The next morning, painfully early and snowing, Darcy was waiting in the POS ford Taurus in front of a quilt shop in Topeka Kansas. She watched as the frost on the windshield slowly crept back as the defroster sputtered in the background filling the car with the smell of exhaust.
She wasn't sure how long Coluson has been inside. Being half asleep really took the edge off waiting. A few dozes off and a head bob later the driver side door opened, letting in a rush of unwelcome freezing air.
Her partner settled in to the driver's seat beside her, bundled in a heavy black jacket and matching scarf. The shiner on his left eye finishes off the matching ensemble but what caught her attention was the fresh coffee cup in his hand.
"Where did you get that?" She asks, nodding towards the cup.
Coluson took a second to sip his coffee before making a show of looking out the car window to the sign above the quilt shop. "Stitch On Quilts.' Apparently. Ready?"
"Wait wait, what was that all about? Why did we stop at a quilting shop at four am and why didn't I get a cup of this magical 'stitch on quilts' coffee?"
"Two reasons." He answered as he put the car in to reverse to back on to the main street. "First, you don't get to go to the debriefings. Only I get to go to the debriefings and from there, I'll decide what you need to know and no debriefing, no coffee. Plus" he added, pausing to take another drink, "it was long walk back to the car and I needed to keep my trigger hand free."
"You're right handed, you were carrying the coffee in your right hand." She retorted, fighting a yawn.
Coluson shot her a look as he turned back on to the freeway. "Fine, I just didn't want to carry two."
~.~
The car ride was long and silent. As Darcy fumbled with her visor to try and block out the glare of the rising sun, Coluson's deep voice finally broke the silence.
"Henry Camp got away. Vision wasn't able to find him after he left the trailer park. They think he's heading back towards L.A to join up with a group calling themselves the 'Wreaking Crew'. We have agents on the ground looking for them but as of now, no luck. There's been an increase of Asgardian radiation lately which is making it hard to trace exact locations."
Darcy digested the information in silence, sinking lower in her seat to try and take advantage of the square of shade afforded by the visor. Once she was finally comfortable, she looked over at her partner. "If Camp is in L.A, why are we heading east?"
"We've been assigned to a recovery mission. Davenport, Iowa. A piece of space debris, possibly alien in origin has been reported as having crashed landed there about an hour ago."
That perked her up and for the first time that day, she smiled. "We - me and you - are going to recover an alien something that crash landed on Earth? Like when SHEILD recovered Thor's hammer?"
Coluson nodded. "More or less. Our mission is to get in, recover or contain until recovery is possible, depending on the scope. What we're after is registering as a fairly small object but is giving off an quantum signature equivalent to mass five times that of the sun."
Grin widening, finally feeling like part of the group, Darcy looked back at the road. "Awesome."
~.~
It is bitterly cold in Iowa. The kind of cold that slices through clothing and settles in around the bone. Darcy can't shake it, can't cover up enough to escape it. Three hours of walking through the outskirts of the city has taught her all she can do is endure it. In silence. Her partner isn't big on small talk. Coluson seems unfazed by the sub-arctic temperatures. She mentally adds that to the list she's making.
The mental one that argues Coluson might be a robot.
One thing is very clear right off the bat. Iowa is very much not New Mexico and this is very much not the adventure she had been expecting.
So far, it's a lot of trudging through snow piled streets and a whole lot of nothing.
Occasionally, Coluson would stop, pull out a small hand held device that Darcy couldn't catch a good look at, and change direction.
"We should be coming up on it soon. The energy signal is localized.." He glances at her, "Means what we're looking for should be about the size of -' He paused, thinking for an object to compare it to. "An eight track."
"An 'eight track'? Ha ha, very funny."
"Is a 'MyPod' still a thing?"
"It's 'iPod' and yes, remember, you stole mine back in New Mexico."
"That wasn't stealing." He corrected. "For one, we gave it back. For another, we're SHIELD. Deal with it."
A soft whirring sound cut off the conversation and Coluson looked down at the flashing screen on the device. "Should be around here." He said, taking a second to consider their surroundings. "With the amount of snow that's fallen since the object landed, we're going to have to call in a blanket team. Corner off the area, melt off all this snow."
"Or would could ask them." Darcy said with a tilt of her hooded head. Standing off the road, hugging as near to a wall as possible for protection from the wind were two men in heavy snow jackets and hats.
Coluson gave her an incredulous look. "After we call in the team, we can detain them for questioning. Or," he continued as he fished his phone out of his incredibly big jacket pockets. "We ignore them all together. I like that one, let's go with it."
"Come on, let's ask. Think about it. Two guys, standing out here in the freezing cold. They must have seen something or maybe they even picked it up! What would stop them from walking off while we're waiting for SHEILD to sweep in and clear out all this snow? It's a major waste of our time, not to mention tax payers money! It will take three seconds to ask and hey, it's free! No need to bleed us tax paying folks dry."
"Trouble with the IRS?" He asked, his fingers dancing over the touch screen of his phone.
"I'll have you know I pay my taxes and on time, almost!"
Coluson gave her an infuriating smile as he lifted the phone to talk and pointedly turned his back on her.
Feeling like she had been goaded in to action, Darcy stomped through the snow towards the men.
At first they didn't notice her, giving her time to inspect them more closely. The taller one appeared to be holding something in his hands. The other shot a nervous glance towards his companion before scanning the streets. He catch sight of Darcy as she stumbled on to the sidewalk and nudged his friend, who quickly closed fumbled to put whatever he was holding away.
Everything about them screamed no good.
And that meant it was time for Darcy to step up and start acting like a member of SHEILD. Darcy pulled herself up and walked towards the guys like she meant business. "I'd like to ask you gentlemen a few questions."
"Oh shit!" One of the men yelled.
What happened next was pure reflex. Bad guy ran past her, Darcy pursued.
"Hey! You!" She shouted to the retreating men. "Stop!"
Her words had the opposite effect. With an ease that seemed unnatural through all the snow and driving wind, they sprinted away in different directions. Darcy didn't lose a beat. Her attention was all for the taller badie, the one that probably had a space rock in his pocket.
"Oh no you don't." She yelled, tugging the tiny firearm free from the hostler under her jacket. The safety button was on - She was fairly certain Coluson had glued the button in place last night after he took all her ammo - but it still looked threatening as hell and that was the point.
The jerk ahead of her glanced back once to confirm she was still there and preceded to use his freakishly long legs to propel himself over a giant snow drift. Darcy slid to a stop, dodging around the pile and running to the side, trying to get to a cleared path on the road. By the time she found a walking path that wasn't five feet deep in the white stuff, the figure in black was a distant thought.
And that's when Darcy got mad. She wasn't in great shape but she was in decent shape but more than that, she knew that back there, Coluson was watching her and what she lacked in lung capacity, she made up for in pride.
Darcy ran.
She leapt over the icy patches on the pavement, digging in deep with her snow shoes where she was able. Her boots pounded the road like they had something to prove and gave chase with everything she had. Ahead of her, the man in black had slowed down, probably thinking he had left her far behind. By the time he heard her approach and turned to look, she was on him.
With a graceless tackle, Darcy's one hundred and thirty five pounds met his six-five two and some spare change frame like a crystal glass thrown at a brick wall. If the tall creep wouldn't have lost his footing on the pavement, Darcy never would have brought him down. Point one for the snow.
"You are so under arrest!" She tried to scream, dragging in a few desperate breaths.
"You crazy witch!" He groaned, "I think you broke my back!"
"… are you crying?" She asked in disbelief.
"No." Sniffed the man, who now that Darcy got a closer look couldn't have been more than twenty. "Here, god just take it." He threw what he had been holding in his hand at her. "I wasn't buying it, it's not even mine."
Darcy rocked back on her heels, looking from the small bag on the ground back to the punk before her. "Is that weed?" She asked deadpan. "You ass!" She smacked him across his chest, drawing another whine from him. "Why the hell did you run?"
"I don't know? Cause you were chasing me?" He looked at her uncertainly. "You aren't a cop, are you?"
"God!" She yelled, rolling back on to her feet. "Perfect, just perfect. I should arrest you."
"Um, you're not going to?" He asked, sounding hopeful.
Growling, Darcy rolled her eyes and started huffing her way back to her partner, completely ignoring the teen that couldn't seem to believe his good luck.
By the time she made it back to Coluson, he was directing a few other suits that had started to erect plastic median dividers while other's dressed in coveralls were cornering off the road with construction cones.
He didn't spare her a glance as she came to stand next to him. "Agent Lewis, you're just in time. One of the main pipelines burst last night from the drop in temperature. Nothing major. The city is blocking off this street for a few hours while they access the pipes under it. Should be up and good to go in," He glanced at his phone, "forty five minutes." Now he looked over at her. "Walk with me."
Moving past a row of orange cones, he started to move back towards their Lincoln. "Let me be frank. Some people would see your rash nature as a glaring character flaw in our line of work. And they'd be right. You're going to see a lot of things - things that are going to change you forever. You're going to work with people and be witness to events that will challenge every inch of your moral fabric. On a day to day basis, you are going to be pushed to the very brink of your limits and often, you're going to be pushed past them. In a job like ours, we don't get to have egos, that's reserved for the superheroes. We don't get to make mistakes because mistakes get noticed and we are only effective if we aren't noticed."
"Wow so not selling this." Darcy grumbled, tugging her jacket on tighter.
"What we do get," He continued as if she hadn't spoken, "what we have that is absolutely essential, is the drive to carry on being spectacular even when no one is ever going to know it. What I'm trying to say," Coluson stopped at the hood of the car, turning to face her, "Is that sometimes, a hooded figure on the street is a super villain and sometimes it's just a kid selling some pot. Temper that drive, let me help you learn how to focus it and I promise you… when the time comes for you to encounter a super villain, you will make SHEILD proud, even if you're the only one that ever knows it."
Darcy feels an odd mixture of shame and a desire to be this shadow ninja he thinks she can be and settles for a slightly lopsided smile. "That was the nicest backhanded comment anyone has ever given me."
"Don't get use to it."
~.~
Several gallons of melted snow later and a small blob of…something is uncovered. It's lackluster and tarnished. It looks a little like a rock that caught fire and melted and Darcy suffers her second disappointment when it and not the impressive hammer of thunder she had been picturing sends Coluson's device singing. Their team of specialists have it contained within minutes in a box made of an alien material that her partner gives her the name for but won't repeat when she asks.
They watch as it's loaded in to a SHEILD van and carted off to head quarters.
No one else seemed to notice and Darcy writes it off to her sleep deprivation, but Coluson looks worried.
Three days later, the first attempt is made on Jane Foster's life.