Maybe the Taser was a lucky charm, because everything went wrong whenever Darcy Lewis ventured out of her residence without it.
She was currently on a short vacation in London, snapping pictures of every cool monument she saw. She had just gotten off the phone with her best friend and her kind-of boss, Jane Foster, who was gushing about her newest discovery in astrophysics or whatever. Political science was more of Darcy's thing.
Darcy had also grabbed a coffee cup from the nearest cafe, wondering how the hell England had coffee if it was more of a tea place. She fixed her magenta colored beanie covering the top part of her long night-black hair and slung her bag over her shoulder. She inhaled the fresh air, which was moist from the tang of incoming rain. Today was a great day.
That is, until her rented car blew up.
The force of the blast sent the black-haired woman flying through the air, arms pinwheeling in vain and her stomach flipping upside down. The sickening slap of fresh flesh hitting the concrete was muted by the boom of the explosion. Darcy heard the unwelcome sound of a crack and winced in pain at her broken wrist.
"Damn," she muttered under her breath, gazing wistfully at her used-to-be intact car, which was now in metal scraps scattering the dark road, with dark blue eyes. "My insurance is so not going to cover that."
A dark figure darted past a building and Darcy whipped her head around so fast she almost got whiplash. She did not think she had ever experienced such pain in her life, contemplating on the damage of her wrist and currently her leg. Her life had been so short, just twenty one years. That very short time that will end in just a matter of seconds.
This is definitely not the first time she had faced down a brush with death, but this is the first time she had felt it, the heavy weight of the impending knowledge of doom that was about to befall upon the dark-haired girl.
Dragging herself behind another car and ignoring the screams of people, Darcy managed to draw her cell phone out of her pocket, but her heart sank to the bottom of her feet in a fast freefall when she noticed the large and deep crack through the screen. Just her luck.
Then he was looming over her, a large and hulking shadow of doom crossing over her pale skin. She jerked upwards, snagging her plump bottom lip between her upper teeth to bite down the hot lash of pain travelling through her body.
It was him. The Winter Soldier.
She had heard about him from Steve and Natasha's adventure in Washington D.C., but the information was vague beyond he was a cold-blooded and emotionless assassin. He was imposing and intimidating as any Grim Reaper, just like the red-haired spy had described. But if he was here to steal her soul, Darcy was damn sure she wasn't going to give it up willingly.
Her breath came out in long and hard pants, her chest heaving up and down every two seconds. She attempted to sit up, straightening her back up into a slanted version of ramrod straight. She was not going to cower in the face of death. She had to take it willingly. At least Darcy would go down with dignity then.
The Winter Soldier studied her face carefully, long brown hair framing in his face, his left metal arm shining in the dull sunlight because of the metallic silver sheen, his whole pale face concealed behind a large black mask leaving his eyes, eyes as blue as ice and carrying a coldness far more severe than the frostiest glacier. They were hard and glinting, barely human, not a trace of anything besides a scalpel sharp and snakelike intelligence. He was beautiful the way a forest fire was beautiful, someone that needed to be admired from afar. A very far distance away.
There was no mercy.
"Are you going to kill me?" Darcy demanded abruptly, her voice slightly tremoring. As much as she didn't want to die, the waiting for the strike to be made, it was unbearable that it was taking so long. Was he going to end her suffering short and quick, or was he going to drag it out, slow and painfully?
The Winter Soldier just gazed down at her, nothing being given away. "Aren't you going to beg for your life then?" he countered back at her, and his voice was cold and hard as stone, matching his mysterious appearance and demeanor.
For a brief flash of a moment, Darcy desperately wanted to back down, to beg and plead for her life to be taken mercifully, but the want soon evaporated as she steeled herself, ocean-blue eyes hardening like glass, teeth gritted, shoulders back and chin up.
"No," she replied quietly, and her beanie flew off her head, letting her mane of night colored waves spill over her shoulders and mix with the scarlet lines form the scratches near her neck. She was proud that her voice didn't tremble this time. She transformed her voice with a clearing of her throat, making it sound impatient and trying to mask her complete terror that was making her heart thunder against her chest. "Well?" she spat. "Come on. Get through with it already!"
She could not see his mouth, as it was masked by the black cover up, but a frosty smile gleamed in his ice-blue orbs. It was neither nice nor merciful, yet he told her, "Not today."
He was gone before she could blink an eyelash, materializing into the air like a ghost. Darcy's whole body was shaking, but she stared after him in horrified fascination, unsure what the hell had just happened. But the one thing she was certain of made her almost sick to her stomach.
This was not the last she was going to see of the Winter Soldier.
Steve Rogers heard another door slam shut and he looked up from the sketchbook in his lap. No one emerged from the hallway, though it was clearly obvious another fight had rose up between the couple down the hall. Tony Stark, who was sitting in front of him on the other piece of furniture, viewed the clock and clapped his hands together.
"Whoo hoo!" he whooped cheerfully, jumping up to his feet. "Pepper, time is up! Present the food!"
Pepper Potts, Tony's girlfriend, walked out of the other room with her hands placed on her dainty hips. "Keep your voice down, Tony, or you won't get any of the fried chicken," she snapped and the dark haired billionaire walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her.
"Come on, Peps. Dinner would be no fun without me."
"I so very much doubt that," Maria Hill called out from her position hear the window. She was wearing her shoulder-length brown hair down, a rare thing for the secret agent and Steve thought it looked pretty on her.
"You and me both, sister," grinned Sam Wilson and she grinned back, making Steve hide a small smile. Ever since he invited Sam to live there on a floor with the rest of the Avengers, he had this huge flirtation every free minute of the day with the dark-haired agent on the floor beneath.
Bruce Banner slightly smiled. "We should get to the dinner table before Thor gobbles down all the food," he suggested and everyone proceeded towards the dining table, which was teeming with fresh gourmet, bottles of champagne and polished china and silver cutlery.
Tony sank down into his chair languidly. "The best dinner a billionaire can ever have," he sighed deeply.
"I hope you're not giving me only twelve percent of the credit since I made all of the food," Pepper quipped.
"An argument could have been made for fifteeen, remember?"
Pepper just pecked on the cheek sweetly and Maria, sitting between Steve and Sam, pretended to gag, which the Captain looked sternly at while the Falcon chuckled. Pepper began to sit down in the empty seat next to Steve, but he laid a hand on her arm to stop her.
"Oh, no, Pepper," he told her. "I'm saving that for someone. Sorry."
The blonde gave a strangely knowing smile, nodded and skipped over to the other seat next to Tony's. Steve almost blushed at her knowledege of why he saved the seat for a certain someone. And totally ignored the amused looks Maria and Sam were both sending him.
"Excellent, Lady Pepper, at your cookings fit for a god!" praised Thor, bolting into the room and sitting down in his chair so fast Maria had to reach out a hand to steady it, her spy muscles kicking in at the god's bulky weight. His girlfriend, Jane Foster, entered the room in a red dress and her hair twisted up.
"Good evening, everyone," she greeted, perching herself in a chair next to Thor. Everyone around the table was dressed in a formal, black-tie way for the guest of honor, who was too busy necking his blonde girlfriend.
"To the birthday boy," the brunette next to the Captain grumbled under her breath, raising her glass of fizzy champagne to clink against Steve's, who sipped in a small sip with his lips until he almost choked on his drink.
"Oh, Romanoff, so nice of you to join us so early!" Tony noted sarcastically, shooting a glare across the distance between him and the table and the entryway of the hallway, where an all-too-familiar red-haired woman was lurking by with a hand clasped around the glass trim of the entryway.
Natasha Romanoff was looking simply stunning with her long, thick mane of fiery hair straightened, looking sleek and shiny whenever it swayed, and wearing a dress that skimmed the top of her knees, had slightly curved short sleeves covering her shoulders and a solid black, skin tight dress under the shimmering bottle green gauze on top of it. Steve stopped his jaw from hitting the floor.
Maria's face swelled with pity, voice lowering to barely a whisper as she leaned in to voice her thoughts in the Captain's face. "Poor her," she said, and Steve slightly turned to look at her oddly through the corner of his eye. She continued as Natasha came closer towards the table. "They've been fighting again, her and Clint. It's been going on for months now."
"She hasn't talked about it," the sandy-haired man replied back, but then he rolled his eyes at himself mentally. This was Natasha. She never, ever talked about what was going on inside her head. It was so frustrating at times.
"Where's Barton?" questioned the birthday billionaire, staring inquisitively at Natasha, who looked pained.
"He's . . . changing," she said in a hesitant, strained voice. She looked around the table coolly with her eyes, a shade that wasn't blue nor green, but a gorgeous color in between.
Steve raised a hand to beckon her over to him. "Here, Nat," he called. "I saved you a seat."
For a moment, the redhead stayed frozen in her place, but then she quickly crossed the distance around them in an arc and sank down into the chair. She looked at Steve with a glimmer of gratefulness present in her eyes, which Steve could now see were slightly puffy and bloodshot. Maria had been right. A rush of anger streaked through the Captain, but he pushed it down with a load of self restraint. "Thanks, Rogers," she whispered, grabbing a champagne glass and clinking it against his. Their eyes never left each other's as they drank.
"So, Romanoff," Tony said again, leaning forward on his hands, chin cupped in the cradle of his laced fingers. "What did you get me for my birthday?" He waggled his eyebrows before Pepper stepped on his foot under the table. "Ow! Calm down, Peps. She's probably saving all the action for the Cap, right?" He winked and the red-haired woman and the man next to him stared at him, horrified.
"Excuse me?" Steve demanded, hating that his voice was stuttering uncontrollably. Natasha didn't seem to notice, though.
"I'm with Clint, Stark," she rolled her eyes and Steve's heart plummeted down the pitch-black, endless chasm of his body. Yes, Clint . . . Yippee.
"Yeah, right. Whatever," Tony muttered under his breath. He glanced over at the sandy-haired Captain and sent him a disbelieving look that probably meant, Can you believe this woman? Steve didn't know how to acknowledge that positively, so he just ignored it and continued sipping on his drink, despite knowing he could never get drunk.
Maybe it was a lazy thing on the universe's part, because two seconds afterward, Natasha'a current boyfriend, the skilled and rough-around-the-edges archer, Clint Barton sauntered into the living room. He was wearing dark clothes, of course, and there was a tense undercurrent rippling under his muscles as his rainwater gray eyes, dark with clouds of fatigue, circled around the room and back, fixing themselves directly on Steve and narrowing to slits at his arm's proximity to the redhead's. He immediately scooted the said body part away.
"Good evening," he managed to greet in a gruff voice, seating himself next to Banner.
"Aren't you going to wish me happy birthday, Legolas?" pouted Tony again. He was seriously not getting and certainly not enjoying this lack of celebration on his special day. Alas, at least Pepper cared about him and that was all he needed for now.
"Yeah, happy whatever," Clint started, slacking off in the end of the sentence.
"Jeez, what do you two do in your rooms?" Tony's dark brown eyes flicked between the archer and the spy curiously, like he always did when he was going to transform a perfectly good evening with lots of potential into an embarrassing situation where Natasha ended up flinging a large plate at the dark-haired man's head.
"Nothing special," Natasha brushed off in a cool and nonchalant voice. Steve's dark blue eyes sought her out, but she immediately avoided eye contact.
"Mm hmm," grunted the dark-haired archer in response, still looking bored.
"I so don't believe you. Come on, Romanoff, we all know you're in it for the sex. Or was it because what happened in Bu-da-pest?" Tony stretched out the last word in a sing song voice, the tone grating against the arguing couple's nerves and most likely ignoring all the warning stares Pepper, Maria and even Sam were shooting at him dangerously.
"That's it," the Captain heard the red-haired woman mutter under her breath in a furious whisper and she rammed her hands into the side of the table, pushing herself away from the table, sleek black heels clacking on the floor determinedly, and the Avengers' faces filled with confusion, especially Tony, who Maria glared at since this was entirely his fault.
Jane, who was probably desperate to escape, quickly answered her ringing phone. "Hello? Whoa, whoa, Darcy . . . Calm down." She exited the room to hear her anxious friend's troubles.
Clint was so busy pointing a murderous glower at the dark-haired guest of honor that he, or anyone else for that matter, didn't notice Steve sneak away from the table and follow after Natasha.
"Natasha, wait!" he whisper-shouted after the darting head of red hair. She was about to make it to her room when Steve managed to latch a hand around her bicep firmly, wheeling her around and gazing deep into her eyes. He could see and tell that she was going to cry from the memories lingering in her head right now.
"What's going on?" he asked in a soft, reassuring voice and Natasha tried to pry his fingers away from her skin, desperately attempting to ignore the jolts of fierce electricity prickling pleasurably against her skin. Her eyes met his, that ocean of cerulean blue that always took her breath away, which made her heart sing instead of making her feel invaded. She felt safe with Steve. She would always feel . . .
She whirled her head away, furious at her own desires. No. She could never express those feelings, knowing how it would affect her and everyone else very badly, like the death kind-of-badly. Like Clint, herself, Tony (since he'll make fun obviously), and most importantly, Steve . . . But he shouldn't have been the most important in the first place.
"Nothing," she said, finally ripping away and slamming the door shut to her room. After a few minutes, Steve gently knocked.
"Come on, Nat," he called. "You can talk about this with me. I'm always going to be here for you, you hear?" Silence. "Natasha?"
After another couple minutes of waiting, Steve finally opened the door and nearly had a heart attack.
Amidst a scene of sharp shards of broken, glittering glass scattering the floor along with blood splatter and the gaping hole in the floor-to-ceiling window, the most vital thing was missing, gone, vanished into thin air.
Natasha.
A/N: Don't own anything. Kind of AU. Summary belongs to chalantness. Thanks!