Maybe a little bit of a crackfic because Darcy was made for them...
~Darcy Lewis Saves the World~
So, everyone thought Brock Rumlow was dead. Like twice now, he was "defeated" by Captain America, and yet apparently the guy just kept on keeping on.
Safe to say, it was a little shitty when not only did his muscly Hydra ass show up again – this time in Albuquerque, New Mexico – but also that there was no one around to do anything about it. Darcy Lewis was just a tiny bit peeved. All she wanted to do was get her obligatory parent visit over with and eat her body weight in tacos.
As it was, she'd been walking down the sidewalk away from her favorite food truck with her box of sustenance and a large cup of horchata when he appeared. Just like that. Out of god damn nowhere. He was walking down the middle of the street like a bandit in an old western – the same douchebag that used to stare at her cleavage in the elevator. He didn't say a word, didn't draw his weapon; he just walked down the center of the street with a big ass mask covering his face. It was a bit dramatic, but decidedly anticlimactic. A small non-confrontational part of her wanted to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he had to visit family here too or something.
Despite all of this, Darcy remained frozen at the sight of him. She didn't bother to stop drinking her horchata though. Okay yeah, she was a little unnerved by his presence. She kinda wondered what the guy was up to but figured that whenever the bad guys popped up, one of the good guys usually wasn't too far behind. It wasn't her problem. She was the science wrangler not the superhero. Of course, she wouldn't have to do anything about this. And like a dumbass, she just looked around at her surroundings for any sign of an enhanced buddy that could take over from there.
She was stunned to find that the block had completely vacated. Even the taco truck was left unattended. And still not a single Avenger or agent in sight. Slurping at her drink, she looked back at Rumlow who had now spotted her. Literally the only living thing for miles besides himself, Darcy watched him make his purposeful approach and did her best to appear to the world unphased. If her pulse was a little fast, she would never tell. And her palms were wet from the condensation on her cup, not because she tended to sweat in life threatening situations.
He stopped in front of her, blocking out the sun with his shadow.
"Darcy Lewis," He growls out, voice muffled by the hunk of metal on his mouth.
Still sucking on her straw with feigned apathy, she curled her lips up at him, cocking her head to the side.
"Rumlow." She greeted.
"It's Crossbones," he grunts. Internally, Darcy thought that was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard, but he was one hundred percent not joking and she didn't really feel qualified to burst that bubble for him. Instead she held up her food box.
"Mind holding this? It's getting kind of heavy," She passed her tacos to him. Caught off guard, he accepted the box, watching her dig clumsily through her purse. "You can totally have a taco if you want. Those right there are the best in New Mexico. Just one second, I just need to find my Chapstick."
Opening his mouth to growl something else at her, eyes hard and suspicious, he stopped short at the high-pitched whir of an electric charge. He dropped the tacos and lunged toward Darcy but not before she got him in the throat, between the chin of his mask and the fabric of his collar.
By the time word got around to the heavy-weights back at the Avengers Compound, adrenaline had changed Darcy's story considerably. A crew arrived an hour later to the scene, Darcy Lewis and a handful of cops were sitting on the hoods of the police cruisers eating tacos in the cordoned off street. She was regaling them with the details of what all they missed, a police badge sticker on the thigh of her jeans. Rumlow laid there drifting in and out of consciousness, cuffed for continuity's sake with about a dozen guns and one taser aimed his way. The Avenger's own strike team packed him up and carted him away to some classified, high security location Darcy was not privy to. Hawkeye watched them go with a dry look on his face before turning back to her, bemused as she obnoxiously waved his way.
"Hey!" She called over. "Hawkass! Come get a taco!"
Shaking his head, Barton made his way over to grab the item she held out for him and after he finished eating and watching the officers reluctantly return to their day, he shot her a sideways look.
"You know you gotta come with me for a debriefing right?"
She nods with a smile and bumps his hip with hers.
"Kinda counting on it, dude."
They made their way toward the jet.
"Think you could write my mom a note telling her why I had to ditch?"
He snorted.
"You can call her after we take off."
"How about you call her, Agent Tight-Ass…"
He smacked her upside the head. She yelped and rubbed the spot grumpily.
"Oh, I'm so telling Captain America you beat me up."
"Oh no is the little baby gonna cry?" He cooed back at her as they made their way up the ramp.
The men and woman around the table were incredulous to say the least. Well...those who weren't too busy sniggering were. As it was…Clint and Sam were openly smirking at Darcy while she stood at the front of the room. Steve and Bruce both had looks on their faces that were a cross between pity and disbelief. Tony had yet to arrive. And Bucky and Natasha's faces were void of any emotion, though if you looked closely you could see a tiny glimmer of laughter in the Soldier's eyes as well.
"And he was all 'You're coming with me Lewis' and I was like 'Bitch please' and then he pulled out a luger and pressed it between my eyes and was like 'You wanna try that again?' and I was like 'yeah no totally dude, whatever you want. It's totally different now that you pulled out a gun…I'm definitely like super shocked by this turn of events.' And right when I said 'shocked' I pulled out Gerald – that's my taser – and I got him in the neck. And he went down like—" Darcy looked around her, arms stretched out as she tried to explain how the man fell, eyes locking on the table in front of her. She clambered up.
Clint clutched his sides, fighting off a cramp. Sam wiped his eyes.
Darcy towered over them now, blocking the overhead light and casting her shadow across the table and proceeded to drop her body off the edge, hitting the floor with a yelp. Steve lurched forward to help her up, but she beat him to it. Popping back up of the balls of her feet, she continued.
"He went like that but came back up swinging. And he got me in the ribs, but I got out of the way before he could grab ahold of me. And then out of nowhere all these guys in black tactical suits came out and everybody was shouting. And you know me…I'm like totally a runner when shit hits the fan. But I mean this was my childhood home ya know? And I didn't want Albuquerque to become like the Mecca of Hydra – maybe I should use a different analogy, but you know what I mean – have you guys watched that show on scientology? There's a city in Florida that just got completely overrun by the Church of Scientology and they call it the church's Mecca and they've completely just taken over. And I could totally see Hydra trying to pull some shit like that, so I stayed and fought."
The door opened and Stark waltzed in with a shit eating grin on his face. Darcy stopped to stare at him for a second, fidgeting in place.
"Oh, please don't let me interrupt. Carry on Lewis. I believe you left off at the point where you stayed and fought the army of Hydra soldiers singlehandedly in order to keep them from occupying New Mexico…"
"Yeah! Right…so I was completely surrounded-"
"Or!" Tony interjected with a suspiciously innocent look on his face. "We could just watch the video?"
They held eye contact as the rest of the room looked back and forth between the science wrangler and the billionaire. Darcy's eye twitched. Tony's grin widened.
"Friday, roll tape!"
The lights dimmed and on the wall behind Darcy the scene from that morning played out before them.
Bruce tugged her gently into the seat next to him. They saw Darcy with her pile of tacos and her big ass cup walking on the sidewalk. Rumlow appeared in the top left corner of the screen. Natasha spoke up for the first time to ask what the hell he was even doing there. Nobody had an answer. They saw Darcy see him, watched her slow to a stop and stick her straw in her mouth.
She looked up at the sky and then looked back at him. People everywhere were screaming and running – chaos in the streets. But Rumlow just kept on walking. And Darcy just kept on standing there. She shifted the box in her arms so she could nervously scratch the back of her head while she watched Rumlow move. Stark had Friday zoom in on her face; her eyes were bugging out of her skill. Sam and Clint are howling in the back of the room, even Bruce is chuckling. On the screen, she looked behind her, then back to Rumlow. Looked to her right. Then at Rumlow. To her left. Then Rumlow. Checked the sky one more time.
By now the street was empty. Only Darcy and Crossbones remained. He sighted her and stalked in her direction. Complacent, she watched him do it.
"Miss Lewis," Steve piped up gravely from across the table. "We need to work on your self-preservational skills."
She nodded solemnly back at him.
Rumlow stood in front of her then, leering down at her from behind his stupid mask. They watched as he said something to her (the video had no sound). Video Darcy cocked her head, still sipping her drink. Then even Clint and Sam were stunned into silence when not only did Darcy hand this hardened double agent her box of tacos, but when he accepted it and looked utterly flabbergasted by the turn of events. They all watched fascinated as the girl blindly dug through her purse, mouth moving a mile a minute. Something registered in Rumlow's mind then, and his expression went from confusion to disbelief to outrage. They watched him lunge and then convulse, body crumbling to the ground with Darcy standing over him, taser in hand.
The video ended and the room was silent.
"So.." Tony broke the trance "What was that about an army of Hydra combatants?" He smirked.
Darcy didn't even bother to be embarrassed, but she glared at him because he expected it.
"So.." she snarked back in his direction. "Where was Iron Man when the Hydra baddie decided to take a stroll through my hometown?"
His smirk twitched and fell.
She stuck out her tongue in his direction, and he eyed her tiredly.
"Come on kid, let me buy you a churro."
Tony stood and waited for her to follow. She hopped up and did exactly that. They left a table of pensive superheroes in their wake. None of them speaking or laughing or arguing anymore. Just lost in their own thoughts, processing the events of the day.
Maybe the real fight was a bit anti-climactic, and Rumlow had let his guard down and Darcy had stumbled upon an easy win that day. But from then on out, at parties or even amongst themselves, if the events in New Mexico came up in conversation you could count on the Avengers to tell the only story that mattered. Hordes of Hydra soldiers had descended upon Albuquerque that day and Darcy Lewis had single handedly fought off every single one of them, armed only with her wits and her taser. As far as they were concerned, each and every one of them would swear that Darcy Lewis saved the world that day.