The Innocent Bystander

Week 5

Darcy rocked back and forth on the heels of her boots as the elevator made its way up. This had become routine. She'd get out of bed, take a ten-minute shower, dress, jump in the elevator, and…

"Lewis! Hey, I made pancakes," Clint greeted her as she stepped out into the kitchen. He was wearing an apron that had a cartoon of a chef on it. While Darcy knew on an intellectual level that this man could kill, had killed, and would not hesitate to kill again in the proper circumstances, on an emotional level within the past several weeks she'd learned to associate him only with the same jovial vivaciousness her own uncle had emanated throughout her childhood when he'd come over on the weekends and teach her how to bake muffins. Clint, in Darcy's mind, would always be the Pancake Guy in the Goofy Apron, archery abilities be damned.

"Hey, man! Tell me they've got blueberries."

"They've got blueberries," Natasha replied curtly from her place at the edge of the bar, eyes never leaving the newspaper. She sipped from her black coffee. Darcy had quickly learned not to take offense at Natasha's demeanor; she was abrupt and stoic but if she'd truly disliked Darcy, then Darcy figured she'd probably already be dead.

"Sick boots, Lewis," Clint said as he dropped a plate at her designated place. Darcy grinned. They had spike studs on the toes and she really did appreciate that Clint noticed details like that. In her mind, that was the coolest thing about assassins; they were observant, even about her fashion choices.

"I could get some made for you with poison on the tips. They'd be useful in a fight," Natasha added in a conversational tone.

"Or, hey, we could get her some with a hidden blade in the front," Clint chirped back, stirring up the last of the batter.

"The only thing I'd be missing is that bowler hat from Goldfinger that cuts off heads," Darcy quipped brightly. Clint and Natasha both shrugged; they'd only been half-joking.

It was almost okay that she now lied to her family regularly and slept in the same building as a giant green monster. This had become the thing that brought Darcy from the edge of depression: this kitchen, with its smell of pancakes and bacon and coffee, and the two assassins in pajamas with their irreverent sense of humor and penchant for absurd conversation.

What Darcy wasn't familiar with was the fourth cup of coffee on the bar. "Is there somebody else here?" she jutted her head out at the cup as she mixed half-and-half into her own Miss Piggy mug.

Natasha glanced up briefly. "Steve. He just got back from a mission."

"…Steve?" Darcy tried not to get too excited. "Steve as in…Rogers?" Clint and Natasha shared a look—Clint was smirking, but Natasha's expression spoke of some exasperation.

"Yes, Steve Rogers."

"Captain America, the one and only," Clint grinned, finally taking his seat on a stool next to Darcy.

"What's he like?"

"Ask him yourself," Natasha said mildly as a harried and groggy figure stumbled into the room from the elevator. The all-American jaw was as chiseled in real life as it had looked to Darcy in news reels from the 40's.

"Ask me what, ma'am?" His voice was gravelly with the remnants of sleep.

Ma'am, Darcy thought gleefully. He actually says 'ma'amSteve made a beeline for his coffee but stopped short as he caught Darcy's unfamiliar Cheshire grin.

"Hello there," he blinked. His eyes scanned over what he could see of her from the opposite side of the bar—a woman in black glasses with black hair and green eyes, wearing a blazer, inexplicably, over a Nirvana shirt.

"Hi!" was Darcy's intelligent response.

She knew she probably looked like an idiot, staring at him in idolization, but he was Captain Freaking America in the flesh.

"I'm Steve. It's a pleasure," he smiled genially, holding out his hand.

Darcy took it, grin never leaving her face. As an afterthought, she finally said, "Darcy. That's uh…my name." Steve smiled again and gingerly took his hand back (Darcy realized she'd forgotten to let go.)

The silence stretched on a minute as Steve didn't sit and Darcy said nothing else. "Well," Clint drawled out, clearly amused at the awkwardness. Natasha snorted and went back to reading the paper.

"Why is it that I never saw any of you guys during my first few weeks here?" Darcy said after a moment. "I mean, I didn't even know Capt—Steve," she corrected herself quickly, "lived in this building."

Natasha smiled at this, but still didn't look up from her paper. "It's probably because we all sleep on the sixty-ninth floor."

Darcy balked. "No."

"Yes," Clint smiled back, mouthful of pancake.

"So, Tony not only made a phallic building, but he put all the superheroes on the sixty-ninth floor?" Darcy clarified.

Clint nodded, chuckling. Steve, on the other hand, looked profoundly uncomfortable.

"We tried explaining the joke to Steve…," Natasha started to say, but Steve interrupted, his face turning red.

"And I still don't get it," he insisted. This only made Clint laugh more.

The morning proceeded more or less normally after that, with everyone eating in relative silence. After all, none of them were exactly morning people, barring Natasha (she seemed to be perfectly awake and aware regardless of the time of day or how much sleep she'd gotten the night before.)

Suddenly, the woman in question made a huffing sound, her eyes narrowing at the newspaper in her hands. Darcy noticed her jaw tighten. "TV," Natasha ordered.

Clint took the initiative and grabbed the remote. "News?" She gave a curt nod in the affirmative.

The kitchen adjoined a large living room. The television was set up perpendicular to a massive window overlooking a breathtaking view of the city, miles of New York architecture. As the TV powered up, Natasha left her seat, coffee, and paper and made her way into the living area. She stood behind one of the three couches, her shoulders squared. Clint and Steve both made to join her. Hesitating, Darcy glanced into the room then back at her pancakes longingly. Shrugging resignedly, she slowly rose from her seat and followed.

As they all stood, the voice of a female news journalist gave a report on recent comments made by a candidate for Prime Minister in France. They had come in halfway through her report, so Darcy didn't catch the context—that is, until the channel played a clip of a well-dressed woman giving remarks at a rally. Her eyes were narrow, her nose pointed, her eyebrows plucked into thin lines, and her brown hair slicked back into a tight bun at the base of her neck.

"So-called superheroes," the translation dubbed over her voice, "are the real danger to the civilized world. Whether they are powered or trained, they are unnatural. They are the new nuclear bombs—if nuclear bombs had their own agendas, desires, and ulterior motives. Governments who use such volatile agents cannot be trusted because they cannot possibly control these creatures. When I am elected, I promise passage of a resolution in the United Nations to ban the use of superhuman forces!"

The TV went black. Darcy saw that Clint was clutching the remote. Natasha stood preternaturally still.

"Creatures?" she spoke with chilling clarity in the echoing silence of the room. Darcy watched the back of her red head, not daring to move.

"Unnatural," Clint added, still gripping the remote with white knuckles.

Steve sighed and padded, barefoot, back to the kitchen. He shook his head, but said nothing.

Eventually, they all found their way back to their seats, eating in tense silence.

At long last, Darcy couldn't hold it in anymore. "I'd like to see her save New York City," she griped into her Miss Piggy mug. To her right, she was proud to see Natasha slightly relax and almost smile.

8:54AM

Darcy was glad she'd negotiated for a later work time in the lab because she much preferred having breakfast with her assassins (when she'd begun to think of them as "hers," she couldn't say, but she absolutely thought of them with a possessive joy.) The only downside was that she was shit at time management. She was practically running down the white halls, her arms packed with the notes she'd taken last night ("homework" Tony had called it, but it was really just another transcription of the Mystery Scientist's newest stack of chicken-scrawled notes.)

As she approached the huge glass doors of the lab, she recognized the black-clad figure of Director Nick Fury—with whom she'd counted herself lucky enough to have only met once prior—engaged in what was clearly an argument with Tony Stark.

Darcy slowed her steps, catching her breath. From Tony's face and posture, she could guess this was not the sort of conversation she wanted to walk in on. She knew that face; it was his cutting-remark face. And the way he was standing looked like her stepbrother when he was considering throwing a punch at someone who had called their mother something nasty. Director Fury was facing away from the door, so she could draw no conclusions about his state of mind. His shoulders were perpetually tense beneath the black leather, so his posture told her nothing. They made an interesting picture—Tony, in a barefoot fighter's stance in his white t-shirt and jeans versus Fury, unflinching in black leather.

After what looked to be a particularly fuck-you comment from Tony, Darcy saw Fury's head incline and he made to move on his heel. Panicking, she power-walked to the other side of the hall and turned her back toward the glass. She pretended to go over some of her notes, doing to best to look as if she hadn't just been peering in on their argument. In doing so, she unwittingly allowed herself to be rammed in the back by the opening door—why Fury had used that exit instead of the automatic sliding door further down the hall was beyond her. She tumbled forward, shocked, papers flying from her hands and her glasses clattering to the floor. Bastard probably knew I was eaves-watching and wanted to teach me a lesson. She cursed and got to her knees, reaching out to gather all the notes she'd written the night before. But as she squinted all around the floor, she realized she couldn't see her glasses anywhere. "Shit."

"Interesting choice in eyewear." Darcy slowly raised her eyes to the dark figure looming over her, holding her glasses in his hand. The owner of the deep voice made no gesture to indicate he had plans to return them to her. Darcy was surprised he'd stuck around; she thought he must have already made his way down the hall in his Dr. No get-up after he'd hit her with the door. With a flare of annoyance, she found herself responding with more snark than perhaps was smart to use with one's boss's boss.

"I kind of need them," she bit back, climbing to her feet. "You know…to see? What, did you think everyone who works here just magically has 20/20 vision?" She paused abruptly at his raised eyebrow…over his unseeing eye. Her own eyes widened when it dawned on her. Backpedal like the Dickens, man. Stat. "I…just realized how insensitive that sounded. You know, to say…to you…since…you know." She was floundering. She'd just made a sarcastic comment about eyesight to a dude who only had one working eye. Darcy watched him closely as she swallowed, fearing the worst. Instead, the corner of his mouth twitched as if he struggled to hold back a smirk and he let the eyebrow drop.

"I was referring, Miss Lewis, to the color of the frames."

This only served to further confuse her. The glasses were black on the outside with grape inner trimming. "Uh…I like purple?" He hummed and handed the glasses back to her. She'd squinted through their entire conversation, but even with her best attempts to focus her eyesight she couldn't sort out the expression on Fury's face. Putting the glasses on didn't help in that regard. Even as she watched him walk away, black leather duster fanning out in the wake of his stride, she still couldn't properly categorize that look in his eyes. If she didn't know any better, she'd call it kindness. And it was fucking unsettling.

Trying to shrug off the feeling that Fury had just analyzed her very soul, Darcy stepped into the lab. Tony was bent over the table on the upper portion of the room, the muscles in his arms working out the tension of their own accord. He was breathing heavily.

"…Need some space?" she asked gently. He glanced over his shoulder.

"It's not that I need space. You're a sight for sore eyes, Darce," he heaved a sigh, "but I have some things I've got to work on alone today."

"With the chamber?" she asked, walking to the other side of the table to set the papers down in order to give him more breathing room. He nodded.

"Yeah, with the chamber. It…has a weakness in the system. Fury," he said the name with spite, "brought it to my attention after Jarvis glitched the other day."

"What kind of weakness?" Darcy didn't entirely know what she was asking since she didn't even know what the chamber was supposed to do, but if it was bothering Tony, she wanted to give him a compassionate ear. Well, that and I'm a busy-body, she admitted to herself.

Tony straightened up and ran his fingers through his already-messy hair, gesturing vaguely at the holographic blueprints on the table. "It looks like if we lose power it could disable the chamber's cooling system and the all-important goo could overheat."

"And if that happens…?"

"If that happens, the building is, well..."

"Toast?" Darcy supplied.

"Yeah."

Darcy gnawed at her bottom lip.

A moment later, they both heard the glass door slide open. Jane strolled in, her face in a manual of some kind, chewing on her thumbnail and muttering something about wormholes. Darcy gave Tony her most supportive, understanding smile. He grimly smiled back, then gave her a wink that said, Go on, go help your lunatic boss.

Darcy spent the rest of her day with Jane talking about how to build a new bridge between realms. Thor had only come to Earth at the cost of some Asgardian resource that was in short supply and had since been incapable of staying. Jane loved the man to death and wanted to be able to see him again. Moreover, it was in everyone's best interest to, in Darcy's own words, "make inter-realm travel a thing again," just in case Earth needed Asgardian aid in another Loki-like situation. Jane had some new ideas, but it would require some major changes to her current designs.

All the while they worked and discussed, Tony labored away in the upper level, his attention never leaving the blueprints.

Friday, 12:43PM

Later that week, Tony announced to Darcy that the fix for the weakness was almost complete. He said all that was left was to find a way to get the cylinders cool "beyond freeing them in the event of an emergency."

"Maybe you could get them to self-eject."

"Great idea," Tony scoffed, "We'll get them to eject from the walls inside the chamber so they can crack open and kill everyone. Problem solved."

Darcy snorted and went back to the blueprints. "Sarcastic bastard," she muttered.

A buzzing sound came from behind her, followed by a mild curse. Darcy looked up from the holographs; on the level below, Jane was nursing a small wound on her thumb.

"Did the equipment fight back again?" she called down.

"It's stubborn," Jane replied, pouting.

Tony coughed. "That woman is allergic to electricity," he said under his breath, eyebrows raised at Darcy.

"Oh contraire," she grinned, standing, "electricity loves her. It keeps coming back for more."

"Obviously," he smiled crookedly.

Darcy made her way down the steps, asking each scientist if they were up for coffee. Over the past week, she'd created another routine: Starbucks runs.

Fifteen minutes later, she was walking back into Stark Tower bearing a tray of coffee cups. As soon as she entered the building, however, she realized that something was very, very wrong.

In fact, as she turned back to glance out the glass doors, she realized that none of the guards usually present were in their places. She'd been able to get into the front doors without anyone giving her a sideways glance. She turned back to the lobby where she stood.

"Uh…Jarvis? Where is everybody?"

No response.

Holy fuck; not again.

The lights were still on, but clearly Jarvis had been disabled. Darcy sighed. At least if the lights were still on, the chamber goo was still being cooled. Thank God for small mercies.

She considered making her way to the stairs, but that was a hell of a long way up. She considered her options. I could leave the building? Probably a good idea, since the guards just up and left… There was an obvious possibility that Darcy didn't want to consider—that the guards hadn't just abandoned their posts willy-nilly and rather had been forced to defend the tower in another, more proactive way. Darcy told herself there was no reason to panic. Except she was panicking. She didn't want to leave the tower until she knew Jane was safe…

It was at that moment she heard footsteps down the hall on the right. The lobby was huge and it echoed every little sound—even the sound of people creeping. Whoever was walking didn't want to be heard at all. Darcy's heartbeat began to pound. She had no where to hide. And even if there was someplace for her to crawl into, they'd hear her heavy footfalls.

Maybe they're just SHIELD agents.

No such luck. Around the bend came two men dressed in black wielding large guns. Darcy was frozen in place. One of the shooters aimed at her—and smiled.

Fuck this. Darcy dropped the tray of coffee, the hot liquid spraying across the marble floor, and took off running for the opposite wall. At least there she might have a chance of getting to the stairwell without getting riddled with bullets.

She heard laughter behind her from both men. Somehow, their laughter sounded foreign—like it was accented. What are they laughing at? The woman running for her life?

Darcy got the joke when she reached the stairwell. They'd let her make it there just so they could see her response when the door didn't open. Just like the doors in the hallway when she'd been running from the Hulk, this door wouldn't open without Jarvis's say-so. And Jarvis wasn't online. So she was screwed.

Darcy slowly turned to face her to-be killers. They grinned back at her, dark figures with guns that seemed relatively small in the large expanse of a bright room with a vaulted ceiling. Of all the emotions to be feeling in the moment before death, the ones that gripped Darcy seemed rather inappropriate. This would make a good photograph. And: That mercenary would actually be kind of cute if he weren't a cold-blooded killer. And, finally: I'm going to come back as a ghost and haunt Thor, Fury, and Stark—in that order—for the shit they pulled me and Jane into.

Her next thought, as the "cute" mercenary raised his gun to end her life, was one of confusion.

Those thuds were familiar.

Both men adopted identical expressions of bewilderment. Something large was coming down the same hall they'd just sneaked through. And it sounded like it was picking up speed.

They turned away from their trapped prey to face the new, unknown threat. Darcy grinned at their backs. They had no idea…

Around the bend came something—someone—that she'd only seen once before as a huge smear of green, but was now clearly defined as an oversized man…or something like it. The two mercenaries started to breathe heavily, frantic. In a language Darcy didn't recognize, the ugly one gave the cute one an order, and both men released a barrage of gunfire. Darcy didn't know why, but she screamed.

"NO! Don't you dare fucking hurt him!" She started to run forward—to do what, she didn't know yet—but stopped short when she saw that the bullets were effortlessly bouncing off the Hulk's skin. Several of the deflected bullets came close to her and she jumped back to avoid becoming collateral damage. One light blew out on the ceiling. One of the shooters got hit in the leg and cursed violently in the same foreign language as before. The other shooter ran out of bullets. He started to run for the exit, but the Hulk immediately intercepted him in one short strike and thrashed him against the wall. He hit the floor and didn't move.

Darcy stared, wide-eyed, as the second shooter began to limp in the opposite direction, ditching his gun on the floor. As the Hulk took another, slower step toward him, the man began to speak rapidly—probably begging. Darcy didn't look as he, too, was flung against the wall furthest from her.

When she opened her eyes, the Hulk was staring at her. She backed up even further against the door that wouldn't open, trying the doorknob with her hand. No such luck.

It took three strides forward, coming up to her. Closer now, she saw he was frothing at the mouth. His skin was dirty, his hair wild. He breathed in great gasps, as if he were in a constant state of losing control.

His shadow spilled over her; they were nearly toe-to-toe. She had to bend her head all the way back to look into his eyes. And then…there.

His eyes were green, obviously. And many times the size of her own. But, they were also… Darcy couldn't find a name for it. Suddenly, the fear melted. She wasn't gripping at the doorknob anymore. She was tilting her head to the side, trying to get a better look at the giant green man standing over her. She didn't even question that he had yet to kill her; she was too engrossed in that look in his eyes. He seemed so... Tortured. That's the word. The poor guy looks tortured.

Mindlessly, she reached out for his face, even knowing that she'd have to be Mr. Fantastic to reach up that high. But the movement seemed to startle him; he suddenly jerked back, grunting. Rather than be jolted into reason, Darcy found the action aggravating and followed him. For every half-step he took, she took four of her own. His facial expression spoke volumes; she confused him, maybe even scared him, and he couldn't figure out why the hell she wasn't afraid of him. He kept grunting and jerking away as if he didn't want to be touched. And she kept pressing forward, her hand stretched out to him.

Somehow—Darcy was so entranced she wasn't thinking much about the bizarre nature of the entire situation—he was shrinking in size. It was slow at first, but eventually Darcy absentmindedly took it in stride (literally) and used the opportunity to grab at his wrist. He tried in vain to pull away, gently it seemed, and broke eye contact. She huffed, her hand barely being able to hold onto his large wrist, even as he was shrinking; he didn't want to lose her touch but he wanted to tell himself he was putting up a fight.

"Oh, stop running away!" she found herself scolding him, "You know, you're acting like a coward, you big green thug!" He didn't respond. The grunting had stopped altogether.

It seemed he'd finally reached human-size—still several inches taller than her. The green began to fade from his complexion. He ended up as a nude man (what was left of some over-stretched shorts fell limply to his feet) with dirt smeared across his pale skin, a thick line of chest hair, and curls tangled in a mop against his forehead. He swayed on his feet.

Darcy saw the tell-tale signs of impending unconsciousness, and she reached her arms out. This time he couldn't pull away. He collapsed almost immediately, eyes rolling into the back of his head.

His weight was more than Darcy could really hold. They both sank to the floor, his head lolling against her shoulder. He smelled of sweat and, oddly, ink.

Darcy considered her options. There could be more shooter dudes in the building.

"Miss Lewis? Are you…?" Jarvis's voice was a welcome one.

Calmly, Darcy smiled. "Hey, Jarv. Uh, I'm okay, but do you know where this guy's room is?"

"Indeed. It is several floors above your own."

"Groovy. Do you think if I can get him to the elevators, you could send us on up?"

In response, the Jarvis opened the elevator doors. Darcy smiled by way of thanks and began the laborious process of dragging the naked man to the elevator. This was a bad day to wear a dress and heels, she thought. She stopped briefly to remove the shoes, then took hold of his torso to yet again haul his dead weight toward the opening.

Once inside the lift, Jarvis sent them up. Darcy watched as the numbers went higher and higher until they reached 70. He lived, it seemed, in the floor above the other Avengers.

The doors opened.

"All clear, right Jarv?"

"The floor is safe, Darcy." He was back to calling her Darcy. She supposed that was a good sign.

She stood and dragged the mystery man carefully from the elevator to the only door she could see on the entire floor other than the stairwell opening at the far end of the hall.

"This must be it," she muttered to the unconscious man in her arms. She heard Jarvis unlock the door for her.

She reached out for the knob and pushed it open; the door was heavier than it looked. As she stepped in, she saw how thick the walls were from the side and wondered what it was reinforced with. She shrugged. Must be his place.

It was sparsely decorated. Sparsely as in not decorated. The walls were high and white. The window was large with a beautiful view of the city. The only furniture in the front living room was a single, brown couch in the center. A plain brown rug lay in front of it on top of the white carpeting.

She dragged him in, but as she glanced at the couch, she couldn't find it in her to lift him again, so she instead rested his body against it.

Darcy stood, preparing to leave, when the throw blanket that sat on one seat caught her attention. She eyed it for a moment, considering. Finally making up her mind, she picked it up and carefully unfolded it. She stared briefly at the Indian designs on the blanket, quietly admiring the clearly handmade workmanship. Sighing, she leaned down to drape it over his body. For whatever reason, it felt like the right thing to do.

As Darcy left the room and shut the door behind her, she heard (and felt) her cell phone ring from within her bra. The ringtone was "She Blinded Me with Science" so Darcy already knew who was calling. She tugged it out. The title "BOSS LADY" with a photo of Jane asleep at her desk back in New Mexico appeared on her screen.

"Hey."

"Darcy?" came Jane's frantic voice. "Are you okay? The building got infiltrated by something called HYDRA. All the other non-combat agents got put on lockdown but you were on a coffee run so I wasn't sure if you weren't in the building or if you got to safety in time or if you were even ALIVE—"

"Hey! Hey," Darcy cooed, "It's okay. I'm okay. I'll be at the lab in a minute, alright?"

She got into the elevator and the doors closed to the seventieth floor.