From My Heart Down to My Legs

by Sweetbriar

AU. When Darcy is seven and sneaks into a grunt's rooms she stumbles across a small shelf of well-read books...tales featuring young men or women who go on journeys and learn about such strange concepts as family and friendship. When she is eight Mother kills the grunt and burns the books and makes her swim the gauntlet.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything of this universe.

Summary: AU. When Darcy is seven and sneaks into a grunt's rooms she stumbles across a small shelf of well-read books and the lowly grunt shrugs and lets her borrow them. These are strange tales, featuring young men or women who go on journeys and learn about such strange concepts as family and friendship.

When she is eight Mother kills the grunt and burns the books and makes her swim the gauntlet, but by then she knows enough not to mention the small little pearl of feeling. She keeps it in a little compartment closed off from everyone: Mother is not like the mothers in fictional stories.

Author's Note: To place somewhere within the Marvel cinematic 'verse, I started this soon after the first Avengers movie came out. Ignores essentially all of canon.

Title from "Breath of Life" by Florence and the Machine

…

From my Heart Down to my Legs

…

"Again."

Fist. Diaphragm, air gone, knee up. Spin, kick, turn. Stand down.

"You can do better."

Eyes scanning, threat-searching, muscle memory taking over when a shadow slips behind.

"Sloppy. Re-do it."

Blood-shade ink on a page and re-writing by hand, re-typing, updating and revising with sore fingertips.

"Barely acceptable."

Reloading the gun. Looking over the grunt at her feet, firing again. No cover. No stopping. Breathe into tight lungs.

"Repeat the exercise. Try, this time."

Water. Cold. Kicking legs. Fighting the current that wants to take her over the edge. Arms wind-milling, cupped hands, push.

"You can't be that stupid."

Reciting alone in her room. Memorizing every line and every paragraph. Committing it to her very being, not just her mind.

"Acceptable. Again."

Fist. Foot. Air, hair, swing slip-slide and trip, spin-twist and kick and punch and wild flight, and breathing always under control.

:: :: ::

When Darcy is seven and sneaks into a grunt's rooms she stumbles across a small shelf of well-read books and the lowly grunt shrugs and lets her borrow them. These are strange tales, featuring young men or women who go on journeys and learn about such strange concepts as family and friendship.

When she is eight Mother kills the grunt and burns the books and makes her swim the gauntlet, but by then she knows enough not to mention the small little pearl of feeling. She keeps it in a little compartment closed off from everyone: Mother is not like the mothers in fictional stories.

When she is eleven, she compresses that compartment further. Mother has private tutors teach her basic math and language skills, how to fight and strip a gun and build a bomb. But she also does enough of those fiction-things that mean she cares: she hugs Darcy and praises her for her first solo run through the obstacle course and punishes her for reading an American-version history book another grunt has in his barracks.

This grunt loses his head and Darcy promises she will not read anything Mother does not want her to and keeps another secret all for herself: outside the base, there are places where people believe abstract ideas like freedom and live under the wide blue sky she only knows from photographs.

When she is twelve, she sees real sky for the first time. Mother has sent her on a training course of wilderness survival for when she becomes an agent. The plants are even bigger than their pictures in the biology books and the sky, the sky, the sky… A whole hour and a half of her mission is spent curled under a tree, overwhelmed by the sheer size of it. Then Darcy tucks the sky into that compartment, adding another layer to her pearl of wishes.

In her pre-teens, the pearl's compartment is filled with everything she can never tell Mother: fantasy books, and articles about popular luxuries like television and music, and anything she could find about her father.

Mother catches her on the last one and tells her a truth that tears her heart to pieces and crushes the fragile pearl she keeps in her heart. She had not realized her own secret—hope that the man might someday ask to see her and she would go see him and the sky and maybe watch movies and eat popcorn. That was what families did in fiction.

But Mother tells her about her father and she stops reading about him for pleasure and starts to tuck away the nuggets like glowing coals, reminders for why she does what Mother tells her, because Mother always has a plan and knows everything best. And if Darcy can help, then she will.

In her late teens, Darcy is skilled but genetics get in the way. A chest over a D cup, an hourglass torso which simply will never curve into a flat stomach, and wide hips under layers of muscle: she seems to take after her male gene-donor's mother. Mother decides Darcy is best used undercover. "You are so ordinary in appearance that it is an advantage. Someone of your training and skills will serve as an excellent sleeper agent. Even you can't mess it up."

She receives a crash course in social interaction with a younger subset of grunts recently brought in, prepping Darcy with the skills to enter the outside world. Her maturity, according to Mother, would work in her favor and get her into the right places. Mother sends her on a trip for the first time, and Darcy fights her excitement into that compartment where everything all-her-own is kept.

She crosses the globe with a caretaker, a man who could not be out in the field much and whose face remained masked in public. He is subtly kind but distant and teaches her well. Only a handful of assassinations take place while Barnes guides her in the art of blending.

Food isn't so different. The sounds do not echo like they do on-base. Her skin reddens and tans from the sun and she relishes in its warmth. Her eyes take in everything and half of it fades into sepia tones while half is catalogued meticulously. She is overwhelmed in sensory detail at first, which her caretaker slyly helps her overcome, never letting on to Mother. She grows to like the world, love it, then thrive on the life all around her.

In that secret compartment, a tension emerges: she shares Mother's goals, shares Mother's distaste for her father, but this world!

A part of her wants to own it. The other part wants to keep it.

She shoves that second thought deep in the compartment alongside her little pearl of hope. Blasphemy.

When she returns, Mother looks her up and down, standing at parade rest in her uniform, sniffs, and says, "Darling, I am giving you an assignment." When a lieutenant questions Darcy's abilities, Mother prompts, "I believe the newly-returned Agent Rattler can answer you."

"Mother knows best," Darcy replies, lips mimicking Mother's shark-sharp smile. "And Mother is HYDRA." The lieutenant bows his head gracefully and Mother let him off with a verbal threat. Her caretaker is put back into a deep freeze, unceremoniously, with only the faintest hint of humanity when she secretly slips into his holding room on the last night. She knows the perfectly trained, mind-wiped master of his trade would never look at her with fondness again: they wiped all emotion out of him, every time.

So she says her only goodbye and goes off to college.

Darcy has choices for the first time, outside of the preselected majors Mother allows: acquaintances easily convinced they are friends, meal times, workout times, and sleep times. She mimics average and American. She succeeds. She pretends that the music is not unfamiliar even as she devours every track borrowed, stolen, or bought, and builds a massive library.

The character she plays claims a single mother, loving but distant and busy. She pretends that she doesn't sleep with the window thrown wide open because the very thought of her windowless childhood cave has become anathema in the privilege these oblivious students take for granted. She scorns the ignorant around her, always pretending to be someone she isn't, and the compartment in her head grows stuffed to the brim when her classmates talk about their families and their lives and their other friends and their desires.

She never reports to Mother and is only contacted to give instructions. Near her birthdays, she receives a rare indulgence: "I love you, Darcy."

Love. That is something else she learns in college. Sex and romance click easily. There are games and manipulations and Darcy plays them like a pro. Transferring her training into this expected norm of young adult life is one of her secret pleasures, and she learns to be good at it.

She is almost sad to see her years of college coming to an end, and wonders why Mother has her short a few credits until instructions come for her to apply to one Dr. Jane Foster's internship.

:: :: ::

God exists. Or at least, some gods do.

She wonders which ones ignored her prayers. That little pearl she's tucked away is cratered and dirty, unpolished, but still there, kept. Darcy just doesn't look very much. There's no reason to take it out for a polish.

Dr. Foster and her alien paramour are reported to HYDRA, but she hesitates when she speaks of their brief romance. A part of her thinks she shouldn't say it, should tuck that away with her little pearl, but then Darcy reminds herself that emotional compromise is a failure and Mother does not tolerate those. Besides, she's not the only spy with access to that information, and someone has already reported the interspecies affair.

Mother decides that not only should she keep up her undercover work, but that she should put forth effort to ingratiating herself to those who seem to be forming SHIELD's Avengers Initiative. Her original assignment was to keep an eye on a promising young scientist. The sudden upgrade makes her anxious: Mother's expectations have risen, though her estimation of Darcy's abilities has not. Consequently, she is aware of the punishment should she fail.

Thankfully, she has a high tolerance for pain.

:: :: ::

"That's the last of it!" Darcy rests her palms on her thighs, breath whistling through pursed lips. She lifts a grin to the balcony, where Jane leans over a thin metal railing and mouths a count of the boxes for the fifth time that morning.

The scientist's index finger comes to a rest on the final box. "Good! Okay, so when we're unpacking, just remember—"

"Ah-ha-uh. No."

Her friend's immaculate eyebrows pinch in confusion. "No?"

Darcy claps her hands and rubs the palms together. "Food, boss-lady." As she speaks, she strides to the closet the two women had only opened long enough to stash their personals. "We've moved from one country to another and back to the good ol' U-S-of-A"—takes up the purses in one hand— "endured way too many epic explosions, and"—snatches the coats in her other—" this has been a long morning of suits and the voice of God." She turns around, poised on the balls of her feet, and arches an eyebrow at her boss. "We need to eat lunch, and it better be a darn good lunch."

Jane's hands flutter in that tell-tale way, eyes bouncing around the slightly-too-shiny lab space. "I don't know, Darcy, we still just have so much to do—"

"Absolutely. But not while running on empty, sweetie." Eventually, she will see reason, but Darcy is pretty sure this trip will involve physical dragging.

That is, without outside intervention.

"Ms. Foster and Ms. Lewis, Sir requests that it be known there is a dining option available on the thirty-second story. The menu is available upon request, and is a complimentary part of your service here at the Avengers Tower."

Darcy does not jump—she merely casts a suspicious eye in a heavenly direction. Jane, on the other hand, appears more confused about the idea of a free meal than the verging-on-invasive technology. "JARVIS, I don't remember seeing that on my contract," Jane said. "Actually, I don't remember seeing my contract at all, yet."

Ah, Jane. Good thing she has Darcy around to handle the minor details, like her actual job expectations.

"Sir will be present, if you wish to discuss the matter with him."

Darcy jumps in before Jane can be distracted further. "Are you the one with the menu, J?"

The AI offers the slightest hint of a sigh before replying, "Today's special is buffalo-mozzarella caprese sandwiches, with optional sides of freshly-steamed asparagus or handmade potato chips, and a Jell-O cups with additional fresh fruit."

Ignoring the intelligent computer's exasperation with a hint of glee, Darcy feels her nose twitch. "Stark is serving Jell-O for dessert? Stark. Multi-billionaire. Superhero. Playboy." She shakes off the slight twist in her gut. "That Stark."

"Sir claims that it is essential to his diet."

Her grin feels too wide for her cheeks. At least Jane is finally descending from her perch, menu deemed acceptable. That, or she wants to talk about that contract with her semi-boss before completing the move-in.

Delightful.

Well, at least food is part of the deal.

:: :: ::

This is not worth food.

Although she expects a cafeteria of some sort, when she and Jane arrive on the correct floor, they step into an actual, functional kitchen. At the stove stands a veritable Roman god, musculature wrapped in lightly-tanned skin and topped with golden hair. Only one glance at that wide back and she knows this is the body meant to be covered in blue leather with red and white accents. Next to him stands one of the top ten most powerful people in the corporate world, a woman in stiletto shoes loading a platter with divine sandwiches. Two men sit at the spacious island: one of them, curly dark hair and glasses, his profile just visible, almost makes her pause in her faux-confident walk. Almost, but not quite—cute as he was, she also knows what anger does to him, and even after that, she can hardly appreciate a handsome sometimes-green man right now.

Because the last one, engaged in enthusiastic conversation with him, is the one and only Tony Stark. Grease-stained sweatpants, the glow of the reactor underneath a classic rock band shirt, and a shark's smile lighting up his face.

Not worth the food.

She thought she could handle seeing him in person. Could be the consummate professional Mother trained, personal feelings catalogued and set aside. A rival to the Black Widow herself in her mastery of expressions, Darcy knows that no one will see the hesitation in her eyes. Nor the anger.

But oh, she feels it.

Jane is in front of her, so she lingers in the doorway, leaning casually against the frame. She lets veins of excitement and awe paint her mask while she stands in the background.

"Mr. Stark."

"Yes, who are you? What do you want? How did you get into my kitchen?"

"Sir, Dr. Foster and Ms.—"

"Foster! Jane, Thor's Jane, physicist Jane—hi, welcome! When did you get here? JARVIS, when did she get here?"

"—Lewis. They arrived this morning, and have yet to complete set-up in Lab 5. Per your instructions, I suggested that they join you for lunch."

He comes around the island with grin spread on nearly every magazine feature. He glances to a corner of the room as he shakes Jane's hand. "Why are you speaking in plural? Do I have to take a look at your codes again?"

The AI made a slight wheeze, like a stifled sigh. "Ms. Lewis, Dr. Foster's assistant, has accompanied her. Sir." Darcy bites her lip at the tagged-on honorific, internal organs squashed between amusement and frank horror at the parallel treatment between the computer's creator and herself.

Then, he finally looks at her. Their eyes meet, blue skimming over blue.

There's no spark of recognition, no feeling of kinship, but why would there be?

She covers the stiff feeling of her smile with the only way she knows Darcy Lewis would behave. Her cell phone, primed and ready, is in her hand. The camera has a wide-angle shot of the entirety of the kitchen, and all its occupants who turned to look at her in polite curiosity. She lifts her hand and clicks.

Stark's eyes narrow instantly. "Excuse me?" he demands, over-the-top outrage telling her that he is anything but unhappy. "How rude! That is not a StarkPhone. That is an outdated piece of technology I did not build. I will not stand for having my picture stored in such an inferior device!"

Her grin widens, baring teeth like a snarl. "I couldn't afford your prices, sugar-daddy," she drawls, slipping the phone back into her pocket. Her stomach feels hollow.

"Sugar—what?"

"You pay Jane. She pays me. Thus, you are paying me." Knees locked, she steps around the spluttering man. "Also, Jane's annoyed because food wasn't in the contract, but as a starving post-graduate minimum-wage intern" —she snags a sandwich from Ms. Potts' platter, noting her twitching lips— "I am more than pleased to accept your offerings of food and shelter in exchange for not working for you."

Stark eyes her like she is a bug in his pristine kitchen. "No intern of mine has non-Stark technology."

"This one does, sugar-daddy." She should drop that nickname. The perverse part of her that enjoys pain likes saying that second word a little too much. Darcy takes a seat at the island next to the curly-haired doctor, who stiffens at her proximity but can't hide the bemused grin which crept onto his face when she entered the conversation. Feigning cluelessness, Darcy holds out her hand. "Hello, my name is Darcy. I need a nametag. So do you."

He blushes. Cute.

Jane removes her palm from her face. "Darcy, please." Her tone screams 'toddler management' and, playing her character perfectly, Darcy rolls her eyes and sulks into the sandwich. Jane turns to Stark. "But I did come up here to talk to you about my contract. I still need to sign and file it. And also, I do not remember anything about food."

Ms. Potts places the sandwich platter on the island. "Paragraph D, subsection 5. It's vaguely phrased, but Payroll can show you when you come up to deal with the paperwork." She gestures to the open seats. "Please join us, Doctor Foster. Thor has had such wonderful things to say about you." Her striking gaze turns to Darcy. "Both of you, actually."

She grins. "The taser incident?"

"And the car," the buff blonde man interjects, finally—warily—approaching the island. He shakes his head and amends his statement. "Cars. Plural."

Just like that, Darcy slips into casual conversation with her targets. She receives formal introductions to Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner. While Captain America comes up, the Hulk goes unmentioned. She has a pleasant chat with "Call me Pepper" Potts, compliments the chef until his ears turn bright red, and even flirts with the doctor beside her. He seems to ignore it, though, so she makes a mental note. Jane, of course, becomes absorbed in the dialogue like she belongs there, and Darcy only needs to remind her to eat a handful of times.

Stark sulks at being one-upped for half a minute. Then he bounces back in bright energy, leading the conversation, making even the serious Dr. Banner laugh. He's snarky and clever, pulling random pieces of technology out of the air, pieces confiscated by Steve and Pepper with admonishments about work and meal-times. His smile is quick and his eyes are sharp, and he never rests on her presence for long, because in his world, she's nothing important.

She almost doesn't begrudge him the ease he has in his own home.

:: :: ::

She marches along a sleek silver corridor, pretending that the window-walls do not exist. The sight of so much open sky shakes her still if she looks too long.

In a cylindrical tower, curving corridors leave no corner to hide behind. The doors are nearly-flat sliding silver sheets, with only the frame of the door to disrupt the flow of the creamy walls. The space is surprisingly monotone, for its creator, though that might have been Pepper Potts' influence.

She stops at the third door. "JARVIS." A silent swoosh bares the bright and cluttered lab.

Brown eyes blink at the sudden surge of ambient light. "Darcy! You're here early."

"I'm late," she sighs, letting a teasing grin come instead of the surge of frustration at the crusty edges of her boss' shirt. "You were supposed to sleep last night. Didn't I tell you before I left? That you were supposed to stop at some point, because your brain can't keep going for that many hours without short-circuiting?" Through her words, she marches across the room with a bagel-on-a-plate in her hand and the other clutching her travel coffee mug. The metal is adorned with hot pink flowers on a black background, because she discovered the joys of finger-painting and let herself have a bit of that childish fun she'd been denied. At every askance stare, she says that it was a friend's guilt-gift.

Just another thing Mother never has to know.

She takes a sip as she stops beside Jane, who is craning her neck like a puppy in her seat. The top of her head comes up to just underneath Darcy's chin in that chair, affording her an excellent look over the scientist's shoulder at a diagram. A technical, shiny-new, and completely incomprehensible one.

Jane also needs sleep because Darcy has to report on the research. And that is made harder between the sleep deprivation and Darcy's uncomfortable emotional attachment. She can do it, but it feels squicky. Yet another thing Mother never has to know.

That emotional turmoil is compounded by the maniac who appears over the other side of the table at that moment, having apparently been lying on a bench out of sight. Tank top and gloves are the subtle cues: the welding mask is the final piece of the puzzle.

"What did you set on fire?"

Stark pushes the mask up. "That sounded like an accusation, Lewis. Did I hear that right? Or were you actually saying, 'Tony, that's amazing, you're a genius!' Because I think that's what I should have been hearing."

"You didn't sleep, either." Her eyes roll as she turns away.

"Sleep is for the weak!"

"Time just went a lot faster than we realized, honestly," Jane pleads. She is, at least, nibbling on the bagel. "But look how much progress we made! And there's a part to the machine, if this is finally scaled and targeted correctly, and Tony started building it—"

"What do you mean, 'started'?"

"He built it—"

"Damn right I built—"

"He can take himself down to the kitchen and eat something," Darcy interrupts them. Placing her hands on Jane's shoulders, with a no-nonsense hip-check to get her on her feet first, Darcy shoves her boss towards the door. "You need to let those R-E-Ms take you away."

"Oh, but there's just a little—"

"Hey, no, we didn't, there's still—"

Children, the pair of them. "Tomorrow. There is still tomorrow." She has Jane halfway to the door when it slides open, revealing backup she had not counted on but is, all the same, grateful to have—especially since it will keep Stark away from her.

Banner folds his arms over his chest, stepping to the side of the door. "JARVIS called me in," he says as Jane and Darcy come near. His eyes lock with Darcy's for a long moment, and she lets a hint of genuine gratitude slip into her grin. He blushes, turning his attention to his friend quickly. But she still gets a parting, "I'll see you later," out of him.

The door swoosh shut before Jane's curious eyes are paired with pokes and nudges at Darcy's arms. "Was that a blush on Dr. Banner?"

"How do you even notice things? You're going on twenty-four hours without sleep. Yes, that long," she says, loud over Jane's parting lips. "I woke you up at eight in the morning yesterday! Geez, Jane, you have got to remember to take care of the transport, there."

"I notice things. I notice a lot of things. I see all kinds of things when I'm this not-tired, Darcy, I swear," Jane breathes, every word tumbling down a lazy, lounging tongue. "Like that he blushes at you but you don't blush back at him, because you're not a blusher. You're a wall and you slowly let people see more of you, that's your blush."

Darcy wishes that those words made a little less sense, but unfortunately, they are all too true. The more emotionally compromised she becomes, the more attached she allows herself to be, the more of her which can be seen. She is lucky that Jane trusts her enough never to look more closely for the hidden clues of betrayal.

Lucky, or perhaps just damned. The longer she is away from the cave, the harder it becomes to tell the difference.

:: :: ::

Why think the roof is a safe place? Of course it isn't: this is a tower owned by a man in a flying suit of armor. In a contraption like that, nothing open to the sky is barred, and the man inside of it rarely pays attention to social niceties, norms, or cues.

Yet, she isn't on-guard because of a flashy landing, at an emotionless metal mask obscuring anything human. Her silent perch on the ledge is instead interrupted by a squeaking door.

She thinks it is the wind at first, cigarette halfway back to her lips before she realizes that the door was a closed and locked. That, and she senses movement behind her, a solid pressure in the periphery of her vision. She does not look away from the horizon—not because a threat is impossible, what with her own presence despite JARVIS' supposedly secure network—but because from the cologne on the wind, Darcy knows her unwanted companion is Stark.

Her lips create a seal around the lit stick, dragging smoke into her lungs. She considers keeping them closed, choking off her own air, anything to avoid talking.

"I'm guessing here, I guess a lot, but I'll just say this guess out loud because it should be said. So. I'm guessing that you knew me before you got here."

Her lashes flutter as she holds in furious laughter. Her heart beats a moment too long before she replies, "What makes you think that?"

"Everyone else is like a tentative co-worker slash friend with you, if not an outright fledgling friendship. But you're—resistant, to even being around me, which I didn't notice for a while until even Bruce was letting you camp out in his lab on occasion. Big deal for the green guy, he doesn't like letting people too close. So. There's something going on here." He gestures between them.

As if she is unaware. "We're here talking, aren't we?" Smoke curls around her grinning teeth.

He raises an unimpressed eyebrow. "Third attempt tracking you down. I had to ask my own artificial intelligence, too. He's definitely betraying me, getting so buddy-buddy with you."

"Aw, sugar-daddy doesn't like the other kids playing with his toys?"

That one pushes the limits. Her character, Darcy reminds herself. This is not about her desires, this is about her character, the person these Avengers and this SHIELD believe that they know oh so well enough to judge.

Stark leans back on his heels, nodding along, and that plastic mask of confidence he wears grows thin under her gaze. Darcy wants to tear it apart, rip to shreds all that smug certainty with a little bombshell he would never see coming.

If only I did know you, Dad. That's all I wanted for too long. But you didn't want me. Too late, now.

Instead, she leans back on one palm, tilting her chin toward the sky, releasing a second stream of inhaled tar and nicotine. The curling wisps feel like clean poison next to her character's coming performance. "Sorry, Stark. No, it's that you remind me of someone I want to forget, and it's not your fault. Thought I was over it, but…" She shrugs and focuses on the skyscrapers pushing the horizon ever higher. "I guess I am avoiding you, trying not to say anything I'd regret."

Just enough truth. Having the other person fill in the holes is what gets her through every lie.

Sure enough, Stark accepts and rebuilds that fragile, bruised ego. Darcy refuses to think that any slivers of pain cracking through his shell were more than remnants of pride.

:: :: ::

Except.

There's delight in Stark's eyes when, two days later, her character absently passes him the coffee pot in the kitchen. Much as she would like to pretend otherwise, that grin is not his usual morning coffee delight. Something deeper is satisfied, a longing he appears unaware of possessing. She almost wants to backtrack solely to deprive him of the pleasure, but the role she plays demands niceties.

She is slowly losing the resistance to her own performance. This fact bothers her, the emotional compromise is too far-reaching, but there is nothing she can do: Mother wants her on this assignment, and on it she will stay. No matter the consequences to her peace of mind.

Plus, the thought of returning to base, to her little carved cave, still rankles. She's too used to the open sky to go back without a fight.

Change spreads. Steve, whose comfort with her had stalled, returns to indulge in conversations about modern music, film, and television. She becomes a mentor in the unwinding of the past into the present, and discovers that Steve's second teacher in these turbulent times has been Stark. With their tension swept away, she finds herself more than once lounging around with the two of them, plus whoever happens to wander by the shared living space.

She also finds herself more than once backing out of a room, neither ever recognizing her presence, and lingering long enough to confirm for herself that yes, those eyes are gazing a bit too long, their bodies angled just so. These are private moments. They explain the Captain's uncertainty with her, until her character opened up to Stark.

Strange enough for her character—stranger, and stomach-churning in a way she wants to deny, for herself. Why can he not love her? He is capable. He cares for her character, in a boisterous and fragile way, and yet.

Not good enough. Do it again, Darcy. Mother knows best.

Stark didn't even need to meet her to figure that out about his own daughter. He teases her like he does any of the others, builds small objects and tosses them in her direction, flailing through emotional words—

"Just had some scraps lying around, and it's your birthday, right? Natasha mentioned that she looked at your files and, well, here you go. No need for thanks. I'll be in the workshop."

—and she accepts the gift with a smile, turning around and turning somber as she buries things in the back of her closet, warning JARVIS not to say a word about it. "My issue to deal with, J. Don't let his feelings get hurt in the process, okay?"

Her first birthday gift, ever, from her father, and he doesn't even know it.

His teammates carry his gestures to completion. And it hurts in a way she never anticipated when Mother gave her this assignment. Feeling emotions she is meant to feign. Fighting back tears alone in her room after the first hug he's ever given her, a haphazard back-slapping movement he imparts when Bruce wakes up after a Hulk-out and locks her out of the lab for two days. Being disgusted at her own laughter when they have a great conversation about what makes a good cheeseburger at three in the morning in the kitchen.

So, she buries that stress and allows herself to be lured away by Thor's promises of flagons and tales. Clint starts to join them on these adventures, a partner to herd a drunk Asgardian and making bets on the victor when Thor bellows at another patron of whatever bar they happen to be in that time.

When she is not helping Jane in her lab, she wanders over one door to the left and lingers at the entrance of Bruce's lab until he spots her. Depending on the mood of the day, he will either ask her to leave him be or invite her in. Those days he needs to be alone are rare and few between, but she knows as well as anyone else in the tower that there are days when the green rage is just too close to the surface for his comfort. Then he turns into a recluse.

That's not enough to make Darcy leave. Those are the days she returns with a book. She takes a seat just inside the door, sets her phone in front of her on the table, and leans back. The first time, Bruce huffed and puffed but let her stay since she was near the exit. Now, he merely raises an eyebrow, and Darcy's seen statistics in JARVIS' files in her brief, testing forays into his servers. His tension does deplete with the presence of another human being to ground him, even if it is only in shared silence.

Grounding also comes from the times he doesn't ask her to leave. They don't talk all that much: he tells her which beakers to bring, listens to her questions and insights, allows her to distract him into intellectual discussions in the lag while experiments are taking their time.

These times are precious to her. She thinks that they mean very much to him as well, and there's a huge pit in her stomach when she realizes that "emotionally compromised" does not begin to describe what she can tell is forming with Bruce.

And then comes an offer for self-defense training from Natasha—the woman who started letting her make breakfast in the rotation, who has a sly smile and demonstrates moves that Darcy knows but cannot execute perfectly, whose training and past life were almost HYDRA and still ended up on the team of America's heroes—and that's when Darcy knows that she has them all hooked.

Just as surely, they have all hooked her, too.

:: :: ::

The thing is, Darcy never thinks about what Mother's job does to other people. The morality lessons of her childhood were lacking.

To her, Mother and gene-donor Stark are on opposite sides of globally-reaching conflict: they are polar opposites on a spectrum Darcy only vaguely recognizes through other people's eyes. Outside of the cradle of Hydra, the world seems twisted.

When she found out that Tony Stark paid off Mother, never wanting to see Darcy at all, the fracture in that pearl of hope she carried close to her heart threw up enough dust to obscure what Mother did in the name of her organization. Anger kept her loyal, and Mother always said that anger paid well if controlled, discipline harnessing that power into a shining blade.

But undercover missions also exposed her to an entirely different life. And yes, these people are sheep, and yes, there are so many ideas that she simply cannot comprehend, and yes, maybe they need someone to take the reins and fix the world itself, but suddenly the divide is no longer "with him" or "with Mother".

The reason it is all such a mess is because there are hundreds of sides, not two.

Even so, she could have kept going. She has been loyal to HYDRA since her birth, and there is a plan to reshape the crumbling, warped world. But she has been compromised: by the ache in her chest as she stares at a full and rowdy dinner table in the tower; by the sight of a dimpled smile and curly dark hair hovering over a microscope; by the care shown in calloused hands as nuts and bolts come together to re-gift life to a damaged artificial intelligence helper, one with faulty programming yet so loved.

Her world is experiencing an earthquake. The only response is to dig.

JARVIS is implanted with an amnesia bug, a small blip in his timeline which she can use to access all data Stark has access to, a tool given for her mission. She collects dutifully, prepares herself for another report by rote, even as she searches for anything she can find connecting back to her.

Surely, a man who brings Bruce perfectly-made tea but never cooks eggs correctly, who constantly upgrades super-spy body armor and weaponry without boasting, who helped build an interdimensional portal because in his muffled murmurs he kept mentioning soppy love stories, who managed to make one of the top ten most influential women in the world laugh and hug him goodbye when they broke up, whose eyes glow like that when he looks at Steve…

Surely, this man must have saved a piece of her in his mechanical heart. Surely, he must have made a logical decision with some unknown motivation. Foolishly she polishes a small pearl of hope.

What she does not expect to find is nothing.

At first, what she knew for over a decade rings in her head. He does not want to know her. All those clues are nothing but wishful thoughts. But something, a small part of her sounding like Mother's voice, nudges her: maybe the only parts of her he has in his systems are payment receipts. The thought is painful, but it would be enough.

But there is no record of payment.

She tears apart the Stark Industries mainframe and makes it look like a virus attack. She hacks her way through his personal files. She even goes into those of his closest compatriots in the years before the Avengers—Pepper Potts, Happy Hogun, James Rhodes. Maybe he played it safe, just in case, by letting the evidence trail lead elsewhere, maybe he trusted one other person. There has to be a trail and an explanation—

There is nothing.

Heart pounding louder than Mjolnir on metal, she turns to the HYDRA databases she once looked at as a child, Mother's hand on her shoulder, a green-painted fingernail pointing at the screen to show her the answer to her question, "Do I have a father?" Maybe she can trace it back to whatever source it came from, or figure out how he scrubbed it out and why he would have thought to do so—

There, too, is a gaping hole. Just a single page, designed to look like one of many. But what child would have known that? And after confirmation by Mother, what girl would have gone back to torture herself with receipts of her own sale?

Receipts which never, as it turned out, existed at all.

:: :: ::

"Mimosa?"

A slender glass heads toward her face. She skids, ready to lunge backwards, if not for the hand being attached to a full length of arm on Jane's stationary body. Drink no longer categorized as a danger, Darcy shifts assessment to the holder. "Jane."

"Darcy?"

"It is three in the afternoon. Not happy hour."

Knowing Jane, the sideways glance is easy to spot. Two redheads peer levelly at them from the island: one lounging as though the hidden weaponry on her body offered no resistance, the other nonchalant on her feet despite towering stilettos. Daytime drinking is never Jane's idea, because she is too easily absorbed into her work. This is a women's-only get-together, which means it has to be about one of the male Avengers.

Darcy sighs and takes the drink. "What blew up this time?"

"Nothing in the Tower, or so we hope," Natasha replies, sliding one finger around the rim of her drink as Darcy sits.

They pretend that the kitchen is a sacred zone in which to confess. It is a secure location, even knowing that they could be interrupted at any time by the men in the Tower. Yet for some reason, not one afternoon like this is interrupted. There has been a fair few of them, too: everything from Jane's tearful insecurities in the face of Thor's skyrocketing popularity and fan-base, Pepper's stressful negotiating between her dead romantic feelings for Stark but strong-as-ever care for the man, and Natasha's quietly confessed nightmares of too many years before reaching legal adult age interfering with her ability to sleep beside Clint without waking to think she was being attacked.

For compromised Darcy, these afternoons are marvelously torturous. There is no way this can be her safe zone. She fabricates an insecurity complex for her character and confesses to feeling overshadowed and insignificant while surrounded by such amazing and intelligent people.

She finds the confession less of a stretch than planned, which only adds to the performance. Which only brings her both closer and further to these friendships.

Nevertheless, these times are far between, and only pop up on an as-needed basis. Darcy has been keeping a close eye on her three female companions and thought everyone sailing smooth, but apparently, she is as much a failure as ever. Why she even received this assignment when Mother kept telling her at every update how little she had accomplished…

"—Banner. We're hoping it's not…?"

Three pairs of eyes rest steadily on her face. She can only blink at them, willing her heart to stop pounding. "Bruce?"

"You know I don't like to pry," Jane says, fingers curling and uncurling around her glass restlessly. "Really, I know you like your privacy. But I thought—we thought—there might be something there between you two, even though neither of you have said it. And that's one of the few things we could think of to explain why you were so unhappy, so suddenly."

"Me? Unhappy?"

Her character is letting too much out, is too easily read and seen. Stupid! Of course they noticed: finding the truth about her father through JARVIS has taken a toll on her ability to function. Time for damage control.

"No, not Bruce. That's—well, neither happening nor not, I suppose," she says, allowing a faint smile to briefly shine. Even the discoveries can't shake the luminosity of their conversations becoming increasingly fraught with a particular, delicious tension. "I'm just preoccupied with something else, that's all."

"Mind lightening the load?" Natasha offers.

Darcy nods to acknowledge words repeated from a memory. But her lips are unable to maintain a smile's stretch when she thinks of her careful phrase. "Just found out something about my father. And I need to process it before I can say any more," she adds, tossing back a mouthful of her drink. The alcohol bites her tongue for her, a careful swallow of the words.

He never knew about me. Mother lied.

:: :: ::

Beep. Kk-shhh. "Agent Rattler to M-H."

"Report."

"No further information as of this date, M-H."

"Again, Agent?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Rumor has it there was tension Captain and Iron Man after today's public excursion."

Tension dealt with after said battle, likely by an exchange of bodily fluids. "There was a minor squabble over breakfast this morning."

"Hmm… I suppose that will have to do. Initiate phase two."

"Ma'am!"

"Is there a problem, Agent Rattler?"

"N-no, ma'am, I hadn't—I thought one of the pieces was not in place, and that the situation would not change for some time. Not until Asgard could be reached."

"The issue has been resolved. The Enchantress has crossed dimensions under her own power and has pledged her assistance despite it, due to our common interest. Expect an oh-three-hundred wake-up call, and prepare to delay as necessary."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And do try not to mess up, Agent."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll do my best."

"Do better than that." Kk-shh.

:: :: ::

Almost every night, she makes Bruce a cup of tea, takes it down to his lab, and uses the delivery as an excuse to chat. She was starting to anticipate the time she might lean over and kiss him, berating herself for the temptation to make herself more invested in him. Usually, when she fantasizes about what his curls would feel like woven between her fingers, she forgets that she is undercover and on a mission.

Tonight she makes tea and holds her clenched palm over the cup for nearly a full minute. Then she slowly lowers her fist to the counter.

She knows what Mother will do to her if she finds out. But Bruce's greatest fear is releasing the Hulk and hurting an innocent bystander. He hates himself too much already, too much for someone who makes her feel like she's an actual, vibrant human being instead of a shadowy mockery of one. The dissolvable pill in her hand would strip his defenses down to cobwebs.

The pill remains in her palm and she dumps the tea. In her room, curled in the covers, she tells herself that his control will be tenuous enough at the appropriate time. There will be no need for the aggravator. A superfluous resource, which shouldn't be wasted.

She tosses and turns well past midnight.

:: :: ::

At precisely three in the morning, Darcy's window breaks and a masked man rolls into her room. She jumps up in bed, screams as loudly as she can, and throws all three of her pillows at an unkempt head of hair. Scrambling backwards, she tumbles to the floor and crawls frantically toward the door.

"Please remain calm, Ms. Lewis. The Avengers have been notified."

She cannot respond to JARVIS because an arm tightens around her throat. A metal arm, sleek and silver and too tight for her to breathe.

In her ear, lower than JARVIS can pick up in the sounds of struggle, he mutters, "Prefer working with you to this training exercise."

Darcy lets her hair fall in front of her face to hide the snort of laughter. She struggles, pushing her heels into his shins, trying to gain footing on the carpet, and attempts a few half-strength throws, all to no avail. He pulls her mercilessly through her own apartment. She manages to gasp for air but can utter no scream for help.

JARVIS has a voice made for threats, Darcy decides, when the AI intones in a sleek purr, "You shall not escape this tower. Release Ms. Lewis immediately and I may call an ambulance for you."

Her captor makes no reply. They make it from her bedroom through the hallway and almost to the elevator before an incongruous footstep squeaks on slippery tile. He whirls and flings out his good arm, and she twists in his grasp to catch a glimpse of the situation.

An arrow thuds into the wall just past her ear. It wouldn't have damaged the arm holding her, but Hawkeye doesn't know that yet.

The Winter Solider adjusts his grip—releasing her throat, catching her around the ribs so that her arms are held immobile. Darcy coughs and gasps, letting her head loll and her ankles wobble. She manages to look weak and pitiful long enough for Natasha to come sliding from behind, firing two guns, and for Tony to appear outside the window, one repulsor leveled at them like he thinks he can fine-tune his favorite weapon to hit only her assaulter.

She knows that Bruce has held back—that must be what's taking Steve so long, Bruce would need someone to remind him that he can hold himself back. Someone to make him a promise and guarantee her safety.

Sure enough, a rebounding shield causes her captor to duck and roll with her. She struggles to free herself—not-so-coincidentally avoiding bullets, arrows, and shards of glass. He loosens his grip enough for her to slip out, and she skids away from him.

She rolls to a stop near the broken window, hissing as her arms are cut on broken glass. Her head wobbles as she lifts it, gazing through tangled strands of hair as he fights the tag-team efforts of Black Widow and Hawkeye. A pair of metal boots land in front of her, facing away, marching forward with deadly intent.

A part of her wants to yell at Tony to stop, to let it go, and then James would escape, and—and Mother would know. And Darcy would pay for it.

Darcy flinches when Captain America's bright blue glove grips her arm. He loosens his hand immediately, letting it hover over her shoulder. The set of his jaw is determined and his eyes—while glowing with anger—also flash relief. "Darcy. We have to get you to Bruce's floor. He can hold on when he sees that you're okay."

"But what about—"

A twitch of his cheek is the only tell of pain she can see. "They can deal with Bucky. Come on."

He helps her up, lifting her away from the glass and to undamaged floor, where her bare feet can gain safe footing. She tugs at her sleep shorts, rolls her shoulders under the shirt, moves as quickly as she can with the Captain at her back.

This is where her character should assert her independence. Where she should demand the Captain return to the fight and let her reach safety alone. Stalling for time, placing herself back into vulnerability, allowing for the plan. Letting it happen.

Her lips part and twist, twitch, a spasm slipping them shut. She does not look back. She does not pause just out of sight of the fight to feign a muscle cramp or shortness of breath, to demand that she continue alone while he returns to help the others. Instead, she keeps going, the Captain at her back, responsive and attentive and near enough to shield her from danger.

And when a handful of agents jump out of the elevator, thinking they have to rush to set up an ambush, she does not greet them according to plan: alone.

:: :: ::

The shadows of the cave turn her hands red.

:: :: ::

Her pulse chokes the air from her lungs. She hears the echoes in the walls, familiar mechanic clangs vibrating through stone. Through the haze comes Mother's voice.

"—a night in Vegas. If you remembered at all, it would be of a brunette—"

She's feet away from the space where her presence would be known. But Darcy can't quite move there yet, still struggling to keep her shoulders squared. Everything she learned is being put to the ultimate test of her control. There is no room for failure—never had been, never would be again.

Not that Mother ever allowed anything less than perfect, anyway. Mother knows best, Darcy, a constant whisper in the back of her mind.

Darcy finally wills her feet to move. Boot heels click against the stone. Her thighs brush each other with the stiff slide of leather on leather. She puts half her focus into controlling every facial twitch, every muscle in her body in place. No joy and no pain, just void. Blankness.

"—personal. Business matters, but our mission is the most—"

She knows Mother is aware of her presence as she steps in shadows. They're for dramatic effect: no HYDRA agent would be caught unaware by a lurker. But this performance is not for the sake of the technicians at the computers.

It's for their guests.

The cylindrical container holding the Avengers is larger than life. It would be big enough to hold the Hulk, if not for the Enchantress' spell preventing the transformation. It's too tall for them to reach the top even standing upon each other's shoulders, and too wide across for similar acrobatic stunts. Not a scrap of technology is accessible. They only have the basic remnants of their costumes, the rest of it languishing in the storage levels below their feet.

Darcy swallows hard at the sight of Natasha and Clint in their remaining undergarments, a slim nod to modesty still preventing either master agent from secreting away anything of use. Thor is magically blocked from calling Mjolnir by the containment field and wears street clothes. Steve's in what probably amounts to the suit's under-armor, the formfitting blue and bare feet making him look like a very buff gymnast. Bruce has only the Hulk pants.

But the one who really draws her eye is her father.

He's in the black unitard that protects his body when he's in the armor. And of all the anger and fear and determination on the Avenger's faces, she can see most clearly his pain.

Mother is very pointedly taunting Tony Stark. She's showing her fixation, though Darcy is willing to bet that Natasha hasn't figured out why that is yet. Tony clenches tight fists at his sides. Steve's hand is on his shoulder, a gesture of support concealing the true extent of their relationship.

Reporting Jane and Thor was out of her control, even before her emotional compromise became a fledgling loyalty. She never reported further on the interpersonal relationships within the team. Natasha and Clint were rumor before her time, but she gave no confirmation, and no breath of Steve and Tony passed her lips. Because she became suspicious. Because she found…

"—wonder how you were caught." Darcy straightens at the signal.

"I assume that the Winter Solider and those armed goons had something to do with it," Tony says, glib and sarcastic despite the lurking discomfort in his eyes. He lashes out at this woman he barely remembers, at this person he'll hate himself for being involved with in any way. "Or wait, was it the EMP and—" He spots her movement and his flailing abruptly stops.

Out of the shadows, Darcy walks to Mother's side in a vacuum of silence. The technicians do not look up from their screens, and HYDRA never was one for casual workplace chatter.

She refuses to look at any of their faces in the raw silence.

Mother lets loose a killer's smile. "We had Agent Rattler. I must remember to thank SHIELD, and you, for giving my daughter a job," she laughs, and brushes her fingers along Darcy's jaw, the tips of her nails scraping skin in the gesture. "Though honestly, that's the least you could have done, Tony."

Darcy does not turn her head at press of Mother's fingers until the nails dig in slightly and apply pressure, clawed hand twisting her head on her neck like a doll. She cannot fight the movement without making Mother suspicious.

She looks at her father. The betrayal ignites his cheeks and sharpens his gaze. She's still looking when Mother adds, "Don't you think she has her father's eyes?"

It takes him less than a minute to figure it out. He's a genius, after all.

The blood drains out of his face and a strained mumble that passes through his lips, sounding like part of an equation, and partly a denial.

Mother laughs and releases Darcy's chin. "You've given HYDRA so very much, Tony."

Her eyes scan for a heartbeat of time. Steve's clenched jaw, Thor's tightened eyebrows, Clint leaning forward, Natasha stepping back. Tony's agony stabs her, and just beyond him, arms crossed—

She fights not to let a single muscle move and she cannot look Bruce in the eye but at this distance, she can see his whole face. His gaze burns through her core.

Darcy remains motionless when their cylindrical prison abruptly turns opaque. The outside is layered with a double-sided glass: the electrical pulses make it opaque while viewing from either side. They can be adjusted so that both sides are, or one of them is, and Mother signaled for them to be raised. Put the Avengers in isolation with the final revelation ringing.

His lips were parted, about to speak. Knowing what she knows, she can guess: a denial, a plea, begging, shouting. It's all the same to her at this point.

She's already made up her mind.

The machines let loose an unhealthy whine. Her eyes dart to the computer technician who raised the shields. She moves to the closer terminal at her right-hand side as Mother's arctic tones freeze the man who was responsible for raising the shields.

Before she can reach the terminal, the technician sitting in front of it states, "A minor electrical malfunction. No damage done. The readings indicate that the Avengers are cut off from sound and sight."

The technician leaves the room in disgrace, but he lives.

Her breath shortens when she realizes that all of the technicians are clearing out. Mother's given the order. It looks like a private conference, but she knows better. All too abruptly, the lingering pain she feels over her role in the capture of the Avengers is a distant thought in the back of her mind.

How did she think she'd get away with it?

She wishes it were in another location, not with the Avengers oblivious on the other side of their prison walls. Moving would be a futile gesture on her part. Mother paces slowly, the sharp heels of her shoes clicking against the stone floor.

"Tell me, darling," she says abruptly. "Why is it that my plan did not work?"

She concentrates on her breath. "You have the Avengers. It did work."

A long sigh through her nose. "The Captain was with you with you reached the elevator. Neither was the Hulk easily triggered, which the Enchantress is charging extravagantly for, so the Tower remains standing. The Soldier was also without backup for longer than anticipated, managing to succeed only through luck and his own foresight. In short, we succeeded by covering for your failures." She stopped circling, just out of sight. "Explain."

Darcy's muscles are winding tighter by the second, and that's only going to hurt more when it happens, but she can't help it. "There were uncontrollable variables."

"That is not nearly good enough."

"The Captain could not be dissuaded from accompanying me. Doctor Banner must not have drunk his tea that night. I could not—"

It came from behind, of course. A whiplash strike to the back of her right knee, followed by a punch to her left ribs. She goes down hard, clenching fists and sucking greedily for air. No cry even tries to escape: this is no surprise.

"I see two explanations." Mother's voice circles her. Darcy's gaze stays on the distant wall when she lifts her head slightly. "One. My daughter behaved like an untrained—" a kick to the same side, and she braces her hand on the floor. "—rookie."

The unpleasant arch of Mother's shoe slams down over Darcy's wrist, trapping her hand. The razor-sharp inner edges slice into her skin and she bites her lip against a hiss of drawn breath.

Mother drags her shoe across the floor, forcing Darcy to scramble on knees and elbows to keep up with the sliding arch trapping her wrist—all in silence, without fighting back, accepting punishment and interrogation. "You were unusually careless, or—" an unkind laugh "—I can't quite believe I have to ask."

Darcy's half-spread across the floor, an ugly red stain smeared by her wrist. She keeps her gaze down as Mother crouches.

She places one hand on Darcy's hair, patting gently. "Darcy. Did you intentionally fail?" The tone is mocking, disbelief practiced. "After all those years deep undercover, I wouldn't be surprised at your weakness, but darling, surely you wouldn't betray me."

Darcy replies, "I would never betray my blood." Clear. No hesitation. Truth.

Mother's gentle pat turns into a fierce grip. She tugs Darcy's head up by the hair. "You have more than one parent," she purrs, eyes blinking curiously like a predator watching prey.

"Family is more than genetics." And that is also true. "I remember who raised me. Took care of me. Wanted me."

But Tony is not merely blood now: he's been more family to her in the past year than Mother ever has been. She was raised to fear and be feared, to hate a man who never knew she existed and—she knows now—would have done anything for her. Would have given her the world, not in money but in hugs and laughter. Things Mother has not given her—Mother, who had every bank account in existence at her fingertips, and whose shoes have always had those sharp blades on the bottom.

The Avengers accepted her into their makeshift home and their lives and their hearts. She shattered that connection, when they saw her back in this HYDRA uniform, and that trust is as if it never existed. That she started to mean it doesn't matter. The home she had for a short while is broken apart and she'll never have it back—

—but they can have it for themselves.

Even if they don't consider her a part of it, she started thinking of them as her family. And Jane. Pepper. Coulson, even, if she wants to get right down to it. They were honor and truth and it wasn't pure—there was darkness, it was covert—but they stood for more than HYDRA, believed the little things that people did meant the big things could change, and never once treated her like Mother always did.

Looking up, she hopes that everything she feels is concealed.

Mother releases her hair. "You do learn, even if it takes longer than it should," she says, calm as though nothing about her emotionless appraisal is abnormal. "Kindly try harder next time. I do so dislike having to pick up after you."

Darcy lets her head fall and waits until the shoe is picked up before pulling her knees underneath her. The blood leaking from her wrist is smeared across the floor, and she has nothing to wrap it in but her other hand. She glances after the clicking heels as they head toward the door.

"You have the rest of this shift, dear," Mother says. "The replacement will come in on beta."

She will be here for the remaining two hours of alpha, expected to sit without bandages or first aid. It is a show of trust—and a test. If she does anything to free the Avengers Mother will know immediately.

She always hated waiting. Patience is hard-learned.

:: :: ::

The two hours pass in silence. Darcy puts pressure on her wrist with only her fingers and wanders among the machines every half hour, checking their functionality at a glance and walking off the soreness of her ribs. Blood litters the floor in tiny droplets and the technicians who relieve her pay the wound no mind. She leaves the prison quietly, forcing herself not to glance back over her shoulder at the containment device. She must keep up her masks.

In her room, she wraps a bandage around her wrist. On the vanity in front of her lies a photograph of a black jewelry case. The real piece is still in the Tower. Her fingers caress the Polaroid, leaving faint bloody fingerprints. Tony organized a theme for her birthday gifts and presented them all with his own contribution, typically over-the-top and stabbing her in the heart. She left it in the back of her closet until she uncovered the truth, and then took the picture so as to always keep it. Her first present from her father, immortalized.

In the picture the case is open, a simple silver chain dangling over the edge. Tony welded melted pieces of metal, scrap strips which formed dainty, delicate cages around three freshwater pearls, dangling from a chain. Bruce had handed her a pendant with an amethyst stone, curled in one corner of the box. All the other assorted trinkets are there—the lapel pin, dangling earrings, a thick cuff bracelet, a delicate gold hair ornament, a hand-crafted ring—from her cobbled-together family. A family unmade at her hand, which makes this picture unique, never to be duplicated. The promises made will be forcibly forgotten.

She slips the well-handled picture into the pocket of her suit. If nothing else can come with her, she'll at least keep this.

Slipping her gun into the thigh holster, she spares one final glance at the room where she stands. This little room with a luxurious bed and bright lighting has been hers for years. Childhood playroom, teenage refuge, and now as an adult she sees it for what it truly is: a cave, lights angled so that she played with shadows on the wall instead of seeing the whole picture. It's like a Greek tragedy, all the clichés piling up within her and she's bursting full.

Sentimentality is for the weak.

Darcy rolls back her shoulders and slips out the door. The muffled sounds of the alarm grow louder in the corridor. Her pace is purposeful and intent.

By now, the bottom of the cylindrical prison has fallen out from under the Avengers' feet. They'll have found themselves in the Catacombs, the storage maze, and Natasha at least would have had access to top-secret information about HYDRA. They had at least one spy who would have passed along the key to the maze. Natasha would know.

By now, they would have found their belongings and been on the move. The alarm going off would have been cause for concern, but intent on escape they wouldn't pause to see what the fuss was about—would assume it was them, assume the agents would be searching for the missing prisoners.

By the time the base self-destructed, they would be gone. No one would think to look for them in the rush to move everything HYDRA, assuming the Avengers were still imprisoned. Assuming it did not matter if the cave came down on them, the loss of research and blackmail compensated for by death. Any grunt they did run into would either zealously fight and be easily subdued or scramble to save themselves first. The time limit was severe enough, the danger uncertain enough, the cause of the alarm a complete mystery.

Darcy's role in the event of base destruction was to go out on an emergency transport in the lower levels, taking one of the important weapons research individuals with her. This was her only duty to HYDRA during evacuation, which she subtly re-assigned herself on the roster.

Her personal mission was to release the cargo and crash the plane: though the person could end up doing more harm than good when activated, the chance of deprogramming might be enough to make up for her betrayal. Even if the Avengers would never know she was responsible. She would parachute out and make sure the cargo ends up found, and then disappear. Maybe take a trip back to one of those cities James took her to, and learn how to truly be a person instead of a character. Find her own freedom.

Darcy took the shortest route through the tunnels to reach the secret hangar. She avoided other personnel by taking the shortcuts with which she was intimately familiar. The path took her too close to where the Avengers may have wandered, but a lack of confrontation meant they had not wandered across her path. No way could the hot-headed members have resisted taking the risk to capture their betrayer.

Three minutes led to the underground hanger. It was empty, though the rushing water over the jagged edge echoed in a soft murmur. The darkness below had always been disturbing, especially since she knew the water went under rock for half a minute before bursting out into a small antechamber, just before the deadly waterfall. This river was where her final swimming test took place. Mother had been so proud of her success.

And now she wonders, how did she ever not realize just how desperately wrong that was? She'd barely been thirteen.

The things a person doesn't know. The things a person will not let themselves think about.

The memory tap-dances in the back of her mind as she enters the small plane and keys up the one-time opening of the mountain face. The charges will detonate when she sets them off from the cockpit. In the antechamber, the robot tech bastardized from her father's designs moves a roughly coffin-sized box up the loading ramp of the aircraft. It was programmed to drop to this chamber through the conveyors and transport tunnels networked through the base. She steps around the automaton—it has no spirit, no life. Nothing like Tony's little robot creations.

Maybe the memories distract her, because her eyes keep dancing to the edge of the pit. Maybe rubbing her forehead, the way she does, with her shoulders feeling like Atlas let her carry his burden for a while, makes her briefly detach from observing her surroundings. Maybe the water warps her perception in the dimly-lit cavern. Whatever the reason, it takes her too long to notice that there's a faint blue glow in one of the back corners—so faint that it could be a trick of her eyes, but—

Instinct has her ready pull her gun out of the holster. But she hesitates. Feels a wisp of air on the back of her exposed neck.

The owner of that faint blue beacon is not the only other person in the cave.

Her feet aren't quite quick enough, and neither is her draw. She has to tumble out of the way of the merciless kick which would have bruised her back. When she lifts her hands, clasping the gun, it is kicked sharply and pain shoots up her arm from the finger on the trigger as the gun clatters away from her to the ground. Her sight whites out for a brief moment and she's left scrambling, in pain, to avoid further strikes. Evasion is her only goal for several minutes of short breath and snake-strike movement. She ends up closer to the edge of the abyss than she would like, breathing hard and cradling her hand to her stomach.

The assault stops, and Mother lets a drawn-out sigh echo into the cavern. She paused in her attack out of striking distance, breath coming in evenly. Her cobra eyes narrow dispassionately. "You're preoccupied, darling."

Mother's intentions are crystalline in her eyes. Darcy won't leave this cave with her assigned cargo, won't see the mask of motherly affection weaken the HYDRA leader's expression, won't be able to make up to the Avengers what her badly-informed decisions tore apart, won't get to be human and free.

She won't be alive.

The cave spins around her. When unable to find financial transactions to prove Mother's lies, there was at least growing affection for Tony despite her denial, pleasure in the company of her constructed family, tension between her childhood and her undercover life keeping her focused. But there's nothing to grasp now: she hits mental blocks trying to calculate an escape. But in these spare milliseconds, there is nothing she can do.

Mother arches an eyebrow at her silence. Darcy pulls herself together to speak, her voice thin in the cave air. "We're supposed to be evacuating, why are you—"

"Someone initiated the self-destruct. And I would hate to accuse the wrong person, but Darcy, you were not scheduled to transport…unstable cargo." A gesture to the container which has just been loaded into the small plane.

Mother would never have attacked had she been uncertain. Only a fragment pearl of hope remains in Darcy: there is, indeed, a faint, hiding light on the cave wall behind her Mother.

Somewhere there's a bit of strength left in her throat. Darcy can feel it stiffen her shoulders, press their blades into her lungs. She meets Mother's eyes and says, "I thought that since HYDRA would lose this stronghold, I'd take what I could get. And bring it to SHIELD."

Mother's lips twitch. "Ungrateful brat. I should have known you would betray me—"

Rage, so sudden it leaves her lightheaded, contracts her biceps. "You lied to me!" The words ring out, ricochet off the walls like shrapnel. Mother is startled enough at her sudden, upfront vehemence that Darcy takes a single step forward.

She recovers with a scoff. "You'll have to clarify. You know lies are part of the job, darling."

Her nails dig into her palms. "You told me that my father wanted nothing to do with me. You manipulated me all my life! But once I was out of this, this cesspit cave you kept me in my entire childhood, I could finally look for the proof. And I couldn't find anything, no record of payment or communication. He never knew I existed!"

"Surely you aren't that dumb. Of course he wouldn't keep the financial records with the company." Mother clicked her tongue. "You owe me better than this, Darcy."

"I owe you nothing," she replied, lips twitching in near-hysteria at the farce being dragged out. "The company had no records. The ones you showed me on our database were false leads. His personal servers had nothing—JARVIS had nothing, couldn't find any whisper of me anywhere. And nothing can keep JARVIS out." Her chin lowered slightly. "Not even HYDRA."

Mother blinks. "I…beg your pardon?" This is the first, and only, sign of surprise yet, which does nothing to quell a rising suspicion in Darcy's stomach.

With relish, she tells Mother, "I let him into the system and uploaded every file we have to a new server on Tony's property, and deleted JARVIS' memory of obtaining it until he receives the signal which will trigger restoration of the data. He'll remember when our base no longer exists—which is in about ten minutes." Mother is seething, unable to hide it for once. "They'll have all of it." The awe-inspiring might of Tony's favorite AI is the nail, the straw, the bell.

Mother exhales her rage into casual disdain that Darcy's never seen directed towards her before. It's a time for firsts: first true fight, first fought-for truths. "You inherited some of your father's smarts after all."

The wound is nothing compared to the damage done already, but it manages to quench her flaring wrath with a bone-deep ache. "You knew I'd find out someday." Mother nods, patronizingly encouraging her to follow the thought to its conclusion. "You always planned to kill me."

"After Stark is gone, I won't have any other use for you." Mother pulls her gun out from her hip holster. "It's nothing personal, darling. Mother knows best."

However much this woman warped her, Darcy cannot quite wrap her mind around this hole. Her only response, weak as it is, tears her heart right out. "Mothers love their daughters. We're not family. You're trying to kill my family."

"That is why you're still standing," she allows. "Tell me where they are."

Two could play that game. "Safe from the blast, in containment. Where else?"

"They aren't, as you well know. Where are the Avengers, darling?"

"Don't call me that." She pointedly keeps her eyes on Mother's face, watching those eyes narrow and the lips press together.

The older woman refrains from theatrics and cocks the gun, a click over the rush of water below. "You had to have been the one to release them."

They both know it to be true. Buying time now seems pointless. But she will never tell what she suspects: who she thinks might be listening to this confrontation, and who she selfishly hopes understands, in the end, that if she could do it all over again she would have changed everything.

"I don't know where they are," she says out loud. "Far from here, by now."

"Lying won't do either them or you any favors." Mother takes a step closer.

"I don't know where they are," she repeats.

"Would you prefer me to start with your kneecaps, then?"

Darcy closes her eyes. "I don't know." Her voice sounds weak to her own ears.

Not lacking in certainty, but lacking in life. In hope.

"You're lying."

Click. BANG.

Her knee erupts into flame and an explosion echoes in her ear a moment later but she can barely hear it over her own scream. She thinks for a moment that more than one voice echoes with hers but, no, if she was right, revealing themselves is counterproductive. Her hands scrape and then her spine jolts and she rolls to her side and she trained through pain like this before. She breathed through a bullet wound and stood on her own feet afterwards, left with no choice. This is nothing, she tells herself.

Her eyes crack open and Mother stands above her.

Darcy clasps her knee with both hands, pressing into the blood and gritting her teeth. Her jaw locks against a sob. Everything blurs from the tears she can't contain.

Mother angles the gun at her stomach. "Where are they, darling?"

Through her gritted teeth, she screams, "I don't know!"

Mother sneers. Darcy looks away.

Her cheek rests against stone and she thinks that the stone horizon will be the last thing she sees. Through the haze of tears, she sees—movement?

A dart of red hair slipping into the plane, and a dark curly head supporting someone who can't walk up the ramp. A pair of blonde muscle-men are barreling toward her, and—

Her arm goes up instinctively as a black blur slams into Mother. The pistol clatters to the ground in front of her. She scrabbles at the ground, whimpering as her leg moves, but they don't step on her. Darcy's eyes follow through tears as Mother blocks punches, sneering all the while.

Tony is between them, blocking mother from daughter. In that silly-looking under-armor unitard, Tony has Mother backed against the edge and triumph flickers underneath her anger.

Darcy knows her Mother, who can easily turn an enemy's body weight against them, who is poised to toss her father over her shoulder and into the deep void of an icy waterfall.

Her hands are slick with blood but they latch onto the dropped weapon. Her right hand still throbs, but she knows how to shoot with her left. Her arm swings, and using the ground as a balance, she fires.

Click. BANG.

Mother screams, foot drawing up in uncontrollable reflex, hopping backwards in pain. Tony jerks at the noise, but his punch is already thrown. Mother tips backwards, off-balance, a lack of control never witnessed until now. She goes over the edge.

Blink. There. Blink. …Gone.

Her fading scream careens around the cave. It sounds like a promise, like vengeance.

Tony. She blinks. His eyes are on her face, she can feel them, but her own can't look away from the air Mother once inhabited. Over the rush in her ears, she barely hears the pistol clink as it drops from her hand. She shifts and her vision blurs as her bones protest the movement. Her knee.

Large hands grasp her arms. Her lashes flutter in surprise and she looks up, finally meeting those intense eyes. The world fills with sound again, the whirr of a jet engine and the rush of water and the babble of Tony's voice. "—should have a first-aid kid in the plane, right, I mean health and safety, live to fight another day, all that—"

"Why are you here?" Darcy only realizes the thought made it past her lips when Tony's ramble pauses. She follows up the murmur with another, which is supposed to be stronger but isn't. "You should have been gone by now." It sounds just as tired. Just as weak.

His lips press tightly and he looks behind her. Strong arms suddenly support her back, then her legs, and suddenly she is airborne without having registered movement. Probably not a good indication of her health.

She is startled to find metal under her back—also not likely a good sign. The interior of the jet comes into briefly sharp focus, and Natasha's blank expression floats on the opposite side. Bodies move around her, and her eyes fall on the case the redhead stands beside. The oblong container bulky to contain both body and cooling units. Hibernation. Stasis.

Right. Well, she can't fly this plane now.

They'll take her back to SHIELD with them, have their vengeance on the traitor. Open that box and release—oh. But the least she can do…

"Don't let him out," she says. Her voice sounds watery, like speaking through a swimming pool. Can he hear through ice? Ice is water. Natasha's expression does not change, what little of it is visible. "No time to clear the programming. He'd go back to the last, the last time…"

The world turns about her neck until she can see Steve. His jaw is clenched, eyes dark, hair tousled. So not put together, how cute. Dark spots blur the clarity of his expression—it must be disgust, betrayal anew as he figures out who is in the jet with them. "Wait until SHIELD," she warns, tongue too fuzzy to finish, is there mold growing on it? How unsanitary.

A sharp starburst explodes in her sight when something touches her knee. She refuses to let so much as a gasp out—no telling who is there, what if Mother hears? Her fingers bat at the intrusion unhappily, she never likes unknowns touching her, but it won't stop and it is stronger than her fingers. Warm, thick, hairy, how strangely familiar those forearms.

A nice dream, of her family around her, so silent in the whish-rush on air. How quiet.

Why was there pain?

:: :: ::

Steady beeping to her left. The squeak of rubber shoes. Rustling paper and curtains. Pen against clipboard and papers flipping. A lowered voice, in conversation with a reassuring tone.

Hospital sounds.

The smells, too. There are cleaning products and her body odor and a faint metallic tang.

She feels stiff cotton sheets on her toes. A wire or tube resting on her arm, probably connected to an IV. Her back feels tight, muscles frozen. She wants to move, but the pain in her knee as she lay on a damp cave floor meant a broken bone—

Oh.

But it still doesn't make sense. Why would the Avengers leave her in a hospital? She should be in a cell. Unless—

Slowly, fighting against the crusted edges of many days spent closed, she forces her eyelids to open. The world is hazy to her sight. Good thing her mind is sharp despite whatever pain medication they have given her.

As her vision clears to expose a white tiled ceiling, she realizes that she is alone. There are monitors, and behind closed curtains, light, which can only be from a window, glows softly. To her left is a wall and a chair. The right-hand wall is all window, with a sliding door to allow passage from the outside corridor.

She catches a glimpse of this out of the corner of her eye. There are people out there, figures she does not look at directly. The only image she is sure she caught from the corner of her eye as she closes them again is a black suit. Agent quality.

SHIELD medical, probably. She twitches her wrists and feels loose weight around each. A faint pressure at each ankle. She is tied down. Only natural.

The chair to her left bothers her more than who she assumed are guards on the other side of the glass. Why leave a chair? No one will visit her.

Or perhaps, she reminds herself harshly, they will. To ask questions. Demand answers and explanations. Tied down and weak, they can do whatever they want from that chair. She isn't good enough to withstand either Hawkeye or the Black Widow if they are to bend their talents to extracting data from her.

Look at her, the weak stupid girl whose mother led her around by the nose all her life. She isn't smart enough to fight off Thor's wounded expression, let alone the cold ruthlessness of betrayed spies and superheroes. Or the simmering rage of a man she grew to love. Or any glance from her father—

She doesn't want to think about him. About any of them. So she goes back to sleep.

:: :: ::

"Good afternoon, Miss."

"Couldn't figure out what name to call me, huh?" Her voice is too raspy and she drinks from the lukewarm water glass to clear it.

Agent Coulson nods sedately as he sits beside her bed. She shifts her hips at the pressure of immobility, tugging her injured knee just a tiny bit away from him. "We have several, but no indication of preference. If you would like, you can update your file when you feel up to it."

She stares.

"I understand that no one has debriefed you yet, and that there has been no update of circumstances, events, or expectations regarding your presence in this SHIELD facility."

"…That's correct."

"Allow me to fill in the blanks as neatly and quickly as possible. Our mole in HYDRA." He opens his folder and holds up a picture. Darcy vaguely recognizes the technician, but the face does not click until Agent Coulson continues, "He was strategically placed at the time of the Avengers' confinement in the HYDRA base which self-destructed approximately four days ago. Our agent was able to alter the containment unit's energy generator, allowing the Avengers access to video and audio outside of their supposedly isolated chamber." He sits back, apparently done.

And he is done, because Darcy feels her stomach churning as she remembers what happened after the containment field went opaque.

When her eyes open again, Agent Coulson leans forward. "The team witnessed enough to reconsider branding you solely a traitor and spy. This was compounded by your later efforts: freeing them, destroying the base, and surrendering James Barnes to SHIELD custody."

"Not to mention attempting to kill my mother."

"You believe you did not succeed?"

Agent Coulson is just as sharp as she thought, and Darcy turns her head away, lays her cheek on the pillow, and closes her eyes. "I was ten the first time she made me swim that river. She's alive."

:: :: ::

She makes it through two rounds of therapy, three days in isolation, and is fed up with the mental-patient scrubs she was given to wear because SHIELD will only give their prisoner the basics. And these, paper-thin and scratchy, are definitely the bottom of the rung in quality.

Not one of her family has visited her. She does not know if they want to, but cannot cast blame if they do not.

On the third day, she escapes through the air vents. They underestimated her, or perhaps thought that being brought into the caring embrace of their organization would be enough. But all she has seen is a therapist who clearly thinks that she is lying, and Agent Coulson has not come back, and she should have remembered that she burned bridges in Mother's name.

Once outside the SHIELD facility, not one alarm having gone off, she makes her way to the Tower. Her photograph disappeared, and she wants to check. She discovers not one piece of her belongings has been moved. JARVIS is silenced and she enacts a hidden subroutine to give herself enough time to get in and out without him notifying Tony.

Darcy hesitates over the box. This is foolish and sentimental, but isn't she trying to be a human being now? Her fingertips skim, then grasp, the pearl necklace. The rest is too bulky to take with her, and she wants more than the picture on her phone this time. She may never receive anything else from him. So she clasps it around her neck as she darts back out of her rooms.

She casts herself into the wind.

:: :: ::

Cities welcome her nomadic passage. She carries all of her belongings on her back, a spare change of clothes exchanged every other day with another scavenged outfit. The necklace never leaves her neck, hidden under the high collars of her shirts.

Her travel takes her to different places. Darcy wanted to revisit places James had taken her, but that is risky, especially if SHIELD presses him for information about her.

The world is wide and shaky under her feet. A haircut and dye, contacts and a hard diet slimming her figure, changed her enough that perhaps Mother will not recognize her on sight. That is the second risk, and at the same time, the last threat hanging over her head.

The longer she tries to learn how to be normal, the harder it becomes with the uncertainty. When will HYDRA resurface? Which bases are still in operation? What will her mother do to her once she catches up with Darcy?

She slips and indulges in a brief need for comfort. She is sitting at a café in Paris, France, when someone pulls out the other chair at the table. She almost leaps out of her skin, after she sees a cleaned-up James Barnes staring at her.

Darcy scowls over her bread and cheese. "What do you want?"

"I have a message for you."

Her eyes flicker over his form. He is covered, blending, and his expression is familiarly closed-off. He could be SHIELD, or he could have been re-seized by HYDRA. "From who?"

"Stark." Her throat tightens up. He notices: his eyes grow soft at the edges. "Come home."

Her chin wobbles and she clamps down on the weak edges of her self-control. "I blew up my home," she says, lifting her glass of wine.

"You have a new one waiting for you."

The glass clinks too firmly against the table. "It's not that easy."

"Then shouldn't you put the work in?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, snatching a cluster of grapes from her plate and standing up.

She watches his back, his stride. The careful ease of a predator, but no longer emotionless automaton dead-set on a mission. Even when guiding a clumsy, teenage agent-in-training around continental Europe, he was prepared for the worst. He still is, because he knows what is out there, but he tips his head to the sunshine for a moment as he tosses the stem into a garbage can: living again.

She drops cash on her table and catches up to him at the end of the block, knowing that he is bait, wanting to linger in his shadow despite it. "How have you been?"

He casts her a side-eyed glance full of hesitation. "Difficult. They told me I knew you."

Her stomach falls. "You don't remember?"

"Been hearing that question a lot, lately." He sighs and runs a gloved hand—one she knows is metal underneath—through his hair. "Steve and Natasha have helped with the memories, but there's just a lot. It's messed up. We work through it."

She looks at the sidewalk under her feet. "How do you work through hating someone for over a decade? Through betraying everyone you love? Through trying to kill someone who raised you?"

He shrugs. "One day at a time. And not alone, either," he says, reaching to her elbow. He taps it once and his hand retreats.

The touch warms her. He still remembers how to signal that they're being followed: he still remembers parts of her.

"I'm fine alone," she replies.

"No, you're not."

She glares. His eyes are calm, she notices, not blank. He gives her a slight nod to the alley, and she understands that the choice SHIELD doesn't want her to have is the one he will give.

Her arms come up and despite his stiffness, she hugs him. A real hug, one he returns after a moment of total confusion, and when she pulls away his eyes are uncharacteristically soft. The only person in HYDRA she had cared about without reservation, it seems, has now become her guardian. She has missed him.

"I have to be," she tells him, and starts running.

She makes it through the alleys, into the sewers, and hides in a dark nook for over an hour while SHIELD agents try to search the catacombs but always miss her, because they never look up. They're not used to appreciating the sunlight, having always taken the sight for granted.

:: :: ::

Darcy makes it two weeks before someone from her erstwhile family tracks her down in a nameless city she's never seen. She is not surprised, really, to open the door to her miniature rented room—bathtub next to kitchen counter serving as a headboard to her mattress—and see Natasha's piercing eyes from her squat in the corner.

She closes the door behind her. "I thought I'd never see you coming," she says, starting to put away the groceries in her arms. It's all of three vegetables and a hunk of raw meat in butcher paper, but she can pretend her hands are just tired from holding it all up three flights of stairs.

The words are part memory and a bit of a taunt. They're words Natasha vowed upon anyone who dared hurt Jane, on one of their girl's nights around the kitchen island in the Tower. Being who they were, the superspy's promise was for all the threats of the world outside of dating. Darcy had felt the icy clamp in her spine that night, a warning for the future which has come.

When she turns around, Natasha pushes her shoulders back against the fridge. Her hands hold no weapons: she does not need them. Darcy closes her eyes.

Seconds pass. Minutes. An unlikely amount of time later, she lets her eyes slowly open.

Decisive eyes meet hers directly. "I'm one of the few who understand."

And just like that, her knees buckle under the strain of realizing that she's been forgiven, somehow, by this woman who is sheer perfection in ways Mother always wanted. Her throat feels too tight, thudding pulse loud in her ears.

But it can never be forgotten, and Darcy hears her own voice as though underwater. "You were different."

"Semantics."

She swallows. "What makes you think I need your pity or your help? I'm fine."

"No," the red-head says, hands sliding down Darcy's arms to cup her hands. "You only think you don't deserve help. Yet."

:: :: ::

They travel. At some point, Clint pops up. Darcy suspects he has been following since the moment Natasha found her, but it's a coin toss on whether the rest of the team know that her flight has morphed into an impromptu road trip.

If the spies are as devoted to the Avengers as she believed, the team knows. Tony knows.

But if they are still invested in SHIELD and want to keep her off the radar for a little while longer to give her time, then it is more likely that they are "on a mission" or have "taken a short leave". Darcy would prefer this explanation, because that also means that Tony has a reason not to show up.

And more and more, she feels the keening sorrow of her father's absence, and the sharp pain at wondering if she's just not good enough for him. He knows, now. So why doesn't he come find her?

She's on the roof one night, cigarette twirling between her fingers, and looking at the stars. The moon is full and the light off her cheekbones makes the world look different. She tilts her chin toward the North Star, wondering if JARVIS scanned the world through satellite images to try and find her, or whether Tony did not even want to look.

"We're not the only ones who want you back."

Clint's too quiet when he moves, even for meticulously-trained Darcy. She exhales smoke over her shoulder to show what she thinks of that statement. A breath of toxic air, that's what it is, and she is almost angry at him for trying to raise her hopes and spirit.

"Tony calls every day."

Darcy chokes on her next inhalation, almost not daring to try breathing again in case it was a hallucination.

But the archer continues as he steps closer. "He has since I joined you and 'Tasha. Because he's getting impatient, but he's also too scared to do anything but check on our progress and attempt to micromanage from New York. If his ability to be scary punctual about it is any indication, he's not exactly operating on Eastern Standard Time. I might be tempted to punch him in the face for the daily interruptions, except, you know, Steve's totally bitching at him about it and he's a teammate. And your dad."

The evening is chilly. That is the only reason she shivered—and it was a shiver, not a strange tension rippling through her at the sound of those words coming from outside of her own head. Her father. Who is—

Tony is trying to keep an eye on her. In his own weird way. If Clint is to be believed—she can't detect a lie, but neither is she entirely certain she could—then he's just as scared to talk to her as she is to talk to him.

Darcy is scared, and this many months have passed because she kept trying to avoid that simple fact. Natasha has been a great help to her in dealing with the repercussions of her formative years and her betrayal and what Mother has done to her. Far from fixed, but holding herself together much better than she had been a month ago, Darcy still struggles between her desire to know her father and the certainty that it cannot be. Yet now, she's hearing that there is a possibility, which is almost as terrifying as the fear that he never wants to see her face again.

Her lips rub on the end of her cigarette. She glances to the side and meets Clint's eyes: his are gentle, in a way she does not associate with the superhero. But she also notices that he has a cell phone in his palm, and he's holding it in the air between them.

Their eyes meet. "No one holding you back but you, kid," he says, the words whisper-soft in the night. "He wants to know you. He just thinks that you might not want to know him."

"Why?" Her voice sounds rusty. "Of course I do. I just can't—"

"Both of you deserve this chance. You should've been able to all along, and that was taken from you. Don't let her take anything else, Darcy."

Those were the right words to say: they clicked into place, flipping her perspective for a brief moment. But in that time, her fingers reach out and curl around the tiny electronic, and Clint smiles. He turns and leaves her alone on the roof with the device in her hand, and now that she has it she hardly knows what to do next. She stares at the device for what seems like a very long time, hesitating, trying to get up the guts.

As it turns out, she does not need to: she should have asked Clint what her father's regular clockwork call-time was because the screen lights up and vibrates in her palm and in bold text announces TONY STARK.

Darcy gasps for breath. Her fingers flit nervously over the cigarette. She contemplates throwing the phone away from her as far and fast as she can, then pictures herself sobbing into the microphone and being hung up on in disgust.

She does not even have any words prepared.

Finally, on the last rings of the call, she drops the cigarette and presses the button. Her heel grinds at the dying end as she jams the phone to her ear.

Through the speaker comes a mid-way grumble. "—mnit Hawkeye, finally! You know I can cut you off, right? No more trick arrows, no more fancy apartment, no more free meals—"

Her voice cracks, but she says the word that's been hammering at her jaw and wanting to be uttered for most of her life. "Dad?"

"—and no—What?" The Tony Stark ramble has abruptly stopped, and he sounds wretchedly surprised, gutted. "Say that again?"

She almost doesn't have the courage, but that pearl of hope has a tiny bit of polish and so she says it again, "Dad?" like a question, like a prayer.

A heavy, breathing silence comes. On the tail end of it is, "Darcy."

The sound is everything. All she hoped—there is joy and wonder there, she can hear it in the way he seems to have lost all words and her name is said like he smiled while it came out and she crumples. Straight to the ground, curling her legs up underneath her, she sits on her heels and lets the moonlight wash over her closed eyelids.

Too soon, tears squeak out between her eyelashes, and she whimpers, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Hey, hey, no. I know that, it's okay. None of this was your fault, this is on me and y-your mother, but not you. Never you. Just come home, Darcy, please, let Natasha and Clint bring you back."

She shakes her head and says, "I can't. Not yet."

"Of course you can. I know the world's a fascinating place and I'm sure you like your freedom very much but it's not safe, and we want to know—I want to know—that you're okay."

"I am," she replies, perhaps sharply, wiping her fingers over her cheeks. "I will be. Going back is too risky and I-I can't do that, I can't bring it to you again."

"Bring—what? Darcy?"

"I love you," she whispers, and hangs up.

The phone vibrates against the concrete where she's left it. She vaults over the side of the rooftop to the next building over. She has a head start, having let her companions be drawn into complacency, having not actually considered abandoning their bubble of protection, but Tony's just reminded her that there is one more thing she can do. Something she didn't think about until now because she was so lost in guilt. There is one thing to take care of, and then, maybe she can return.

Mother will never see her coming, having always underestimated Darcy. She's damned for it, but willingly signs up to pay the price of returning to New York. To the Tower. To home.

:: :: ::

Four weeks, she searches. Databases unfold at her fingertips. She tracks the clues that only she knows to look for, because she's done this for Mother before and would still be helping her locate resources and sellers if she had not discovered the truth. And she knows Mother will never think her brave enough to come after her, because Darcy was reminded daily of the fact every time she bent her head to another blow.

How she has the strength to stand on her own feet now is a mystery. What did living with the Avengers for one year unlock in her?

Darcy stakes out different set-ups for over a month more. She tips off the authorities when it is clear that Mother is nowhere nearby. Sometimes she lingers, because ratting out HYDRA brings in SHIELD, and that brings in her family.

From just outside of their range, she watches jet-boots and repulsors. A roaring green strongman. The others are too small to see from her distance, though an occasional spike of lightning also makes its way clear. And she only lingers long enough to see another success before disappearing again.

Until the day she fails.

:: :: ::

KKKK-shh. "—llo? Anyone down there? This is Iron—" Hsss.

Her eyes crack open. Dust is still settling around her. The walls are cracked and quivering, most of them tumbled down into interesting new configurations. There's pressure on her hip and her forehead is bruised, but she's awake and aware. Leaning up on her elbows, she notes distantly that she will not have the strength to lift that piece of rubble off of her hip. And all around her are the sounds of clean-up crews.

She cannot be stuck while they are searching the rubble for survivors.

Darcy's halfway wriggled out from underneath the broken stone, and pretending she doesn't feel the leg-long bruise from her hip down to her ankle, when there is a shift in movement from one of the rubble piles blocking the original exit. There are new cracks she might be able to slip through, out the back, which appeared only with the near-destruction of the building.

She did not plan for a rogue robot bomb. Next time, she will.

The shifting of rubble grows louder and she's still half-pinned. She can't make it out in time, and falls to the only plan she has left: playing possum. Throwing one arm over her head, Darcy curls her upper body and closes her eyes.

A final creak and crash later, she hears shoes light on the ground. No, boots: the clunk of a thick heel and the pat of a wide sole. There is a faint scrunch of leather on leather and she bites her hidden lip against a groan. The Avengers were the ones to find her.

She hears no faint electronic beep, but knows that the communicator was engaged by the report given. "This is the Captain. I've found one civilian casualty in what used to be the back room. She's pinned by the hip, unconscious. Bring medics in: the way in is cleared and seemed stable." A pause, then a slow exhale.

Darcy almost gets her hopes up, but then she feels a gloved hand on her arm and it takes every ounce of her old training to keep tension from her body. "Miss?" She does not reply. The hand, shorn of the glove, travels to her wrist next, and takes her pulse. Then, re-gloved, he pokes at the rubble over her hips.

That's something. If he lifts it, before the medics arrive—if he's distracted by the weight, maybe she can… She's not badly hurt. She could probably make it through the back and disappear into the crowds, she knows she looks homeless and would easily blend back into the city.

But something in her is at conflict with the desire to run. Selfishness, maybe. A bit of fear. Not wanting to hurt any of her family, but also knowing she cannot go back yet.

The internal struggle is pushed to the back as she becomes suddenly, fully present in the moment. Because Captain America is a good man, a caring man, and she should have realized he would not only want to free her from her trapped position but see her face, too. Her arm is picked up carefully and she consciously un-grits her teeth a moment before her ruffled hair is brushed away from her cheek.

He gasps, of course. His grip loosens immediately and she's left like a crumpled rag doll on the floor. But it works perfectly to her advantage, because the next thing she knows, he's lifting the weight off her legs. Exactly what she wanted him to do.

Darcy moves lightning-strike fast, tucking and rolling and twisting to her feet. Mostly to her feet: she wobbles and overbalances, practically throws herself against the wall, shoulder bouncing heavily against the uneven mortar and uncovered brick. Her head spins and she has to close her eyes.

She re-opens them quickly. The world does not tilt crazily and she starts planning her escape route.

It's complicated by the fact of Captain America. He could outrun her easily. He's whole and healthy, not even wounded from the battle which has just ended, and she is barely able to stand without the wall at her side. And his eyes are locked on her, though she's not quite meeting them.

Steve is rigid and looks ready to jump on her the second she moves but is also standing at rest. Like he knows she'd claw her way out of this half-destroyed room to get away, and like it hurts him to know it. His eyes are dark and shrouded under the cowl. The shield is at his feet.

Without that iconic weapon strapped to his arm, he looks more like the man she first met in the Tower's kitchen. It makes her voice rise out of her throat, raspy and under-used. "Let me go."

To his credit, for a moment he appears to consider her request. Then his shoulders firm. "Not without at least letting medical take a look at you."

"I'm fine."

"Anyone could stop you right now, and you know it." He steps closer. "Don't go out there alone. You don't have to be."

"Yes, I do," she rasps. Her feet skitter to the side, increasing the distance between them, inching toward the far corner crack. She could probably slip through it, but he wouldn't fit. "I can't come back until it's over."

"Until what's over?" Without the mask, she'd see a rather cute furrow between his eyebrows.

She could be vague. But she's not going to lie to them, not again—even if she is running from them. Even if she simply avoided talking about it outright with Natasha and Clint. This is Steve, and everyone else: Tony, Bruce, Thor. Jane, even. "She's still out there," she says. "Don't you understand? She's not going to stop. I can't stay until she's—"

Oh, but this is the soldier with hyper-protective instincts. He's shaking his head even as she cuts herself off. "Darcy, we're working on it. We can protect ourselves, and we can help you."

She's so tired. "You don't know her like I do."

"So help us." He takes another step forward. "If you have the insight, and we have the manpower and resources, then she doesn't stand a chance."

She hasn't seen them in so long. "I…"

"Darcy." He's almost close enough to touch. When did she stop moving?

Her head shakes. The movement disrupts her steadiness, but the wall is still supporting her, so she doesn't fall.

"Please. Come home."

That's what gets her, in the end. Because she could picture Tony saying those words to try and get her to come back, the way he did over the phone, and she thinks he meant it. Tony's the type who would throw his all into something once he cared. She felt better about her mission when knowing that his love was there. That maybe, they could repair a fragile, fledgling connection of father to daughter.

But from another team member, she realizes that she was waiting to hear that her family wanted her back. Not just her dad.

So when Steve steps closer and reaches out, she does not skitter back like a startled bird. Instead, she lets his hand rest on her shoulder and lets her eyes close and the wall holds the rest of her upright. She bows her head and tries to think, but it's difficult right now. She doesn't really need to, though. Now she's in her family's hands.

:: :: ::

They don't try to give her a therapist this time.

Darcy is stuck in a hospital bed for one night of observation, because the doctors want to make sure there isn't deeper damage than the colorful bruise rising up on her leg. As it is, she's fairly sure that her mobility will be limited come morning. So she understands, and even approves to an extent. But this is still an issue, because she is stuck in one location with no easy exits.

SHIELD has taken her to the Helicarrier. It's for her safety, presumably, but she knows full well there are HYDRA agents infiltrating the organization and though she has security at her door, there is no guarantee that one or more of them are not compromised.

The fear sticks at her until the door opens, and then there's a whole new kind of fear.

Because Darcy's put off thinking about the fling that never was, stopped trying to remember the times that Bruce began to respond to her flirtation in the shiest, most hesitant manner she could imagine. They never became anything official to one another, never moved beyond the tension-attraction that kept them in ever-spiraling orbit, but it was derailed harshly not too long ago. And she worried that he hated her, thought that she was doing it for her cover.

It wouldn't have been a bad idea, to make one of the Avengers her lover to gather information. Mother would have been pleased with her initiative. Yet as easily as sex had come to Darcy, she couldn't bring herself to making it a weapon in the Tower. Not with these people who broke down her defenses. Her affection for them snuck up on her. All that training, and she was compromised as easily as a fresh recruit. It was sad and pathetic—if she were still to judge her life in terms of spy games.

Nurture tried to take it out of her, but nature had somehow given Darcy her father's heart. And it had swollen easily, even when she fought not to let it happen.

When Bruce comes in, his eyes show no hate behind his thin glasses. He sits at the side of her bed, casting a cursory eye over her outstretched and balm-coated leg. "That'll look gorgeous in the morning."

"You know me, Doc, I always look—" The response is so automatic that she cuts herself off, startled at the lack of self-control. Flirtation should not be on her mind right now, but there's no way she can lie to herself: Darcy likes him just as much as she did before her true nature was totally exposed.

He looks back at her, no change in that perfected calm that he's always managed to maintain. Underneath, there is a low-simmering anger that he keeps up to hold back his alter-ego.

Darcy looks at her leg. "Is it hard for you to be in here?"

He chuckles. When she peeks at his face for a moment, he looks almost sad. "No, I'm perfectly in control."

"That's not what I meant."

"No, you're right to ask. For a while, it would have been a very valid question."

Of course Bruce would be the one to give her what she'd been waiting on for months. He was so honest, whenever he could or had to be. Natasha and Clint had been different: they knew the spy game, and she might have been abysmal at it, but they could understand her all the better for her failure. But the others did not have that insight.

She met his eyes, determined that she wasn't afraid to know his judgment. That he deserved the right to air those grievances. She had done quite some damage, after all.

"What were you supposed to put in the tea?" He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "I assumed some sort of relaxant or aggravator. And that it was something you were meant to add to the tea, as opposed to the drink itself. I can't think of any natural herbal drinks which would bring out the other guy."

"There aren't any."

"Hmm."

Nothing about this conversation was sensible. He should be angry at her. He shouldn't be sitting at her bedside like this thinking there's something left to salvage. She doesn't deserve that.

Her shoulders tighten. "I have no defense prepared, Doc. A year ago, I would have put in the aggravator and handed it to you. That was my job, and I used to find it kind of fun. I enjoyed knowing that it would hurt all of you to find out."

"Hurt Tony, you mean." His eyes are too sharp.

She refuses to look him in the eye. "What do you want?"

"I'm not here for anything." Her snort merits a soft, sad chuckle. "All right. My ulterior motive for checking in on you is to see if you would be willing to see other visitors."

That is hardly a subtle inquiry, and a tiny knot of tension eases as she realizes that he did not come entirely for his own questions: he was sent. "Anyone in particular?" His eyes answer her readily enough. "Of course."

"He won't hurt you. If that's what you're scared of. And he forgave you a long time ago."

"That's not what I'm afraid of," she says, then realizes what she has given away.

He hums instead of answering. Suddenly, she is angry—furious that he is able to make her slip, make her confess, make her feel. She glares into a corner of the ceiling, valiantly pretending that the frustration is not slowly condensing in her eyes.

A hand clasps her wrist. She refuses to react. "If you don't want to see him, you're going to have to say it."

His eyes are dark behind the thin wire frames of his glasses. "None of you should want to see me."

"We will until you decide that you no longer care about us. Probably even after that, too."

:: :: ::

Bruce leaves soon after and Darcy is left to her own head. She thinks too much for her own good and ends up planning five escape attempts in an effort not to think about her precarious position. And then more familiar faces appear in her door.

Steve, letting her know how he carried her unconscious form out of the destroyed building. Natasha and Clint are back from their trip around the world and irritated with her for dodging their protective custody. Jane is stiffer than she ever has been, weak smiles and shadows of pain in her eyes. Thor holds on to her hand, and there is a matching bewilderment on his face—right next to the joy, that unbound enthusiasm, greeting her with a boisterous hug.

They all are hurt, all want words from her, all struggling to understand and incorporate the character with the actor, and all making the effort because all the evidence says that in the end, she chose them. In the end, Mother's influence was fucked up. In the end, she's desperately trying to hold herself together and just their judgment withheld gives her strength.

James is brought for a brief moment, letting her know in few words that his access to the Helicarrier is restricted until the SHIELD doctors are sure that he carries no more hidden triggers. But he's with bodyguards—Avengers—and she allows herself his hug. He does not ask for absolution or explanation: he is, instead, her measuring stick.

Even Pepper pops in, long enough to tell her that she hops Darcy's health recovers and that there is a pressing matter at Stark Industries calling her attention. Darcy lets her leave without fuss or question, guessing at what that matter involves and trying to ignore the churning of her stomach.

Every person she cares about has come to see her. Everyone who cares that she was hurt or has been looking for her.

But not Tony Stark.

:: :: ::

Released from the medical center, Darcy is taken to beige SHIELD living quarters—better known as a nicer-looking prison. She is there for an hour before there is a knock on her door. She calls for it to open, not knowing who to expect, and is faced with an unkempt goatee on a dark-circled face floating above a truly ridiculous rainbow-colored teddy bear.

Darcy is cross-legged in a mental patient's outfit, because SHIELD wouldn't pay for anything better than dishwater-colored flimsy cloth for her, the semi-prisoner who is being held in a locked room. She wishes that she had been better at the spy stuff, but Natasha's helped her figure out that she has probably always had a resistant personality, and Mother's abusive cycle of praise and put-downs made her too afraid to be better than she thought she could.

Or something like that.

The teddy bear scares her due to the sheer size of it, and because part of her is frozen in terror. This is his first visit since she was hurt. She has been running across the world for months. And she never saw him before she took off. This is the first time they have faced each other, both knowing of their relationship.

Tony enters the room and sets the bear down on the table. He grabs the chair and scoots as close to the edge of the seat as he can, because it's bolted to the floor, and looks so uncomfortable but so much like an eager puppy.

Blue eyes meet blue eyes.

What's horrible—but maybe not so much, if he recognizes it as kindred longing—is her own hope. That pearl reformed without her permission when he appeared in the door.

"Hi," she says. How she had the courage to say the first word will forever be an unknown.

But he replies, "Hi." And then he babbles about the bear, how he wanted to get her favorite animal but realized he doesn't know what that is, how there were ludicrous antics to get through security as they scanned and re-scanned the stuffed animal.

And in the middle of that ramble, she realizes that he is trying to say that he cares about her, but has no clue what parenting should look like.

She reaches out and thinks better of it instantly, pulling back like she was burned. But he caught sight of the movement, and without a pause in chatter, his fingers stretch out to take hers.

They twine and grasp and become more solid by the minute until—suddenly, there is hugging.

:: :: ::

Building a parent-child relationship is difficult. She's not the only one bringing a truckload of baggage.

But does he ever try. And she meets him, hesitant at first, but so starved for the genuine care that once she accepts that he will continue to care, that he's already seen the worst of what she has in her head, she takes all the risks and throws herself into it.

They establish a kind of bickering, friendly balance, a little frayed at the edges, but still working. Sometimes she feels insecure, as he gets distracted by his projects and ideas and superhero activities. Sometimes, he doesn't know how else to help her through a crying jag than shoving that rainbow-fur teddy bear into her arms and patting her shoulders until, finally, giving in to a hug. Sometimes they scream at each other down the hallways and force everyone else to duck for cover on different floors. Sometimes they eat at the kitchen table across from one another and discover eerie similarities, like the way they prefer to cut their sandwiches.

Most of the time, they heal from the wounds Mother burned into their skin.

Slowly, achingly slowly, they reform something among the Avengers. It is almost like she has her family back, though the scars of her betrayal have changed the landscape. But the new one is better: there is freedom she never had when it was all an assignment compromising her ability to do her job.

The necklace her father gave her goes back into the jewelry case, pulled out and displayed, open, on her dresser. She settles into her room again and joins Jane in the lab as an assistant again and even has full conversations with everyone she cares about in the process of reforming what she destroyed. None of it is the same: the changes are for the better.

Darcy pretends that she does not keep one eye on the windows. Pretends she does not have escape routes planned.

While the Tower is more defensible than ever, especially without an inside agent taking up residence inside, she is in her most vulnerable position by being blatantly stationary. A non-moving target, one which Mother will circle around to hit eventually.

But when she does, Darcy is at the headquarters of an organization which has years of data from the servers of Mother's former base of operations. Merely one branch of HYDRA, the destruction of the base took out one of the beast's heads but left enough tissue that it is already regenerating elsewhere. Some of the data is years old, but some was enough for them to start figuring out patterns and goals. SHIELD has updated and expanded upon its knowledge base on this old enemy.

The team is the other major player in the game. With them around, Darcy knows that she has allies to back her up in a fight. She knows that she has protection and has helped them further figure out how to protect themselves. There is power in numbers.

Mother is a wraith from her past, capable of future pain, currently out of the frame. There is nothing to be done on her own. SHIELD and the team do what they can, but it is mostly a waiting game. And she is learning how to accept such a reality.

:: :: ::

"Verily, the taste of cakes and ale shall lift your spirits! Come, Lady Darcy," Thor grins, reaching out one hand while the other holds three large bakery boxes. "Join me in welcome festivities!"

"Where did you get that?" she asks, her hand lifting and placing itself in his large palm. The action happened without thought. She takes it as a sign of her comfort.

Thor gleefully describes his adventure through a new city block, which started with a wrong turn off the subway and ended at a bakery which had a banner advertising their support of the Avengers displayed over the door. Thor likes to roam the planet, and favors establishments which support his cause. A lot of places have started to pick up on the friendly alien's preferences: though the signs are growing in abundance, they are still only posted if the companies do not mind their business being tied up in the political debate.

New York is chock full of support for their local superheroes.

By the time Thor's led her to the kitchen, JARVIS seems to have spread the word about the Tower. They are met by the rest of the team in various states of dress. Natasha and Jane are clearly ready for bed, yet Coulson has joined them tonight for some paperwork about damage done to the city and he is dressed for the job. Steve seems to have come from the gym, Tony from his workshop, and Bruce and Clint are in between—in the same clothes they have worn all day, but barefoot and thus relaxing.

The clock reads 11:52 PM. This should not feel as normal as it does.

Yet here she sits, with her best friend-and-boss on one side rambling about the day's research advances, and her father smirking around a forkful of cake on the other. Right there, with her fork scraping frosting remnants, she realizes that she is not waiting for the sound of breaking glass.

A sense of safety makes her anxious on principle again. Retreating from the table with her empty plate, she drops it in the sink and saunters onto the balcony. Once cool evening air curls around her shoulders and her elbows rest on a brief guard railing Tony was bullied into installing near his suit's landing pad, Darcy lets her eyes glaze on the sight of the city. With her back to the inside, no one can see her clenched jaw. Several long, solitary breaths later, the door behind her slides open and shut again.

"Too crowded?"

A comfortable distance exists between their bodies. Awareness of her need for space. Over one shoulder, she takes in the rumpled curls and nervous adjustment of glasses. "Just needed some air." She turns her back to the railing, leaning just enough to telegraph her renewed calm.

Bruce let her words drift, untested, and comes one step closer. His hands rest on the railing.

Through the glass, she watches her family detach from the kitchen piece by piece, drifting to whatever the rest of the night would bring. The remaining cakes are placed back in their boxes and possessively tucked under Thor's arm. Her father is the only one to look at her through the window. He smiles and tips an imaginary hat before Steve drags him out of the room, an elbow hooked around his neck.

She is grateful for the silence. The space gives her the courage to say, "I won't disappear until she's caught."

"And then?"

"Just travel," she says, smiling. Her eyes close. "Take my first vacation. Play hide-and-seek with my dad. Enjoy the view. And then…come home."

"Home," he repeats, gentle crinkling lines at the corners of his eyes. "Seems like you found a place."

Her lips twist wryly at a remembered conversation. "Well, it does have everything I'd ever want."

"People, too?"

"People, too," she agrees, leaning on one elbow, angled closer to him. The movement upsets the careful distance he maintained when he joined her, but not too drastically. Not enough for him to retreat.

Instead, he meets her gaze frankly, and in the space between words, she feels content with possibility. That sheltered pearl of hopes and fears has finally found some place to rest in her chest.

:: :: ::

"Again."

Fist. Diaphragm, air gone, knee up. Spin, kick, turn. Stand down.

"Much better. Try this."

Eyes scanning, searching, spun sugar at her fingertips and a Ferris wheel high above.

"Perfect! Keep it up."

Runny blue ink scribbled by frazzled scientists, re-typing, updating and revising, listening and laughing.

"Absolutely!"

Reloading the gun. Adjust stance, fire again. Three shots, four shots, and her partner on the range flips her flames of hair back in triumph.

"Run that by me again—you want to what?"

Water. Warm. Paddling lazily. Hiding a smirk as a workaholic father strides too close between pool and blonde solider. Arms wind-milling, cupped hands reach for a phone, a push, a cackle.

"Try out for it. The worst that can happen is no callback."

Reciting alone in her room. Memorizing every line and every paragraph. Committing it to her very being, not just her mind.

"I've got to try that. Spot me."

Fist. Foot. Air, hair, swing slip-slide and trip, spin-twist and kick and punch and wild flight, and breathing always under control.