Sentimental

by justareader13

Darcy Lewis is an evasive person. Most wouldn't believe that with how outspoken she was. If ever asked about her family she'd give just enough truth for people to back off. If ever asked about the origin of her name she'd tell a tall tale on the spot. She didn't like thinking about the past. It haunted her enough in her dreams. (Darcy as Bucky & Natasha's daughter)

Characters: Darcy Lewis, Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanov, Ivan Petrovitch

Pairings: Bucky Barnes & Darcy Lewis (family), Natasha Romanov & Darcy Lewis (family), Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov (romance)

Warnings: mentions of medical torture, some mentions of child murder, breeding programs, some depictions of non-graphic violence, mentions of bullying

Darcy Lewis is an evasive person. Most wouldn't believe that with how outspoken she was, sure she had no qualms waxing poetic about her sex life or writing odes to her body and the extra pounds the girls back home made fun of her for. She could tell you all about this boy or that girl but if ever asked about the scars on her left wrist she'd maneuver her way out of it expertly. If ever asked about her family she'd give just enough truth for people to back off. If ever asked about the origin of her name she'd tell a tall-tale on the spot. She didn't like thinking about the past. It haunted her enough in her dreams more than enough.

She didn't ever think she'd be confronted with it again. Her father got her away from the madness before she could be used by another organization like they were. Honestly she half thought they were dead but her Aunt Anna, the woman her parents entrusted her to, had told her about her mother joining SHIELD and speculation about the mysterious Black Widow was all over television after the battle of New York. She knew it was her mother even if SHIELD kept her face out of public media. Still she didn't reach out to her not because she didn't miss her mother but because she was in such deep cover as Darcy she didn't want to mess that up. Jane needed protection, Selvig needed her and she wasn't even sure her mother would remember her. Their machines could be so cruel to the mind. It was also possible she was just in deep cover as Natasha Romanov born 1984 because she knew her mother was much older than that but again maybe she didn't know that.

However when she first saw the coverage of the fall of SHIELD on the news and the Winter Soldier's existence was revealed she wasn't really sure what to do. Her father was alive, apparently he was free now but his circumstances were infinitely more complicated than her mother's especially when Jane relayed to her that Rogers had told Thor the Winter Soldier was his friend Bucky Barnes. She looked up Barnes afterward and couldn't deny the resemblance. The date given for Barnes' death gave enough time for the Winter Soldier to be created then deployed. There was always the possibility that he was just made to look like Barnes but she couldn't deny that it was looking more and more like her father was actually James Buchanan Barnes, Captain America's childhood bestie, World War 2 hero, the only Howling Commando to die in service of his country. Which meant he had been taken and torn apart over and over again and turned into a weapon. She never even knew what her father's real name was. Their superiors started calling him Yakov, Yakov Stepanovic Yekmenev. It was just a throwaway name so they could call him something other than the Winter Soldier all the time but it stuck with them and when she was born they gave her that name. She wanted to keep in it some form but that sentiment could lead her to her death.

Her father had left her with a necklace, a simple thing really. A gold chain with a star at the end that Darcy cherished like nothing else. He always said that, that she was his star, his sweet girl. He said she would always lead him back home just as a star would. What else could she do in that moment? Her mother was of enough presence of mind to care for herself, her father wasn't. She knew she was going after him before she even finished rationalizing it.

Natalia looked down at the baby in her arms. She didn't think she would ever want this. Wanting children was not conducive to being the best so she didn't think of it. Of course it hadn't been her idea to have the child now staring up at her with wide brown eyes but that didn't stop the love that instantly began to flood her heart. She looked up as the door opened. Yakov stood almost awkwardly at the opening. She recognized the odd shyness in him, he had been that way when they first started their unsolicited affair. She supposed she should be thankful that they were as good of operatives as they were and that they both had the serum injected into them otherwise they probably wouldn't have been paired together for the breeding program. It was the easiest it had ever been for them, they went on missions together and they didn't have to sneak around as much because they were meant to be intimate with each other but now is when it would get hard again. They would have to start hiding again. They would have to start lying again. Their daughter wasn't truly going to be theirs, she would be the Red Room's but perhaps she'd be able to get Ivan to help her stay in her child's life. Perhaps she could get them to let her and Yakov be her trainers or her teachers or something of the sort, they were the best they had after all.

"Can I come in?" Yakov asked, his eyes sliding over Natalia and the cooing baby in her arms.

"Of course you can, Yakov. How else will you meet our daughter?" Yakov anxiously walked into the room, closing the door behind him. He inched over to the bed and came to stood next to Natalia, peering down at the child. He didn't say anything for a long time moment, just stared down at her and Natalia began to worry. She didn't want to tear her eyes from the girl's beautiful, sweet face but she looked up at him and was taken aback to see tears there.

"Yakov..."

"She's... she's perfect." He looked at her with tears slipping down his face. She had never seen him cry before. She didn't think he physically could.

"Thank you." He said to her. She smiled up at him before leaning up to kiss him. They looked back down at the child as she began fussing a bit and Natalia rocked her in her arms as she had seen some women do on missions with their babies. Yakov leaned down and kissed the top of the newborn's head.

"Milaya, I- I..." Natalia knew what he wanted to say, knew the love that he wanted to express but couldn't get himself to say the word. She understood because they were that way with each other, their superiors had taken their ability to say that word, to think of it as anything other than a weakness and it was true. They were each other's weakness, this child would be their ultimate weakness but that didn't stop the swelling of their chests, the peace that her very being passed over them. In that moment they didn't feel like weapons, sharp instruments of destruction, they just felt like normal humans. Just an ordinary couple who were welcoming their child into the world and for however ravaged and fucked up of a world it was she was here now and they couldn't picture never wanting her.

"She will need a name." Yakov said. She knew the importance of this, the importance of being a name rather than a number. Natalia hadn't been a number in so long. Yakov wasn't a number but he didn't have a name, a title wasn't a name and though they called him Yakov that wasn't his name any more than the Winter Soldier was. Their child would never be a number, she would never be nameless, she would always be someone because she was cared for and she was special and she deserved it, she deserved the world.

"Dasha. She will be Dasha." Natalia said, looking to Yakov for his reaction.

"Dasha-Rose Alianovna?" He asked. Natalia had always liked the name Rose and Yakov had recently remembered that he had a sister named Rose. Natalia nodded with a smile.

"Dasha-Rose Yekmenev. She should have your name, even if it isn't your true name. We can change it later." He knew what she meant by later. Later, when they had finally escaped this place and were able to be together as a family. Later when they could finally try to find out about Yakov's true past and who he was. Later when they were free, whenever later was.

After the fall of SHIELD and the ensuing shitstorm of her mother dumping all of SHIELD/HYDRA's secrets online Darcy had began laying low. She wasn't cross-referenced in the files her mother had made public. A lot of her mother's early KGB files were either entirely missing or heavily redacted. In the files she let loose it depicted the life of Natalia Alianovna Romanova born 1984. That woman had done heinous things but she had never had a daughter and anything to do with the Winter Soldier was redacted or very vague. It mentioned a mission in Odessa where her father shot her mother to get to his target but that was it.

She wasn't entirely sure what to do from there. Both her parents were underground, everyone was looking for them so now was probably the worst time to go running around as the daughter of two of the most wanted individuals worldwide but Darcy never said she wasn't reckless. However, she also wasn't an idiot. She was still very much in her cover as Darcy Lewis. She had told Jane she needed a break from the superhero mumbo jumbo so she left the scientist to her devices in London and went to Moscow. She kept tabs on Jane still, still called three times a day to make sure she ate and skyped when she could to make sure she showered and actually slept. Her care for Jane wasn't a cover, Jane was her friend but she couldn't tell her the truth because she was already in enough danger being an overly curious, genius of a scientist with connections literally out of this world. Now that HYDRA was stepping into the light she was even more in danger, it was best not throw her unwitting connection to the most vulnerable part of the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier into the mix.

Darcy didn't expect it to be easy. She didn't have the connections she would have had had she stayed with the Red Room, that was why she called up her aunt.

Anna wasn't actually her aunt but she was all the family she had after her father sent her away. Anna had previously been Tatianna, a fellow member of the Widow program who had been as much of a friend to her mother as she had had then. Tatianna had defected and ran to Canada. Her mother had reached out and contacted her when things began to fall apart. Tatianna, now Anna Lewis, lived in Ontario with her wife Naoko Hamada-Lewis. Anna had been the one who took Darcy in, changed her name and set up a completely different life for her and protected her. Anna had been the one to get Darcy to move on from the grief of losing her parents at just 12. She had pushed her to live a normal life and she had given her the love that she was missing from her parents. Anna still had some connections in Russia so that was the best start she could think of.

"It's about time you called, Darcy Rose Lewis. We've been worried sick over you." Her Aunt Naoko began shouting in lieu of a greeting.

Ooh, full name. Not good. Darcy thought.

"Aunt Naoko-"

"The world is practically tearing itself apart and you disconnect your phone and don't check up with us." Darcy could practically see her aunt's almond shaped eyes narrowed judgingly at her.

"I think you're maybe exaggerating just a little bit. I mean the world's going to shit but tearing itself apart is maybe stretching it."

"Exaggerating? Exaggerating!" Darcy held the phone away from her ear as her aunt started shouting at her in her native Japanese.

"Honey, let me speak to her." Naoko's irritated Japanese began to fade and Anna's Russian took over.

"She is right, you could have called."

"I was busy making sure my mom didn't unwittingly throw me into the light with her and trying to track my dad down." She deadpanned.

"Still, a phone call wouldn't have killed you Darya. How goes the search?"

"It doesn't go. I'm in Moscow with no idea where to start. It's been three months since Washington. He could be anywhere by now. He could run forever if he wanted to." Her father was one of the best if not the best in the game. He could stay off the radar for a lifetime.

"I do have some people who owe me some favors. I'll make a few calls, see what comes up."

"Alright, thanks Aunt Anna."

"And Darya, be careful with your father. He doesn't remember you. I don't want him to hurt you."

"I'll be fine." Darcy said before hanging up. She looked out the window while she played with her star necklace, a habit she'd developed over time, she wasn't quite sure she believed herself.

Dasha-Rose loved to dance. She supposed it was genetic. Her mother and father both adored it. They could do everything. They danced ballroom, doing the waltz and the foxtrot and the rumba. They tangoed together, dancing so intensely Dasha had to express disgust lest they forget her presence and tear each other's clothes off.

'Oh you think it's nasty? How do you think you got here, moya zvezda?' Her father would say, picking her up and spinning her in the air as if she wasn't a chubby ten year old getting teased for her weight by the other girls. Her mother never allowed her to feel bad about her body though.

'Americans say there is just more of you to love. I was chubby as a child too. Perhaps you will grow out of it, perhaps not. You will still be special, Dasha. Never forget that.'

Her parents also loved swing dancing together. Her father would twirl her mother wildly and flip her over his shoulder in acrobatic elegance that brought a genuine smile to her mother's face. That was how Dasha was able to tell when her mother was being real or was being the spider she was raised to become. Her smile towards her and her father was different and it always came out when they danced together. But the one dance that always brought about a greater level of peace was ballet. Her mother's ability was something that they stuffed inside of her for a mission but that didn't change the beauty of the way she moved, the efficiency and the elegance and the discipline of her movements. Her father was 200 plus pounds of muscle memory and no idea how he got it but he was still light on his feet, he still carried himself with a silence and grace that complimented her mother's dance even with his metal arm weighing him down on his left side.

She had asked, demanded really, that they teach her and they agreed. They usually didn't deny her very much, least of all an opportunity to learn. They corrected her form, demonstrated moves, drilled the discipline in her head the way they had the different pieces of a gun and how to assemble and dissemble a rifle and how to hold a knife. Ballet required a lot of the discipline Madame Pauk said sleeping with one hand shackled to her bed was supposed to give her but she actually liked ballet, she hated that handcuff.

Her parents would dance with her for hours, their three bodies moving together seamlessly like the rotating pieces of her father's arm. A scientific marvel they were often called. The beginning of an era. She didn't feel that when it was just them dancing. She felt they were a family, she felt their very souls were dancing too.

Then Ivan would come and stare disapprovingly at her parents. He would say the same thing every time.

"You are much too involved with her. She is your blood but not your kin. Do not forget the only reason you are both here, memories intact, is to teach her and that is only because I vouched for you. I love you as a daughter Natalia but we must remember that none of us can put our selfish desires above Soviet supremacy and the good of the Republic."

She always found it strange that Ivan would say that word in the Red Room. She had always seen the word "love" as a weakness, she couldn't even say it and thought the same might be true of her parents. They could all think the word just fine, even feel it but they couldn't say it. They never told her they loved her and she never said it but they all understood. They found loopholes around it.

'I could owe a million debts and still owe no one more than you.' Her mother would say and Dasha understood what that was shorthand for. Her father was not so expressive. He would call her simple endearments to express his love.

'Milaya.'

'Lapushka.'

'Moya dorogoya.'

'Moya zvezda.'

'Moya serdtse.'

He called her all variations of sweetheart and dear and his star, his heart because he could do nothing else. Her father was a mismatched puzzle, a patchwork doll and she had always understood this about him for as long as she was old enough to understand. She asked him about it because he had never lied to her, perhaps shielded her from some things but never lied.

'Sometimes we can sacrifice too much in the name of our country, Dasha. That's what I did, I gave too much. You won't be like me, you'll be like your mother.' He had spoken solemnly but his eyes shifted as if he said something wrong.

'Mama didn't give too much?'

'She gave enough and more was taken that she didn't give voluntarily but it's still less than me. You will be a star but I don't want you to burn too brightly. Stars die too eventually... whenever eventually is.' He didn't speak for some time after that. That happened sometimes. She feared he would just stop altogether one day.

Her mother gave her a music box once and mid-song it stopped and never worked again. She thought that would happen to her father. There were days he did little else than stare at a wall. He woke with nightmares. Sometimes he spoke with a strange accent and spoke of things that made no sense. Some of their superiors whispered too loudly. They said memories were coming back, they said he was becoming unstable and compromised. They wanted to wipe her father's memories and put him on ice but Ivan had more clout than them. Her father would remain awake, probably until he did something unforgivable or stopped like her music box. She wondered if it wasn't just more merciful to let him go, she didn't want him hurting because of her and he was hurting. She saw it more everyday but she was too selfish to let him go.

She was a stupid child, all the other girls said so. They said she was too sentimental. They weren't wrong.

Darcy hadn't been to the Marinsky Theater since she first left Russia. She had thought her search would yield more in Moscow but after a month of cold trails and false trails her aunt's information pointed towards Leningrad, well Saint Petersburg now. She hadn't really wanted to think about Russia as a whole, more focused on her father who was apparently not so discreetly cutting a swathe through the Russian sector of HYDRA but she hadn't been back to this place, her home, in a little over a decade. Her life in the Red Room was a mixed bag of awful but out here was different. She could always find beauty here among the darkness. Canada and the US had its beauty too (although it's darkness sometimes clouded it for her) but she had loved Russia. The cities, the architecture, the history teeming from every cobblestone drew her in completely. She adored her motherland, she just had the misfortune of seeing the darker side more than the light. She didn't know if her parents felt the same, definitely not her father as he'd been going around leaving blown out craters everywhere, not that she could blame him but he was unfocused, he was tunnel visioned in his need for vengeance, he was dragging innocent bystanders into it. The last place he hit the fire spread to a residential building close by and killed 7 innocent people. He was probably still running on a high, probably still barely grasped his memories and most likely didn't care for the life of anyone in general. He probably wouldn't give a damn about her or believe that she was his daughter but she still had to try.

I am an idiot and soon I'm going to be a dead idiot. She thought, finding a seat for the ballet.

She could see her father in one of the aisle seats by an exit. He seemed alright from what she observed from afar for the past week days. His hair was longer than she'd ever seen it and could use a trim and a comb, he could do with a shave and a few square meals but his eyes seemed clear and they weren't blank but she could see a well of anger and frustration that he probably enjoyed letting out on the faces of every HYDRA and former KGB agent he came across. Once again she couldn't blame him.

She knew why he was there. One of the instructors of this ballet troupe was apparently a recruiter and had been spreading HYDRA's teachings like gospel. He was also the son of one of the primary scientists on the Winter Soldier Project so he could have more information on what was done to her father and the whereabouts of the other scientists. Darcy planned to let her father get to him. She hadn't graduated to wet work before she left and he was better at the torture and interrogation thing than her but she would stop him doing any major damage.

Darcy perked up a bit as he slipped through the exit. She waited ten minutes before going after him. The auditorium was dark and everyone was captivated by the rendition of 'The Sleeping Beauty' so they didn't notice her leave any more than they did him. Going through the exit to find which way he went was a bit of a maze but she managed it. The sounds of muffled screams in her enhanced ears helped too. Her hearing wasn't as good as either of her parents but it was still pretty good. She followed the sound slowly and carefully not wanting to scare him into attacking her. She found herself peering into the cracked door of a dressing room. Her father was holding a man down, one hand over his mouth and the other holding a knife to his neck. The man already had a bloody nose and his left eye looked like it would be sporting a hell of a shiner soon enough.

Darcy opened the door a bit more, as silent as she could. She took a step inside carefully and had to dodge the knife her father threw at her. She managed to escape the blade but turned around only to be staring down the barrel of a gun. He was now on his feet with one pressed on the instructor's windpipe to keep him quiet. She immediately raised her hands in surrender and he stared at her blankly before some of the bottomless anger she saw in his eyes earlier came back.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Um-"

"Why are you in Russia?"

"Wha..."

"Why aren't you with Tatianna?"

"I am so confused." Her father glared at her before turning back to the instructor. He took his foot off of his throat and the man immediately started yelling for help but no one would hear him back here over the music. He kicked him in the side of the head as casually as anything while going to a rack of clothing and grabbing some ribbon. Darcy stared at him, trying to process what was going on.

"Wait, you remember me?"

"I remember a lot of things. Four months is a long time compared to how little I've been awake the last few decades." He said, tying the ribbons over the instructor's hands and feet.

"Okay, you remember everything-"

"Not everything."

"But you remember me?" Darcy asked.

"Enough to know you're my daughter." He said while propping the instructor to his side and dragging him out the door. She wasn't expecting him to remember her but she couldn't deny the happiness that she felt. She tried to fight the small smile trying to overtake her face but ultimately let it happen, he couldn't see it anyway.

"What about Mom?" She asked, running out the door after him.

"I remember enough."

"And Steve? Your life as Bucky Barnes?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"But you remember."

"I remember enough."

"Okay but what does enough mean?" He looked at her with exasperation.

"I mean, isn't it exciting? All these questions you've always had and now you're getting answers." Darcy said. Her father stared at her and there was something in his eyes, some pain she didn't grasp or understand and probably never would.

"Exciting isn't the word I'd use." Darcy looked down while crossing her arms.

"I'm excited for you. I want you to remember your childhood, your parents, your siblings, Steve. From what I read Bucky's life wasn't so bad before the war started." She said in a small voice. She differentiated between her father and Bucky. Bucky was her father and vice versa but she didn't know if he was ready to accept that yet. Better to play it safe.

"Dasha- what's wrong?" He asked with familiar concern after she shivered at her name.

"I just haven't heard anyone call me that in a while. Didn't think I'd ever hear you say it again." He stared at her with a furrow between his eyebrows like he was concentrating on something but couldn't grasp it.

"Whatever. I'm being stupidly sentimental. Civilian life has made me soft. What's the next move, Daddy-O?" He gave her a Dad look at the nickname before continuing down the hall.

"You are going home to Tatianna while I deal with my mess."

"Um, yeah that doesn't work for me."

"I wasn't asking."

"What? You think you can just jump right back in and tell me what to do? I'm 22, I'm an adult." Her father looked her up and down and then she realized she had her arms crossed over her chest and was whining like a petulant child. She quickly unfolded them but kept the defiance.

"I'm not leaving you. I spent four months looking for you. You think I'm going to leave now?"

"I'm not playing games Dasha." He warned.

"I kinda think you are. I think you're playing a very dangerous game and you're playing it recklessly. I mean, what the hell was that last time? You killed 7 people who didn't know anything about what happened to you. That's not okay." He actually looked remorseful about it before his eyes turned steely.

"That wasn't meant to happen but sometimes sacrifices are made for the greater good." Darcy shook her head.

"You sound like Ivan or worst off, like Karpov. Maybe even Pierce from what I've heard about him."

"Don't ever compare-"

"Then don't act like it. I mean, jeez, some shitty things happened to you. You're angry, you should be. You feel like you gotta get yours and you should but you need to do it right."

"And you're going to show me the right way, child?" Darcy shrugged.

"I can try." He looked unmoved.

"Go. Home." He said before walking ahead of her. Darcy watched him go.

"Stubborn ass."

"I heard that."

"Good." She rolled her eyes before following him outside, watching him load up the instructor in the back of a dark colored car and turn to enter the car.

"Papa." He stopped but didn't turn to look at her.

"You're enraged and it's making you unfocused. You're the one who taught me that rage was useless, it has no logic or reason and it leads to mistakes. Anger though? Anger's a weapon. Don't be enraged, be angry. I'd really rather you didn't die, old man." He sighed before turning to look at her.

"I don't know how to be anything other than this." He admitted quietly.

"Think of the good things, helped me. Think of the endgame, if you're going to do this right you gotta be objective. Think of the reasons why you're fighting and you'll be okay. Just do me a favor: no more innocents." He nodded in acquiescence before he walked up to her. He fiddled with her star necklace a bit before he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"No matter what else happens I love you Dasha. Don't forget." Darcy felt a swell in her chest, she had never heard those words from him before but she was an adult so she wasn't going to freak out... not out loud anyway.

"You're the one with Alzheimer's, Grandpa." He smirked at her joke before he kissed her forehead again. She didn't fight the impulse to hug him even though that could've gone very wrong for her. She felt him hug her back and relax into the hug.

"I love you too, Papa." She said because why not? She could actually say it now. She didn't expect him to stiffen before turning, gun in hand, and pushing her behind him.

"Oh sorry, am I interrupting the dramatic goodbye? The same dramatic goodbye that won't matter when the inevitable dramatic reunion happens. Can we skip that part?" She looked over her father's shoulder as he lowered the gun with an annoyed sigh.

"Mom?" Natasha's eyes flickered to Darcy.

"Hello dear, long time no see."

Dasha wasn't sure how long it was before she realized they weren't going back.

Her parents had been sent on a mission together. It was one of those missions Dasha was sent on with them so she could learn firsthand what the KGB did, what her parents did. She already knew they were killers, had seen them kill but never anything too graphic. They were meant to go undercover as an American family on vacation in Paris for a week. Dasha enjoyed Paris very much, she enjoyed France altogether. She and her parents went to all the tourist traps just like real tourists as well as the attractions her mother suggested that couldn't be found in a pamphlet. Dasha didn't remember ever smiling as much as she did that week so when her mother asked if she wanted to visit Milan she didn't hesitate. It wasn't until a month after that, a month of zig-zagging across France and Italy and England that she noticed something was off. Her parents weren't checking in with their superiors, they didn't scope out any targets and we're more aware of their surroundings than they'd ever been before. It was sometime in the third month, somewhere around two weeks before her eleventh birthday, that she was in London with her parents riding the London Eye that she drew the conclusion that they weren't going back.

That realization both scared and excited her. No more orders, no more fearing Karpov would put her parents on ice, no more being teased by the other girls, no more listening to Ivan's speech. They could be happy as a family. And they were happy, they were together and travelling all over, they did whatever they wanted. They were happy for a whole year.

Then the arguing started.

Her parents had had disagreements before but they didn't argue as far as she knew. And as far as they knew she had no idea when the arguing started. They only ever argued when they thought she was asleep, they didn't yell at each other or raise they voices, just spoke in heated whispers so she knew it was an argument. Usually in their disagreements, Dasha didn't care enough to pick sides but this time she was against her mother's ideas and so was her father.

"Natalia, no." He said firmly again one night. They were in Rio De Janeiro now. It was a lot hotter than Dasha was used to but she still liked it.

"Yakov, we need to find something stable for Dasha, somewhere to call home and we don't have the money for it."

"Oh, what you did to Boris Drakov's daughter didn't pay enough?" He asked sarcastically.

"...you know."

"Of course I know. You started bringing money out of nowhere, you thought I wouldn't look into it? We can't do that Natalia. We got out so that we could do better, be better for her."

"Because pick-pocketing is being better for her?" Her mother retorted angrily.

"I'm not saying I'm better than you, I would never say that or insinuate it. You don't think I've been tempted to take jobs? The highest paying jobs usually involve children in some way, you think I haven't thought of it? Think I haven't thought what's a few more people if it meant we could take care of her? But we can't do that, not just because of what it will do to us and what she'll think of us but because we're going to leave a trail and they will find us, Natalia. They will find her." She heard her mother kiss her teeth but acquiesce.

"You're right, you're right. Fine, no more merc jobs but we need money." They were silent for a moment before her mother spoke again.

"I have a friend in Canada, she owes me. I didn't give up her location when she defected. We'd need money to get there, set up new identities for the three of us, a place to stay, the works. That'll take serious money, money that would require multiple jobs anyway unless I got it from a willing patron."

"No, absolutely not!"

"Keep your voice down. Dasha's sleeping."

"We are not calling Ivan." He hissed lower, she thought she heard a hint of fear in his voice then.

"He'd give me the money, he has a weakness for me, he sees me as a daughter. I can use that to my benefit."

"He will betray you Natalia. His position with Karpov is more important to him."

"He is no longer loyal to Karpov. Vasily's age is bringing about a new madness that hasn't born him any allies, this is the perfect moment to get to Ivan. He has new interests now, some boy named Alexander Lukin but I will work my web around him, we'll be fine."

"I don't like this. You shouldn't do this. He'll turn on you the second he knows where we are."

"Yakov, do you trust me?"

"I trust you. It's him I don't trust, it's them. They're nothing but poison and they will destroy us from the inside."

Dasha found that she agreed more with her father then than she ever had in her life. Their mistrust is proven correct two weeks later when her mother goes to meet Ivan, alone at her own insistence. She gave her a kiss before she left, whispered how sweet Dasha was, how good she was. She kissed her father too and told him not to worry. She was doing this for them, when this was all over they would be together and everything would be worth it.

That was the last time she saw her mother.

Darcy doesn't think she ever felt more awkward in her life, not even when she brought her prom date home and had to watch Aunt Naoko grill him while Aunt Anna cleaned her largest rifle in the corner.

She was sitting in the back seat of her father's stolen car, a tied up HYDRA agent drooling on the seat next to her and her parents arguing in the driver and passenger seat.

"Honestly, you were doing a shit job of covering your trail. Anyone with half my training would have found you easily." Her mother said casually. Her feet were up on the dashboard and she was slouched down in the seat relaxed. Darcy had never seen this side of her mother, then again they never had a moment where they could relax before.

"Why were you looking for me anyway? Thought I made myself clear last time." Her father replied heatedly.

Last time? Darcy wondered. Her mother didn't answer his question.

"You were pathetically easy to find. Wasn't he easy to find, lapushka?" Her mother asked, looking at her through the rearview mirror briefly. She opened her mouth but her father cut her off.

"You wouldn't have to worry about my trail if you weren't looking for me. Don't you have your Avengers to go play dress up and destroy public property with? Shouldn't you be pushing Steve at every pair of legs that cross his path? Why are you here? And why is she here? Did you bring her?"

"I could ask you that question because as soon as I started following you I noticed your little tail here."

"I didn't know she was following me." Her father mumbled. He didn't sound very believable. Darcy found herself now wondering if he knew she was following him all along.

"Bullshit you didn't know she was following you. You're you, you damn well knew she was and you let her follow you anyway knowing the trouble she could've gotten into if anyone else besides me noticed her. Not that you cared with the careless way you've been going about this business with HYDRA. Don't get me wrong I was a little messy after I escaped the Red Room and burned that place to the ground but I had more finesse. You're obviously operating on rage and there's no use for it, especially not when it's putting her at risk from your enemies. Your enemies which is everyone."

"I'm a little tired of you and her trying to tell me what I should and shouldn't be doing. HYDRA should burn just as much as the KGB, you should know that."

"Regimes rise and fall everyday James, I'm not weeping over any of it. You just need to make sure our daughter doesn't get swept up in your rage filled haze. You need to sort your priorities. I told you, you should be getting the red out of your ledger. That little stunt with the apartment building isn't helping any more than letting her tail you because of whatever sentimentality you indulged in." Though Darcy was warmed at her mother's concern for her when it came to chasing after her father and thoroughly confused just what the hell they'd been up to in the four months before she caught up to him she was also peeved at the conversation. She wasn't helpless, her mother knew that. Why she was acting otherwise was beyond her.

"Um, she's right here." Darcy said, annoyed at the talk of her as if she wasn't in the car. They were used to her "sleeping" during their disagreements and thus talking about her like she wasn't there. Well, she wasn't a kid anymore and she could do what she wanted and didn't need to justify it.

"Papa and Mama are having an important discussion, go back to sleep moya roza." Her mother said before turning back to her conversation. Darcy was shocked into silence by the sentence. It was what her mother used to say to her if she ever tried to make her presence known during their disagreements. She didn't say it with vindictiveness or sarcasm, it sounded like a reflex and neither of parents really seemed to notice how out of place it was. They continued their argument about her following her father and his knowledge of it and Darcy was too busy trying to reorient herself to hear what they were saying or notice the ballet instructor stirring until it was too late.

She turned as movement caught the corner of her eye. She looked over and she could react his fist slammed into her nose. Before she could even think to feel the pain she felt her head smash against the window behind her and she was out cold.

Dasha didn't cry when her father left her in an airport to board a plane to a woman she had never met. She didn't cry when Anna gave her her deepest regrets for her parents' fate. She didn't cry all the times Naoko would mention something about her parents only to backtrack and wince as if she said something wrong before hugging Dasha, no Darcy her name was Darcy now, close to her chest. She didn't cry when she saw the other children outside playing with their parents. She didn't cry when Anna found out, through her contacts that her mother worked for SHIELD and seemed to have no memory of her. No she did not cry, though not for lack of feeling lonely and sad and so, so angry but she was also hopeful. She was hopeful they would find each other again, she was hopeful even though she had no reason to be.

She doesn't cry until 2009. She had been with Anna six years then, she had just graduated high school and was looking forward to college in America despite Aunt Anna and Aunt Naoko's reservations about it. It was while she was packing that her Aunt Anna got the call.

Her mother had been shot, and apparently the man who shot her had a metal arm. She knew enough that her father's arm was a unique, technological marvel. It had always just been his arm and it never seemed strange to her but to others something like that stood out. She wasn't sure what triggered it, she was talking to one of her schoolmates about dorm rooms one second and then the next she had to hang up because she could feel the pressure building in her chest getting ready to burst forth.

She ended up on her bathroom floor clutching a teddy bear Aunt Naoko had gotten her when she first arrived and crying her eyes. She couldn't stop. It felt like six years worth, hell eighteen years worth of all the fear of their masters, and the fear they'd be taken away and the hoping against hope just broke her. She had a stupid childish fantasy that they would all see each other and they would just know each other but they didn't, her parents had no idea who they were to each other and she was nothing to them. They didn't remember her. Her mother was doing for an American organization what she tried not to do anymore for anyone but could never stop, her father was doing for who knew who what he never wanted to do and tried desperately to stop and she was alone on cold tiles hugging a teddy bear to her chest and sobbing because of a stupid childish dream she should've long since given up. She could just hear the mockery of the other girls in the program now, calling her weak and sentimental and they weren't wrong.

Darcy woke to the feel of cold tiles under her cheek. She groaned at the throbbing pain in her nose.

"Goddammit." She moaned.

"Language, young lady." She lifted her eyes up to see she was on the floor of a bathroom, her mother was sitting cross legged in front of her with an ice pack in her hand. She was smiling gently down at her. Darcy pushed herself up a bit then immediately laid her head back down as the room spun.

"That jackass, where is he? M'gonna kick him where the sun don't shine." She grumbled angrily. Her nose had better not be broken. Her mother chuckled lowly.

"Your father and I took care of him. We decided kicking his ass was more important than extracting information after his little stunt in the car. His jaw is swollen shut so he's useless until further notice." Darcy looked up at her mother, she still had a soft smile on her face but Darcy could tell it was real. She was always able to tell that much.

"So, how long have you known about me exactly?" She asked curiously.

"Since 2009."

"And you never contacted me, never even gave a hint that maybe you'd want to see me?" Darcy asked.

"I did see you, you just didn't see me. I contacted Tatianna, asked her to give me monthly updates. If you were ever in trouble I would've intervened. I didn't want you in danger from my life, didn't want you to end up like me or your father. I told you, I owe you a debt. I was trying to make good on it."

"Fat lot of good that did. Ended up interning for a scientist way too smart to stay safe and met a Norse god."

"Yeah, well I never said I was successful in my endeavor. You seem to seek out trouble with ease Dasha, you little minx. I should've known you would go running after your father even before I noticed you following him but for all that I berated him for not sending you home sooner when he noticed you, I should've sent you home too. We were both selfish, we both wanted to be near you even though we knew it was putting you in danger."

"What now?"

"Now, seeing as how our most recent source of information is out of commission and your father has proven to me that he can't control his rage on his own we're going to go meet up with some colleagues of mine. Former SHIELD. Real SHIELD, not HYDRA. We'll continue to get to HYDRA through them. Friend of mine, Agent 23, she's particularly skilled in training agents to control their emotions and channel them. James is the best but he's emotional right now, Melinda will set him to rights. And we'll be able to see how much civilian life has softened your skills."

"Thought I was going home?"

"Well like I said, I want to skip the second dramatic reunion so you're coming with us. If you want to anyway." Darcy had never seen her mother particularly nervous but that was the closest word she could think of to describe her now.

"Yeah, yeah I want to go with you. It'll be like old times, right? Three of us against the world. I love road-trips anyway." Darcy said with a shrug. Her mother smiled down at her before leaning over pressing a kiss to her cheek, her vibrant red hair obscuring Darcy's vision for a moment. When her mother leaned back she could see her father now stood in the doorway behind her with a fresh ice pack. He walked around her and her mother, his metal arm brushing against her mother's shoulder briefly before he settled on the floor behind Darcy, pressing the pack to the back of her head tenderly.

"I still don't like this but you'll be safer with us anyway." He said gruffly.

"You're such an old man, set in your stubborn ways." Her mother said with annoyance but there was the same soft smile on her face.

"Hypocrite." Her father replied. She couldn't see his face but could hear the fondness in the single word. She wasn't sure she understood her parents' current relationship, didn't really want to think on it for too long, but they were all together again. She was getting the thing she had wished for since she was twelve years old so she didn't mind the throbbing in the back of her head or her nose, didn't mind the fact that they weren't really that much safer than they were before what with aliens and supernazis plotting against them, didn't even mind the fact that she was lying on a bathroom floor for whatever reason that she was sure made sense in her parents' messed up minds. She didn't mind any of it if it meant she got to be with them.

That sounded disgustingly sentimental. A part of her brain whispered to her.

She really didn't give a damn.