. It's a response to pain conditioning – they hurt you when you didn’t do what they wanted, so eventually you started to want to do what they said, if only so you didn’t get hurt. As I understand it, they, uh… they hurt you a lot, Buck.” Steve swallowed the clog in his throat. “But I swear, you won’t ever be treated like that again. You get to do what you want to do, and only what you want to do. As long as you aren’t hurting yourself or anybody else, no one here will ever try to stop you.”

Bucky didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t refute Steve’s claim. “You call me Bucky.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes – you started wanting us to call you Bucky in… I think 5th grade?”

“The woman who comes,” Bucky jumped. “She calls me something else.”

Steve took a deep breath. “Yeah, she’s uh… she’s always called you Jamie.”

“Why?”

Steve looked down at his hands and bit his lip. He wasn’t quite sure how to explain it, wasn’t sure if he should try when Darcy wasn’t even here. “I think maybe… maybe that’s for her to tell you, Buck.”

“You said to ask you anything.”

“Yeah, I did,” Steve admitted with a slow nod. “Um… How, how about I get her to come here? Then she can tell you herself. Would that be okay?”

Bucky narrowed his eyes at Steve, like he thought the blonde man was trying to back out of a promise.

“She’ll really tell you,” Steve tried to reassure even as he was standing to call a nurse. “Anything you ask, she’ll tell you the truth. It might seem strange, but I swear, Bucky, she’d never lie to you.”

Darcy arrived 10 minutes later, out of breath. “I came as soon as I got the page. What’s going on?”

“Come in and sit down, Darce,” Steve pushed his friend down into the other guest chair and turned it so she was facing Bucky head on. “Go on, Bucky – ask her.”

Bucky’s lips thinned as he and Darcy stared at each other. A minute ticked by, then two, three, but Bucky kept silent.

“I promise, Darcy, he had a question he wanted to ask you,” Steve murmured, not able to stand the quiet anymore. Darcy just shushed him.

“He can talk when he wants to,” she told him, keeping her gaze locked with her son’s. “Jamie’s always been that way.”

“That.” It burst from Bucky’s lips like he wasn’t expecting it. “You call me Jamie. Not Bucky. Why?”

Darcy blinked, thrown. “I’ve… I’ve always called you that. Since you were born.”

“He said it was 2015.”

“And you’ve been ‘born’ for a while, huh?” Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Well sonny, I’ve been ‘born’ a lot longer than you.”

“You are very young,” Bucky stated but Darcy snorted at him.

"Not really, bud. I’m, uh… I’m older than a lot of people, actually.” He didn’t look too sure about it, so she explained. “Jamie, I was born around 140 AD. I am 1875 years old.” She paused to let that sink in for a sec. “I’m also your mother.”

Bucky’s eyes shot over to Steve, who shrugged. “I told you it would seem strange but she’d never lie to you. This is your ma, Bucky.”

Bucky looked at Darcy again, closer this time like he was inspecting her. “You told me stories, before.”

She nodded and edged closer to his bed. “I did. When the doctors had you in a coma and after you woke up. I’ll tell you as many as you like, as many times as you’d like. But if you want, I can try to remember not to call you Jamie. If it bothers you, I mean.”

Bucky kept staring at her, like she was some new species of animal he wanted to take apart and figure out. Eventually he shook his head.

“Call me Jamie,” he told her. “Only you.”

Darcy had to bite her lips and pray that the tears she could feel welling in her eyes didn’t spill over. It felt like some missing piece of herself was sliding back into place, after being gone forever. She swallowed a few times and nodded. “I can do that.”

Thor, understandably, was quite upset over what his brother had done to her.

“BY THE POWER OF ODIN, THIS SHALL NOT STAND!!!” he roared, the sky outside turning a very nasty shade of green. “THE BLATANT DISREGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE, THE VERY ESSENCE OF THE HUMAN EXISTENCE!! My Lady Darcy, I swear on my hammer, on my throne, and on my kingdom, your life shall be restored unto you.”

“Whoa,” Darcy stepped forward, hands raised in caution. “Hang on there, big guy. No hasty decisions there, okay? Let's think this through now, alright?”

“What is there to think?” the prince questioned, genuinely bewildered. “My brother has robbed you of your life’s completion. He did so without your consent, and for his own merriment!”

“I’ve seen tons of shit I’d never even know about,” she argued, prodding Thor’s chest with a finger. “And you know, I don’t really know what would happen if he gave it back now. I mean, would I age like I was meant to? Or would I melt like those guys in Raiders of the Lost Ark or that dude from The Last Crusade? And hey – since this whole thing went down, I’ve never been sick. I got to avoid the whole syphilis thing and influenza and Black Plague. That was kind of cool, and disgusting to watch happen to other people. So let's just, let's just think about this for a sec, okay?”

“Wait wait wait,” Clint butted in. “Are you saying you want to stay this way? You want to keep watching all your friends and loved ones die?”

Darcy gave an uncomfortable shrug. “I’ve been around for a long time, Clint – some things you sort of get used to, even though you maybe shouldn’t. Plus,” she added brightly, “I’ve been hanging around the world for so long, I’m kinda invested in seeing how it ends, you know? Like, you don’t walk out during the middle of a movie, not what it’s just starting to get good.”

Darcy frowned and bit her lips. “But… I mean, I’ve also got Steven and Jamie back now. Maybe… maybe this time I’ll have a family for a while. And you know, who knows how long it’ll take Jamie to recover – could be longer than just one lifetime. I… I want to be there for him. I’m supposed to be there for him.”

“Going for Mother of the Year?” Tony mocked.

“Close,” Darcy snarked back. “Mother of the Millennia. Why? Were you going for the same award?”

“You wish – I’d have you beat any day.”

“You can’t even remember to feed a goldfish, Tony,” Darcy sneered as she rolled her eyes. “You’d never make it as a parent.”

“Funny you should mention that, Darcy,” Pepper said, coming through the door still dressed in her work clothes. Her shoes were in one hand, briefcase and blazer in the other. “Hello, all. Hope I didn’t interrupt anything. Tony,” she put a hand on his shoulder and brushed a kiss against his cheek, “when you get a moment, I’d like to speak to you privately.”

Chapter Text

Darcy Lewis had been imagining what her father was like her whole life. When she was five, he’d been a king from a far-off land, and one day he’d come and she’d be a real-life princess. When she was eight, he was a billionaire spy who couldn’t be with her or her mother because of the danger they’d be in. When she was eleven, he was a king again, this time with a distinct ‘Princess Diaries’ motif. When she was fifteen, Darcy finally confronted her mother (after being caught trying to dig through her mom’s old diaries and journals for answers).

“I just…” Darcy shrugged. “I just don’t know anything about the guy, you know? And you – you don’t even date! So what, are you waiting for him? He must’ve been something special if you’re waiting for him, right?”

Stephanie Lewis gave a small laugh, a strange sound that didn’t seem like she found anything funny at all. “No, sweetheart, I’m not waiting for him. And… God, I never wanted to tell you this, Darcy.” Steph scrubbed her hands over her face, elbows braced against her knees. “No one should ever have to learn this,” she mumbled, the sound muffled against her palms.

“Your father… the man who donated half of your DNA… he was not a good man, sweetie.” She cleared her throat and looked down, suddenly captivated by her cuticles. “I know you’ve always had such… lofty ideas about him, and why he wasn’t with us, but I have to tell you… it’s a good thing he isn’t here.”

Darcy didn’t say anything – it was obvious her mother was struggling with something. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach, though. Darcy had a feeling that by the end of this, she’d regret ever thinking anything about having or wanting a dad.

“When I was in grad school, I waitressed to help pay for classes. There was a 24-hour diner near campus, and all my classes were in the afternoon so I could take the graveyard shift and it wouldn’t be such a big thing. I walked to work; it was so close to my place. And one evening…” Steph cleared her throat again, feeling the blood drain from her head even after all this time. “One evening I didn’t make it to work.”

“Mom-“ Darcy choked out, but her mother didn’t hear her.

“It was November and very windy. I was running a bit late that night, but I didn’t want to take any of the alley shortcuts because…” she made that sound again, that nothing’s-funny laugh. “I thought they were dangerous. But alleys are just a place to walk. It’s people who are dangerous.”

Stephanie took a deep breath. She had decided long ago that she’d never lie to Darcy about this, but she’d spare the more gruesome details where she could. The feeling of his breath against her neck, the sound of her screams, how her clothes and skin tore under what felt like claws. The way he'd shoved and pulled, the feeling of the concrete against her face when he pushed her onto her stomach, the way he laughed at her as she cried. She'd fought so hard, but he'd been so much stronger. A cold sweat broke out over Stephanie's skin and her stomach roiled. No, she wouldn't tell her daughter any of that. Those were things she hoped Darcy would never know.

“I don’t remember much of that night – just snippets. When I woke up in the hospital, they told me what had happened. Said it looked like I’d been mauled by an animal, that it was a miracle I’d survived. A couple months later, I found out I was pregnant. It was…” and this was an incredibly difficult thing to admit, “It was a bad time. I was still recovering from the attack, mentally, and I just.... I’d considered having an abortion, for maybe a week, but I decided against it. There’s nothing wrong with getting one, but I just… I just couldn’t. Then I figured adoption. Just because I wasn’t okay with having a baby, that didn’t mean that the baby didn’t deserve parents who loved it. That helped, actually, those first few months. By initially deciding to give the baby up for adoption, that meant that I wasn’t carrying my baby – I was carrying someone else’s. I had to take good care of myself and of the baby, because that baby didn’t belong to me. That changed, obviously. Around five and a half months… I felt you move.” Steph looked up at her daughter, love and wonder shining in her eyes.

“I was looking at profiles for families the adoption centre had sent over, and you moved – a little hand rubbing the inside of my stomach. It was… the most amazing feeling. And with every little pet, every kick, I fell more and more in love with you, Darcy. So by the time you were born, when I first held you, you were mine. One hundred per cent mine. There was nothing about your existence that had anything to do with… with what had happened. You were just my Darcy. I have never looked at you and regretted you; never was reminded about that night when I held you.”

Steph reached out and covered Darcy’s cold hands with her own. “You are my daughter, and I have done everything I can to make sure you know how much I love you. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the father you wanted. And I’m sorry I don’t have a happier story to tell you about him.”

It took Darcy a while to come to terms with what her mother had told her. Eventually, she realised that no, he mom wasn’t lying about how much she loved her and no, Darcy’s life really didn’t need a dad. It was hard having the illusion shattered – the dreams she’d built about what that man would be like when she was a child – but Darcy’s mom quickly became hero enough for three people (as if she wasn’t already). Seriously; Stephanie Lewis was the coolest, strongest, most amazing mom in the history of moms. All other moms should be taking notes – Darcy sure as hell was.

Chapter Text

“You need to eat more.”

Pepper startled out of the light doze on the couch when Steve flopped down next to her. He carried two peaches and held one out to her. “Um… Sorry. What?”

“You’re hot all the time – your core body temperature is through the roof now, even if the pathogen is stabilized.” Steve shrugged at Pepper’s disbelieving face. “Tony and Bruce briefed the team. But I know what that’s like – suddenly being warm and hungry and tired all the time.” He held the peach closer to her, waggling it a little as he took a bite out of his.

“You’ll feel better,” he wheedled when she still wouldn’t take it. “Come on, Darcy went out to this fresh market in Harlem and they’ve got this really awesome fruit stand.”

“I’m just… still not used to this, I guess,” Pepper admitted, taking the peach delicately between her pointer finger and thumb. Steve shrugged his large shoulders again and swallowed a mouthful of juicy, fleshy fruit.

“It takes a while. You need to start building in eating time into your day, carrying snacks around with you if you can’t. Take naps when you have to and don’t feel bad about it.”

“I run a multibillion dollar company,” Pepper scoffed and brought the peach up to her nose for a smell. “I can’t just go pop off for a nap like a five year old.”

Now it was Steve’s turn for disbelief. “Your blood is molten lava and if you want to, you can melt anything you touch. I think the shareholders will understand an occasional nap.”

Pepper took another sniff of the peach, that sweet summer smell, and gave Steve a speculative glance. “You were in the middle of a war with this, weren’t you?”

“And I was a showgirl before that so when did I nap, right? Whenever I could. Tour busses are cramped but you’d be amazed what you get used to in a pinch.”

“Even a war zone?”

“Eh, not so much time then. But I’d gotten a rhythm down. And it helped that Bucky and the guys…” Steve’s face fell just a little – tightness formed in the smallest corners of his mouth and some of the light dimmed in his eyes.

“It helped that you had someone there to watch your back?” she guessed. “Some one who kept you from sleeping too long?”

Steve looked down at his lap and took a deep breath. “Sure. And now I’ve got the team, so it’s… But anyway, you need that, you know? Someone’s gotta watch out for you. And Tony’s an alright guy, but… So, you know, I thought…”

Pepper placed one of her hands over Steve’s, suddenly reminded how young the super soldier really was. “Thanks for the peach, Steve.”

Chapter Text

The alarm went off at 3am, which stopped being funny Darcy’s freshman year at Culver University. It was even less funny now, when she was three years graduated, especially given the hip-to-waist ratio the fire alarm woke her from. It took her a moment to realise what exactly the hell was going on – the fire alarms in her building never worked. At least, they didn’t when Darcy burnt dinner… and breakfast.

She fought her way out of her covers and grumbled as she dragged on her biggest frumpy cardigan and shoved her feet into the closest pair of shoes – her comfortable yet tragically ugly work flats. Her phone and keys disappeared into the cardigan’s deep pockets as she stumbled past the hall table and into the kitchen. She needed to wrap her hamster. Fuzzwad Dorkface Lewis III might have been the coolest hamster on the block, but he pissed like a racehorse when he was scared. As much as Darcy loved the little monster, there was no way in hell she was getting hamster pee on her Cookie Monster pyjama pants – no matter how annoying that fire alarm was.

Tucking her wallet under her arm, Darcy didn’t bother locking the door behind her as she left. The only valuable thing Darcy owned (aside from Fuzzwad and her phone) was her laptop. But that was in Jane’s lab, hooked up to Science!things, gathering overnight data for Darcy to go through in the morning. In… four hours. So it didn’t matter if there wasn’t a fire – there was nothing to steal – and if there was one, well… what was the point in locking a door that was going to burn down anyway?

“Something better actually be on fire,” she grumbled, mostly to herself as she congregated on the opposite sidewalk with the rest of the building tenants. "If I find out I left a comfy bed and Captain America’s rippling pectorals for a false alarm, I’m gonna be pissed.”

“They are pretty tasty.”

Darcy turned and eyed the man next to her. He was clad in sagging gym shorts and athletic sandals, a man-tank tossed over one shoulder like he meant to put it on at some point. The streetlight was shoody at best, but... damn - man looked like he knew his way around a gym. He had a pretty charming smile, too - another plus in the 'Happy To Meet You In My Pjs' column. On a leash at his feet laid a largish dog, utterly disinterested in the growing commotion.

“You’re not too bad there, yourself, Joe Boxer.”

He laughed and stuck out his hand. “Sam Wilson,” he said, still flashing those perfectly straight, though slightly gapped teeth. “Peebles here and I live in 2A.” Sam’s hand was dry when she took it and firm, calloused.

“Darcy Lewis, 3E. Me and the Fuzzwad.” She gestured with the towel-wrapped hamster. “Voted best hamster in the tri-state area.”

“Cool. And the towel burrito is because…?”

Darcy shrugged. “Bladder control problem.”

“And to still able to pull out a win like that?” Sam joked, laughing again. “Good for him.”

Chapter Text

Tony and Darcy are siblings... sort of. Not in the traditional sense, or even in the untraditional sense. It’s… unconventional, really, but the fact of the matter is that Howard Stark played a key role in both of their creation. So they sort of are siblings.

It’s weird.

Happy remembers Darcy. Or rather, he remembers Miss Lewis. He’s known Tony his whole life, and before Mr Howard and Ms Maria’s accident, Miss Lewis had been their nanny/tutor/chaperone/bodyguard/all-around keeper. In theory, Howard Stark could have just hired someone, but Tony was his boy – his only legacy. Humans have unknown variables; robots do what they’re programed to do. And they can’t be bribed or scared into submission. It made more sense to make what he wanted then to hire someone and hope for the best.

Mr Howard had started prototyping versions of Miss Lewis before Tony was born and had finished her final programing when both of the boys were about three years old. He had modelled her physical appearance after a pin-up Howard had been particularly fond of in his younger years, and Happy understood that her functioning protocols were fashioned after the real life Agent Margaret Carter (the one who had really known Captain America!).

Miss Lewis corralled, cajoled, and had generally been unshakable when the boys were younger. Nothing got past her and she took zero shit, from anyone. When Tony started spinning up, Miss Lewis was there to make sure he landed safely back in his own head. When Mr Howard was too demanding or Ms Maria too cold, Miss Lewis provided the comfort and stability Tony needed. She was the one constant in Tony’s young life.

Then Mr Howard and Ms Maria died.

Tony hadn’t been close with his parents, not by a long shot, which Happy’s mom always thought was sad. But their deaths had sent the young Stark into a serious tailspin. Miss Lewis had tried to temper his… well, his temper like she had before but this time, Tony was unstoppable. After one outrageously loud argument between him and the AI, Tony shut Miss Lewis down and re-wrote her programing.

Tony finished three days later and released Darcy Lewis – perpetual college student with a serious snarky-streak and hidden mother-hen tendencies – out into the world and did his absolute best to forget a sober world even existed.

And Darcy… She never looked back.

When Jane and Darcy arrive at Avengers Tower, Tony calls Darcy C-3PO. Everyone thinks this is to do more with the human-side of the Human-Cyborg Relations bit. She is a Science!wrangler, after all. Well, everyone brushes it off except Agent Coulson, who manages to maintain his zen-like demeanour but can’t keep his eyes from lighting up. Suddenly, all the weird gaps and blank spaces in Darcy Lewis’ file make sense.

When Tony secrets Darcy down to his lab a week later for upgrades (seriously, almost 20 years had gone by – her insides were ancient – and he kind of owed it to her for abandoning her), Phil blackmails them into letting him watch. He promises to play goalie and keep Pepper and Jane out of the lab while Tony takes the time to work on Darcy properly. Which is actually pretty great.

After a three-day binge of non-stop work, Darcy and a semi-haggard Tony traipse out of the elevator. Jane looks upset that her assistant/minion had been practically kidnapped, but Darcy smiles and starts rattling off how cool the lab is and how shiny the toys and how much Jane’s gonna love it. Pepper does not look amused when Tony falls face-first on the couch to pass out, but Phil tosses an afghan over him and she seems a bit mollified.

Phil, Tony and Darcy don’t say anything about inner arc reactor cores, repulsors hidden in palms and feet, or synthetic skin.

When Happy meets Miss Lewis again, he has to keep himself from crowing. She looks exactly the same – right down to that slow, sly smile Howard had given her – and while she might act younger than he ever remembers her being, she’s still pretty quick. And she totally remembers him, too - she brings him the snacks he'd loved as a kid when she gets the chance.

He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed her until he saw her again. He wonders if Tony feels the same.

“We could put machine guns in there.”

“Still super tacky, Tony.”

“No, seriously – I could totally make it work!”

“And ruin like, all my shirts. Plus it’s gross.”

“C’m on! How awesome would that be? The surprise factor alone-”

“Is not enough to make me let you put machine guns in my boobs, Tony. This isn’t Austin Powers – I am not a fembot.”

“… But you could be.”

“No!”

Darcy looked at the arm in her lap, wires and tubing sparking out of the shoulder socket, and sighed. The synthetic skin was torn at the joint – it was going to be a bitch to recouple without too much scarring. Darcy carefully heaved herself off the ground and picked her way around the wreckage, dodging agents as they ran around. No one really noticed her as she carried her arm to the safe room – they were too busy trying to get everything under control. Darcy would normally help them evacuate the building and start triaging the injured until the actual medics showed up, but… you know… there was the arm and wires and tubing to think of.

“Hey JARVIS?” Darcy called out once she got to the safe room.

“Yes, Miss Lewis?”

“Let Tony know about my arm, would you?”

“Certainly Miss Lewis. One moment, please.”

Darcy wandered over to the sturdy couch and took a closer look at the ragged joint of her arm. She might be able to reattach it herself – Tony had stored copies of all of her schematics in her mainframe – but hardware and electrical engineering were more Tony’s shtick than her's, and he’d just get mad at her if something went wrong.

“Darce, babe,” Tony’s voice rang out. “J said you took a hit.”

“I’m fine, really.” She gave a one-armed shrug, even though no one could see her. “You’re gonna have to reattach my left arm, though. There was a scuffle here at HQ – those alien dudes did some renovating, tore shit up. Including me.”

“You made it to the safe room, right? Anyone see you?”

Darcy rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “Tony, a chunk of the building is gone – I’m pretty sure no one was paying any attention to me, my arm, and the fact that we weren’t all buddy-buddy like normal.”

Jane had no clue about Darcy until Tony let it slip, and was very put out when Thor revealed that he’d known the whole time. But really… he was a god. Tony wasn’t surprised that of all the people who could have known right off the bat, it was someone who possessed for-realises magic.

Pepper… Pepper needed to have a spa day after she found out.

In the wake of her own miraculous transformation and New York still being in shambles because aliens were real, the Darcy-is-a-robot-built-by-Howard-Stark craziness was just… crazy. Too much crazy to deal with right now.

So she and Natasha went on a spa day, dragging Jane out of her lab to join them. Maria was too busy doing damage control (seriously) to go with them this time, but Pepper scheduled another group session for two months down the line and Maria was going with them come hell or high water. So Pepper had a spa day with the girls, and when she returned things were… not better, but not as bad as they seemed.

Yes, Pepper had been kidnapped by a crazy, evil genius; but now she can keep up with the other supers in her life. And she could heat her own bath, which was lovely. And yes, mayors on both sides of the coast were after her for funds to help clean up; but three parks were going to be named after her, the Maria Stark Foundation, and the Avengers in each city. It was in the contract for the funds – if the cities wanted the money to rebuild, they’d have to make those parks.

The Aliens thing was a bucket of whatever that Pepper wasn’t going to touch if her life depended on it – she didn’t need to be involved with everything. Especially not that.

The Darcy-as-a-robot thing was small potatoes, really. Weird, Only-Stark potatoes, but small ones. Pepper Potts could deal with small, weird potatoes.

After a spa day.

“Really, I’m surprised Obi didn’t say anything about her. He could have caused some real damage if what he did with your initial suit model was any kind of hint.”

“I don’t think old baldy knew.”

“Wasn’t he your dad’s best friend?”

“Doesn’t mean he knew everything. You don’t know everything.”

“… Did you just call me your best friend without saying I’m your best friend?”

“Stop fishing, Rhodey.”

Steve was… oddly disheartened when he found out. Amazed, yeah – it’s pretty awesome that Howard made such a convincing replica of humanity. Though if anyone could have made a robot like Darcy, it was Howard. But still, Steve felt a bit like he’d… missed out on something and spent the next few days avoiding Darcy and Tony if he can help it. Naturally, Tony was having none of that.

About three days after the big reveal, Tony corners the super solider in the communal kitchen before everyone else gets up (Steve was going to work out; Tony just hasn’t been to bed yet).

“What’s up with you, Steve-o? Haven’t seen your shining face all bright eyed and bushy-tailed in a while. Missed you,” he cooes sarcastically. Because even Tony’s care and concern end up sarcastic.

“Nothing,” Steve says, shaking his head a little too hard, hoping Tony accepts the brush off and lets him go. “Nothing’s up. Just been busy.”

“I call bullshit,” Tony counters and Steve sighs. “You’ve been weird since you found out about Darcy. And I know it can’t be because of the whole ‘She’s a Robot’ thing because you’re fine with the Iron Man suit and you even pet DUM-E like he’s actually a dog. So what gives?”

Steve eyes the kitchen counter for a moment, chewing on the inside of his lip and picks at a spot on the granite. He makes a jerky, awkward gesture with his shoulders and head, like an aborted attempt to casually shrug.

“I just…” Steve’s shoulders slump and he shakes his head again. “I didn’t think she was a robot.”

This doesn’t explain his behaviour. “And you…?”

“And I thought that maybe I could…” Steve blushes like a fourteen-year-old boy, surprising Tony. “You know… That she might…”

But then the pieces fall together and Tony has to try really hard not to laugh. “… Want to fondue?” He tries really hard.

Steve flushes harder and hunches his shoulders up around his ears. “You know, I kinda hate Howard for ever telling you that story.”

“Well, I kinda hate Howard period, so at least you’re catching up.”

“Look, I’m not gonna… not any more, any way. But she’s nice and she’s kind and she cares about people and…”

“And she reminds you of a certain taller brunette someone?”

Steve fists a hand and presses it into the counter in front of him. “’Cause she was programed to.”

“And I re-programed her after dear old mom and dad died. I kept some of her better parts, but the whole ‘Stiff Upper Lip’ thing is long gone.”

Steve starts biting his inner lip again. “You kept the parts that matter.”

Tony doesn’t know what to say to that, so he redirects. “Look, you can still ask her out.”

“The words can come out of my mouth, sure,” Steve turns back to Tony and rolls his eyes and a part of the Iron Man is kinda proud of him for it. “But it’s not like it’ll amount to anything, now will it?”

It takes Tony a moment to catch on, and he’s rather surprised that Captain America is asking him if he could have sex with a robot. “You’re talking about sex with robots.”

“No! God – Tony!”

“Hey,” Tony raises his hands and takes a step back. “Your life; your moves. And sex with robots happens a lot more often these days than you’d think.”

“You’re an idiot, Tony,” Steve mutters, shaking his head as he moves around Stark and wondering whatever made him think to talk to Tony in the first place.

“Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist superhero,” Tony corrects. “And if I have to give you the Shovel Talk, Gramps, it’s gonna get weird.”

“It’s already weird,” Steve grumbles under his breath, the elevator doors thankfully shutting Tony out behind him.

Tony doesn’t know exactly when Natasha finds out (she is a super spy assassin), but after the big reveal, she ends up spotting for him in the weight room. She doesn’t say anything until after he’s finished his reps, which is kind of her.

“The world is lucky HYDRA was never able to recruit your father,” she tells him as he sits up from the bench.

Tony blinks. “Yeah, that’ve been bad.”

And then they switch and don’t talk about it again.

When Fury finds out… there are not enough expletives in the world for when Fury finds out, so he starts making up some of his own after he’s run through all the ones he knows. After he’s gotten that out of his system (in the privacy of his own office, so no one can hear him, even though he isn’t freaking out – though, good god, if Howard made one, who knows who many more there are… seriously), his first thought is how Darcy can move from being a potential liability to a potential asset. So he calls a meeting with Tony, just a one-on-one to see if the man would agree to allow SHIELD scientists have a look at Darcy.

Of course, Fury knew right away that this meeting wasn’t going to go as he’d wanted it to. Because it wasn’t just Tony who showed up. He’d brought Miss Potts, Dr Foster and (oddly) his driver Mr Hogan in tow.

“You’re not getting your hands on her,” Tony said before Fury can even finish his opening glare. “She was built to serve and protect, not fight. She won't even let me arm her.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “You don’t want to arm me, Tony – you want to put guns in my boobs.”

“Ew!” Jane pulled a face as she turned to Tony. “Darcy is not a fembot!”

“Happy, c’mon – dad totally would have done it.”

Happy seemed to consider his options before opening his mouth. “Mr Howard would have certainly been tempted to, had he thought of it. But I don’t think Miss Lewis would’ve let him, either, Tony.”

Tony rolled his eyes but said nothing.

“Director Fury,” Pepper cut in, taking over, “back to Tony’s original statement, I’m afraid he’s right. SHIELD has zero right to Darcy Lewis’ hardware, software, or other inner-workings. Neither does SHIELD have the right to ask to inspect her themselves. There were only two people in the world who have those rights, and one of them passed away some time ago. The other is Mr Anthony Stark, his son.”

“Besides that,” Jane said, drawing herself up, “if you take her away, you’ll lose half the Science and Research Lab – she takes care of us and we love her and we won’t stand for it. You’ll have a revolt, Director Fury, by a bunch of genius scientist who are really, really angry at you.”

“Instant super villains,” Tony added helpfully with a snap of his fingers, “just waiting to crack.”

In the end, Fury agreed to allow Tony to keep Darcy to himself.

(“Allow? You’re gonna allow me to keep my own robot? Gee thanks.”
“Let the wookie win, Skywalker.”
“Shut it, C-3PO. And we both know I’m Han.”)

For now.

Clint nearly busts a gut laughing when he finds out. Because of all the people Steve could have gone to for dating advice, he’d gone to Clint. Who will now never let him forget that Captain America wanted to date a robot.

Seriously, he couldn’t make that up if he tried.

Then winter comes. And it brings a special friend.

He starts on the main floor lobby, boldly walking in the front door and armed to the teeth. He kills every person in his path, and quite a few who aren’t. He takes the stairs and rounds out every floor, not stopping when fired on or hit. His mission is to kill Captain America or die trying, and that is exactly what he’ll do. Before he’d been released, he’d heard phrases from his handlers like ‘out-dated’ and ‘inefficient’ and ‘drain on assets’, but he didn’t know or care what they were talking about. He cared about the mission; it was all he was and all he knew.

So he kills everyone and doesn’t feel the pain when they try to kill him back. He keeps moving, floor-by-floor, ignoring the alarms he hears and hits that would kill a common man. He makes it all the way to the twenty-third floor – the R&D offices – before he’s stopped.

Because Darcy Lewis works on that floor, and Howard Stark built her to protect his son.

Tony might have re-written several key lines in her code, but Howard knew there’d be a day when his Miss Lewis would have to pull out all her stops and get shit done. There are five separate fail-safes embedded in Darcy’s day-to-day programming, code words that Tony missed because they weren’t Howard’s go-to phrases for protective measures. And the Winter Soldier invading Avengers Tower definitely qualifies for triggering those commands.

The Avengers are suiting up when Tony catches on to what’s happening on the twenty-third floor. As his suit was putting itself together, Tony had one eye on the security cameras to track the Winter Soldier’s progress through the building. So when he saw Darcy start beating the assassin with an industrial-sized stapler, naturally he paused.

“JARVIS, turn the audio on. Her mouth is moving – I need to know what she’s saying.”

“What’s going on, Tony,” Steve demanded, already in Captain mode and not okay with one of his men slacking when there were people dying.

“Darcy’s… Darcy’s fighting.”

“And?”

“And Darcy isn’t programed to fight. JARVIS, where’s that audio?” The sounds of a brawl flooded into the room, metal clashing and hitting flesh, along with Darcy’s angry monologue.

“And if you think you can break into my house, and attack my humans, you’ve got another think coming, you mindless,” thwak, “cybernetic,” thwak, “Russian piece of shit!” thwak-thwak-thwak!!

The Winter Soldier falls to the ground, but Darcy doesn’t back down. She understands programming, after all, and an over-arching directive must be completed. So he might be down, but he isn’t out for the count. The beating must have knocked something loose, though, because for the first time since he entered the building, the Soldier speaks.

“Geez, doll face, all I wanted to know was if you had a dance partner. Didn’t have to slap me for it.”

In the suit-up room, Steve freezes. He knows that voice, he grew up with that voice, and he was positive he’d never hear that voice again. Yet there it was, clear as a bell. Steve doesn’t remember how he got down there so fast or breaking down the emergency door. He doesn’t remember racing through the rooms, passing the wreckage the Winter Soldier left behind, until he found the office Darcy had corralled the assassin into.

But Steve does remember the weight of her as he lifted her off Bucky, holding her away so he could clearly see man’s eyes. And for a moment, it was Bucky – the guy who pulled Steve out of alleyways and always had his six while they were taking out bases in Europe. The little kid who snuck in through the fire escape when they were kids and read Steve comic books when he was sick. The angry young teen who climbed into Steve’s bunk when his little sister was adopted and taken far away. The guy who made him ride the tilt-a-whirl at Coney Island until he threw up, and asked if a zip line onto a moving train was revenge.

Then a shudder came over Bucky’s face and he was… someone else. Someone Steve didn’t know, had never met before. It wasn’t his Bucky, even if they had the same face.

Quicker than Steve could follow, the assassin’s robotic arm came up to punch Steve’s unprotected side. Darcy’s failing hand caught the wrist before the hit landed and shot a repulsor blast with her free hand at the arm’s elbow joint, lasering the lower arm clean off. Sparks flew and Bucky’s back arched ridged up off the floor, screaming, eyes rolling back into his head as he started to seize. Steve pushed Darcy away and dropped to his knees so he could roll the jerking body of his best friend onto his side.

The other Avengers rushed in, along with heavily armed SHIELD agents. Three darts with enough tranquilizers to down a rhinoceros found a home in Bucky’s thigh and soon enough he was out.

That’s how they captured the Winter Soldier.

How they saved Bucky Barnes would be another story.

Chapter Text

“Clint! Your head is an opaque mass – I can’t see through it.”

“Sorry, Darcy,” he said around a mouthful of his dinner. He was careful not to spill as he butt-shuffled a bit to the right on the floor in front of the TV. “I forgot you don't have X-Ray vision.”

“Yeah, I deleted that app. It was taking up too much space,” Tony mumbled into his Stark Pad, barely missing a beat.

Clint paused, forkful of dragon noodles halfway to his open mouth. “... Seriously?”

Darcy shrugged and settled deeper into the couch, consequently leaning closer to Steve as she moved. “It was sort of irrelevant once Tony was old enough not to drown in the bath tub any more.”

Steve very studiously said nothing. He really liked cuddling with Darcy and he wasn’t about to let himself ruin it by over-thinking the fact that she was a robot.

Darcy let herself into the room carefully, butt-first because her hands were full. "Okay, guys - peanut butter, nutella and bananas on toast, with chocolate milk to drink."

The man on the bed looked at Steve (the man on the bridge, from the hellicarrier, the showgirl, the kid from Brooklyn) to see if this was a threat. Steve smiled at the woman, open and relaxed, so no - not a threat.

"Here, let me take that," Steve said, getting up to relieve their visitor of her tray. About ten sandwiches were piled up, all cut into triangles and arranged neatly, with paper plates and napkins, plastic cups, and a large foggy pitcher holding a brown liquid. They oozed a little with tan, dark brown and off-white. The man on the bed squinted at the food before squinting at the woman.

"Who are you?"

Steve's shoulders slumped, and the man on the bed immediately released that maybe he shouldn't have asked.

"Darcy Lewis." She waved, smiled... she seemed nice. "We've been introduced three times now. You're James Barnes."

The man on the bed - James (thank god he had a name) - nodded slowly. Steve busied himself putting food onto plates, pouring drinks, and tried to talk himself out of being disappointed that Bucky needed to be reintroduced to people so many times. Bruce and Dr Cho said that the serum in Bucky's system was helping rebuild the gaps in his mind - new brain tissue showed up on every scan where it had previously been burnt away from HYRDA's abuse. They didn't know when the growth would stop - if he'd ever get full cognitive function back or if the brain was too damaged for that - but they seemed hopeful given the progress he'd made so far.

"Anyway," Darcy pulled Steve from his thoughts and back to lunch, "I was making lunch for the Brain Trust and decided I'd whip up a few more for you guys."

"Well, we appreciate it, don't we, Bucky?" Steve tossed a smile he hoped didn't look as fake-cheerful as he sounded. (Right, Bucky - Steve called him Bucky.)

(James, Bucky) the man on the bed nodded, his eyes tracking the woman (Darcy) as she helped Steve set things up for lunch. They moved well together, not quite practiced but as if they'd put lunch together many times before. James (of the two names, he liked James best) wondered if they'd put lunch together for him and he just didn't remember. That was a depressing thought, in light of all the things he already knew he didn't know.

Like where Rebecca was - she'd been one of the lucky ones in the group home, young enough to be adopted out. But he'd written to her while he was away, and he knew she would've been contacted when he was declared MIA during the war. He was back now, so she should have been notified to come see him. So where was she?

"Where's Rebecca?" he asked. Steve’s face fell and James could feel panic start to set in. It was very important that he knew where Rebecca was. Her not being here, Steve making that face, must mean something very bad. He had to know where Rebecca was or bad things would happen. He didn't want the bad things, he didn't want the pain, he didn't want the cold. He would fight against the bad and pain and cold and he'd find Rebecca and he'd fight and fight and fightfightfightfightfightfightfight

"She should be here! WHERE'S REBECCA!? WHERE'S MY SISTER?!?"

Doctors rushed in and held Bucky down as he struggled. The lunch Darcy had brought up was up-ended in the skirmish – one of the attending doctors nearly fell on his ass slipping on a sandwich, and it would have been funny if Bucky hadn’t been screaming about Rebecca, demanding to know where she was. Then he started screaming about where he was and what was going on and who the doctors were and....

Steve shuffled Darcy out of the room under the pretense of not wanting to be in the way. The doctors and nurses needed space to do their jobs, after all. But really, he just couldn’t watch. That was his friend in that room, that was his Bucky screaming and confused and angry, and there was nothing Steve could do to make it any easier for him. Darcy put a hand on Steve’s arm and leaned in.

“It’ll be okay,” she murmured. “Not right now, but it will be.”

Steve looked down at her, at her earnest blue eyes and her sweet face, and in that moment he didn’t care she wasn't a real woman. She was there with him, for him, and he needed that. He needed that so much. Steve gathered her into his arms and held her tightly, and he just let himself believe that she was right - that things would be okay.

“J’s pretty awesome.”

Tony paused and liked up at Darcy. “Well d’uh he’s awesome. I made him.”

“He’d be more awesome if he had legs.”

“Uh…”

“And hands. So I could high-five him.”

“While I appreciate the sentiment, Miss Lewis, I believe I serve my purpose better as an omnipotent ethereal voice from the ceiling.”

“So sassy, J,” Darcy joked, waggling her hips as she wove her way around Tony’s worktables. “I love it.”

“Of course you love it,” Tony groused, picking up his soldering iron. “I programed your emotional drive to my sense of humor, which JARVIS has a better version of.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Darcy grimaced and stuck her tongue out at her ‘brother’ before sashaying her way out of the lab. “Still think he’d be better with legs!”

Tony didn’t say anything when she left, but after a few minutes he looked up from his work again. A thought was starting to take form, just a little one in the back of his mind.

”Sir?” JARVIS questioned, polite as always. As always, watching, monitoring, storing information away. Helping to maintain order for a chaotic mind in a chaotic world…

“Got a new project, JARV.”

“Very good, sir.” Holographic schematics vanished into their attributed program files, so new and blank grids could appear in their place.

Tony picked up a stylus, weighing it in his hand as the gears of his mind started whirling. “Legs…” 

If Darcy hadn’t been a robot, she would’ve missed him. She wouldn’t have been able to see the fast-moving teenager in questionably fashionable workout gear, much less have been able to actually plant the taser leads in his thin chest when he startled her.

“ARGH!” Darcy and the boy yelled, echoed by Jane and Eric on the other side of the lab. The taser clicked and buzzed a few more seconds before the boy face-planted like a tiny tree.

“Uh…” Eric glanced at Jane, who shrugged.

Darcy blinked and made a decision. “We need to help him.”

“What?” Jane looked over to her assistant. “You just tasered him!”

“Yeah, but look at his clothes! And that horrible dye-job.” She ran her eyes over him one more time – taking in the thinness of his arms, the youth on his face – before nodding. “I need to help him.” She stepped over his body and grabbed his feet, then started dragging him towards the lab doors.

“Darcy, we don’t know anything about him!” Eric reminded, ever the voice of caution and reason. Which was slightly diminished by the fact he still wasn’t wearing pants. “We didn’t even know he was here until you shot him up like that.”

“He’s a slippery fast little fucker, that’s for sure,” Darcy grunted, trying to be careful as she pulled the boy around her desk. She eyed the floor stripping in the doorway and sighed. “Jane, I need to borrow the comforter on the break room couch.”

“Seriously, Tony, I know robots are your thing and all, but this sucker’s taking it a bit far.”

Tony tossed his hands in the air, sick of being blamed for the whole thing. Even though it was actually his fault. “IT WAS YOUR IDEA!”

“What?!” The team all turned to Darcy, varying degrees of anger and disbelief on their faces.

“No it was not!”

“It was so! You said-“

“I said that J-Man could use some legs, not that you should make a Super Evil Robot Villain!”

“I’m not sure you’re what Tony had in mind, exactly.” Darcy tried to keep her smart mouth to herself, but she was a creation of Howard Stark – trying only went so far. Ultron snorted, his massive metal shoulders heaving with the sound, and shook his head.

“What Tony had in mind was weak and pathetic,” he growled and drew a chair forward so he could sit with her, as if he were civilized and not planning on the wiping out the human race. “I’ve remade myself into something better, something stronger. And I’ll keep remaking myself as many times as I need to, just to make sure he and the rest of those pathetic humans are destroyed.”

“Uh-huh.”

Ultron smiled, a funny-looking thing given that his face was all… exposed. “You don’t believe me.”

Darcy shrugged, and thanked her programing she was able to keep the movement carefree. “I know my humans better than you do, I think.”

“Which is why it’s so important, Darcy dear, that you accept the prime directive.”

“'Prime directive',” Darcy scoffed, “What is this, Star Trek: Next Gen? Are you the borg?”

“I’m the future, Miss Lewis.”

“You’re weird-looking is what you are.”

Ultron sighed, disappointed but not altogether displeased with her answer. “If you don’t see my way on your own,” he said, lifting his frame out of his seat, “I suppose I’ll have to show you by force.”

His metal claws came up to either side of her head, the tips of each finger threading through her hair, pressing hard behind her ears, and he squeezed. A screeching, tearing, horrible sound filled Darcy’s brain. It was terrible, a pain she’d never felt before. It radiated and echoed, through her jaw, down her spine. Pain ricocheted off her knees and shoulders and elbows and ankles, every finger and every toe. Circuits fired too fast, some of them frying from the overload. She didn’t know if she screamed; her audio files and voice box were malfunctioning like the rest of her. She couldn’t feel it, but she knew the synthetic muscles throughout her body were spasming.

The pain didn’t stop after he released her, fitful and agitated. It didn’t stop as he prowled away, tossing threats and curses at Howard and Tony for leaving no room for him to worm in. Whatever it was he’d tried, it didn’t take.

But it would leave a serious scar.

She looked like she was having a seizure when the team found her. She was still tied to the chair Ultron had her in, spasming and jerking, eyelids fluttering, mouth open in a silent scream. Occasionally, a spark flew from her mouth or out from one of the burnt holes in her synthetic skin.

Tony rushed over to her and moved the hair away from the back of her head, pulling a panel open. His suit retracted from one of his hands as he reached into Darcy’s skull to push a button. The body fell limp, all tension draining from the face and limbs. The rest of the team moved to secure the area, but Tony just stood with one hand inside the skull of his sister, fingers tangled in the wires of her brain, and wished it didn’t feel like a real person had died.

James looked down at the prone form on the metal table, and thought that maybe it should have a sheet over it. Some one had taken the burnt clothes off it, washed away what soot they could, and dressed it in a hospital gown. The body looked dead – pale and motionless like the dead. Steve said it wasn’t dead, that she wasn’t dead. Because she hadn’t been living to begin with.

It… she… the body had been a robot that Howard Stark made as a nanny for his son, that loud mouth with the mustache – Tony. James remembered being told that when they brought the body in (though not the other eight times he’d been told since he’d woken up from her beating him with a stapler). Robots don’t live; they’re turned on. Robots don’t die, either. They’re turned off, like a light switch. But James remembered (sort of) the body when it had been up and moving around, remembered (in bits and pieces) when it was definitely a ‘she’ and not an ‘it’.

She’d been alive.

And now she was lying on a metal table, very not alive. Very much an ‘it’.

James noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, but it was Steve-shaped and moved in Steve-ways, so he didn’t bother going on alert. (James remembered Steve, he always remembered Steve. Steve the kid from Brooklyn, Steve the showgirl, Steve the man on the bridge. Steve, his one fixed point in a changing age… and what on earth was that from?)

Steve carried a knit thermal blanket with him – the rosy-pink one James remembered her shuffling around in when she didn’t want to get up in the morning, when she’d been alive. Steve carefully unfolded the blanket and placed it over the body, tucking it in gently around the legs and sides, under the feet. James looked up and watched Steve’s face closely.

Steve, noticing, gave an uncomfortable, self-conscious shrug.

“She looked cold.”

Steve looked at Darcy as she laid there, still and cold as death. She still had the blanket over her legs from when he’d tucked it around her hours before.

“Bucky’s asleep now,” he said, not knowing what else to do but talk to her. It was easier to think she was in a coma than to believe she was dead. “He’s doing pretty well. He doesn’t talk much still, but he’s remembering more every day. I think he’ll be able to help train the recruits once the new facility is up and running.”

Steve looked around and found a chair. He slid it close to the table she was on and hunkered down for a while. “I hope you don’t mind the blanket – I know how much you like it, so I figured you should have it. I’ve checked in with Jane a few times since… since we got back, and I don’t think she’s handling you being gone too well. I mean, her interns are taking care of her and everything – I’m pretty sure you scared them straight – but you’re her friend and I think she misses talking to you.”

Steve reached up and thought about touching her hand for a moment, but it would be too much like she really was dead if he did that – it wouldn’t be warm like a living hand. So he settled his fingers against the blanket instead. It was a nice blanket, too – he could see why Darcy had liked it so much. Double weave thermal to keep the heat it while still allowing for air circulation – Steve would have to ask her where she got it from when she woke up.

“You are going to wake up,” he whispered, mostly to himself. “I’ll talk to Tony and he’ll fix it. You’ll be just like new, Darce. And when you’re up and around again, I’ll bring you to the new facility – you’ll wrangle superheroes instead of scientists. Think you’d be up for it?”

He looked at her face. With her eyes closed like they were and at this angle, she could have been sleeping. “Yeah,” he told himself. “You’ll be up for it. You’d like the challenge; I know you would.”

Vision watched as Tony hovered around the form on the table.

“Will you rebuild her?”

Tony’s head jerked up. “Damn, you’re sneaky.”

Vision said nothing, waiting for Tony to answer his questions. Tony puffed his cheeks and let out a blow of air. “Dr Foster says I should. Pepper says it’s better if I don’t.”

“And what do you say?”

Tony looked at the body, bringing his thumbnail up to his lips as he thought. “I say I let her go once already. Shouldn’t be hard to do it again.”

Vision tilted his head and inspected the Stark. “You seem to be feeling guilt and remorse over this fact.” When Tony said nothing, Vision continued. “Perhaps you are not prepared to let her go again.”

“She was built to be a nanny.”

“And I believe she became your family," Vision put forth, beginning to back out of the room. "Though, perhaps you should stop listening to what others are saying or have said, and listen only to what you think.” 

“What?”

“We need to be held accountable for our actions, Darcy.”

“Yes, okay. I got that part. But the government?”

“If we can’t be law-abiding citizens-“

“‘Law-abiding citizens’ can’t make intelligent suits of armor, weren’t injected with a super serum, and don’t have dangerously specific skill sets, Tony!”

“But there are laws-“

“Who even are you right now!?! You hate rules, Anthony - trust me, I have intimate knowledge of that fact.”

“Then you more than anyone knows what can happen if we run around unchecked!”

“… Is this invasion of the body snatchers? Have you been body snatched, Tony? ‘Cause you sound like someone I don’t even know.”

“This is me finally being an adult about things, Darcy.”

“OH. I get it. That right there gave you away. You’re trying to win back Pepper’s magical fairy vagina. It’s okay!” she assured, hands raised to stop Tony’s rebuke. “Pepper’s lovely and so incredibly smart and wonderful and if I’d lost her magical fairy vagina, I’d do everything in my power to get it back, too.”

“This isn’t about Pepper!”

And it wasn’t about Pepper, not even a little bit. It was about Darcy and how Tony had found her in the Sokovian cave, how he’d had to reach into her brain and kill her to end the suffering Tony was certain he’d caused. It was about how Tony had lost part of himself when Ultron burned JARVIS out. It was because Tony built Ultron, and Ultron destroyed where he should have protected. The only way to make people safe was to make sure everyone was held accountable, everyone was held to standards of behavior.

Darcy didn’t know that, though. “Okay…. That sounds fake, but okay.”

“Darcy-“

“Well you used the word ‘adult’, which tends to be a code-word for ‘Pepper’. Honestly, what am I supposed to think?”

“YOU’RE JUST A ROBOT! YOU AREN’T SUPPOSED TO THINK!!!”

Darcy reared back as if his words were a physical slap. She didn’t pale (couldn’t without blood vessels), but the synthetic muscles in her face relaxed. She looked so stricken, and Tony tried to think of a way to take those words back. He just had to say something, anything to make her stop telling him this was a bad idea. Because it was the only idea he had to make sure nothing like Ultron happened ever again.

“Darce, babe… I didn’t mean-“

“Yeah, Tony.” She shuffled back a little, then a little more. “You did.”

“Darcy, I swear, I didn’t-“

“You should really quit while you’re ahead, Anthony.” Darcy continued to move toward the door. “You know, last time you said those words, you forced an absolute shut-off and rewrote me completely. I think I’ll, uh… I’ll duck out now while I can.”

“Darcy, I’m not-“

But she was already on the other side of the soundproof glass partition, quickly making her way to the service stairs.

“JARV-“

But JARVIS was gone, and Friday wouldn’t seal the service stairs unless there was an emergency protocol in effect. So he watched Darcy - his sister in all the ways that couldn’t be counted - run away. 

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.

Chapter Text

Darcy stood at Dr Foster’s workstation and tried to keep her jaw from hitting the floor.

“Um…” Jane darted to various tables, attempting so much in vain to clean up. “Sometimes I get caught up in my work…”

“Yeah,” Darcy nodded and fought the creeping feeling that she was definitely in the wrong place. She needed this internship because like hell she was taking chemistry or an actual class in physics. “I can see that.”

Jane knew that tone of voice, that ‘appease the crazy lady’ tone, and frowned. “Look, I’m working on the cutting edge of astrophysics – no one is doing what I’m doing. And if a little mess is too much for you-“

“Nono!” Darcy’s eyebrows shot up, hands rising in defence. “Absolutely not. I can work with mess, mess is my business from here on out. Totally okay with mess. Just… How do you feel about me, um, reorganizing?”

Jane blinked and looked at her workstation again. She knew where everything was, even if it looked like a tornado hit. “Reorganizing what?”

Darcy chewed on her lip for a moment. “Everything?”

“Uh-“

“I’ll make sure you know where it all is,” she reassured, thinking fast. “Colour-coding and clearly labelling. You should have seen my International Relations Seminar notes – it was like a rainbow threw up, but everyone in my study group always asked to copy them.”

Jane thought that over for a moment, then nodded. She’d get used to it eventually. “Talk to me before you move anything, but fine. Whatever.”

“Also,” Darcy held up a finger, slightly unsure of this next topic. “The job description mentioned work in mechanics. What does that mean? Like, I can take a doorknob apart and put it back together if I have to, but –“

“We’ll consider that on-the-job training,” Jane waved her question away. “Sometimes I’ll ask you to help me put instruments and machines together – I mentioned I’m on the cutting edge and that means that no one makes the tools I need to accurately collect data.”

“Right.” Darcy looked down at her shoes – her comfortable, super-freaking-cheap Buffalo Trading Post maroon combat boots – and thought about her other questions. “The info sheet also alluded to wonky sleep schedules – I’m guessing that’s because stars.”

Jane blinked. “Uh, yeah. We’ll need to be up most nights because that’s when-“

“Stars,” Darcy cut her off with a nod. “Totally makes sense and something I’ve had to become used to as a PoliSci major.”

Jane nodded and ran a critical eye over her potential intern. “You haven’t mentioned anything about the travelling and you haven’t told me why you want the job.”

Darcy fiddled with her fingers, casting a look around the cramped room. “Travelling is fine. If anything, it’s in the plus column. I like a good road trip the same as anyone else, as long as I’ve got some solid tunes and snackage to tide me over. Never been in an RV, but I’m game.”

“And you’ve applied because…?”

“Because I need six science credits and the posting promises that plus maybe an adventure.”

Jane frowned. “This is going be pretty boring most of the time.”

“But you’re on the cutting edge of astrophysics! We’ll be exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations.” Darcy smiled her most winning and charming smile. “Boldly going where no man has gone before!”

Jane rolled her eyes at the Will Shatner impression. It was actually pretty good. “Look, we won’t be finding any green ladies or Romulans with this project. At least, I don’t think so. I mean, probably not, but… Anyway, I’m looking for other worlds, but your job is going to be a lot of recording data and transcribing my notes.”

“Have I mentioned I can type ninety words per minute?”

“I’ve been told that my handwriting resembles a drunken llama with a crayon stuck in its hooves.”

“I took Arabic as my language requirement – passed every level with a solid B.”

Jane gave the girl in front of her another hard look. “We’re going to be joining my mentor, Dr Erik Selvig, in New Mexico in three weeks. You’ll technically be my intern, but unless he gives you a task or duty that is in direct conflict with anything I’ve already assigned to you, I’ll expect you to assist him as well.”

Darcy grinned, wide and excited and so young looking.

“Awesome,” she declared, giving two thumbs up. “Can do, boss lady.”

Chapter Text

It started small. So small that Darcy couldn’t even tell when it started, exactly.

Maybe a few pens in her cup that hadn’t been there before, maybe an unopened box of pop tarts or granola bars in the break room that no one would fess up to buying…. Honestly, it could have been anything.

She really only started to notice when it began to follow her home.

Her subway token jar never seemed to empty. It was always the exact same level of full. (She’d been talking about the hassle of having to buy more with Jane one day, and they mysteriously stopped depleting.)

Neatly tied phone charging cords and wall warts started to show up in her now oddly organized junk drawer. (She always seemed to be losing hers.)

Comfy blankets of all thicknesses, colours and materials began to pile up on her couch. (Multiple times, Darcy had expounded on the virtues of comfy blankets.)

Fresh vegetables and fruit appeared in her fridge, the takeout containers disappearing the night she put them in. (Seriously – Darcy was really looking forward to having that Pad Thai again, and now it was gone.)

The books on her shelves were rearranged. That was the weirdest. When she’d moved into her apartment, she’d organized them by subject then copyright then author. Now they were all alphabetical by author’s last name.

Darcy thought maybe she had a poltergeist or something. She worked with superheros and mutants – ghouls and goblins could totally be a thing. Well, she thought she had a poltergeist until she woke up one morning to a spook in tactical gear bound and gagged on her living room floor.

“Jane!” Darcy hollered into her phone. “Get Thor – get someone!”

“What?” Poor Jane sounded like she hadn’t slept all night, and someone was going to get a serious talking to about that when Darcy got into work.

“Jane, there’s a dude hogtied in front of my couch and I swear I didn’t put him there.”

“Who, um… who is he?”

“Uh…” Darcy eyed the squirming man on her rug, eyes narrowed and her nose scrunched. Then she noticed the wallet on her coffee table. “Aw fuck,” she hissed. “He’s got an AIM card in his wallet, Jane.”

“Shit.” Darcy heard her friend blow out a puff of air through the phone line. “Hang tight – I’ll be right there.”

“Bring Thor,” Darcy reminded. “Or you know… someone who deals with these guys.”

“Right.”

Fifteen minutes later, Darcy let Jane, Thor and Maria Hill into her apartment. Two other SHEILD agents stayed stationed outside her door.

“I made coffee if anyone wants some,” she gestured towards her kitchen, coffee sloshing in her own oversized mug. “Dude’s still ziptied over there.”

The man glared and shouted through his gag – one sock stuffed in his mouth, the other tied around head to keep it there. His boots were carefully tucked under her coffee table where they’d be out of the way and not a tripping hazard to anyone. Agent Hill marched over to him and crouched to inspect the ties and gag.

“This was professional,” she declared with a quick nod. She rose gracefully, grabbing the wallet and flipping it open. “Mr Ed Goode, AIM security. Any idea what he’d be doing in your apartment, Ms Lewis?”

“Well, I didn’t invite him in, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Darcy is a loyal friend, Agent Hill,” Thor backed. “We need not fear betrayal of our cause from her.”

Hill shook her head. “I mean, Ms Lewis, if you have any valuable information or projects stored here.”

“Oh no,” Jane scoffed. “Darcy doesn’t keep any of that here. Not since her poltergeist.”

Hill blinked and slowly turned to look from Jane to Darcy. “Poltergeist?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Shit started moving around here a few months ago. It was only little stuff, though. Books, cords, some food…”

“More blankets than you’d know what to do with,” Jane helpfully added.

“So I stopped bringing work home. I’m not an idiot – if someone’s breaking in to raid my fridge, someone could be breaking in to raid my laptop.”

“That… that was very smart of you, Ms Lewis,” Hill nodded. “Still, we should have been notified immediately about the… poltergeist.”

“Well, consider yourself notified,” Darcy said with a mocking bow and a half-grin.

Hill’s lips tightened. “I shall. And I’ll be placing your apartment under 24 hour surveillance until we can figure out what’s going on.”

“Fine.”

“And I’m having a team sweep this entire residence top to bottom for bugs.”

“Well hey now-“

“Ms Lewis, you have an unidentified intruder repeatedly entering your private residence for unknown reasons. We’re sweeping for bugs.”

“Let her, Darcy,” Jane pleaded, a hand drifting to Darcy's sleeve. “Please. So we know you’re safe.”

Darcy scrunched her nose but shrugged. “Fine.”

So the SHEILD guys swept her apartment and got rid of the spook. They found no bugs (none that they told her about, anyway). Darcy went to work that day and the rest of her week was normal-ish (she worked with Dr Jane Foster; things were never exactly normal).

The strange happenings stopped for about a week. Then she found perfectly ripened bananas on her kitchen counter. And a coatrack in her front hall. And all of her laundry done and put away. Weird, but kinda okay. Except for the part where someone was touching her underwear without her knowledge. That was just plain creepy.

Two weeks after the AIM dude, some other dude popped up hogtied in her living room: tactical gear, sock gag, and all.

“Hydra, Ms Lewis,” Hill informed her. “One of the lower-level goons we’ve been looking for.”

“Hmmm,” Darcy nodded, lips folded between her teeth.

“And again found ziptied on your living room floor.”

“Seems so.”

Agent Hill paused. “Ms Lewis,” she started with a frown, “I don’t have to tell you the oddness of this situation.”

“Nope,” Darcy bit out. “Totally weird. I’m with you on that.”

“If you aren’t the person doing this-“

“Man, I wish I were the one. It’d be an easy explanation.”

“Then perhaps you know who might be? Any idea who could be leaving enemy operatives in your living room?”

Darcy shook her head, mildly weirded out. “No one I work with or talk to on a daily basis. I mean, everyone who works in Avenger’s Tower is pretty gnarly, but none of them have any reason I know of to do anything like this.”

Agent Hill nodded and thought for a moment. “The cameras installed here haven’t found anything, either. Ms Lewis, at this time, I would advise you to take one of the guest quarters at the Tower. For your own safety.”

Darcy’s head shot up with a frown. Living independently wasn’t exactly a freedom Darcy was ready to give up. “Whoa –“

“Ms Lewis, I should have suggested this before,” Hill admitted, crossing her arms behind her back and straightening her posture to her full height. “There are too many unknowns here and we can’t have leave an asset unprotected.”

Darcy sputtered at being called an asset, but there were more important things at stake than being labelled a thing. “Then station a guard with me. I get paid enough that I can afford to live in an apartment with a guest bedroom in New York City – let me use it! Put someone in here to make sure nothing happens. If this… whoever it is, slips passed all your doodads and an armed guard, then sure – I’ll temporarily move into the Tower. But not yet. I’m not actually being hurt here. It’s just someone tying up bad guys and leaving them for me to find like wacky Christmas presents.”

Agent Hill’s lips tightened, but she nodded. “Fine. But I will to be notified the very moment something seems out of place and you will be moved immediately.”

“Deal.”

So a dour, sullen Agent J moved into Darcy’s guest bedroom. He never ate with her, barely spoke to her, and followed her everywhere. At least he didn’t drink all her coffee. And he was clean – dude did his own dishes, laundry, left minimal clutter…. Darcy barely noticed he was there after a while.

Darcy did notice small things moving around again, things she knew Agent J couldn’t possibly have touched, but they were harmless things. Her shoes were straightened up in her bedroom closet one evening. Another morning, she woke up and found that her taser had been plugged in overnight, three spare batteries and charge cartridges stacked carefully next to it. Boxes of protein bars started showing up in her pantry closet, her favourite brand and flavour.

Small shit. Meaningless shit.

Until they came home from work one evening and – there on the living room rug just like two times before – a goon was tied up with a bow, waiting for them. The organization he came from didn’t matter.

Darcy was packed up and moved out within 24 hours.

Chapter Text

“And this is the part of this evening’s program, germs and worms, where you spill your Dirty Deeds to Dirty D. Get on the line and tell me what’s up. You have a problem? I’ll do my best to solve it. And if I can’t, maybe one of our other callers can. The number is 212-555-5452. Caller number one – you’re on the air with Dirty D.”

And silence. Darcy hated when callers got cold feet. “Caller number one – speak and be heard.”

Nope. Nothing. “Caller number one, you’ve got five more seconds. Then I have to transfer calls.”

Waiting, waiting… “All right then-“

“Wait.” A male’s voice. A nice male’s voice.

“Well, hey there, caller number one. Thanks for joining the party. What can I do for you today?”

“Um… My uh… My friend was dumped, pretty recently. My friend’s girlfriend was right to leave, you know. She… she wasn’t wrong to… to walk away. My friend didn’t always tell her the truth or… or, uh… trust her. But my friend, you know… my friend really misses her. And wants her back. And I was wondering if you or… or one of the other callers might have any uh… any advice for my um, my friend.”

“Hmmm, sounds a little vague there. Friend’s girlfriend walked away because friend didn’t trust her or tell her the truth about things. Things like what? Cheating? Family wasn’t dead like previously assumed? Transmittable diseases? Secret identities?”

“Um… a lot of work things, mostly. My friend’s job means she can’t talk about it a lot. She goes on a lot of trips she can’t talk about. And I think… I think her girlfriend would have been fine with it if… if my friend just explained that she couldn’t talk about it. But, you know, she didn’t. Her girlfriend was just… just always in the dark about stuff. And we uh… My friend never brought her girlfriend around to meet us or anything. I think… I think maybe my friend’s girlfriend felt like a dirty secret or something.”

“And all your friends know your female friend was dating a woman and they were okay with it?”

“Oh yeah! She’d talk about her girlfriend all the time – how great she was, the things they’d do together. We just… we just never met her.”

Darcy chewed that over mentally and decided she couldn’t answer that question. “Well, it’s a bit out of my depth, caller number one. Having just recently left my own significant other over similar circumstances, I don’t think I can give an unbiased answer. I mean, I’m inclined to side with the girlfriend here, and say that your friend should just move on because that’s probably what the girlfriend is trying to do. But maybe our other callers have other or better suggestions. So I’m going to open the phone lines and we’ll see what we come to. So get on the horn, let us know what you think about the sitch, and maybe everyone can go home happy tonight. In the meantime, here’s LCD Soundsystem.”

Darcy hit play and pulled the headphones from her ears. She scrubbed her hands over her face and blew out a huge breath. This was not what she had been anticipating when she came into work this evening. She didn’t want to think about Natalie (or Irina, or Tatiana, or Marya, or whatever her real name was), she didn’t want to do this question, she didn’t want to hear the callers come in. Honestly, she just wanted to play music all night. But her listenership loved this section of her block. And Jane loved that her listenership loved it. So Darcy had to do it.

“Darce,” Jane, sweet Janey Jane, poked her head into the booth and looked so concerned. “You okay?”

Darcy took a deep breath again and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“We don’t have to do the question if you don’t want to.” Jane was in her corner on the break up, which was nice. But Jane was also in the listener’s corner when it came to the show.

“I’m fine, Jane. We can do the question.”

Jane frowned, but nodded. “Alright.” Her producer ducked out again and Darcy replaced her headphones. The song was ending in 3… 2… 1…

“And we’re back, germs and worms! If you’re just tuning in, tonight’s caller has a friend who’s recently been dumped for keeping her girlfriend in the dark about basically her whole life. The caller’s friend wants her girlfriend back but isn’t sure how to do that. I’m on the Move On and Let Go side, but I’d like to hear from you. So! I’m opening the phone lines and maybe by the end of this we can all go home happy. Here we go. Line 2, what do you think?”

“I think the girlfriend was right to leave.” A cultured woman’s voice came flowing gently down the phone line, and Darcy nodded to herself. “If you can’t trust your significant other, if you don’t feel like you’re being made important, the best thing to do is move on.”

“Solid advice. Thank you Line 2. Line 3, what’s your take?”

“Love lives!” A slightly drunk male shouted over the line. “That girlfriend should take her… her girlfriend back. Because love. Also, that friend needs to get her head back on straight and stop missing work. I’ve fallen off three buildings because of this, Tash! It’s not cool. I know you’re listening.”

“Wow, okay. Thank you Line 3. How about you, Line 4? What do you think about all this?”

“This is a difficult position for the caller’s friend,” an accented man’s voice clipped clearly through the speakers. “Her job requires a certain amount of secrecy it seems, yet her relationship requires a certain amount of openness. My advice would be for her to weigh which is more valuable to her and move forward from there.”

“And what would you say to the girlfriend?”

“The same. Would she be able to accept the secrecy of her partner? Or is her mental aptitude unsuited to such a relationship? The girlfriend should discern this and move forward accordingly.”

“Another solid suggestion, Line 4. Thank you. Line 5, you’re live.”

“First of all, the caller shoulda kept his big punk nose to himself.” Another male caller, but Darcy got the image of a New York brawler from the voice instead of an upright businessman. “But uh… I know somethin’ about keepin’ those you love safe by keepin’ them in the dark. You gotta protect ‘em, you know? You gotta keep the bad stuff from touchin’ ‘em, so you don’t tell ‘em stuff. And sometimes, you gotta let ‘em walk away, ‘cause that’s what’s best for them. But, you know… It don’t always gotta be that way. Sometimes the person you love surprises you. Sometimes, they can take it and they can understand. You just gotta give ‘em the chance to.”

Darcy swallowed and bit her lips. “Alright. Thank you, Line 5.” Darcy took a deep breath and let it out quietly, her fingers moving fast to the queue. “We’re going to take a quick break, let the sponsors get their paid-for air time, and we’ll be back in a bit.”

Chapter Text

The Seine River glittered under the streetlights lining the walkways. Steve leaned against the stone railing and sighed. Paris had certainly changed from 1940s. As much as Brooklyn had, just about – shops disappearing with time, new skyscrapers rising. Many of the old cobblestone streets remained, but the pub where Jacque Dernier had charmed the crowd into singing Joyeux Anniversaire for Steve one night of rowdy carousing was long gone.

Steve remembered that night with a smile. Realising that the Commandos had missed the birthday of their beloved leader, Frenchie rounded up a few pub-goers around a battered old piano. A few moments of hushed coercing convinced one of the bystanders to take a seat at the bench and, raising a mostly empty glass of what was passing for scotch at the time, the machine gunner lead the crowd in a lumbering, laboured version of the birthday song. Steve could still hear the crowd laughing as they joined in, see the smiles of his comrades, and feel the warmth of Bucky’s arm around his shoulders if he closed his eyes.

That had been the last time anyone really celebrated his birthday with him. Not that his friends now didn’t know or anything – Natasha always seemed to sneak him a gift, and Clint had delivered a batch of home made muffins unceremoniously last year. Tony had been the one to gift a trip to Paris, fully paid and open-ended. But there was no one to sing, no one to laugh with. Just Steve and his memories.

Steve sighed again and turned away from the beautiful, dreamy sight of lights on the water. The summer air around him with thick and fragrant, a thin breeze lifting the smells of nearby cafes and heady flowers out toward the river. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his shorts and started shuffling slowly to the other side of the river. Thinking about learning French with Gabe Jones and Falsworth’s terrible taste in cuisine, Steve almost missed the sound of bicycle tires approaching him from behind. A woman in a yellow and red sundress – barely a streak of colour in the dark – flew past him.

“Sorry!” She cried out over her shoulder, her voice frantic and harried. Steve frowned when he heard her whimper something about brakes as she wobbled the front tire. Which turned out to be the exactly right way to stop the bike: get it to fall over.

“Oh god,” the woman groaned. Steve hurried his steps as he watched her untangle herself from the bright blue bike. She turned to sit as he got close to her, wiping at her hands and pulling her knees up to inspect the damage.

“Hey,” Steve started, coming to a crouch at her side. Wide crystalline eyes blinked up at him, dark hair swinging down her back with the sudden movement.

“You speak English!” she exclaimed, her pouty mouth stained a red as violent as her shoes.

Steve ducked his head and chuckled. “Yeah. Um, you okay? You were going pretty fast when you took that spill.”

The woman rolled her eyes and waved a hand. “I’m alright, really. I’ll probably bruise but,” she tipped her face toward her knees again, “scrapes are an easy fix. They look worse than they are, probably.”

The pale skin of her knees was bloody and raw. But she seemed okay over all.

“You should clean them up, though, just in case.” Steve watched her run a hand through her hair as she considered her options.

“There’s a café on the other side – they’ll most likely let me use their bathroom if I buy a pastry or something.”

He got to his feet and righted the bike, then extended a hand to her. “Want some company? I was headed that direction myself.”

Her hand was small but sturdy in his as he pulled her up, but she pulled a face. “You don’t have to look after me or anything, really. I swear I’m not that much of a disaster usually.”

“No, no,” he shook his head. “I was just out walking, taking in the night, when you, uh…”

“Played speed demon on a two-wheeled hell machine?”

He laughed again, unable to help himself. “You did look a little unsteady there.”

She shrugged with a wry smile. “The hotel I’m staying at offers 24 hour bike rentals and I thought it would be whimsical to take a night ride. I forgot that I never learned how to stop or slow down.”

She reached for the bike, which he surrendered easily enough. The woman looked like she was trying to find something else to say. As she opened her mouth, a clock chimed midnight in the distance.

“It’s my birthday,” Steve blurted out. “Just now, I mean. I’m, uh… I’m here by myself – a gift from a friend. But I have no one to celebrate with. Would you, um… Are you sure you wouldn’t want company to that café?”

The grin turned from wry to wily. “Aren’t you a Yankee Doodle Dandy, born on the 4th of July. Well, I can’t say no to such a pitiful request. I’ll even buy you an éclair.”

“I’m Steve, by the way,” he produced his hand again in introduction. She offered hers in return, utterly charmed. “And, you’re sure this place will be open this late?”

She gave a carefree shrug, hand still caught in his. “If it isn’t we’ll find a bar and I’ll buy you a drink instead.”

“After you clean your knees,” Steve reminded her, nodding down at them. They really did look kinda bad.

“Yeah, those are going to have to be taken care of. And I’m Darcy.”

Steve’s smile became gentle, soft. “I’m very glad to meet you, Darcy.”

Chapter Text

Three assassins sat on a rooftop. Crouched behind the little stone wall, they watched the occupant in the apartment across the street as she let her guests in. They had left her a present, one in a series. A man with dirty blonde hair scratched an itch on his unshaven chin.

“Do you think she figured it out?”

The brown haired man scowled. “She called Hill; I don’t think she figured it out.”

“I heard they’re going to move her this time for sure.”

“Good.” The brunette sunk lower, only his ice blue eyes visible over the lip of the wall.

The man with dirty blonde hair next to him scowled. “No, not good. How the hell are we gonna play now?”

“Shut up both of you.” The red headed woman on the far side of them readjusted her earpiece. “I can’t hear what they’re saying.”

“We know what they're saying. They’re saying they’re gonna move her.” The blonde was annoyed as it seemed that the game had been ended before he was ready.

“That’s what we wanted in the first place,” the man with brown hair reminded his companions.

“But this was fun!”

“Well, now the real challenge begins,” the woman said. “Can we keep this up while she’s in the Tower without getting caught?”

The blonde man blinked. “You want to keep leaving goons in Darcy Lewis’ living room while she’s in the Tower?”

“First one caught has to buy the others drinks for a month.”

The brunette frowned harder. The Tower was supposed to be safe. “That seems like an even worse game than this one.”

“Keep leaving her protein bars and subway tokens then,” the redhead breezed, “if you’re such a little bitch.”

“Hey.”

“Call it like I see it. Man up or be a bitch.”

“What,” the blonde man challenged the other man with a smirk. “You gonna cry to your little boyfriend?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” the man with brown hair grumbled. Today was not turning out the way he had planned. Maybe a totally-not-romantic-in-any-way outing with his best friend was in order. 

“But you want him to be.”

“And you won't do anything about it, like a bitch.” The redhead turned away from the other two and started packing up her equipment. “They’re on their way back to the Tower. We should get going.”

"Last one there sucks eggs!" The blonde man dashed off to the opposite side of the roof, flinging himself over in spectacular fashion. The redhead rolled her eyes and, hefting her equipment bag up over her shoulder, calmly made her way to the service entrance. The sullen man with brown hair tugged his hat lower over his eyes, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and went to go find the fire escape. He'd swing by MoMA on the way home and get some info on their new exhibit for Steve.