This is my first multi-chapter story. I have it outlined, so I hope I can get it written and updated in a timely fashion.
When you came right down to it, it was all Taylor Swift's fault. If T. Swift didn't write such catchy, singable songs, Darcy might not have had the music all the way up in her headphones, which means she might have heard the goon squad before they hit her from behind. Of course, it could also be said that it was Jane's fault, since it was her haphazard way of tossing papers around the office that had forced Darcy spend what should have been her free evening sorting out the lab, since Darcy had a sixth sense about the difference between a crumpled piece of paper that was trash and a crumpled piece of paper that was super-important, but super-frustrating test numbers. Also, when you got right down to it, it was Stark's fault for not having finished up the new security measure in the new lab space.
So it was Taylor Swift's, Jane's and Stark's fault she was slowly freezing (and starving) to death in a tiny cell surrounded by a group of terribly cliche bad guys. Not that assigning blame was going to change anything for her of course, but it was a nice mental exercise. She had been singing songs, sometimes making up the words when she forgot them, but her throat was dry and parched and she'd finally leaned against the cold, slightly damp wall for a while to ponder whose head her untimely death would fall upon. She was clinging to a veneer of calm by her fingernails, a knot of terror and panic seething just below, waiting to bubble up at the worst possible moment.
There was no way to mark the passage of time in her windowless cell, but there seemed to be a sort of schedule, and it was probably almost time for Goon1 and Goon2 to escort her down the hall to be interrogated by HeadGoon. They seemed to be sure that (despite her best efforts to convince them otherwise) she must know something about Thor, the Bridge, any information to do with SHIELD.
Of course, she did, but the information that Darcy had was wholly unusable to the GoonSquad, since the fact the Thor likes Pop Tarts and has dimples on his butt isn't much help. But HeadGoon seems to think Darcy has some kind of special training to resist interrogation, and keeps bringing her in. Honestly, she was being totally truthful after the first few 'encouragements', and now she just said whatever popped into her brain, since the sooner she started talking, the sooner they stopped hurting her.
Thinking of the coming interrogation had brought the panic right to the surface, so she started singing again, working her way through the Beatles catalog in a way that would have made her mom proud. She'd made it through Hey Jude, Blackbird and Let It Be. She stumbled through Eleanor Rigby and was just starting Here Comes the Sun when a screw fell into her lap. Glancing up, she saw the florescent light fixture in the ceiling flicker, but continued to sing, thinking that of course crappy bad-guy prisons would have crappy light fixtures in them.
"Here comes the sun, here comes the sun. And I say it's alright." She shifted away from the chill wall, hugging her legs with her arms and rubbing dirty hands across even dirtier feet, trying to bring some warmth to her freezing bare toes.
"Little darling, it's been a long cold, lonely winter. Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here. Here comes the sun, here comes the sun. And I say it's alright."
The light was flicking more strenuously now, plunging her little cell into fits of light and dark. She broke off the singing and was about to get up and call for a Goon to come fix the light, when a deep, quiet voice whispered from the flickering light.
"Please keep singing. It's covering the noise I'm making trying to bust you out."
Darcy froze for a moment, her mind weighing all the possible reasons she would be hearing voices from a fluorescent light. The best of course, was that there really was a rescue team in the ceiling and she should probably keep singing. More troubling was that she was actually starting to lose it, and imaging voices was the first stage of her descent into madness. In which case, singing didn't really matter. She decided to go with hope and kept on singing.
"Little darling, the smiles returning to their faces. Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here. Here comes the sun, here comes the sun. And I say it's all right." Just as she was about to break into the bridge, the entire light fixture swung downward like a hatch, one well muscled arm guiding it to it's apex, and a possibly handsome, though upside-down, head popped out into view before the whole room was plunged into darkness.
Darcy may have let out a small squeak of alarm, but really, who wouldn't when strange men are coming out of the light fixtures? He did some crazy gymnast thing and the rest of his body unrolled from a tiny space above the fixture before he dropped silently to the floor, his motions barely seen by the light coming through the door's window.
He crossed over to her in two quiet steps, then crouched down in front of her. "Darcy Lewis?" he asked in a whisper, his face close to hers, his short hair a halo of light around him.
She just nodded, not sure what she was supposed to do.
"I'm Agent Barton, I'm here to rescue you."
And then, because she's Darcy, and sometimes the filter between her mouth and her brain goes offline, she said the first thought that flitted between her ears. "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?"
She realized belatedly that she had said it rather loud, and he responded with a quiet huff of laughter before putting a finger to his rather full lips to quiet her. She could sense him smile behind the finger, imagine the laugh lines crinkle around his eyes. When she pressed her lips together, promising herself that she wouldn't utter another word if it meant she could get out of here, he graced her with a nod.
He leaned in a bit more and breathed into her ear, "You're going to go to the door and yell for a guard. Tell him the light isn't working. When he unlocks the door, you get to the corner and get low. Stay there until I get you. You understand? Stay there!" All of it was said in an urgent whisper, the imagined crinkled eyes and smiles were gone and she could only hear 'Agent Barton', who climbs through tiny holes and was probably going to seriously hurt some people. But, wow, did ever smell amazing.
Darcy nodded silently, clenching her jaw against the panic that was bubbling up again. She wanted out of here with every fiber of her being, but getting out was probably going to be dangerous, and Darcy was kinda feeling all out of bravery at the moment.
Barton rose to his feet in one fluid movement, extending a hand to help her up. She put her tiny, cold, dirty hand in his big, warm one and he pulled her to her feet. Of course, the sudden change in altitude made her see stars and she swayed for a moment before warm hands grasped her shoulders, keeping her upright when she would have fallen.
"You still with me, princess?" He whispered, tipping his head down to try to catch her eyes.
"Lightheaded," she whispered back. "I'm okay."
He let go of her, and she felt colder than ever. His hands had felt like heating pads on her shoulders, and she wanted to just press her body up against his warmth for a while. But Agent Barton had a plan, which evidently involved pulling a bag from the recess above the light and unfolding a... bow and arrows? The possibility of her own madness was looking up again.
She was staring at him in bewilderment for a moment before he caught her eyes again. A jerk of his head towards the door and she remembered what she was supposed to be doing. Taking a deep breath, Darcy pounded on the door, yelling though it with a hoarse voice, "Hey Goon-one and Goon-two! The light went out in here! Come fix the light!"
They were either standing guard outside the door, or had been on their way for an interrogation, because it was only the space of a heartbeat or two before she could hear the snick of a key in the lock. Remembering her part in all of this, Darcy scurried to the corner and crouched down low. A larger rectangle of light fell into the cell as the door opened, and Goon1 took a step in. Suddenly, he was falling backwards, clawing at an arrow that had suddenly sprouted through his neck. Darcy squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face to the wall. But she couldn't block out the sounds. Clattering and twanging. The meaty sounds of bodies hitting walls or floors. She both wanted to hear and really did not want to hear at the same time.
After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only 30 seconds, a warm, heavy hand gently touched her shoulder.
"C'mon, it's time to move," Barton said, once again offering her a hand up. He was slower in pulling her up though, giving her body time to adjust. His voice was still quiet, but no longer a whisper, and Darcy thought it was the most marvelous voice she had ever heard, deep and rich and comforting. Of course, she was sleep deprived and dehydrated and he was rescuing her, so he could have sounded like a cat in heat and she would have loved it.
"We're going to have to move fast and quiet, okay? You stay right behind me, move when I move, stop when I stop. No shoes?"
The non sequitur threw her for a moment before she glanced down at her bare feet. They'd taken her sweater and her shoes when they first tossed her in here, leaving her to freeze in a tank top and jeans. She shook her head and shrugged to say she didn't know where they were.
He clicked something on the collar of his tactical vest. "Widow, I have the package and we're on the move."
He paused, obviously listening to someone. "One problem. She doesn't have shoes." More listening, then Barton looked Darcy up and down and a smile crossed his face. "Got it. I'll stay with the package. Shouldn't be a problem. Hawkeye out."
He crossed to the open door, toeing a body out of his way as he glanced up and down the corridor. He looked back at Darcy then, giving her a pointed look. "Right behind me. Move when I move, stop when I stop, princess," he reminded her with a touch of mockery.
Darcy stepped towards him, crossing her arms across her chest, and trying very, very hard not to look at the bodies and the slowly spreading pools of blood on the floor. Tentatively, she reached out and hooked two fingers through a loop on the back of the agent's tactical vest. He looked over his shoulder at her, then down to her fingers and nodded. "Good girl."
The escape through the warehouse was something Darcy choose not to remember later on. It was full of moments of explosive running (with bare feet, over metal grating - not something to be recommended), silent hiding and horrifying moments where Agent Barton let loose one of his arrows and she heard the meaty thwack as it hit it's target. Darcy isn't one of those squeamish, fainting type of girls, but she's pretty sure it was okay to feel a little sick and overwhelmed with everything that had happened.
When he finally kicked open an exterior door, Darcy finally understood the shoe issue. It's midwinter, and the warehouse is in the middle of a huge field covered in snow. Not that she couldn't run through it barefoot if it was the only way out, but since she's still mostly whole at this point, the thought of losing toes to frostbite is less than appealing. Just as she's trying to figure this all out, Agent Barton removes her hand from the back of his vest and turns to look at her full in the face.
Darcy got her first good look at him too, and if she's weren't already just on this side of unconsciousness, she might have actually swooned. Light brown hair, blue-grey eyes surrounded by laugh lines, full lips and a ruggedly handsome face. And those arms... It should be criminal to have arms that are that attractive. He squints at her, tilting his head to look at both sides of her face before sighing.
"Damn. Sorry. I thought most of that was dirt." Without so much as a warning, his hand dips down and pulls up the hem of her tank top, exposing the series of cuts and blackish-purple bruises along her ribcage, gifts from the GoonSquad and their 'encouragement' to talk.
Darcy looks down and sees the rust red splotches of her own dried blood on her jeans and shirt. "S'okay," she says back, trying to smile her forgiveness at him, but the smile pulls painfully at the skin around her temple. Agent Barton drops her shirt and gently touches her head, fingers ghosting over cuts and abrasions.
His face hardens, and his eye flash with anger for a moment. "Definitely not okay," he growls back, his eyes glancing to the door they just exited, as if wondering if there are more people in there he could shoot. A squawk from his comm unit draws his attention back to the mission at hand.
"We're just outside the door. Give me three minutes to get clear, then blow this place all to hell." His voice is gruff and angry.
Another moment of listening, then, "Yeah, well, they did a number on her. Get out the med kit, she needs stitches."
He looks at her again, "I'm going to pick you up now, we need to get to the tree line. Hold on tight." He slings the bow across his back with practiced ease, then picks Darcy up in a bridal carry without so much as a grunt. And then he's off, running across the snowy field with her in his arms.
Darcy would like to imagine that it was all romantic and hero-like, but honestly, it was all she could do not to throw up on him. His arms were warm under her legs and across her back, but the rest of her was freezing, and she started to shiver uncontrollably. Not little shivers either, but full body ones that felt more like spasms. And her head hurt, and her stomach was rolling, and if her vision went black a time or two as well she wouldn't be surprised.
He made it to the tree line, then slowed to wind his way through the trees, his breathing heavy, but his grip never faltering. They'd been in the trees for only a few moments before explosions behind them lit up the sky with orange fire and a column of black, oily smoke. Darcy looked over his shoulder, leaning her cheek against him to watch the fire burn with a deep sense of satisfaction. She didn't even notice when she finally lapsed into unconsciousness.
