Okay, guys! Chapter 4! This one is pretty brutal, too, I think, so apologies in advance. Lemme know what you think. This one came outta me so quickly that I've been going back and forth editing and tweaking a lot, and some of it I'm just not sure about. Lemme know how it's working.
Thanks!
Chapter Four: First Turn in the Far Lane
She remained that way for two whole days.
Completely alone.
Another went missing the next morning, an iron magnate from Kenya.
No one came knocking, with the exception of Tony, who merely patched in to make sure she'd eaten—one time, she lied, the other was the truth—wasn't drinking herself into a stupor or slitting her wrists. She felt certain that he was watching her at times, but didn't really mind, even as she sat in what she was sure was quickly spiraling into clinical depression, staring at her ring like it held answers.
He didn't attempt to say or do anything further, though she wasn't sure how long he'd let her get away with that.
It was a military general next, three stars, a tactical genius, apparently.
She only knew because she'd asked JARVIS to relay pertinent information as it came in.
Clint texted once to let her know that the information had been delivered, but that was it.
Jane didn't come by. She was sure it was at Thor's pleading, and she could hear the conversation in her head, Thor begging her to see the other side of her frustration, and not make the blind mistakes he'd made with Loki.
Wanda, she knew, could probably tell she was alive even from numerous floors down.
What made it so awful wasn't her own doubt in him, really. What made it so awful was the niggling idea that she could doubt herself. The idea that she could've made a mistake like that and not seen it for what it was. A girl, seduced into a spider's web, dark and sensual. Honey trap, right?
He'd told her, so many times, over and over, and over and over, to stay away from him, that he would only break her.
And she'd refused to hear it.
He'd told her in no uncertain terms that he didn't think he'd ever be able to work right, that he wasn't some piece of tech that needed tinkering and fixing, that he'd be half a lover at best.
She'd refused to hear that, too. She'd been right, of course. He'd held himself in check for so long, that that first night had been a sensual rediscovery; she'd been able to see it in his eyes. Surprise that he'd ever forgotten it at all. Like it was the first bit of self-assuredness he'd felt since his return. Surprisingly sweet and tender, then a rush of passion, and he'd had her begging. Never—not once—had a lover gotten that response from her stubbornness. Not once.
Best sex she'd ever had.
This new Darcy didn't mind at all that she treasured that memory.
Only three people hadn't chosen to give her some version of a look implying her insanity, dancing with the devil. Natasha. Steve. Tony.
Jane had flat-out asked if she'd become suicidal.
Wanda had searched her out the morning after their first night in bed to check her for her limbs, and Darcy had snapped that she was still alive and had made it out of the lion's den in one piece.
Bucky had laughed, completely unbothered.
But it had bothered her.
If anything, she'd seduced him.
And since she wasn't a HYDRA mole, she could only sit in their apartment and stare, endlessly, out the window.
Another, that afternoon, a political aide to some German politician, missing.
All with at least one—sometimes more—spent Soviet shells in the vicinity of their disappearance, like breadcrumbs.
It ate at her, gnawing at her gut, the idea that he could be reprogrammed just like that, reworked into HYDRA's faithful attendant, while she sat there like a zombie. He was hers. Not theirs. He belonged to her, he belonged to himself, and he'd been mind-raped enough to last a dozen lifetimes. And the knowledge that they'd found a way to do it again, despite SHIELD's best efforts made her headache worse.
It steadily grew in severity until she was laying in the dark one evening, two nights later, when there was a knock at the door.
"You let me in, Darce?" he asked, so softly.
Steve.
Thank all things holy, she shuffled herself to the door and opened it. Tony was flanking him, carrying two bags of takeout from somewhere.
They pushed their way in before she could protest.
Tony flicked on a light, and flinched when he saw her. "Whoa. Kid." He reached into his pocket. "Tunnel vision?"
She nodded.
"Here." He tossed a bottle at her. "Thought you might. Take one. With water, only. Then eat and lie down. You sleeping?"
She nodded as she shuffled to the sink in the kitchen and filled a glass. "That's all I'm doing."
"Tony," Steve started. "She's getting worse. Maybe we should—"
"She's fine." Tony's eyes never left her, and he spoke with stern certainty. "She's just gotta get this bit out of her system."
Steve sighed. "Tony, I'm not playing around. He's not here. That means I'm gonna take care of her for hi—"
"Trust me, Steve. Contrary to popular opinion, I do, in fact, know what I'm doing."
Darcy chugged the water and sat down at the table. "What are you doing?" She squinted in the bright light, wincing, her head throbbing. She didn't want to think too hard about the claim he'd just made. So old-fashioned. So sweet. So awful.
"Makin' sure you eat, doll," Steve said, unloading something.
She flinched sharply and felt her face pinch in physical pain. "Don't—don't call me that. God. Please."
Steve winced. "Sorry." He balled up the bag and tossed it in the trash. "I've…made it clear to Maria that…I refuse to listen to anymore…of her opinion," he said, then, striving, in his Steve Rogers way, to be cordial regardless of his own feelings.
Tony snorted. "Yeah, but your wife called her a bitch to her face."
Darcy stared. "She didn't!"
Tony laughed, that wonderful, loose cackle of his. "She did. Told her if she implied you were a stupid whore ever again, she'd show her the half dozen ways she knows to eviscerate her. You know you pissed off Natasha if you can get a rise like that outta her. You should've seen her face. Hey. No one insinuates that one of our own has been cheaply seduced by the enemy and gets away with it. Besides, Barnes is one of us now. We got a job to do and that's reclaim our own. You don't steal from Tony Stark, thank you very much—" he pointed, frowning. "Where's your rock?"
She tugged it out of her collar and into the light, and it sparkled cheerfully, casting an odd juxtaposition on the current topic. "Where it's been the whole time."
Tony sighed and nodded as he took a seat across from her at the table. "Maria's crazy if she thinks he'd have given you that gorgeous thing in some stupid attempt at seduction. You're a smart kid, you'd have seen right through that."
"I'm the one that approached him," she said, firmly, though she wasn't sure why she felt she had to defend any of it to the two of them. Maybe she just needed to say it out loud.
"Yeah, after I told you not to go in there without an escort," Tony added.
"And he told me to stay away. About a dozen times."
"Doesn't sound like seduction to me," Steve said as he joined them, depositing the food in the center of the table. "Besides…he's…" He hesitated.
Tony's brows rose. "Rogers?"
Steve shrugged. "He's been…himself, lately. Since New Year's. I'd never say it to him, but he's been more the old Bucky. The one I remember. He said that Bucky was dead, but he was wrong. He's in there. He's just…buried."
"Well, not anymore."
Darcy snorted bitterly. "Don't be so sure."
Steve looked up sharply. "That's the thing that doesn't make sense, though. When all that went down at the Triskelion last year, there were no casings, there was no evidence. He was a ghost, Natasha's said it so many times now, I've lost count. He was a ghost story. Deadly aim, no evidence, no witnesses, just a dead body. But now there are suddenly shells?"
"Still no witnesses or other evidence—no bodies, even," Tony pointed out.
"That's sloppy."
"It's gotta be him," Darcy said, staring at all the food. "You guys don't actually expect me to eat, right?" But the pill Tony had given her was working quickly, the pressure in her head easing by the minute.
Tony fixed her with a stern glare. "Eat, Short Stack, or I'm hooking you up. Don't think I won't."
She sighed, and reached for a boxed salad and a plastic fork. "Anything useful from von Strucker?"
Tony scowled, making it clear they'd already discussed this without her.
Steve shook his head. "Not really. The atmosphere in there…it's dark. Even Nat was freaked out. He was babbling, he just kept going on about Operation Paperclip, and the 'world on its knees', and Operation Paperclip, it's Operation Paperclip." He shrugged, dejected. "I dunno where we go from here."
"Sam didn't set eyes on anything weird down in Hell's Kitchen?" she asked. "That's the main area they seemed to keep cornering us on New Year's."
Tony shook his head. "Nothing. And CCTV is too vague, I've got no way of knowing who's who just on the street. And the feed hasn't kicked back anyone in our banks of known HYDRA agents on facial recognition."
Everyone went silent.
Darcy picked at her salad. "If anyone else is killed…I don't think he can come back from that a second time, guys…" She swallowed thickly. "The guilt will be too heavy this time."
Steve's hand found her thigh under the table, but there was nothing erotic about his squeezing fingers, warm near her knee.
She threw herself back in the chair. "He'd just pulled himself from the wreckage of his own mind!" she snapped, angry.
Tony's eyes were sad, and he was picking listlessly himself at his pasta. "I know, Short Stack."
She stood and started pacing. "He was good. He was fine. The nightmares were finally letting him sleep. God, he was normal—we were normal! And he told me after I sat down that day, that he never would be again! He was good!"
Steve sighed. "Darce, sit down before you pass out."
Tony held out a hand. "No. No, let her get it out. She's been a drone while you were gone, just let her talk it out."
"I've been with SHIELD in some capacity long enough to know what evil looks like, and Maria thinks I'd be fooled by his pretty eyes and a good night in bed?!" she snarled. "If I was that stupid, I'd have stayed with my last fucking boyfriend, no matter how many colors he could turn my skin!"
Steve flinched at the mention of Daniel; she'd told him as well, one night on her couch, in front of Star Trek.
"Never once did he ask for excuses or acceptance, never once, even though you could see it in his eyes that he needed it, more than anything else, and mostly from himself. And Maria thinks I was just some op? A mission. Go in, choose the weakest link and fuck her until she trusts you and then—what? What would be the point?!"
"You're not the weakest link, Short Stack. You're the glue."
She stopped, turned, and looked at him. "What?"
Tony shrugged. "You're the glue. You said it yourself: you're the wrangler, you keep us all in line. You do all the little things that none of us think of that would make this all come down around our ears if it wasn't taken care of. You do the hacking, you catalogue the evidence, all that crap. You're the glue."
She came back over and sat down hard, dazed. "You know what's awful—what's the worst?"
Steve set his hand to her knee again. "What, Darce?"
"You can't kill an idea."
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
She laughed bitterly, shaking her head. "I said that to him, on New Year's, when he said I wasn't safe with him, no matter how healed he was. I told him to accept the idea of himself, because you can't kill an idea. And no matter how sure I am of him, Maria, she's…she put it out there, and I can't get it out of my head. No matter how sure I think I am, what if…what if…?"
"What if you've been played?" Tony finished. "What if we all have? By HYDRA? What if he was manipulating all of us and even he didn't know it?"
Steve didn't protest.
Darcy nodded, staring down at her hands. "Yeah. How do you…how do I…?" She bit her lip, the tears rising again, and she let it come, let herself be the other Darcy that Bruce had talked about. It was too late to go back now, it was too late to deny the new person she'd become. She gasped roughly. "Oh, God…" She gasped again, not sure who was wheezing until Steve was pushing back his chair and it was obvious it was her.
"Get her up, get her up," Tony was saying as he stood.
Steve picked her up easily from the chair. "C'mon, sweetie…" he murmured.
Tony cleared a path for them to the couch and shoved the blanket out of the way. "Here. Set her here. Get her legs up."
She couldn't stop the gasping, her pounding heart. The walls were closing in, moving, and the sun had set early, the room going steadily darker as she struggled to pull each breath into her burning chest.
"Get her legs up, here. Bend them." Hands pushed at her back, shoving her gently forward so her head was between her legs. "Just breathe, Short Stack. Just breathe."
"I'm here, Darcy," Steve was murmuring, over and over, clutching one of her hands.
The door opened, then shut. "Panic attack?" another voice asked.
"Big one."
"Maria?"
"Don't—don't go and claw out her eyes, Tash. Just go get Bruce."
The door opened again, then shut, and it was quiet, but for her ragged gasps, the pain in her chest a loud screaming thing all its own, high and sharp in her ears. She gripped a hand to her heart. "I can't—I can't—"
"Just breathe, Short Stack. We're here. Just breathe." A warm hand on her back, creating an echo of her heart in her own body, the even pulse drumming like a gong, and spreading out to her extremities. "Just breathe."
Slowly, the wheezing faded and her pulse slowed, and the fist around her heart eased.
The door opened. "She's on the couch. I came in to a mess, Bruce."
"Alright, let's see what's going on, shall we?"
Neither of her saviors moved.
"Guys, uh. I need to get to…Darcy."
"Right."
"Sorry."
Shifting around, then the cushion beside her shifted and Bruce was there, leaning over her. "Darcy. You hear me?"
She sat up, still breathless, and nodded.
He smiled warmly. "Okay, good. That's good." He slid a hand along her throat, then his hands took up her arm and ghosted along her wrist. The room was still and silent. Then he nodded. "Pulse is steady. A little elevated, but steady. You feeling a little better?"
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"The room stop spinning?"
She nodded.
"That's good. You wanna lay down for me?"
She did so, slowly, with Steve still clutching her other hand, and she saw his pinched and worried face over Bruce's shoulder.
Tony hovered behind the couch, his arm rather uncharacteristically around Natasha's hunched shoulders.
How had Natasha even known to show? Had one of them called her in the chaos, or had she been watching them on a feed?
Bruce fitted her with a cuff and took her blood pressure, nodding. "Okay, her blood pressure's a little low, but it's within range." He looked at her softly. "I need you to eat, okay, Darcy? And water. You need water. Can you do that for me or does Tony need to follow doctor's orders?"
She rolled her eyes, and nodded. "Yes, Sir. I'm not a child."
He smiled. "I know." He stood and put his cuff away. "I'm going to go and get a mild sedative for you, just a small sleeping pill. None of this tossing and turning that you're doing out here on the couch. You're going to go up with Steve and Natasha, you're going to sleep in their bed and get a full eight to ten hours. Then we'll go from there. Okay?"
She scowled. "I don't want to—"
"Shut up, Darcy," Natasha said softly from behind the couch. "It's us or Tony and Pepper, and we all know how Pepper can be when someone doesn't feel well."
Tony pretended to shudder. "Hover, hover," he murmured, a wry grin in place, but his eyes were sad. "You okay, Short Stack? You're scarin' me."
She shrugged. "I'm fine."
Bruce nodded, then left.
Natasha drifted off after him, and Darcy suspected Maria might still have to defend herself at some point in the near future.
Steve sat down again and Tony threw himself over the back of the couch.
She stared up at the ceiling. "I don't know how that happened," she murmured. "That's…that's not me at all."
Tony smirked. "Yeah, that happens when you gain a significant other, you find extra stuff. It's like an obstacle course—or a scavenger hunt. Except, you know, not as fun."
"That's what Bruce said. It changes you."
Steve nodded and reached out to smooth her hair back. "Doesn't make you any less Darcy, Darcy." He smiled.
"I've never had a panic attack before."
Tony snorted. "They're a blast, hey? Welcome to the club!" He waved his hands around, grinning. But his eyes were sad. "If you feel like a burden or like you're being babysat, you can come on over with me and Pep, if you want. Our door's open." He reached down and gave her hand a squeeze.
They finally got her up and she ate, hungrier than she'd been in a while. Tony watched carefully as she took the small pill Bruce brought, having made sure the painkiller he'd given her would have no interaction. She went upstairs with Steve and found Natasha layering the bed with an extra blanket. "Lay down," she ordered with a rueful frown, and she did as she was told. "We might be in and out, but you just sleep. Okay?"
She nodded.
And she did.
(((((((((())))))))))
It was a deep and dreamless sleep, heavy and thick, like her mind was swimming through pea soup, warm but pulling, tugging, dragging her deeper and deeper until she was so far under, she couldn't see the surface.
When she woke, it was daylight.
For a long while, she stared around, waiting for the crushing weight of reality to set in, but it settled like a cool shawl around her shoulders and she could still breathe.
There were soft voices coming from the other room, hushed, the sounds of light cutlery and the smell of coffee.
Oddly clear and awake, she sat up, dropped her feet to the floor and stretched. She pulled herself up and went down the hall—it was a similar setup in Steve and Natasha's old place to their apartment—and came out into the living area.
The two of them were sitting at the table, their chairs pushed close together. Steve was finishing off a piece of toast and Natasha was clutching a cup of coffee and they were huddled together over a tablet, Steve's hand on her thigh.
"…But Operation Paperclip was started after the War, during the Cold War. That was the point, to get all those minds in some form of permanent order so we'd have the advantage over the Soviets," Natasha was saying.
"But what if that's what they wanted us to think?"
"I'm not following. What are you saying, Steve?"
"I dunno. What if…what if Operation Paperclip is older than we thought? What if some of it was swept under the rug or retooled for our use? What if…it doesn't have SHIELD origins?"
The floor creaked in betrayal and Natasha looked up, and gave her a gentle smile. "Hey, sleepyhead."
Steve turned and smiled brightly. "You look better."
She yawned, then sighed as she crossed the room. "Well, now you know what my rock bottom looks like, so anything must be an improvement."
Natasha frowned. "Can't believe one of our own could make an accusation like that."
Steve shook his head. "Be better if we could just locate him. Tony said it's weird, like the chip was removed. But he also said that in his own software, it looks more like its being blocked. Doesn't make any sense."
"How can he be getting two different readings like that?" Darcy asked as she came in and sat down.
Natasha got up immediately and poured a cup of coffee, setting it on the table in front of her with the creamer from the fridge. "Here."
"Thanks."
Steve sighed. "I don't know. Even Tony's stumped. And you know how bad that is."
She snorted. "I'm sure he's threatened to dismantle DUM-E at least a dozen times while I've been gone."
She blinked. It'd been a week. A whole week without him.
"What?" Natasha asked warily, watching her with her spy eyes on.
"Just realized it's been a week, that's all."
Steve sighed again, dejectedly. "I can't stand this."
She leaned against her husband. "You'll find him, Steve. You did it once, you'll do it again."
They continued working and theorizing while Darcy drank her coffee, letting her know, with long faces, that two more had disappeared, an FBI agent and a French foreign national, in Switzerland for some work with the Large Hadron Collider. She sighed, but pushed it back, and by the time she'd finished her coffee, her mind was buzzing again with ideas and work. She stood. "I'm going, uh…to go home and have a shower."
Natasha nodded. "You come get me if you come across anyone gives you a hard time, okay, Darce?"
She nodded, thanked them profusely, Steve gave her a way-too-tight hug, and she slipped away.
She took a shower first, grateful that Tony had obviously straightened things up the night before, and that the food was put away, there were assorted bottles of Perrier for her to drink with a note that said, 'I want these gone by week's end,' and the blankets had all been neatly folded and piled on one end of the couch. Then she dressed and checked her phone.
A text from Jane awaited her, a smiley that said, 'Heard about last night. Don't want to bug you. Call me when you're ready.'
She smiled and checked her voicemails, just to make sure she hadn't missed anything, and regretted it instantly as she stumbled across one that she'd saved, most likely in error, while she'd crossed a busy Manhattan street, one eye on traffic, one on the groceries she hadn't wanted to lug in a cab. Bucky's voice was light and full of humor. 'Just checking in. Let me know when you're home, I'll come pick you up, 'kay, doll?'
Unprepared for it, the sound of his warm voice hit her like a punch to the gut, visceral and burning, and she sat down hard on the couch, clutching the phone in her hand and staring at the far wall.
Then she hit 'repeat'.
'Just checking in. Let me know when you're home, I'll come pick you up, 'kay, doll?'
Then she did it again. '…I'll come pick you up…'
She swallowed, hard, the ache in her chest increasing until it was an acute burn. She pulled her ring out from her collar and studied it. One large two-carat stone, princess cut, flanked by two half-carats on either side, a silver band. He'd mentioned off-handedly something about having it engraved later.
Then she got up and went to work.
Bruce was waiting for her and they talked for a while and he checked her blood pressure again, until finally he was satisfied.
She got right down to it. "What do you know about Operation Paperclip?"
Tony frowned. "Probably about as much as anyone else. Recruited HYDRA scientists to work for SHIELD." He shrugged. "But we all know how that turned out. Largely overseen by Carter, I think. Why?"
She nibbled on her lip. "Nothing. Just…something Steve said. He and Natasha were pouring over those files this morning and Steve was wondering about the truth of the project's origins."
He pulled a face. "Like…?"
She shrugged. "Like, maybe it's older than we thought or didn't have SHIELD origins. Think he's just trying to put the pieces together."
Tony sat back in his chair. "What's he think this has to do with Barnes?"
She shrugged again. "I don't know. Just…the wheels are turning, now that I've had some sleep." She cleared her throat, uncomfortable. "Thanks…for that…by the way. Um…I didn't know…it was that bad." She sat heavily down in her chair.
He smiled kindly in that Tony way he had. "That's usually how it is. You good, now? Or, you know, functioning?" His brows creased in concern.
She took a breath, and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay."
He gestured to his console. "It's an interesting idea. I'm going to poke into our old files and see if there's anything that smells off. You want to, uh…work your magic, see if you can't dig up anything juicy?" He wiggled his eyebrows in a secretive way, implying he wanted her to use her unsanctioned talents at digital break-in.
She smirked conspiratorially. "Whatever you say, boss."
"Hey—what'd I say about you calling me 'boss'?"
They set to it, but, of course, were met with more roadblocks. Tony found nothing but confirmation of everything he'd told her, and no matter where Darcy hacked, it seemed there was nothing more to be found. All the official records stated that Operation Paperclip had been unofficially started as Operation Overcast after victory on the German front in 1945, been officially declared by Truman as Operation Paperclip a little after that, and had ended as of 1990. Nothing before. Nothing after.
Frustrated, they parted for the evening and Darcy went home to shower again and actually eat a good meal.
She passed out on the couch under three blankets after setting her Starkphone alarm and didn't wake once.
By the time her alarm went off and she pulled herself back up, the coffee she'd programmed the night before was done and had warmed the apartment with the smell of espresso. She had a cup and went to dress.
When she returned to pack her purse, she noticed her phone blinking and found a text she hadn't had before. Smirking to herself at what was surely a worried Jane, she opened it—and frowned in confusion.
N30.12.419
W86.31.208
She blinked, then backed out of the message, before going back in the long way, through her messaging app. 'Unknown', it said, under the received heading, but she tapped it again, and it opened on that and nothing else.
N30.12.419
W86.31.208
She sat down, backed out of it one more time, and repeated it, staring at the 'Unknown' under the received heading, where all the others were marked. 'Clint' said one, with the heading of 'You want me to beat her up?' 'Jane' was still there, waiting to be answered. 'Unknown'. It stared right back at her.
And a niggling went up her spine and lodged at the back of her neck, a tiny thought, a little whispering voice that had her heart jumping prematurely with a spark of something she didn't want to name for fear of the jinx.
She slid on her cardigan over her pencil skirt and blouse, grabbed her purse, and was gone, dialing Steve as she got on the elevator. But she bit her lip as Maria followed her in and stood there beside her, making no eye contact in the reflective glass of the doors.
Steve answered on the third ring. "Darcy? Is something wrong?"
She couldn't have been more glad in that moment had Tony appeared with a gallon of ice cream. But she had to be careful.
When they'd first become friends, they'd been pretty buddy-buddy and she'd saved him from numerous occasions of women throwing themselves at him. Stark functions were always lots of fun, of course, for everyone but him, as Stark liked to invite lots of rich men, who, in turn, arrived with beautiful women on their arms—women clearly keen on a roll in the hay with Captain America.
As a joke one night, on her couch, they'd come up with a code, so that every time a function rolled around, if Steve got corned by a pushy supermodel, she could call him from the other side of the room and not make it obvious that he needed rescuing.
So as Maria determinedly scowled—hard—at the floor, Darcy smirked and jumped right to it, hoping he'd still remember.
"Yeah, was thinking about going out to get breakfast. Question: you like spicy?"
IE: Something weird's going on this morning, and it requires immediate action.
He fumbled for a moment as he worked it in his head. "Um, yeah. Yeah. Spicy works. That deli on fourth?"
IE: Where are we meeting?
"The garage?" It was the only other word for 'shop', and she needed him to figure that off the cuff; she needed Tony in on this too.
"Sure. Sounds good."
"Bye." She tapped out of the call just in time for JARVIS to let her off and she darted quickly out and into Tony's office, where he was already tapping away.
"Nothing yet on Paperclip," he was saying over his shoulder, but Darcy reached out and spun his chair around.
"Something weird came through on my phone just now," she said.
He frowned. "'Weird'? Just now, as in just now?"
She flapped a hand. "While I was getting dressed, like fifteen minutes ago."
Steve blew in. "Good thing I figured out that 'garage' is a more normal term for 'shop' nowadays," he said as he shut the door behind him. "Was Maria in the elevator with you?"
She nodded.
"Well? What's up?"
"This." She brought up the text on her phone, hit a few buttons, flicked the screen and it popped up on JARVIS display in the middle of the room, the numbers large and blue on the digital hologram.
Tony frowned. "Are those—"
"Coordinates," Steve finished, recognizing them immediately and approaching them to study them further, a frown on his face, too. "Those are coordinates."
"They are?" Darcy asked. "I wasn't sure what the hell to make of 'em. I must've gone in and out of the message about three times trying to figure it out."
"Huh," Tony grunted.
"You got these on your phone?" Steve asked, turning to face her. "On your phone—in a text?"
She nodded, her heart pounding. "Phone can't identify a sender, it just comes up 'Unknown'."
Tony looked up and he and Steve shared a look. "You don't think…?"
Steve shrugged. "What do they call them—the throwaway phones?"
"Burners," Darcy answered, beginning to pace. "They're untraceable."
They all looked at each other.
Then Tony sprang into action, spinning around to put the coordinates into his system, humming to himself in a much brighter fashion than Darcy thought he'd done anything in days. He frowned, hit some buttons. He typed in the numbers. Then he frowned some more.
JARVIS triangulated for a few seconds, then spoke up, showing them a map onscreen of the New York area, dragged down nearer and nearer until they were looking at a strip of what looked like abandoned warehouses. Then he spoke. "The coordinates given appear to belong to this warehouse in—"
"SOHO." Steve's face was passive in surprise as he approached the display and stared at it hard. "Oh, my God."
"What?" Tony asked.
"I know that warehouse."
Darcy stared. "That's not where you finally…"
"That's where Sam and I finally found him. We tracked him along the east coast before the trail led us here. I remember Sam theorizing that he was heading home, that his memories were leading him back to Brooklyn, but when we got here a lead dropped us at that complex. That warehouse, exactly. That was where he'd holed up."
Darcy's heart was pounding. "Wait—those missing people—did they…did they go missing from their homes? Where were they all last seen?" An idea was jumbling around in her head, a terrible, awful, wonderful idea that she wasn't sure she wanted to stop to examine in any minute detail.
Now Tony's face went slack in surprise as the same thing happened to him. "New York, tri-state area. Uh…" He snapped his fingers and turned to click away again, bringing up the list of names. "Uh, I didn't put that together, but you're right, even the ones that were supposed to be somewhere else, there were unanswered questions about events they'd been invited to in New York, like they'd all decided to take random trips, all during the same week. They were all in New York."
Again, they all looked at each other for one long moment.
Finally, Darcy worked up the courage to say it out loud. "You think he's…leading us there…like, sending a message?" It was too, too much to hope for, the idea that he was alright, the idea that maybe he was at least alright enough to be sending them clandestine signals.
But Tony was already working. "If you guys go now, it'll be less obvious. I can stay here and man the tech, fend off the vultures in case—" He glanced through the window to the hallway—"In case someone comes looking for you."
Steve and Darcy looked at each other. Steve looked like he wanted to argue about taking her into potential danger. After all, this could be a giant trap.
Tony sighed. "Go!"
Steve flinched. "Go. Change into dark jeans, if you've got them, a dark sweater, it's gotta be warm enough, because if you want to move if you need to, you're going to need to wear a light coat. Your dark Nikes should be fine. Bring nothing else but your phone. I'll bring the earpieces. Down here in ten."
"Right."
They split up.
Darcy was in such a rush, she fumbled most of what she picked up, changing in record time, and pulling her hair up in a high pony at the back of her head. She'd slid on her Nikes and was sliding her Starkphone in her back pocket, her hands shaking, when she paused.
She pulled at the chain around her throat and stared at her ring. She should leave it, just in case. It was ridiculously expensive, and she didn't want to lose it or damage it. She'd never be able to live with herself, the grief of it.
She went to unclasp it. But she couldn't.
Biting her lip, she tucked it back in, under her top, and trapped it there against her heart again, slipping out and down the hall and into the elevator without being spotted.
When she got back to Tony's shop, Steve was pulling an ammo vest out of the closet and pulling the Velcro apart. "Here," he said, handing it blindly to her over his shoulder.
She slipped it on and Tony made sure it was tight while Steve did the same with his own.
"I'll be here," Tony said. "Manning the post, and in your ear. Hope I don't talk it off."
"You're already talkin' it off, Stark," Steve quipped as he slipped the tiny earpiece in and Darcy followed suit.
She grinned. It felt foreign on her mouth.
But she didn't have time to wonder what that meant as they were shunted out the door by their resident inventor. "Careful in the halls so you don't get spotted. Take the Land Rover." He pressed keys into Steve's palm and slammed the door behind them.
(((((((((())))))))))
"Now you've got to remember to keep both eyes open, Darce," Steve was saying as he drove like a madman through New York.
Darcy rolled her eyes. "Steve, I've had training. You do know that, right?"
He sighed and signaled a left, hooking around the corner and ignoring the horn of a coming taxi. "Yeah, I know. But—"
"And what basic training I haven't had, Bucky's covered. I can shoot at least well enough to defend myself, I've usually got my taser, I'm pretty good at hand-to-hand, and I'm not an idiot."
He gave her a look. "I know you're not an—"
"So just calm down."
He sighed again, his brow furrowing as he stared ahead. "I know, I know. It's just…"
She bit her lip as she stared out the window. Don't say it, don't say it…Please, don't say it, Steve, please don't say it…
"It's just…when we were kids, things were different. You looked out for each other. It's not…really like that anymore, not in the same way. And…"
She swallowed. "Steve—"
"You're his girl."
She sighed.
"You're his girl. And I know that's, like, archaic terminology. But there it is. You're his girl. And he's not here to take care of you, so I'm supposed to step in. And we're friends, we've been friends since before I ever found him. And I care about you. So…"
She drew a breath. "Steve, you don't have to give me the whole spiel, okay? I get it."
He nodded. "Okay. Dropping it."
Ten minutes later, and he'd pulled over and parked at the curb. Darcy got out and rechecked the secure on her vest, drifting a hand nervously over the knife she'd slid into the tiny slip, one of Bucky's. A knife she was less confident in, but she hadn't bothered asking for a gun and she hadn't thought herself capable of sneaking one of Bucky's out of the building. "So how are we doing this?"
Steve surveyed the busy street. "We're going to case the block real quick and then go in. And you're going to stay behind me, okay?"
She rolled her eyes again. "Got it, Captain."
He winced. "Let's go."
They made it around the block in record time, the two of them moving their heads in continual surveillance, and Darcy was smugly glad she kept up with Steve's long strides.
Finally they found the door at the back. It was padlocked, but Steve just scoffed before bringing the edge of his shield down on it and busting the loop clean off, sending the lock clattering to the cold cement. With a grimace, he pushed the huge door open just a few feet and slid in.
It really was just a huge, empty, abandoned warehouse, one giant room still stacked with boxes and containing a single interior room for an office.
Darcy's pulse jumped in her throat. She'd have made a comment about how exciting it was to be on the beat with Captain America himself if she wasn't so nervous.
Steve began forward, his pace sure but ready and she fell into step half a stride behind him.
She pulled the lid off one of the boxes, but found it to be empty; likely they'd been left waiting by some shipping company that had since closed its doors, or downsized. She bit her lip and toed after him to catch up.
Some of the high windows had been shattered, likely by kids or gangs, making contests out of throwing bottles or rocks, and sure enough, a few large rocks littered the floor just a few yards away. Luckily, it was broad daylight, or they likely wouldn't be able to see very well. The bulbs in the overhead lights were mostly broken and the one that still remained looked iffy at best.
Finally, they reached the office door. This one had a very new looking padlock on it, again, the kind that was heavy duty and would require a key. Steve took care of that in short order too.
She was about to comment on how uneventful being on the beat really was, when he pushed the door open—
And they were met with the frightened gazes of half a dozen people, one of them sitting in the dusty chair behind the desk and attempting to determine exactly where they were by thumbing through a large yellow pages.
The woman nearest them gasped and jumped when she saw them.
But Darcy had frozen in the doorway, staring at them each in turn. Business suits, sports jackets, glasses and expensive clothing. Scientists, rich businessmen, and the like. "Breadcrumbs," she murmured, her heart pounding.
Steve turned a confused gaze on her. "What, Darcy?"
She swallowed, but the tears were already rising, clogging her throat. "Breadcrumbs. The shells. The coordinates. They were breadcrumbs."
Steve blinked at her for a moment, his mind turning, before he stared at them all in turn as well.
"Breadcrumbs, Steve."
His eyes widened as he put the pieces together. "He didn't kill them."
She couldn't stop the tears from rolling down her face, relief like she'd never felt before rising up in a wave and carrying her away, and she sat down hard on the nearest dusty, empty shelf, her knees failing her. "He didn't kill them. He left us breadcrumbs, Steve. He didn't kill them!"
Darcy Lewis didn't cry. But she cried anyway.
(((((((((())))))))))
Steve talked to them all for over an hour, one by one, the door sealed shut behind them for security. It was clear that he'd made strides in his ridiculous ability to soak up other languages, because Darcy had absolutely no idea what most of them were saying.
She sat on her shelf and collected herself, her mind turning over what this meant and where they were supposed to go from here.
Finally he came over and crouched in front of her. "You okay?" He set a hand on her knee.
She nodded. "Better now. What did they have to say?"
He turned and watched a few of them. "All mostly the same. Man in a mask took them. Brought them here. Barely spoke, but the man in the back, there?" He pointed to a gray-haired and hard-looking gentleman at the desk. "He's Tkenko. Said he got a few words out of him in Russian. What sounds like it amounts to an apology and a promise to get them out when he could."
She sighed. "Okay. And the rest of them?"
"Describe an unbelievably fast man of medium height, with shoulder length brown hair and, I quote, 'Pretty, blue eyes'."
She crumpled again, her face in her hands, and she couldn't stop the shivering. "What else?"
"Apparently, he arrives with food every morning, comes in, checks them all visually, doesn't speak a word, then leaves again. We've already missed him today."
"But he's in the city.
He shrugged. "In some capacity, yes."
She nodded, and bit her lip.
Just then, another man spoke up, closer to them, thin and dark-haired with a fantastic goatee. "Il etait telle anguish dans ses yeux," he murmured, his eyes downcast.
Steve nodded, looking sad.
Darcy jumped. "What? What was that?"
Steve sighed. "He said that there was anguish in his eyes."
She sighed. "God…"
Steve stood and pulled out his phone, hitting a few buttons while Darcy stared at them all again, trying to reconcile herself with what might be going on, the uncertainty gnawing at her gut. Where was he all day? And how was he hiding these people, these people he was clearly supposed to have killed?
"Yeah, Stark, it's me. Thought you were going to be in our ears?" He held the phone up and hit the speaker button.
"Yeah, I don't know what happened. I'm having some weird tech problems over here, ever since you left. You think…you don't think Maria…?"
Steve frowned. "Maybe she got suspicious."
"I dunno. Anyway, sorry. But how goes it? Anything interesting?"
"You could say that."
"Ooh, do tell, Captain Yankee Doodle, don't leave a guy hangin'."
"We found them."
"…That's disturbingly ambiguous, Rogers. Found who and in what shape?"
"All of them, Stark, all the missing higher-ups. Alive. In this warehouse, hidden away. And apparently they're being taken care of with the promise that they'll be released as soon as possible." His voice was tense.
There was a long moment of silence, which was a rarity for Tony. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and reserved. "You okay, Short Stack?"
She sighed, reaching up to rub at the back of her head again, that same headache blooming. "Fine. I guess. Where do we go from here? Can we get them out without setting off the alarm? I mean, what if someone finds out that not only are these people not dead, but that someone freed them? I mean, he's already broken their rules, what if—"
"You let us figure that part out, okay, Short Stack? I'm already sending Sam in a truck to come pick you up. Steve-o, I'm on my way, with backup."
She opened her mouth to argue, but then realized she didn't really care. This whole drama was seriously draining her, and just this excursion into the field with Steve was too much. She needed to sleep and completely absorb what had happened.
So when Sam walked in and gallantly offered his arm with an impish grin, she took it gratefully.
She also didn't argue when he pulled off in front of a theater and commanded her inside.
"You takin' me on a date, Wilson?"
"Sure am," he shot back, easy and relaxed, as he slid his card over the counter.
She smirked. She should've figured he'd jump at any chance to get out of the convoluted SHIELD crap that was bound to come up at an operation like smuggling those poor people to safety. Sam was too relaxed for all that, was more the action type guy than the cloak and dagger sort. "I should warn ya, I already got a fella," she teased, looping her hand back around his elbow as they went past the ticket counter and through the lobby.
Sam chuckled and shrugged. "Well, maybe you outta tell him he's fallin' down on the job, 'cause someone's gotta keep this lady pleased, and he sure ain't doin' it right now."
She cackled a laugh before she even whispered a chuckle and the sound echoed in the long, dim hallway.
Sam stared at her, then raised a fist in victory. "Yes. That record goes to me. First to make Darcy laugh in a week. I am writing that down somewhere and you are going to sign it, little lady."
She sighed, glancing up at the titles as they passed screen after screen. "Whatcha making me sit through? It better not be some car movie crap."
He laughed and shook his head. "Just an innocent comedy, nothing trigger-y." He tugged her into the next one and they climbed the stairs and sat down. "Besides, you deserve a distraction. Tony's busy and Steve can be pretty uptight with some of the 1940's shit. You need someone your own era with no strings. Here I am." He gave her a cute little nod as he ushered her into a seat and followed her down the aisle.
She sat down and immediately put her feet up on the chair in front of her. It was a largely empty theater.
"Listen," he began. "I'm not gonna bore you with all the shit you've probably already heard. But I'm serious: no one actually thinks you've been seduced. I mean, it sounds crazy, but it's been too long—no one doubts Barnes mind anymore, and what you and Steve just found outta be proof. And hey—nobody seduces Darcy Lewis. You're too shrewd for any of that shit."
She blushed and was glad for the dim lighting.
"You guys ever do this? Y'know, dinner and a movie?" He waved a hand vaguely.
She really wanted to ask about Maria, but didn't want to spoil the mood. "He's suggested it a few times now, but I won't let up until he's all caught up." She smirked.
"Aw!" he threw his head back. "You are diabolical. You won't let that poor guy pick and choose, it's gotta pertain to his pop culture education?"
She snickered. "No, no, he can pick and choose, but it can't be anything brand new. He's got too much ground to cover yet, there would be no context."
He sighed. "You got a point."
"He's had his eye on the new Pirates of the Caribbean, though, so that's my goal, catch up by then. And, Game of Thrones doesn't count."
He shook his head. "Of course not."
She slapped him on the shoulder.
"Just listen, though. We are gonna find our way outta this. He's gonna come back to you. And we're all gonna go back to normal, working our way systematically through the HYDRA shit-storm. Got it?"
She took a deep breath, and nodded.
He was true to his word—it was an innocent comedy. Turned out, it was something with Bruce Willis, where he had to work his way across the country, looking for his runaway police partner. Turned out, it was all a case of mistaken identity, and Channing Tatum had only looked like the patsy for a drug cartel.
That didn't stop the ensuing chase from being ridiculously hilarious, and Darcy didn't think she'd laughed that hard in weeks.
When they got back, she was infinitely more relaxed, she was actually hungry, and she decided to go with it after he dropped her outside their door. She ate, she showered, she sat down on the couch and put on an episode of Magnum PI.
Of course, she realized later that the particular episode she watched might've been a bad choice, and wondered, after she turned the lights off, if she shouldn't have one of his guns beside her at night. There was no telling, after all, what HYDRA was capable of.
She got up, popped an Advil at her worsening headache, and dug through his bag until she found his SIG. She'd trained with it with him, and she knew how it worked, but it had no safety and she knew it would land her on her ass, so she held it delicately, testing it in her hand for a moment. Then she shook her head at her own foolishness, set it on the coffee table, and fell asleep.
The next day was eventful. Tony relayed that all the poor kidnapping victims had been taken to a safe house and debriefed, one by one, and were resting comfortably with Natasha and Maria. He snickered at the implied high tension between the two.
So it fell to her to type up the enormous report on their op, and it was back to the usual hurry up and wait while Tony went back into battle with Drone 13.
She was feeling a little better overall, relieved, of course, that no one had been killed at her fiance's hand. But it didn't help that he had so blatantly broken their rules, and, consequently, she found herself worrying hard over that.
It must've shown on her face, because Tony shooed her out at her regular time, threw himself back into battle, and that was that.
She followed the same routine, but she hesitated—like she always did—after her shower, standing in the bedroom, staring at the bed. She still hadn't made it, hadn't had the strength, and she frowned at the turned back covers in her bathrobe, wondering if she should just suck it up and attempt a real night's sleep in an actual bed rather than folded up like a pretzel on the couch, making for a very stiff and sore morning.
She retrieved the SIG, checked the clip, and set it on her bedside table, then straightened the covers and checked the time. It was early yet—just after eleven—so she crawled in with Harry Potter and disappeared into another world.
Finally, after midnight, she couldn't manage to keep her eyes open anymore, and she admitted defeat, shutting off the light and settling in. She curled in on herself in an attempt to banish the cold, reminding herself it was all psychological, and finally slipped under.
She had a strange dream, in which she was wandering the halls of the Tower, all suspiciously empty. She didn't see a soul, at least not until Bucky peered around a corner at her, and he was wearing his mask and those goggles—with the notch from Natasha's bullet on one lens. Of course, by the time she'd lunged around the corner, he was gone, just his foot visible as he darted away. And JARVIS began talking her in circles, almost as though the program was doing it on purpose, until finally she was lost in her own home. Her dream self punched clean through the wall, but the wall merely cracked and crumbled until there was a soft, soggy hole. And Bucky was gone. The wall continued to crackle—
She woke with a start, but the crackling sound didn't stop. In fact, she realized, as she lay there, that it was coming from their apartment—the front door to be exact.
Her heart broke into a sprint, and she sat up as quickly and quietly as possible, one hand taking up the SIG and the other wrapping, ready, around the lamp switch. She didn't bother trying to figure out how someone from HYDRA had gained access to the Tower, but it hardly mattered.
How appropriate—and lucky—that she'd thought to sleep with his SIG.
She jumped slightly as the crackling stopped, not daring to call out to JARVIS, and tightened her hand around the gun, folding her fingers until it sat comfortably without constricting her aim. He'd told her that her aim wasn't bad, considering she'd never held a gun before, but those words from the world's premiere sniper had sounded pretty good at the time. Now, she was less than sure. But it was better than nothing and short range was at least a little easier to work with.
If Lukin thought he was about to get the jump on a cute little woman, he was about to have a fucking SIG in his goddamn face.
The shadow moved easily into the room, quick and fluid, and she held her breath and flicked the switch on the lamp—
She let a small shriek escape as she centered the gun across the room, the sight level with Bucky's heart.