Hello my dear readers! Hope you all found your way here!

First of all, and to fulfill all protocols: I don't own anything from the MCU, yadda, yadda... This particular fics focuses mostly on Agents of SHIELD and a tad bit on Avengers and Captain America 2; and of course the events of my previous fics (the main timeline). I chose to make this a crossover with Thor because it was the only way to have Darcy as a main character and in a pairing. The pairings for this fic are: Phil/Darcy, Skyeward and FitzSimmons.

I will not be rewriting all of AoS (no way!), a lot will stay as it happened originally, except some key events, which you'll see here. Also, there are some references to Scandal, particularly where it comes to Darcy's family, you do not need to have seen the show to understand it, it's very light and not that important in the long run (though it will appear again later on).

This fic has two parts. Each narrated by a different character. You will know who in the title of the chapter itself. Both chapters are written in first person, by the character mentioned on the title and there will be no POV change through it.

I think that's enough to go for now. Hope you'll enjoy this fic (we'll be going back to Bouquet of Roses in two weeks).


Sentinels

(Companion and Sidestory to Fate and Destiny and Bouquet of Roses)

By: Lalaith Quetzalli

Protect, that was their mission, one they took great pride in. Either human or gifted, from threats within or without, they'd always fight to protect. They were Warriors, Protectors. But when all they've ever known is lost, how will they find their way again? When the shield breaks, and the sword bends, what can be done?

The Shield (Darcy)

Most people think my story began in late Spring of 2011, when I was twenty five, close to graduating with a major in Political Sciences (and a minor in history because, why not?), doing an internship for six science credits with Dr. Jane Foster, Astrophysicist, in New Mexico; only to end up being at least partially responsible for half-running over a blonde hunk of a man who turned out to be a freaking god! Who knew?

Truth be told, and as insane and life changing as that event was, it wasn't really the first odd thing that happened to me. Strictly speaking, I've been odd since the moment I was born, it's scientific fact too! It's in my genes, I am a mutant, after all.

When I was young I was good at going unnoticed, didn't think there was anything special about that, though. My father walked out on my mom and I when I was very young, and for the longest time I didn't know why. There were all kinds of rumors, that maybe he'd cheated on my mom, or perhaps she cheated on him and I wasn't his, or perhaps he simply didn't want to be a father... most seemed to imply that it was my fault, and the fact that mom didn't seem to like me much, most of the time didn't do much for denying that.

The only person I really had while growing up was Livvie. She was my cousin, seven years older than me, her mom was my dad's sister. She was my hero, my role model, for many years I was convinced I'd follow in her footsteps; she always knew she wanted to be a lawyer, and I kept telling myself I would study law and go work with her and we'd be awesome together (that might still have been possible when I studied politics... but well, other things happened, like Jane and Thor and... yeah). I really liked Aunt Maya, she and mom worked together (Aunt Maya was a lawyer, while mom was an assistant in the firm), and even though Uncle Eli was a bit of a bore, what with working at the Smithsonian and liking boring things meant for old people (or at least that's what I used to believe when I was young), I thought he was nice too.

Dad was in some kind of accident when I was like three or four, I'm not sure what happened exactly, but he lost his job afterward and began drinking... a lot. He could be bad, sometimes, when he was drinking. So I'd go to my room and curl into a ball in a corner, and hope he wouldn't know I was there, and somehow he never found me.

When I was five and Livvie twelve, Aunt Maya had to go to London for a job. Mom was really happy, because her bosses were giving her a chance to get a better job, if she did good while Aunt Maya was away. And then something happened, the plane Aunt Maya was in fell, and then she was gone, and then dad was gone too. He didn't say anything, he just left.

Uncle Eli didn't seem to like Mom or I anymore afterwards, and for the longest time I didn't get the reason why. He wouldn't allow us to visit anymore, or for Livvie to visit us. And then Liv went to boarding school, and I didn't see her for many years.

I was twelve years old the first time I successfully hacked a government database. I'd been trying to find information about my dad and where he might have gone, but for the most part George Lewis didn't seem to exist at all. And then I found him, found his picture, that name, along with a list of at least half a dozen others... he was enlisted as an 'enemy of the state', he was also a presumed terrorist, believed to have been involved with the plane crash of 1991...

I was horrified by my discovery, so much I didn't want to see anyone, or for anyone to see me... I could have never imagined the consequences that childish desire of mine would have.

I didn't go to school for a whole week, and I was practically waiting for my mom to get the call from my teacher, telling her I had been absent all week, waiting for my mom to go find me so I could confront her with what I'd discovered. Except that once she got the call, and went to see me, she didn't seem to be able to see me at all. At first I thought she was just angry with me and ignoring my words, until she went and called the police to report me missing. It was a mess.

Perhaps the only good thing in that whole sequence of events, was when I met him: Professor X, also known as Charles Xavier, headmaster of a school for freaks (gifted, they prefer the term gifted... and deep down I do too).

As it turned out my mutation had manifested (or finished manifesting) as I wished not to be seen, and it made it so effectively no one could. Since I didn't know I was doing anything at all, I couldn't stop it. Destiny, another mutant, with the gift to see the future, had seen me and my situation, and was the one to inform the others, and so they went looking for me in my hometown of Bethesda, Maryland.

At my own request, my mother was never informed of my status as a mutant, or the truth about the Xavier Institute. She was just told (like many other human parents of mutant children, as I later found out), that I'd been chosen to be the recipient of one of their scholarships. I studied middle-school and high-school at the Institute, and I got to meet a lot of very interesting people: like Miss Sirin, my Eighth grade teacher who could actually fly (I wished I could), and Nina Reynolds, who was two years older than me and could talk to animals, and convinced them to let some of us pet them (I'd never imagined petting a baby vixen, it was awesome), Mystique could make herself look like anyone and liked to play all kinds of pranks (though she and Miss Destiny, her partner, had left to make their own school before I arrived), and of course Professor X and Mr. Eisenhardt were pretty awesome too.

I also learned all I could about the legend that was the Rose of Chaos, though around the Institute they called her either ChaosRose or Miss Alfdis, she was apparently Mr. Eisenhardt's daughter, and Nina's aunt. She had been the music teacher at the Institute, but had left almost a decade before I arrived (I was curious about the reason, but everyone seemed to be very hush-hush about it all, all I knew was that someone had died...). Still, I thought she was an amazing person, if even half of what was said about her was true (the things she had done in Paris, Africa, and many other places around the world), she was totally my hero. Then again, she was a hero to a hell of a lot of people, both in the Institute, and beyond it (so that probably wasn't surprising), I wished she'd still been in Westchester, so I could have met her... perhaps one day I would...

Days before my high-school graduation I was called into Professor X's office. It was perfectly normal, something he did for all his graduating students, as he presented them their options. I could get my diploma, rejoin society (it'd be up to me if I went to college, got a job or anything else), if I signed a contract committing myself to working for the Institute they offered to help pay my way through college.

I really wanted that, by that point it'd been more than a decade since I'd last seen Livvie, my old dream of one day being a famous lawyer and working with her had long since vanished into the ether and yet... Mom was sick, I'd just found out, and I knew she felt like I was abandoning her, spending so much time around the Institute (sometimes even the breaks when other kids would visit their families). She wasn't my favorite person, but she was all the family I'd left, and I just wasn't ready to give up on her.

Also, if I was honest with myself, I didn't see what I had to offer the X-Men, or even the Institute. My mutation was nothing extraordinary (though I suppose some would consider managing to go unnoticed with my rather... top-heavy body to be quite an achievement...), my classmates had given me the name of Wallflower (it was a sort-of tradition, to take a new name, depending on one's gift, and it was almost always chosen by those around us, either our peers, or mentors). We all knew the story of how Mystique had named the first generation...

In any case, being a Wallflower wasn't that extraordinary, from my point of view. So in the end I thanked Professor X for everything he'd done for me, then I packed my bags and went back home. It didn't take long after my arrival to learn that things were actually worse than I'd known them to be. Mom had cancer, breast cancer, had had it for years, and she hadn't said a thing. I probably wouldn't have known at all if she hadn't been in the hospital the day I got to Bethesda (I hadn't worried when she wasn't there to pick me up from the airport, thinking she just hadn't bothered to go get me...).

Those were some trying months. Mom's moods towards me seemed to fluctuate rather violently; one moment she'd be blaming me for my father leaving, claim I'd abandoned her to go study at my 'posh little school', that I didn't love her anymore, one time she even yelled that I had been the worst mistake of her life (that one was especially hard, I knew that I'd been the result of an unplanned pregnancy; mom had been in law school, had to drop out to marry dad and have me, and that was why it'd taken her so long to make it to a lawyer and not just a paralegal in the firm)... then she suddenly would begin mumbling apologies for dad, for her own neglect, swear that she loved me and I was the greatest gift life ever gave her... If I were to be honest to myself I'd have to admit that to the day she died I never knew for sure which of all those statements were the delusions caused by the cancer and the meds she was on to help keep her as comfortable as possible, and which were simply truths she couldn't hold back anymore.

Perhaps the greatest shock in my whole life, was the visit I got on the day of mom's funeral. I was walking out of the graveyard after the service was finished, when a black nondescript car stopped just in front of me, the window rolled down and I had to blink to convince myself that the man inside it was really who I thought it was: Uncle Eli...

He didn't say a word when I got into the car (and even I'm not quite sure why exactly I got into it in the first place), nothing until the car stopped again, right outside mom's place.. my place. Then he pulled a plastic envelope out of... somewhere and handed it over, told me inside was all the information for a trust fund in my name, that I should use it, go to college, make a life for myself. I was so shocked I couldn't even speak. Then he added there was also a card for a realtor, who'd help me with the sell of the house, if I decided to go study elsewhere.

I got out of the car silently, still trying to make my brain fully process what was going on (I'm not even sure if I thanked him). He nodded at me once, and then the car took him away. I didn't need him to tell me it was the last time we'd be seeing each other... I will never know for sure why exactly he gave me all that money, was it some kind of penance for abandoning me and my mom when I was little? Did he know about my dad being in that FBI list? Was that why he'd forbidden Livvie and I from playing together anymore? And if so, why help me then, after so many years? It wasn't like he owed me anything... right?

In the end I did move away, but I didn't sell the house. Instead I rented it out, deciding it might be a good idea to have somewhere to go, in the future, if I ever needed it, just in case. So I packed my bags and traveled to Willowdale, Virginia, to Culver University.

I began studying law, but after a year decided it really wasn't my thing after all. I changed majors three times before settling onto Political Sciences, with some History for my minor; I also studied as many languages as I could during the six years I spent attending college (the account had enough money to cover tuition, board and expenses during that time). And then, as I finally was about to graduate... six science credits got in my way!

I hadn't the slightest idea how that had happened exactly. Granted, I didn't like sciences much, and I remember putting off taking such subjects the first couple of years, as I focused instead in choosing my major... but I had to have taken some of the right subjects eventually, right? Apparently not. I was almost going nuts, because I so did not want to have to stay another full term in Culver studying nothing but sciences! It would have been my worst nightmare come true (and I find it shocking, years later, to think that there was a time when I saw such things as the worst that could ever happen... I had no idea...).

When I first went to meet Dr. Foster about the internship I didn't know what to expect, exactly. Though I certainly thought there would be some complications. I was no scientist, knew nothing at all about astrophysics (I barely even knew the names of some constellations, and the zodiac signs, though I doubted the last one counted). I certainly wasn't expecting there to be no other applicants. Once again, I didn't know near enough science to realize that as fantastical as Jane's whole research sounded to me, most saw her work as nothing more than a joke.

It was supposed to be easy, just a few months working with her in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico (also known as the butt-end-of-nowhere), helping her collate information, file things, chase a few storms, make sure she ate, slept and showered every so often (really, some of it sounded more like babysitting than assisting, but still). And then a man fell out of the sky, and neither Jane's nor my life were ever the same.

xXx

When I was first invited to join SHIELD I said no (hell no!). It was well known that while there had been something of a truce between mutants (the X-Men mainly) and SHIELD, it had ended sometime during the nineties. There were also rumors about SHIELD turning away prospective candidates following some kind of high-tech screening. I had no intention of exposing myself like that; while I was in no way ashamed or afraid of being a mutant, I also didn't see the point of revealing myself if it wasn't necessary.

They weren't too insistent, which I wasn't sure if I should find demeaning or reassuring (it would not be until much, much later that I'd learn that a certain someone had pretty much put his hands on the fire for me, assuring his superiors that I was no security concern, despite my youth, and seemingly disdainful attitude where it came to figures of authority... or my presumed father -because George Lewis had only been an alias, they had no pictures of him, only drawings, and mom had destroyed all the pictures we had, so there was no way for them to be sure he was the same man in their lists-).

Then I met Silbhé... I knew who she was from the start, at least in the sense others did. The genius girl from Norwich. Her chosen majors might not have been what most of Culver's students preferred but no one could deny the achievement of someone earning three Master Degrees at nineteen, and then there were all the languages. I especially admired that. I myself was fluent in English, Spanish, French, and knew just a bit of Russian and Chinese (mostly for variety). We got along just fine, even being so different. She was so nice, infinitely patient and kind.

I got angry sometimes, seeing the way some of the minions acted around her, seeing her work as less. Of course those were the people who did not understand why her work was so important, they hadn't been there when first MewMew, then Thor, and then his friends and the huge-ass monster had landed, hadn't seen the destruction they could cause... still, I was angry:

"It's okay Darcy." She told me one day, when I came close to snapping. "They are ignorant, that doesn't make them evil. Also, one thing you need to understand, is that knowledge is power. And power is a currency everyone understands, many want it, and even more fear it, especially when its in the hands of others. I have knowledge, which means I have power, not everyone likes that. I understand that, I did so before I ever came to work for SHIELD. It's not my job to make people change their minds about any of it. All I can do is give them the tools to combat their own ignorance, the rest is up to them."

"But the way they insult you," I couldn't help but insist. "The way they look down on you."

"I've always been looked down on, I am quite small after all..." She laughed.

That particular conversation/argument ended there, it was hard to hold onto a bad mood when she laughed. There was something about her laughter, about her smiles, her sheer joy that made it hard to be anything other than happy around her. Still, a part of me didn't quite understand how she could be so accepting, so at peace with everything... and then I realized I wasn't seeing the whole picture, and once I did... oh boy!

When Silbhé first mentioned her boyfriend... well, actually she never called him her boyfriend, she always referred to him as her Maverick, her love, her 'insert-lovey-dovey-word-here', the specific term didn't matter much, only the 'her' seemed to be truly important. I actually wasn't the first one to notice that, it was Jane, who thought it was quite possessive, almost medieval of Silbhé (of course, after meeting the love in question, a lot became much clearer).

That one time I saw Luka, before I actually knew who he was, all I could think about him was: he was extremely hot and Silbhé was a very lucky girl. When the sky opened, aliens poured out, NY became ground zero for an honest-to-god alien-battle and we finally got to return and see for ourselves the consequences of it all, when I saw him and realized that Luka Hvedrungr, the Maverick, was in fact Loki of Asgard, Thor's little brother, the same who'd sent the Destroyer to New Mexico, and who'd lead an alien invasion on our planet just the day before... my brain actually froze. I wasn't hateful, or horrified, I probably should have been, I know a lot of people were, but I was too busy trying to connect Silbhé, my friend, the girl I knew and admired almost like an older sister (even though she was years younger than me), with him. She wasn't stupid, not in any possible sense of the word; which, at least in my book, meant that if she loved him as much as she obviously did, there had been something good about him. I held onto that belief, even when others found out and gave them hell about it, and I never regretted it.

With Jane and I having been pretty much 'relocated' to Stark Tower I had even more scientists to wrangle, but JARVIS was a great help, and Bruce had at least some degree of self-preservation, which was a good thing. Coulson also somehow managed to cajole me into learning some self-defense, which at some point turned into being taught to defend myself by none other than Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow herself!

We were a family; nuttier than squirrel shit, probably more dysfunctional than all of our bio-families combined, together we'd enough quirks and issues to probably send a dozen of the best therapists and psychiatrists straight to the loony bin, but we were most certainly a family: by choice, and word and actions... not the least because Tony one day had said, in front of half the press, that I was his daughter (then again by that point they'd been harassing both of us more than half the night, and there had been gossip, both in and out of the media, about me possibly being either a hooker or simply a gold-digger seeking to destroy the golden-couple that were him and Pepper... as if I'd be crazy enough get between Pepper Potts and her man! That woman frightened me more than even Natasha!). Jane had told me she loved me as a sister more than once, and Silbhé seemed to be only too happy to be part of our little group; all the Avengers acted like quarreling siblings whenever off duty; except, of course, for Clint and Natasha with each other, because there was nothing sibling-ly about their relationship, they were together, had been for a long time, then again, the fact that we knew about their relationship, that they didn't hide it from us all was telling in and of its own.

We were a family, and Thanos and its Chitauri destroyed that. It wasn't just the second invasion (we were actually on top of our game on that one, managed to make it happen far away from civilians and civilization in general, to prevent collateral damage, and SHIELD won, of course). No, the real problem, was when Silbhé died, and it was all the Titan's fault. She died, and just like that, our family shattered.

I realize that we probably weren't a very strong family unit, if the loss of one person was enough to break us all into pieces, but still, it was unexpected, and it hurt. It's quite possible that even losing mom hadn't hurt me as much... even more painful was seeing Loki, his loss, his grief, his rage, he was so completely broken and none of us had the slightest idea what to do, how to help... if anything could be done to help at all.

And then the funeral passed, Thor and Loki were gone, Jane went back to her work, and everyone else began going their own way, and I had no idea what to do. Jane didn't need me, hadn't needed me for a while, not really; and, if I was honest with myself, I didn't feel up to being her assistant anyway, doing so would only have reminded me of Silbhé and the hole she left behind. So when Phil approached me and invited me to SHIELD for the second time, I said yes. I didn't even think about it; which meant that afterwards I needed to do a lot of planning, and even a fair bit of hacking, to make sure that my secrets would stay that way (mine and secret). But somehow it all worked out just fine.

Thanks to all the informal training I'd already been through I never did go through SHIELD's academy, but straight to trainee. I went from that to junior agent, minion (though I was much cooler than the others), assistant, and then partner, in record time. Which, of course, didn't sit too well with a number of people. There were those who, when they looked at me, always the first thing they saw was my rack, and it was as if they believed that having big breasts automatically meant having a smaller brain (absolutely stupid), and then they refused to believe that I could possibly be a competent woman and agent, that I could have made it as far as I did on my own ability, rather than my body. But I didn't curse them for their ignorance, I'd learned better than that from Silbhé; I just smiled my political smile for them and waited for the right moment to show them how wrong they were.

February 2nd of 2014 was a day we'd probably all remember our whole lives. Close to a year since the day we'd lost Silbhé, and we were all invited to a party. Not all of us recognized the manor when we were teleported there by the magical invitations (which were obviously Loki's work), but those of us who did... it was hard. It was also probably a good thing some of us were allowed to arrive before the majority of the others, have things explained to us... I cannot imagine the strop Jane would have been in, if she hadn't been told ahead, and I... I have no idea how I myself would have reacted.

Silbhé was back, she was alive (or at least not dead), and our family slowly began healing.

I might never know for sure when exactly I fell in love, I was halfway there before I knew I'd begun. He went (in my head) from 'Agent iPod-Thief' to 'Agent Ninja', to Agent Coulson, to Coulson, to Phil, almost faster than I went from Jane's intern to his partner...

It wasn't as simple as it might sound (because this is my life, and of course things can never be easy). He was with another, when we first met. A beautiful cellist called Audrey Nathan. He told me once he'd saved her from an enhanced obsessed with her. He was her savior, her knight in dashing suit... and she fell in love with him. I could believe that. I don't know when exactly things went so wrong between the two of them, it was after the invasion in New York, but probably before the second battle against the Chitauri the following year. All he ever said about it was that she couldn't handle it, the not knowing: not knowing where he was, if he was safe or in danger, if he was sitting behind a desk, traveling, or fighting for his life, if he was even alive or some mission, some enemy, had claimed his life. It was simply too much, too stressful for her. And he knew it, could see it in the shadows underneath her eyes, in the redness in them, in the tension in her shoulders... She loved him, but she couldn't handle the stress of being with him. And so they broke it off.

I kept an eye on her, though I never told him. When, later on, an announcement came out for her engagement to famous composer and maestro of the Philharmonic Orchestra: August Rush. When I saw him put more sugar in his coffee than was at all natural for him I knew that he'd heard the news too; so I took care to buy a few of the butter-caramel candies he favored and leave them almost carelessly on his desk after handing him some paperwork. The next day when I came in I found a packet of my favorite triple chocolate brownies (the best ever, from a small bakery several blocks from the office). There was no note, and he didn't say a word, but I understood, and so did he, we preferred it that way.

It started as going for lunch together... well, actually it started as having lunch together in his office. Whenever I noticed he seemed to have too much work, I would pop over to the mess hall and get something for both of us, then take it to him, and then I actually stayed in his office to make sure he ate rather than push it aside in favor of working some more (he was the kind to do that). Then one night, when we both ended staying late dealing with some paperwork a few of the minions had been much too late delivering (he'd insisted it was his responsibility, but I just hated leaving him alone), when we were finally finished he offered to buy me dinner to make it up to me, and we ended eating probably the best Indian food I've ever tried, in a small family restaurant I would have never even seen if he hadn't pointed it out to me.

A point came when we were having lunch together more times a week than not; and then he began suggesting we go eat somewhere, with the excuse that he was in the mood from something other than what they had in the mess. He began inviting me to dinner whenever we stayed late, and then even when we didn't, if we happened to be leaving the building at the same time (which, again, was more times than not). I was so at ease with him, with it all, I probably wouldn't have realized what was really going on if someone hadn't pointed it out to me (well, that's probably putting it nicely, but still).

I was working my frustrations out on a punching bag (some of the secretaries had been gossiping about me and complaining about how they couldn't possibly compete against me and my 'assets'), while it wasn't exactly new, and all agents that got to work with me sooner or later realized I had the skills to be an agent, and came to respect me; it still hurt sometimes. Especially because the most recent mission had been particularly hard, I had some scraps and bruises, but Phil had ended with a dislocated arm and a concussion. And that had been just the start of the real problem, he'd dislocated the shoulder of his dominant arm, and that, added to the concussion, meant that he was completely dependent on me to keep the both of us alive until we were extracted. I did it, and a part of me had always known I could do it, but that didn't make the twelve minutes we had to wait for that extraction any less stressful.

It was shocking, really, because even when I'd finally given in and joined SHIELD, even when I surrendered to Phil's insistence that I be trained to fight, even though I was originally supposed to be nothing more than an office minion; I never expected to be good at it. At fighting, hand-to-hand, and my aim was quite good, if I did say so myself. I hated actual guns with a passion, bullets and all that, had ever since the day I happened to be in a restaurant when a bunch of armed thugs went in and mugged us all. Someone had tried to fight back and there had been shots fired. I could still remember the sound of those, of the bullet lodging itself into the man, and the girl beside him, his girlfriend probably, screaming hysterically. Still, I was quite handy with a taser, and while I was living in Stark Tower (or actually, Avengers Tower), Tony had taken to creating first a gun that shot electric charges (almost like bullets made of pure electricity), a baton that sent out electroshocks from both ends (that one being more for a lark, as it wasn't really that practical), and finally there had been two small rods, they looked almost like chopsticks, except they had a black, metallic shine to it, and when activated I could use them to shock others too.

So, most of the time I had my handy little taser (it looked like the commercial models, but had been modified so I could change the voltage depending on what was going on), and on missions I also had my electro-gun in a holster on my hip (it even looked like a normal gun), and my two shocking-sticks (which I kept inside my combat boots).

In any case, there had been a time, when I first became a field-agent, when I wondered if perhaps I'd missed my calling, maybe I should have taken the opportunity and become an X-Man when I graduated high-school. Though, if I'd done that I would have never met Phil; not Coulson, not the facade he kept before everyone else, but Phil, the funny, teasing, courageous, gentlemanly, amazing man he only showed before those he trusted (and I was so lucky to be one of them).

So I was trying to work out my frustrations on the punching bag, when suddenly there was a hand on my shoulder. I reacted instinctively, twisting around and delivering a punch, followed by a roundhouse kick. Natasha of course evaded both quite easily; but instead of either apologizing for surprising me, or chewing me out for trying to hit her, she threw a punch at my head. And then we were off.

Five minutes later I was on my back on a mat, halfway across the gym, panting and unable to so much as sit up. (Wasn't sure if I should feel proud I managed to last all of five minutes against the Black Widow, or angry that I hadn't managed more...).

"You shouldn't give so much importance to what a bunch of mean, weak, jealous secretaries say." Natasha commented evenly, crouching beside me.

She didn't look tired in the slightest, had barely broken a sweat. Though I did notice a forming bruise high on her left shoulder, and a very small cut near the end of her right eyebrow, I'd managed at least two good hits.

"The secretaries was just, sorta, the straw that broke the camel's back, or whatever." I babbled, not quite sure why I was saying all that, but doing it nonetheless. "It's the fucking mission that left me wound up tighter than a constrictor knot, and more jittery than a druggy coming down from a high."

I noticed the way Natasha's eyes sharpened, probably wondering about my choice of metaphors. I just shrugged; so I'd had a boyfriend who was a boy-scout, and he was so proud of all the kind of knots he could do (there was also some kinky shit involved... but that was a whole other thing); as for the other thing... I'd never tried drugs, but I'd seen more than one person, both high and coming down from it, especially when I'd lived near DC.

"You kept yourself and your partner safe, what else could you have done?" I wasn't sure if the question was rhetorical or not, I still tried to answer it though.

"Kept him from being injured in the first place?" I offered.

"You performed to the best of your abilities." I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a comfort or an accusation. "Of course those can be improved, but so can everyone else's. Had you tried to go beyond your abilities, you might have ended hurt instead, perhaps even worse so than he... That would have been stupid, Phil isn't partnered with stupid people... I don't train stupid people. Have I made myself clear?"

I just nodded quietly, not sure what, if anything, should be said.

"Phil has been asking for you." Natasha announced, rather calmly, as she stood. "He's also likely to be hungry, and I doubt he'll enjoy the food he'll have available in the infirmary."

I didn't need her to be any more direct than that, even as I forced myself to sit up I was already considering which of the places we'd gone to that were close to the offices might still be open, and which one he might prefer...

It was until after I was stepping out of the communal showers, having washed off the sweat and dressed in some more comfy clothes (usually I'd have gone to the tower and showered there, but Phil wouldn't be leaving SHIELD's infirmary until the next day, and I wasn't leaving without seeing him (and I wasn't about to go see him all sweaty and gross); I had finally made up my mind of a little Thai place a couple of blocks away, when it suddenly hit me, just how odd the whole exchange with Natasha actually was. It also occurred to me that I'd probably just gone through the Black Widow's version of the 'shovel talk', and I'd passed (seeing how I was still alive and all), I almost broke into hysterical giggles at the realization.

Still, when I finally got in to see Phil (after some clever talking so they wouldn't confiscate the take-out), I placed the bag on the little table beside his bed, and before he could say a single word I bent and kissed him, full on the mouth. Phil just smiled.

And that was, more or less, how we started dating.

We kept it to ourselves at first, for a little while. It wasn't like we were afraid, or doubtful about our relationship, we just had no intention of dealing with people's reactions. At least that was the excuse; until we eventually realized that in the end it was still our relationship, our lives and, while we never made any sort of announcement, we eventually simply stopped hiding it.

There was some shock. Silbhé and Loki (who'd recently returned) looked happy for us, though I'm quite sure that at some point Loki had a 'talk' with Phil (he didn't say anything, but there was something about the looks the two exchanged over the course of a few days after our relationship became public knowledge...). Clint teased Phil good-naturedly and Natasha just stood silent, the slightest hint of a smile on her face. The rest either congratulated us or simply ignored the whole thing. Tony was the only one that didn't seem to take it well.

"He's twice your age Darcy..." Tony began.

"He's not!" I snapped at him. "Yes, he's older than me but..."

"He could be your father!" Tony insisted.

"But he's not!" I retorted, and then, before I could think better of it: "And neither are you!"

It was a bit of a mess, really. It had actually started as a joke. Back when I'd first lived in Stark Tower (when I'd moved in with Jane and Erik), some crazy paps had taken a lot of pics of me around the place, and with everyone, and all kinds of rumors had started. When Tony threw some big-ass party I had reporters hounding me half the night trying to get a scoop, to find out who I really was, and why I was there. Then, right as I was about to finally lose it and taser someone to kingdom come, Tony had come out of nowhere, put a hand around my shoulders, then turned and demanded to know why the other man was harassing his daughter...

It was supposed to be a joke, or just something to get him off me. But the bastard had actually taken it seriously, he'd run with the story, and after that everyone began believing I really was Tony's daughter. Which was absolutely ridiculous because he was like sixteen when I was born, and while it wasn't exactly impossible, I couldn't see how people failed to realize that if Tony Stark had had a child at that age they'd have known back then, and not twenty-something years later! Then again, considering how Howard's own little sister: Arianna, hadn't become known by the public until she was already twenty and married to Luke Serrure...

It got to the point where even SHIELD began believing the lie. (I'd the habit of regularly hacking SHIELD's file on me, I saw when they erased their suspicions of my being connected to the 'alleged terrorist' George Lewis, and instead registered me as 'presumed illegitimate daughter of Anthony Stark'). Really, there had been no official inquires, no DNA tests, and yet they were all buying it. They were supposed to be an intelligence agency, and yet they were allowing rumors to take precedence... it honestly baffled me.

It had started that way but, somehow, at some point, it had stopped being a game, a joke. I began teasing Tony, always using our supposed relationship either as the joke or the justification; and he returned it all, blow by blow. Pepper would just roll her eyes at both of us, at times even saying how she wasn't sure the world would survive us both.

I never told Tony, but a part of me lit up at his claiming of me; because for the first time since my mom died I had a real family again; and what was more, for the first time in quite possibly my whole life I had a parent who actually wanted me, liked me... loved me.

Tony swayed back as I said those words, and I could see the hurt that went through his eyes for a moment before his mask fell in place.

"True, you may go now Miss Lewis." He stated coldly.

I was the one who felt like I'd just received a blow then. I turned around, and for a moment I actually considered leaving, I really did. But deep down I knew that if I left, our relationship, it'd be all ruined. Beyond the whole father-daughter thing, our most basic connection, would be lost. So I turned around again and stood my ground.

"Did you know that my father... my birth-father I mean, walked out on my mom and me when I was five?" I asked, not quite knowing just yet where I was going with all that. "His name is, or was, George Lewis... You know, I have no idea if he's even alive still. I was twelve years old when I first hacked into the FBI database, and I discovered that there was an alleged terrorist who was believed to have been called George Lewis at one point..."

"What...?!" That certainly called Tony's attention.

"I'd been trying to find my dad since I first learned how to use a computer." I elaborated. "But it was like he didn't exist. Like George Lewis had never existed." I shook my head. "Him walking out on us, and me never being sure if mom ever wanted me... I don't like talking about it, I really don't. But I know it has affected me. When you told that reporter I was your daughter... at first it seemed like a really good joke, you know? And then everyone began buying it, the people out there, and in SHIELD, and even the others right in this tower!" My voice turned quieter. "And suddenly it wasn't a joke anymore, it wasn't all for laugh. Because I liked it, you know? I liked people believing you were my dad. And it wasn't because you're rich, and cool, and famous... No, it was because you wanted me..."

"Oh Darcy..." He embraced me, and then I was crying. "I will always want you Darce, a man needs to be stupid not to want you..."

"Thank you..." There really was nothing more to say.

I did have to tell him that I loved Phil, and I was still moving out of the floor he'd given me and into his (it was still in the tower, but still). At least, he was more willing to listen then; I got the feeling that he still didn't understand it, not really. But he respected me, and he respected the fact that I loved Phil, and he did love me.

xXx

Months later Phil died... or at least that's what everyone was lead to believe.

We'd married in mid-summer, secretly, after a failed mission in Ireland. The town we were in happened to be pagan, they even had a priestess, and it was she who married us. We'd decided at one point not to marry legally; as such actions would have required us to register that union with SHIELD. The rules of non-fraternization would have kept us from working together in the future, and there was no way either of us would ever allow that. In all of SHIELD Nick was the only one who knew for sure that we were together; and he only knew because he was a good friend of Phil's... Natasha and Clint knew too, but by that point they were more Avengers than Agents. They were two of the witnesses to our handfasting ceremony, with Loki and Nightingale being the other two. They just happened to be there that day, like some kind of cosmic accident (later on I'd learn that while it was, indeed, a coincidence, there was more to it than I ever imagined).

Things had been getting more and more complicated. There was a new group trying to create super-soldiers (really, did the messes with the Hulk and Extremis, that last one less than a year before, had taught them nothing at all? Apparently not). He would be away for long periods of time, following what trails either of us could find. No one but Fury and I even knew what he was doing (and, technically, I wasn't supposed to know as much as I did).

When he went off grid at the end of October I didn't worry much about it. It had happened before, and I knew that if he died, I'd feel it. It was part of the magic in the nifty little rings Natasha and Clint had gifted us, and Loki and Nightingale had spelled for us, the day of our wedding. If something, anything, happened to one of us, the other would know... It was how I knew when things went absolutely, terribly wrong on the third of November. The only reason why I didn't lose it completely in the middle of a hall in SHIELD HQ was because, even as I felt Phil's pain, I still felt his heartbeat; he was hurt, badly hurt even, but he was still alive. Still, I've never hated anything more than realizing there was nothing I could do, nothing but pray my love would survive and return to me... because I honestly had no idea what I'd do if he didn't.

It took one week, possibly the longest week of my life, but finally my personal phone rang. The number was unknown, but that didn't stop me, few enough people had that number, his name came tumbling from my lips the moment I heard his own voice whisper mine...

It took another week for him to make it all the way back to me, in absolute secrecy. SHIELD had already declared him MIA and were about ready to change that status to KIA... which I realized was odd, once I calmed down and looked back on it. Using several convenient excuses I left the tower and met Phil in New Jersey, the house that had once belonged to his mother, it was his top-secret safehouse (the one that wasn't in any of his files... much like my mom's own place back in Bethesda). I didn't realize how much the previous two weeks had truly affected me, how much I'd been keeping in, until I saw him and then I collapsed and broke into tears. Phil didn't say a word, he just held me tight in his arms, waiting for me to put myself back together.

The moment I stopped crying I kissed him. There was a sudden hunger in me, which nothing but him could satiate. We didn't make it to the bedroom, and the bed until the second round, and we both lost count of how many times we came together that day. It wasn't even about the pleasure, about the orgasms, it was the intimacy, the knowledge that we were both there, that we were together, nothing could have possibly compared to that.

Nick paid us a visit the next day, and together the three of us made a plan. I could tell the boss did not exactly agree with me being there. I didn't say a thing, just waited; however, when he insisted on that matter one too many times, Phil abruptly seemed to lose his patience, as he pulled at the chain around his neck hard enough to make it snap, slipping the circular band off it before almost forcefully placing it on the table in between us. More slowly, but just as pointedly, I unclasped the necklace around my own throat and placed my band beside his.

Nick blinked, and I could tell that (for perhaps the first time in his life) he was honestly shocked.

"When did this happen?" He asked quietly.

"A few months ago, in Ireland." Phil told him evenly. "It was a handfasting ceremony. It has no legal standing, but then again that was done on purpose. We knew what would happen if SHIELD ever knew about us."

"And yet you're telling me..." Nick muttered.

"Because you need to understand why she's here, and why she's staying here." My love explained to his boss and best-friend. "I know you Nick, I've known you a long time. I imagine you'll be in no hurry to change my status back to alive, you probably have already thought of a way to use that in your favor... I'm not against that. I can see how it could be beneficial to our work, our enemies will not expect us if they believe me to be dead. I'm willing to play the part... but Darcy will be kept in the loop. She's my wife, and while I imagine she will not be able to come with me as it would call the wrong kind of attention, and I need to know that someone I trust is left to handle my old duties. She will know what's going on at all times, you will not keep us apart Nick. I'm not willing to lose Darcy, not for SHIELD, and not for you. You may be my best friend Nick, and I respect you greatly, but Darcy's the love of my life, and always will be."

I'm sure that in that moment I must have been so red I came close to glowing... and yet, I knew I shared his feelings to the exact same degree. Which was why I didn't back down, didn't look away in embarrassment or anything like that, instead I twined our fingers together and looked straight at Nick, waiting for a plan to be made. Of course, Nick had already thought of something, I expected no less. He even managed to include me with little hassle.

And so began the biggest charade of my life. As far as everyone in the world but Nick Fury (and eventually my love's new team) knew, Phil Coulson had died in the line of duty on November 3rd, his body had been lost in the Mediterranean. The downside? The Avengers had all known about our relationship, so of course they were all always popping in, offering their condolences, not wanting to leave me to grieve alone (Jane was the worst)... and I had to pretend to grieve. I had to be perfect at it too, I knew Phil's life could end depending on it. It's also why I eventually moved out; though my excuse was that as Phil's appointed successor I had a lot of work to do, and the Tower was too far away from the offices. I might be able to move back once I got a better handle on my new duties, but until then I'd be living in a SHIELD issue apartment. I knew most thought I was doing it to get away from Phil's memory, and that didn't exactly hurt our cover, so I didn't try to change their minds.

Another interesting thing happened right then. While I'd technically been Phil's assistant, and later on his partner, and that meant I had accessed to a lot of highly-classified information... truth was I had never been officially given the necessary levels for it. Phil let me see it all, Nick knew about it and simply didn't say a thing. Maria Hill didn't like it much, but she didn't fight the others on it. As Fury explained to me, to be able to truly take Phil's post I'd have needed Level 8 clearance, at minimum. But going from low level (on paper I was barely Level 3, mostly because I'd been an agent for less than two years by that point) to one of the highest (above the known levels) would have called way too much attention, exactly the opposite of what we wanted. So Nick decided to instead twist things to his advantage (all of our advantages, really):

I became Agent Shadow. I had no official level, because I did not need it. I answered to no one except Fury himself, he was also the only one capable of overturning any order I might give. Finally, all my missions were considered top-secret, and I was free to come and go as I pleased, as long as I kept control of things. It was a freedom no one had ever had before, a trust I never expected Fury to give me. I knew he was only giving me that much leeway because of Phil; he knew that his situation was tricky, and if he ever got in a bind, I needed to be able to assist him without having to go through miles of red tape (especially because it'd have been tricky to explain why I needed to do something to help a man that was supposed to be dead...).

It still wasn't easy. For most of my duties Clint was my pilot (Natasha was kept busy, working with Steve and the STRIKE team). And yet I took the time, every other day, to make a private video call to my husband. If we were lucky we got the chance to chat for a while about what we'd done, perhaps even to be a little naughty... if we weren't we only got the chance to reassure each other and ourselves that we were okay and wish luck until the next call. I kept him informed on how Clint and Tasha were doing, and the rest of the Avengers; I also got to know a lot about his team, even if I didn't meet them face to face. I was quite sure May at least knew something was going on, but even she didn't know about me, or our connection.

In the end, my greatest secret wasn't my mutation (SHIELD still didn't know about that, not even Fury, though Phil did know, I'd told him the day before we married, not wanting to go into it with a secret like that); but no, in the end my greatest secret was the fact that I was a hacker, and not just that, but arguably the best hacker in the world. I went by the screen-name TaserQueen. Many organizations had tried to recruit me, especially both SHIELD and the Rising Tide, but I refused, I only hacked for myself, not for others, never that. I also had serious suspicions that the young hacker Phil had recruited in LA to join his team might be BlueCloud, the second best hacker in the world, but I wasn't sure, not until later.

Months after Phil got his new team, something began happening in Europe. We didn't know why, but Jane wanted to go see. By that point SHIELD wasn't as interested in her work anymore (they probably didn't see the point), so most of the crew that had been working for her in the recent past was gone. In part because of that, and in part because past experience said that if Jane suspected something was coming, it was a sure bet something was, Fury told me to go with her, keep an eye on things just in case. It was relatively easy to sell it to her as a case of homesickness, and I did miss her, so that helped too. Getting her a new intern, and one that proved to be able and willing to deal with the insanity that came with knowing and working with Jane was a plus in my book (even if he was a bit too insistent when flirting with me and didn't seem to get the point that I was simply not interested... how I wished I could have told him I was married, but that wasn't really a choice, regretfully).

I knew about the time traveling, of course, Phil had told me after returning to me. How someone had saved him, how Nightingale was there to heal him, yet she wasn't the Nightingale we had seen off at the beginning of the summer. And we'd already seen her, and Loki, in Ireland. I knew yet I didn't understand what exactly Phil had been talking about when he said there was an aura about them, that showed they weren't the same... and then when I met first Nightingale, and then Loki as they dealt with the disaster caused during the so-called Convergence, I understood. I could see the difference between the two helping around that day, and the ones who'd been present at my handfasting. They might have looked the same physically, for the most part, but there was a different aura about them; a changed sense of growth, of maturity, of balance...

I'm not quite sure why, but I found it extremely funny when they saw my wedding-band, sensed the magic in it, and didn't know it to be their own. It more than anything else confirmed they weren't exactly the same people, more than seventy years of time and experience separated them, I couldn't quite wrap my head around it.

By that point Fury had managed to keep Clint busy most of the time, and while I did miss him, he was a very good friend, it made things easier when it came to keeping in touch with Phil.

Being a Shadow inside SHIELD had both its difficulties and rewards. Soon enough everyone knew I was Agent Shadow, and essentially what it meant; didn't mean they had to like me. Some, like Victoria Hand, Jasper Sitwell and Robert Gonzales did not like me at all; others, like Isabelle Hartley, Felix Blake and a few more, thought I was simply too young, too inexperienced to have such authority and power.

It all came to a head eventually, like I knew it would. At the end of the Summer of 2015, less than eight weeks after the Convergence, I received a coded message from Phil; Ace Peterson had been taken, and an exchange was taking in a specific place and time. They couldn't call in help from HQ, but Phil wanted to know someone would have his team's back if it was necessary.

I was just leaving my apartment, when my phone rang, probably the oddest call I'd ever received (not exactly surprising, considering the caller was Irene Xavier-Darkholme, one of the heads of the Massachusetts Academy, and better known in some circles as Destiny):

"There is a bridge and it's on fire." She told me straight out, forgoing all greetings and usual pleasantries. "Will you brave the fire to save a life? A Warrior of Light will turn for the Dark, unless another intervenes, will you be the one? You're more than a Wallflower, will you leave the Shadow and step into the Light?"

I didn't quite understand what was going on, what she meant, and I never got the chance to ask either. Still, I was there, on that bridge. I saw Phil and Mike Peterson walk to where some of the highest ranked members of Centipede were waiting; the boy went to his father; and then the trap was sprung. Apparently it wasn't Peterson they wanted, but Phil. I almost broke cover right then and there; until I realized something: the bridge wasn't on fire yet. So I forced myself to wait. I watched Peterson hand his son over to a young woman: Skye, and then he was going back, he wanted to make things right.

I realized what was coming a fraction of a second before it happened. I didn't even think about it, I jumped from my hiding spot and ran across the bridge; had just reached Peterson's side, when the explosion rocked the whole bridge, I barely managed to take a hold on his arm and prayed that my suspicions were right, at the same time I flipped the mental switch on my mutation.

"Wha...?!" The man was obviously shocked, made a move to push me away.

"Don't!" I yelled at him, dodging his punch (which wasn't easy, as I couldn't let go of him). "Do not let go of me Mr. Peterson!"

"What are you doing?!" He demanded, obviously stressed out.

"I'm trying to save both our lives." I told him grimly.

It was hard, probably the hardest thing I've done in my life, to walk away from the bridge with Mr. Peterson, leaving my match in the hands of Centipede, leaving his team in the dirt. But I had to make sure Mike Peterson would be alright.

"Who are you?" He asked me once we got to the closest safe-house (one of Phil's, and also one SHIELD wasn't aware of).

"My name is Darcy Lewis." I told him honestly. "But you may call me Shadow."

"You're a gifted." He said, it wasn't a question.

"I am." I nodded.

"How did you know to be there?" He asked next, as if just realizing that. "You're not part of the team, are you? I hadn't met you before..."

"No, I'm not part of the team, but I'm a... friend, of Phil's, Agent Coulson." I clarified. "He told me what was going on. He couldn't call HQ but we have an encrypted method of communication, and he wanted to be sure that if something really went wrong someone would be there to help."

"Thank you miss." He nodded respectfully at me. "I owe you my life."

"I'm going to make sure you're safe, Mr. Peterson." I assured him. "You and your son."

"And your friend?" He inquired.

"I'll make sure the two of you are safe." I insisted. "And then I'm going after him."

"Let me help you." He replied. "You saved my life, it's only right."

We argued on it for a while, but eventually I had to admit he was right. We waited until May took the rest of the team to a rendezvous point, and when Ace Peterson was sent away with a guard I hacked in and changed the orders, making them deliver the boy to a safe-house and leave him there (so we could pick him up). I wasn't sure if it was a sign of how well-trained all agents were, or that there was something intrinsically wrong in SHIELD when no one questioned the orders, and no one tried to stay with the boy...

By then I'd also managed to track down the aunt already. Mindy Peterson and her daughter Kisha were already with us, and I was making arrangements for them to have a new life, away from Centipede, and away from SHIELD (they'd be staying in my place in Bethesda until we were sure Centipede had been dealt with, then they'd all have a new life).

Three days after the mess on that bridge I was sure Mindy, Kisha and Ace would be safe, then it was time to focus on getting Phil back. At first Fury had insisted that I let Phil's team, Hand and her own minions handle it; but three days had passed, and they were no closer to finding him than they'd been when that helicopter had flown off with him on. So I phoned Fury to warn him that I was going in (I wasn't asking permission, not when it came to my love, and he knew it).

Apparently I arrived just time. There was a confrontation taking place, and I didn't even need to see any of them to know it was Hand giving them trouble for the nth time.

"I know I'm not some bad-ass field agent like May or Ward, but this is what I do." The young hacker in the team was saying. "You can't just kick me off this mission. Listen, I will do whatever you say. All this protocol crap doesn't matter to me. All that matters to me is Coulson."

Just that was enough to make me like her already!

"Well, 'all this protocol crap' matters to me." Hand retorted in a rather condescending tone. "You're a distraction, and you're gone."

It looked like Agent Grant Ward was actually about to speak up, hopefully in Skye's favor; however, I chose to announce my presence instead and take over things myself.

"You should be careful what you say and in front of whom you say it, Agent Hand." I told her in my most blank tone (learnt from Phil). "Some might think you don't care about your colleagues."

Hand spun in my direction instantly, opened her mouth, and then froze. I could see the exact moment she recognized me (we'd already had our troubles in the past, mainly following the mess in London, when she'd wanted to take the Secret Circle and put them all in the Index, I hadn't allowed that... well, technically Loki and Nightingale hadn't allowed it, I just backed them up).

"Agent Lewis..." She muttered in obvious respect.

"I'm here to relieve you of your post." I announced simply.

"You cannot do that!" She snapped. "What authority have you to do that? None at all..."

"I have the authority as the Shadow of SHIELD." I cut her off. "You know what that means, now you can either leave now and take your minions, or we can call Director Fury and have him give you the exact same order."

For a moment it looked like she might fight me on it, however, Fury hadn't outright contradicted one of my initiatives to that point, and she knew it; which was probably why she finally gave up.

"I wonder what interest the Agent Shadow has in this matter..." She began, obviously angered.

"My interest is no business of yours, Agent Hand." I stated evenly. "You've already demonstrated your utter lack of concern for P... Agent Coulson's welfare, and your despicable lack of respect for his team. Since you obviously believe that it's more important to go after the people buying chitauri parts off the black market; who, might I add, have been around for the past three years and will quite probably continue to be for the next three, or more, instead of Agent Coulson, who is an important part of our organization. I'm relieving you of your responsibilities here. Now take your people and get off this craft!"

I didn't raise my voice at any moment, it wasn't necessary. Hand already knew the kind of power I possessed within SHIELD; and the fact that even outside it I had the backing of some very strong (politically, economically and socially) people; after all, how many could claim to be friends with gods, with a whole team of superheroes (or two), and to be publicly acknowledged as Tony Stark's daughter (nevermind the truth or lack thereof of that statement)? I'd given the orders, and there was nothing she could do to oppose them.

The moment all the minions finished rushing out of the plane I hit the button to close the ramp before spinning around to face the team, all of who were watching me with a bit of nervousness and excitement.

"Now, if this team is good and ready to find Phil..." I commented. "Lets get moving people!"

"Wheels up in five." May announced before turning and leaving for the cockpit.

"You're not going to send me away?" Skye blurted out nervously.

"Skye..." Ward began.

"Whyever would I do that?" I asked, honestly puzzled.

"Well, Hand didn't seem to like me, neither did any of the other Agents that invaded the Bus in the last few days, either." Skye answered with a shrug.

"You don't mind the minions." I deadpanned. "Few of them are capable of seeing a true treasure when it stands before them."

My very blasé comment startled a laugh out of the young woman, though it didn't really set her at ease; I was still an unknown.

"I know exactly who you are Skye." I assured her. "And I know that if anyone stands a chance of finding Phil soon, it's you... I hope you won't mind the help..."

"But this..." She gestured to her bracelet.

"I will override it for the time being." I informed her as we began walking to the command center. "I cannot take it off, only Phil can do that. But I can allow you to hack as much as is necessary until we find him and he takes care of that."

"You said you were a hacker too...?" Ward inquired, walking after us.

"Yes." I smirked. "TaserQueen, pleased to meet you..."

"Taser...?" Skye repeated, baffled. "You're the Taser?! You're the Queen of Hackers?!"

I just laughed. Her mere words confirming what I'd suspected, she was, indeed, the BlueCloud.

When Mike then stepped out of the car I'd arrived in (I'd told him to stay out of it until I'd dealt with Hand and her people, the less people who knew he was alive and alright the better for him and his family), the whole team went nuts. Skye especially broke into tears as she hugged him tightly; she'd been truly distressed after seeing him disappear behind the explosion.

They were all so happy to have him back, none of them thought to ask how exactly I'd managed to save his life; none except May...

"You've been in contact with Phil." She said the moment I sat beside her in the cockpit.

I didn't bother contradicting her, just raised a brow and waited for her to go on.

"We were the only ones who knew about what was happening on that bridge, we couldn't call HQ, and yet for Mr. Peterson to have survived that... someone else was there that night." May explained her reasoning. "You were there, you saved him. Phil contacted you, he'd a way of contacting that was off the radar."

"I'm a hacker." I clarified. "The Queen of the Hackers, like some tend to call me. I can get in touch with whoever I want and have it be off the radar."

"How long have you known Phil isn't dead?" May finally asked.

I pondered on the question for a bit. I could make something up, something believable, and it'd be alright (I knew better than outright lying to her). But I knew she was important to Phil, a dear friend. The two of them had been part of the same team, before each went their own way... she deserved to know the truth, at least to a point.

"I always knew he wasn't dead." I finally said. "Even before this team, before everything. I'm his contact, have always been. I'm his partner."

I only held back the last part of it, how I wasn't just his professional partner, I was also his wife... Phil could share that part with her if he wanted, once we got him back.

It took just a few hours for Skye to track down the right person, and then we were flying to the Nevada desert (after having sent some pertinent information to Hand so she could capture a few other people, like she preferred). We'd just arrived to the place when we heard the scream...

I wasn't even conscious of what I was doing, one moment I was standing at the end of the Bus's ramp, all nerves on end, the next I felt like I was trying to move through liquid, or shadows... and then I was standing inside a building, and there was the girl in the flower dress, and she had my husband hooked up to some freaky machine, and he was screaming...

I had her on the ground and was powering down the thing as fast as I could. I didn't even wait for all the freaky lights to go off, the moment I could I was bent beside him, holding both of his hands in mine, kissing his knuckles and whispering, giving him good things to focus on, so he might come back to me...

"Darce..." He breathed out as his eyes fluttered open.

"Hey..." I whispered back at him, eyes blurry and voice watery from tears. "Mo Anam Cara..."

"Mo Anam Cara..." He replied in turn.

It was something we'd gotten from Nightingale and Loki, using that phrase as a reassurance of who we were, on our own and to each other, of the strength of our bond... and then we kissed.

The team found us like that. I blushed at their presence, and could feel him tightening his hold on me, as if afraid that my embarrassment would make me let go... never. I'd never let him go. Never again, no matter what.

Nick wasn't exactly a fan of that decision; but I have a feeling that he'd known all along that it'd come one day (there were times when I could almost swear there was a hint of longing in Nick's eyes when he looked at the two of us, and I couldn't help but think that it wasn't exactly about us, perhaps someone else? Had Nick been married in the past? Had his wife died? Left him? Or had he left her? I had no idea, and wasn't sure I really wanted to know, something told me it wasn't a happy story...).

xXx

I had some quite amazing times with that team, and some awful ones too. I loved seeing them interact; seeing such completely different individuals working together and achieving things that would have been absolutely impossible to any other such team in SHIELD, mostly because of the trust, or lack thereof. Of course, I knew what their first two missions had been like. Theirs was a team that had been forged in the 'heat of battle' as Thor would say, they'd had their 'make or break' moment, and that had made them strong.

The worst moment though, came when we stepped into that basement, in Quinn's villa in South Italy, and found Skye half dead beside the door, her blood painting a macabre image on the floor, showing how hard she'd fought to survive, and it was a battle she was losing...

Up until that point the only ones that knew, really knew, that I was a gifted were Phil and Mike (who'd insisted on staying with us until we were done with our mission, happy that his family was safe in my place, where no one but him, Phil and I even knew them to be). I'd never planned on telling the others, unsure how they might react... the moment I saw Skye half-dead I knew the time for holding back was past.

I'd only known I could somehow travel between shadows for a little over six months (since that day I'd saved Mike on the bridge), but I'd made sure to practice in secret whenever I got the chance. I could take no more than two people with me, and even that took great effort, yet I never doubted. I knew Phil was thinking the same thing I was...

"May," He called to his SIC. "Secure Quinn and this place up. We cannot count on the local authorities so you'll have to handle it."

"But sir, Skye..." Simmons began, obviously distressed.

"We're getting Skye to the Bus, join us as soon as you can." Phil added.

I didn't give them the chance to ask questions, to demand explanations, it was a time we didn't have, I placed a hand on Phil, who was already holding Skye tightly, then the other on her, and then called on my power and pulled us all into the shadows, ignoring the curses, gasps and wordless exclamations of those we left behind.

May really wasn't happy when she and the rest joined us, three hours later (she really had pushed everyone, for them to have gotten everything done so fast). Ward also gave us a look that made me think he might actually hit something (or someone). Things got better the moment they saw Skye sitting in the common area; she looked more than a bit drowsy and had a half-finished bottle of water in her hands (her third), but still, it was much better than she'd been.

"How...?" No one could quite believe what they were seeing.

"A gift from our Asgardian friends." Phil explained to them. "Some years ago Loki created vials filled with powdered healing stone, spelled so they would retain the properties, and could only be opened by specific people. Originally it was only his wife, but eventually that changed. That was what saved my life when I was stabbed, the day of the battle of New York (he didn't mention who exactly had stabbed him, it wasn't important in the grand scheme of things). After the debacle with the Berserker Staff, Nightingale left me a vial, to use in an emergency..."

No more needed to be said, it was obvious they all agreed with his call. In seconds FitzSimmons were all over Skye, embracing her (gingerly because they could see she was still tender; even though she'd been healed, she'd still lost a lot of blood and would need time to fully recover), Ward just stood in a corner, almost staring a hole right through her.

"There's nothing wrong with caring, you know?" I told him quietly. "It's true it can be hard, it can make you feel like you're weak... but beneath all that vulnerability, love will always make you stronger than anything else, it will be the force that allows you to go on when you think it's impossible, to go on when you think you can do no more, that will help you survive and achieve things you never imagined..."

He didn't say a word, but I wasn't expecting him too. I still wasn't at all surprised when, an hour later, I found him sitting on that same couch, Skye nestled against him, sleeping.

xXx

Next we had a rather interesting meeting, with none other than Lady Helena, Goddess of Grief and Hope, Queen of Helheim... Nightingale's and Loki's firstborn daughter.

As it turned out a prisoner had escaped from the Asgardian prison: a spellweaver called Lorelei, the younger sister of the Enchantress Amora (a sorceress obsessed with Thor, and also the one responsible for the death of Tinúviel and her unborn child more than nine centuries prior). Amora was dead, had been since the day she'd killed Tinúviel, Lorelei had been imprisoned for the same amount of time, and somehow she'd managed to escape prison. Helena was sent after her because she was one of the strongest spellweavers in Asgard, and therefore more likely to be able to handle Lorelei. Also, Lorelei's special ability of sort-of hypnotizing men meant they couldn't send most warriors.

There were some difficulties, when Lorelei managed to take control of Ward. None of us knew how to deal with that. Until Skye went and planted herself before Ward, challenging him to go through her to do Lorelei's biding... he actually went as far as raising his gun and aiming it at the young hacker's chest. I was about to call on my powers to help, when Phil stopped me.

Then, as if some kind of switch had been flipped, Ward turned and shot at Lorelei instead. She was so shocked by the turn of events that she didn't even try to stop him, giving Hel the opening to subdue her. A second later Skye was in Ward's arms:

"You're an idiot!" He was berating her, even as he held her tight. "What if I'd killed you?!"

"I knew you wouldn't." She said, oddly calm for someone who'd just had a gun aimed at her. "I trusted you. I will always trust you Grant..."

None of us could have ever imagined how important that little statement would come to be...

xXx

I didn't worry much when Tony (I called him dad sometimes, but mostly he was still Tony) dropped off the face of the earth abruptly. He'd called me already to tell me he and Pepper had decided to take a little vacation. A message that was followed a day later with an announcement that I had a little sister: Aylen Mariana Potts-Stark had just been born. While going through the dark web I picked up some rumors on a failed attempted assassination on the Starks, but didn't pay it much attention; it's not like there hadn't been others before, and they were alright, that was all that really mattered in the end.

I had no idea, back then, that that was but the beginning of the insanity coming our way...

Skye was finally made a SHIELD Agent, she was technically Level 1, but we all knew we would not be limiting the information she had access to, it was the same with everyone on the team. I was even toying with the idea of eventually suggesting to Nick that there could be more than one Shadow... still, there was no hurry, I expected we'd be busy enough for a while with our hunt of the Clairvoyant.

I'd already made a quick, encrypted call to the Institute, to make sure that the Professor was aware of all psychics among the mutant community, the Clarivoyant wasn't one of them. Destiny had suggested I 'widen my horizons', which meant that I wasn't completely scratching the possibility of him being truly clairvoyant; even if he wasn't a mutant there were many other gifted around the world.

The hunt gave results unexpectedly fast. We found Thomas Nash, a quadriplegic who'd been rejected from the Index as there had never been any proof of him having any actual gifts... what none of us could have planned for, was when Ward unexpectedly killed him in cold blood, while the man was 'talking' through a computer, threatening Skye... Ward claimed to have done it to protect the team, May insisted he'd done it just for Skye; I had the sinking suspicion there was more to it than even that...

Then, as if the day weren't bad enough already I got a coded message marked 'urgent' from Tasha: Nick Fury was dead, she and Steve were on the run and being hunted by SHIELD. I showed the message to Phil immediately. We really wanted to do something, but we still had to deal with Ward and his actions; there was just no time for us to take off; we also wanted to believe that it was all just a huge misunderstanding, one that would be solved soon... we had no idea that it was only going to get worse; though by the time I hung up my personal phone late that night, after a most shocking phone call with Natasha, some of it at least became quite clear.

"Darce...?" Phil called quietly, he could practically sense the tension in my body.

"I need everyone in the Communications room as soon as possible." I told him grimly.

"How bad is it?" He asked, probably already feeling the worst.

"Bad, and it's gonna get worse." I admitted darkly.

No one was asleep just yet, all stressed out by what had happened earlier. I even managed to convince Phil to let Ward out of containment for the time being. I began our impromptu meeting by showing the footage of the attack on Fury the day before; then, before the questions, shouting and whatever else could begin, I brought up a short memo, the official announcement of Nick Fury's death.

"That's impossible!" Ward blurted out, shocked. "If the Director were dead... we would know, wouldn't we?"

"Hard to tell." Phil admitted. "As far as most of SHIELD is concerned, we don't exist."

"I'm not sure he's really dead." I admitted softly. "It'd be just his style, to fake his death so he can go off-grid while everything else blows up."

"Just what else is blowing up?" Fitz asked, eyes wide in shock.

For all answer I pulled up the second video, the one about the car-chase through DC that had ended with a confrontation between Captain America, Black Widow, the Winter Soldier, a bunch of mercs, and a black-haired woman I had to do a double-take about.

"Who's that?" Skye was the first to ask the question. "She looks kind of familiar."

"She's Lady Sif, goddess of War, she hails from Asgard." I informed her, and the rest. "She's a friend of Thor's... I met her briefly in New Mexico five years ago." I made a pause before adding, more quietly. "Also... if my suspicions hold, I think she might also be the Valkyrie."

"The Valkyrie?" I wasn't surprised when almost no one seemed to know what I was talking about.

"The Captain's Shadow?" Phil asked, shocked.

Of course he'd know her by that name.

"Shadow?" Melinda eyed me speculatively.

"Her name was Sia Serrure back then, her older brother was Arianna Stark's husband." I gave them the short version of the story. "There are stories that paint her as either a gifted or another super-soldier. She was there with the Captain and the Howling Commandos through the war, and even went to work for the SSR for a while. History has buried her name so deeply most have forgotten she ever existed."

"But you know." Simmons pointed out.

"I've always liked history." I admitted with a shrug. "It was the second major I tried, and even when I switched to Political Sciences I kept it as a minor. It's always been a fascination of mine, the powerful women history has tried to either forget or erase..."

"Ok so, if you're right, she's powerful, is she on our side or...?" Ward began, only to break off at the sudden shudder of the Bus.

"What the hell is going on?!" Skye exclaimed, holding onto the holo-table for support.

"We're changing course." Melinda announced even as she ran to the cockpit, everyone else on her heels, she began flipping switches immediately, with no effect. "I've been overridden. Wherever we're going, there's nothing we can do to stop it."

"Don't give up so soon." I stated, switching on my tablet. "Skye, I'm gonna need your help."

"Yes." The younger hacker nodded immediately, rushing out to get her laptop and then returning.

"We're going to need to do some counter-hacking on whoever has taken over the plane." I told her, even as I set up my laser keyboard and began typing like crazy. "If we can find out who's doing this and why, good. But that's not our priority. We need to break their hold on this plane and make sure they'll never be able to take us over again."

"Got it." Skye nodded, her fingers flying over the keys just as fast.

"Could this be related to what you were telling us?" Simmons asked suddenly.

I actually stuttered, just for a fraction of a second, even as I gave her an answer.

"Probably." I admitted solemnly. "The short of it is, Hydra isn't as dead and gone as we thought it was. What's more, it's apparently been hiding in SHIELD for a while, possibly from the start. That's why Fury was attacked, why Steve and Tasha are being pursued; I even got a message from Clint, he barely made it out of Poland; the man he was supposed to be making contact with tried to kill him out of the blue."

"Is Clint alright?" Phil was evidently worried about him.

"For now." I nodded. "But it's hard to know where to go, who to trust, when you've just found out that Hydra has been infiltrating intelligence organizations and governments over the past fuck-knows-how-many years!"

And then, as if the whole situation weren't complicated enough already, there was suddenly a voice coming in through the comms:

"Do you read? Do you read, 6-1-6?"

The voice sounded somewhat familiar, perhaps one of the agents we'd been in touch with during the hunt for the Clairvoyant? I wasn't sure.

"Where's that coming from?" Fitz asked, looking around in confusion.

"Close." Simmons murmured, just as confused as he.

"Enemy aircraft on my tail. Over." The voice insisted.

"Garrett?" Phil called suddenly.

I made the connection then: John Garrett, an old friend of Phil's; he'd been there for the 'hunt', he was also one of those who'd signed in on Skye gaining 'agent status'.

"Coulson, I'm under attack." Garrett went on. "Drones. Repeat, S.H.I.E.L.D. drones are on my ass. We're not getting along. Do you copy?"

"Copy." My love finally said. "Garrett, what's happening? We've lost control of our aircraft."

"Hell if I know." Garrett admitted. "Tell me you got guns on that thing. I'm coming to you."

I vaguely heard Coulson talk to Fitz about re-wiring or re-routing or re-something the weapons on the Bus. Wasn't paying much attention, as Skye and I had finally gotten to the core of the signal hacking us.

Everything was so insane. When Skye had gone to Phil and I earlier, with her theory about Ward having killed the wrong Clairvoyant... I wasn't exactly surprised, a part of me had suspected something like that already, if for no other reason than the whole thing with Nash had been much too easy. The man had been consistently ahead of us for months, able to avoid all of our attempts, and coming close to killing us. And suddenly we caught him? Yeah, we had Mike on our side, and I was no slouch, nor was the rest of the team; but still.

Also, while I hadn't wanted to say anything, I couldn't help but think that there might be more behind Ward shooting Nash than just his desire to protect the team (or even just Skye, as seemed to be May's theory). Still, that was one thought I hadn't dared voice, (I barely even dare think about it) because if I was right, if I was right I feared it might split the team, our team apart...

Skye let out a wordless exclamation of triumph as we finally broke through the heavy firewalls surrounding the hacking signal. We all felt it, the moment the plane shuddered again as the signal pulling it lost power.

"Agent May, you'll have to take control." I informed her tersely. "I'm afraid that while Skye and I might have been able to wrench control back we've fully destroyed the auto-pilot in the process."

"That's alright." She assured me. "As long as we're the ones who decide where we go, it's all absolutely fine."

I was just getting my breath back (that had been some intense hacking!), when something else happened (because of course it would have too much to ask for things to go well and easy for once in our lives...).

"Sir..." Ward called suddenly, so serious I couldn't help but listen even as I kept an eye on the on the screen, as the source of the hack appeared. "Sir, you cannot let John on this plane."

"And why is that Agent Ward?" Phil asked, and I could hear the tension on his tone.

Suddenly I couldn't help but wonder, had he had the same thoughts as I?

For a moment Ward didn't say anything, he looked straight at Skye, then he nodded (seemingly to himself), took a deep breath and faced my husband again as he said:

"Because he's Hydra, sir. John Garrett is the Clairvoyant..."


So... you must have known from the start that some things had to be different. Remember what you saw in Fate and Destiny's finale, and in chapter 14 of Bouquet of Roses. We haven't gotten there yet, though by now you'll begin to see just how much things have changed. If you have any questions I'll be delighted to answer them.

Darcy... I decided almost from the start to make her a mutant, though it took me a while to choose her mutation. I mentioned it in several AUs, though the true potential of it has only been seen in one. I hope you like the twist I've given it.

Grant... to me it's quite logical why he's so different (same as Phil's different, and Darcy, from their cannon versions). Remember the talk he had with Nightingale in Nexus, and with Darcy here... this Grant isn't quite like the canon one, because he has influences in his life that weren't there in the original version. That's important, as you're beginning to see already. You'll see the rest next week.

Next chapter will be all about Skye, hope you'll enjoy it too. As always, full-sized poster and set of wallpapers can be found on DeviantArt, I go by Princess-Lalaith there. See ya!