Part One

Darcy awoke with stars in her eyes and a certain sense of rumbling; the subway was in her bones.

Sitting up in bed, she cradled her face in her hands, trying to gain sense of the world. She could still feel it: the callous of her fingertips, the keyboard beneath them. She remembered the way Mike had stared at her hands, the way he licked his lips and blinked at her screen, as if uncertain the coding spreading across it were real, were plastered there in black and white.

"Where did you come from?" he'd asked two days ago.

Wearily, she glanced at her clock. 3:14 AM.

Every single night, the subway woke her. And every single night, she sat up in bed, looking around her room, shrouded in dark. She saw the small red dot on her television, steady and fragile all at once, glaring at her from the wall. She saw the constant glow from her window, a summons to the street below.

New York never slept. She would never again know what true dark really was, as long as she lived here.

It was at least a full minute before she forced herself to look away, to look down at her lap. Not tonight, she told herself, forcing her body back against the bed, forcing her head to look away from that perpetual light in the window, from that constant, unspoken request, as if the City itself were calling to her. It's dangerous out there this late at night.

Darcy squeezed her eyes shut, a futile attempt to forget that living, breathing world outside. She forced herself to think of work, to think of Stark Tower where there were endless strings of code to write, endless cups of good coffee, endless stares and whispers in her direction. She liked her job, sure. She liked her New Life where everyone seemed to have burning halos around their heads, where everyone glowed and spoke in voices that echoed in her mind; it was as if the world had been turned way up, like God or something had pushed a switch in efforts to burn her eyes - but it was okay, really. All Darcy had to do was tell herself that he wasn't in the corner of her eye, that she wasn't in the break room with her head bent over a book. Her breath had caught in her throat and her heart had skipped so many beats so many times over the last month; she may as well be dead. But she wasn't.

And that was okay.

She could live with this shiny new reality - it reminded her that she was alive. Coding had never looked so perfect, so veracious, so pristine. Darcy often wondered why she had ever talked herself into a Political Science degree - computers were the future, after all. Who was she to think that books and boring lectures and opinions were better than her fingers racing across a keyboard?

Opening her eyes, Darcy ground her teeth together until she felt a sharp jab in one of her back molars. She stared across the room, toward where her closet would be, if she could make it out. When had she ever thought that being a stupid lab assistant was a good idea, anyway?

Refusing to think about that, she forced the thought out of her mind. She was no longer tired, but she had to be up at 6:15 sharp. She couldn't be late again; she couldn't sleep in again. Her skills could only take her so far before SHIELD found some worse, less desirable department to shove her in; she could only imagine what it would be like to nuke peas for the Stark Tower cafeteria for a living.

Darcy thought of her journal, burning a hole in her small crossover bag. She could pull it out, she could get a few lines written down. Maybe it would calm her nerves.

And it was while she was contemplating this that Darcy found herself slipping off to sleep - she dreamed of the sound of the subway, the feeling of being watched, and her life before Stark Tower.

"Hello, anybody there?"

Darcy blinked, the sounds around her suddenly dissipating, leaving a sudden sense of chill in its wake. She turned her head, a smile mechanically finding its way on her face. Mike, her manager-but-really-just-your-buddy, was standing next to her desk, an expression of worry on his face that she was becoming all too familiar with. He was a man of about 40, with trendy glasses and a receding hairline.

"Hey, Mike. What's happening?" Darcy asked, moving her hands to her lap. She could not type and talk at the same time.

He didn't immediately answer, looking distracted by the work on her screen. He let out a low whistle.

"Damn…I don't know why I continue to be shocked by your work, but…I am."

He meant it as a compliment. Darcy allowed another weak smile to cross her face.

"Listen, the real reason I came over here is because I noticed you haven't taken your break yet. It's going on two. I don't want my staff starving themselves over code." He said that last bit as a joke, but Darcy didn't laugh.

"I'm not hungry today, or I would have."

Something in Mike's expression changed, but Darcy couldn't name it. His eyes darted back and forth across the large office space, and then he stepped a little closer.

"Darcy…" he began, his voice low. Darcy raised her eyebrows, his face beginning to blur in front of her. She knew he was about to lecture her - about her health, her bad habits. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. Maybe he even knew about her late-night excursions? Why wouldn't he? He's SHIELD. They knew everything there was to know about everything. Except about Jane.

No. She wouldn't think about that. She couldn't.

"…just worried about you a bit. I know I'm your boss, but I don't want you to think of me that way. You work harder than anyone else in this department. Even Mr. Stark himself has commented on it."

"Hmm."

Mr. Stark. Tony. She remembered meeting him, vaguely, in the elevator. The experience wasn't as cool as she thought it'd be, mostly because he asked her questions about Jane as the elevator flew from the lobby to the 25th floor. At the time, she barely said anything at all - but in her head, she was screaming. He should have known the answers to all those questions - Agent Wilson had already asked them.

The thought of Agent Wilson's gray eyes and tight-lipped expression was enough to cause her skin to crawl.

"…and you know, I'm always here for you. It's part of my job, but I also care about you, too."

"Huh."

"Are you…listening to me?"

Darcy blinked. The office, and Mike, cut into her vision sharply, and she nearly squinted. She looked at her keyboard, her screen. Then she swallowed.

"I'm listening. Look, Mike. I'm sorry I seem distant, and weird. It's…it's because…" she faltered, unsure of how to proceed.

"Because of Dr. Foster's disappearance?"

Darcy jumped up from her seat as if it had burned her. The way Mike had said it - so casually, as if it had happened to just anyone , as if it wasn't her fault - she found herself walking away, toward the door that led to the elevator.

"Darcy! Where are you going?"

Several heads were turned, watching her. Her face flamed, but she didn't stop.

"Going to lunch. Weren't you just telling me I should take one?"

Mike didn't reply. Darcy reached the door, and shut it firmly behind her.

The door shutting was an immediate relief from the building feelings of guilt and embarrassment. For a few short moments, Darcy considered leaving the building, walking the streets until she burned a hole through her shoes. But she shook the thought off - she already had something to answer for when she returned, but it didn't look like Mike was going to chase after her.

Good, she thought. Maybe he'll leave me alone for awhile.

Heading toward the elevator, she shook her head slowly. Ever since she got here, she's always had the underlying sense that she didn't belong. Like she was just a placeholder, that this was only temporary. She refused to think too much about her life Before. Thinking about that, meant to think about Jane.

She didn't want to go there. Not now. Not when it was still so fresh.

She punched the elevator button, tapping her foot as she waited for it to arrive. Even though she didn't want to think about Jane, now that she was, it was impossible to stop. Unbidden, memories of that last day, of Jane being arrested right in front of her, of her strangled, pale face as they escorted her out, filled her mind. Darcy had done so little to stop it. She had been blind-sighted. Jane…and Loki. The whole thing had stunned her beyond all reason, but it wasn't until SHIELD came for Darcy that she began to see the truth: this was all her fault.

A gushing wound
a
feather touch
a
stolen kiss
or
a laugh, a shout, a
memory

The scratching of Darcy's pen in her journal was all she could hear as she wrote the words, unbidden, in the cafeteria. She thought of Mike, his shout at her retreating back. She wondered what they'd thought of her as she ignored him.

The florescent lights above cast an unnatural hue to the room, but she studiously ignored it, continuing to write as if it could truly erase everything else.

each love i have ever felt
was not fate but
my own fault

She knew that she would soon have to stop to go back upstairs and deal with Mike. There was no way she was getting away with running out on him like that - she'd have to answer for it.

i believe we spend much of our lives
living in the shadow of ghosts

touch me, open me up and consume me
let me believe that i am all you feel
all you know
all you see
don't let me slip away,
don't let me leave

Darcy sat back, looking at her sloppy prose. None of it made sense or even seemed to relate to each other.

whisper in my ear
make me your girl,
take me as i am

She looked at her pen, looked at the white grip holding it. And then she looked up.

Tony Stark stood some feet away, watching her. She would typically expect, based on the media, some level of good humor on his face, but now, it was grim. She quickly closed her journal and placed it in the empty space in her crossover, preparing herself for him to speak.

"I went to Programming to find you and was told you had stormed out."

Darcy flinched, the stark white fluorescents suddenly seeming so much worse. She didn't stand, but imagined herself doing so: she could almost imagine herself so much taller than Tony, taller than this very building.

"Your boss is concerned," Tony continued. "Which means that I'm concerned as well."

"Is it common for you to be involved in something so…beneath you?"

Darcy's question gave Tony obvious pause.

"Beneath me?"

"Yeah. Tony Stark. The Man. Why are you here? I'm not an Avenger. I'm barely on your payroll."

His mouth turned up at that, the barest hint of a smile.

"It is true I postponed a meeting with the Secretary of State to be down here." He turned his head, appearing to regard the mostly empty cafeteria, and then shrugged, turning back to look at Darcy. "What were you writing about?"

At his question, her heart quickened uncomfortably. She shook her head. "Nothing. What is it that you need from me?"

"I want to talk with you. In my office."

The words sounded so ominous. Almost threatening. It didn't occur to Darcy that she should be more careful with her tone, that this man controlled her future with this company.

"Why?"

If he was annoyed by her, he didn't show it. Instead, he smiled, the first genuine expression Darcy had seen from him yet. The smile transformed his face, making him appear younger, more dashing. Yeah - dashing. She giggled at that, and nodded.

"Alright, you don't gotta twist my arm. I'll go."

The two of them exited the cafeteria, Tony leading the way to an elevator she had never used before but had seen SHIELD agents getting on and off of, and once, Natasha Romanoff. He inserted a key card into the panel above the buttons for coinciding floors, and hit one near the top.

"Have you ever been above the 25th floor?" Tony asked, conversationally. Darcy shook her head.

"I don't have the clearance."

"What do they have you working on in Programming, anyway?"

"You don't know?" Darcy challenged, a hint of a smile on her face. She marveled at how good it felt to let loose a little, despite doing so with someone of Tony's stature. It felt familiar, like sparring with Jane. The thought made her smile drop.

"I wish I could keep up with every project in this building, but since my efforts and SHIELD's have become so interlaced…" Tony trailed off with the air of someone having said too much, and shook his head. "I read reports, but sometimes, I'd just rather get drunk and test my suit."

Darcy snorted at that. "Drinking and driving. You seem the type."

He put his hand to his heart in mock hurt. "My lady, I take serious offense to that. It's drinking and flying."

She laughed at that. It felt good, like letting something go, weighing less. "Mike has a few of us working on tightening up the security of a specific criminal database - SHIELD proprietary data, head shots, fingerprints and other things like that."

"Heavy stuff."

The elevator dinged, alerting them that they had arrived their destination. As the doors opened, Darcy was welcomed with an extremely white, posh and modern looking foyer, with sleek doors and abstract art lining the walls.

It was very quiet. She followed Tony down the hall and to the left, and stopped in front of a door where he inserted his key card once again. The door's handle beeped, and she followed him inside.

When Tony had said he wanted to speak to her in his office, she imagined a more modern version of her old high school principal's office: wooden desk, filing cabinet, drooping plants. Maybe a minibar, since the rumors about Tony always whispered about alcohol. She was not expecting this large expanse of space, the tall, floor-to-ceiling windows with a breathtaking view of downtown Manhattan, the shining black surface and eco-chair that Tony was now sitting in, or the general air of hospitality that was altogether extremely unexpected for Darcy. Her breath caught, a stupid, stupid reaction to all of this, and she breathed in and out slowly until she could get a grip on herself once and for all.

"Take a seat, please." Tony gestured before his desk to a set of chairs, and Darcy chose one and sat, taking her crossover off and setting it on the floor beside her. She watched him tap on the surface of his desk, eyes widening at the sudden appearance of what looked like flat, interactive holograms in front of Tony's face. Her own hardware in Programming had impressed her when she arrived, but this was altogether a new plane of existence.

"You want a drink?" he asked her as he tapped, swiped and typed across his desk. She realized suddenly how very brown his eyes were.

"I'm on the clock."

"Right. More for me." He stood and poured himself a tumbler of something amber, whiskey maybe, or rum. He sat back down and sipped his glass, regarding her with a look that made her feel vulnerable, like her thoughts were on display.

"The last time we met, in the elevator, I wanted to talk to you about Dr. Foster and Thor's brother."

Darcy sat back in her chair. She was expecting this. She was also quite prepared for the way her heart suddenly lurched, the way her stomach seized at the thought of talking about it all.

"Anything I can tell you, you already know."

Instead of immediately replying, Tony swirled the liquid around in his glass, and Darcy eyed the way the light blazed off of it - like a crystal caught in the sun. She looked down at her feet, waiting for his next words.

"I want to tell you right now that I am not Agent Wilson. I know you didn't know that Jane and Loki were involved. I know that you were in the room when she was arrested and brought upstate. And I know that was the last time you ever saw her."

Darcy didn't reply to this. His words brought that day back in force, and she'd really rather not think about it.

"The reason I wanted to talk with you today is because…between you and me, we've all but given up hope on ever finding them. Thor says that Loki has the 'power to jump worlds' -" Tony used exaggerated quotation marks with his fingers - "and that when Loki doesn't want to be found, he won't."

The implications of Tony's words sunk in, and Darcy's heart quickened. "You're giving up?" she asked. "Just like that?"

Tony looked momentarily stunned, but recovered quickly. "Well. Yes. We are. I'm sorry, Darcy…but it's been almost five months, and we've scoured this planet. We don't, sadly, have the power to 'jump worlds' - whatever that means - and we have come to the conclusion that Loki and Jane are off planet."

Off planet. Those two words - in this room, in this context, seemed utterly bizarre and surreal. It solidified everything Darcy had ever feared, and she felt her throat burning as she blinked back tears.

"You've searched everywhere? Every country, every city? They could have holed up in a pyramid of Egypt - how the fuck would you even know?"

Tony's face changed to one of remorse. He cleared his throat, and stood, going to the minibar again and pouring another drink in a new glass. Darcy thought fiercely, bitterly, that perhaps the rumors were true: Tony was a drunk, and could barely go a few minutes without having a drink.

Instead of tossing the glass back, he brought it around the desk and handed it to Darcy, kneeling down in front of her.

"This will help. Calms the nerves, and all that."

Darcy took a sip. It burned her throat even more, and it tasted like smoke.

Tony stayed there, his face compassionate and open for a moment, and then said, quietly, "We track Loki's magic. We can, anyway. That's how SHIELD found him to begin with."

The anomalies. The ones that Agent Wilson was showing to Jane, right before he arrested her. Darcy assumed they were something else - maybe like the Bifrost, the Einstein-Rosen Bridge that Jane was trying to build - on SHIELD's behalf - and mistook her reaction for disbelief that they would steal her proprietary methods, not that they had notated every time and place she and Loki had stolen away. It all made so much more sense: the look on Jane's face, the absolute and utter fear, and the terrible sense of helplessness that had washed over Darcy as they had carried Jane away, out of the lab.

And also, her last words. Her promise that she would explain everything to her, when she could.

But she never did.

"The absence of Loki's magic most likely means that he's gone - and since he broke into our facility upstate, taking Jane with him, we have come to the conclusion that he took her with him, wherever he went."

"I never doubted he took her with him," Darcy said, taking another sip. She found herself appreciating the biting flavor, the way it trailed down her throat. She realized that for the first time since she got here, she was in a position, however fragile, to get answers, and she leaned forward, meeting Tony's eyes. "Where was the last place he used his magic?"

"Some mountain in Norway. East of a city called Bergen. The same night that Jane escaped SHIELD custody. And after that - silence."

Darcy sat back, gripping her glass with controlled force. Trying not to squeeze too hard. Her eyes flicked to the wall of windows behind Tony's desk, taking in the overcast, winter day. The sun was hidden behind the clouds, and the forecast had been talking of snow for days, but not one flake had fallen yet.

"Why are you giving up?" she found herself asking. "SHIELD had been pushing Jane for months. Fuck, years, maybe, to build that Einstein-Rosen Bridge. She slaved over it. You couldn't finish the job for her, couldn't use it?"

"She was substantially closes to finishing that, based off her notes. But - Darcy, to use it in that capacity would be a suicide mission."

"Then why have her build it at all?" Darcy spat, standing up abruptly. "What was the fucking point?"

"You're confusing me with SHIELD," Tony said levelly. "I can't answer your question. Believe me, I've tried hacking into those files, but I came up with nothing that made any sense."

"You're in contact with Thor. Why doesn't he do something?"

"What would you propose he do?"

The tone Tony used - the emotionless gaze, the grim set of his mouth, angered Darcy beyond reason. She saw blinding white, and before she knew what she was doing, she threw the glass in her hand onto the dark wooden floor, the shatter deafening in the silence of the room.

"Fuck this. I don't need to listen to this. I don't need you. I'm leaving."

And with that, she turned on her heel, rushing out of the office and down the hall and turning right to make her way to the elevator, jabbing the call button furiously, her hands shaking and her ears ringing. Who did he think he was? Did he think he knew Jane better than her? Did he think he knew what was good for Darcy?

Tony didn't follow her. It was completely silent in the hallway, and Darcy tapped her foot impatiently as she waited.

The elevator dinged, its doors opening, and in her anger, she didn't even look at who stepped off as she got on, jabbing the button for the lobby.

"Ma'am," she heard, and she whipped her head around, at first unable to process just who she was looking at.

It was Captain America. Steve Rogers, in all his glory, wearing a periwinkle pullover and jeans, his eyes so blue in this stark white hall that Darcy, for a moment, couldn't believe they were real. She blinked, and he smiled at her, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. She was momentarily captivated, or stunned, at the way he was looking at her: as if she were real, as if he cared.

She did not have time to respond to him. The elevator doors shut in his face, and she was hurdled down to the lobby.

There was no time to contemplate Steve Rogers. Going back upstairs would require clearance she didn't have, and it would also require seeing Tony again, which she adamantly didn't want to do. No matter what Steve was about to say to her, it couldn't have been important. She would have been shocked if he even knew her name.

The elevator arrived to the lobby. In Darcy's rush, she hadn't even considered going back to work; in her current state, she didn't want to, anyway. She left the building, stepping onto the busy, cold street, wrapping her cardigan around herself, ignoring the foot traffic. She set off for her apartment, intending to walk, but she hadn't gotten far when she heard her name being called.

"Ms. Lewis! Darcy Lewis!"

It was Steve Rogers again. She turned, aware that some people were gawking; Steve was rushing up to her, hood up around his face, carrying something that looked so incongruent in his hands that she couldn't help but gasp.

"My bag."

He stood before her, his body tense and poised. Out of nowhere, she wondered what it would be like to be saved by someone like him.

She reached for the bag.

"Thanks. I…I rushed out of there, I forgot all about this," Darcy said, taking it and crossing it over her chest. Steve smiled again, all white teeth and genuine.

"Tony was pretty put out at your quick exit."

"Is that what he said?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

"No. But he gives himself away."

She was aware of all the people around them. It was getting late in the work day, nearing rush hour. She shifted in her spot, very much not wanting to talk about Tony Stark and their conversation upstairs. She was calming down though, seeing beyond the surge of anger, and in its wake was a sense of exhaustion.

"Listen, Mr…America. Thank you for bringing this back. I wouldn't have been able to get to my apartment without it." She wanted to kick herself - Mr. America?

His lips twitched, but he shuffled uncomfortably in place. "Please, call me Steve. I would normally offer to walk you home, but I have to rendez-vous with Tony and he said it couldn't wait."

She wanted to laugh at the idea of him offering his arm and skipping down twelve blocks to her apartment building, but shoved the image aside.

"Thanks again. Maybe I'll…see you around."

Something strange flashed in Steve's eyes, something Darcy couldn't place. It was gone in a second, and he smiled that easy smile again, and nodded. "I'll be looking forward to it."

They parted ways, and Darcy took the long walk home. She played with her phone, scrolled through social media, checked the news. Anything to get Tony Stark and Jane and Loki out of her mind. Anything to forget about Steve Rogers, too.

It wasn't until she was inside of her apartment when she realized her journal was missing.

Comments and thoughts appreciated! I do not own Marvel / MCU stuff, obvie. :D