Chapter Six: Supply Run

"Anything?"

Darcy looked up from her position on the couch to where Steve had appeared at the foot of it. "Nothing." She waved the TV's remote control lazily. "Over a thousand channels, and not a clue about what he's up to."

It'd been mostly the same for the month they'd been in hiding. They took it in turns to flick through TV stations, looking for information about whatever Loki was doing, under the pretense that it was a useful task and not an excuse to laze around. While some things had changed—the UN no longer existed, with all former heads of state now reporting to a central agency who were working on a unified penal code—the news broadcasts were very careful not to mention Loki. Or any protests, and they were all convinced that somewhere protests had happened. He hadn't appeared on camera again, though all edicts were being issued with his name attached.

None of it tied in with what they knew about Loki: he didn't want power for power's sake, but for the attention and glory it would bring him. He favored extravagant speeches that stroked his own ego. Shying away from the media was not his M.O. It made them all unnerved and suspicious—Natasha especially.

"Aren't you needed in the lab?" Steve asked.

"Nah. They're fully coffee'd up, and at this point they're just running random experiments based on the data they've extracted. The machines records the results for them, so they don't need me." Tony wasn't used to having a human assistant and had automatically built a program that did 90% of anything Darcy could.

"We could fit another training session in before dinner."

"Still waiting for my muscles to forgive me after the last one. Thanks for the offer though. I think there's a Man vs Food marathon on, if you want to watch that."

"It's either that or paint the hallway again." He sank onto the other couch. Out of boredom, since their daily tasks—cook, clean up, patrol the perimeter—were limited, they'd taken to decorating the facility, covering up the stark white walls with warmer colors. Darcy's room was now plastered in posters, her cot swathed in the fuzziest blankets Walmart had to offer, and there was also a shiny espresso machine on the kitchen counter. Tony had insisted on it. When he got into a pissing match with Steve over breakfast one morning, Pepper had insisted on it too. "You aren't knitting."

When she was bored—which was a lot, lately—Darcy knit. She'd made several cardigans, hats and pairs of socks, and was working her way up to another blanket. "I'm out of yarn. It's on the list for my grocery trip later: yarn, coffee beans, gas for the generator. If you need something, the list is on the refrigerator." They'd settled into three shopping trips a week, trying to avoid hitting the same place more than once a week, and for the last few Darcy had gone on her own. She dutifully flat-ironed her hair everytime and donned a low-cut top.

When she couldn't put it off anymore, Darcy dragged her carcass up and back to her room, preparing for the trip. On her way through the communal area she picked up the shopping list and waved at Clint, who'd taken her place on the couch. When she reached the garage she sprayed the instant cobwebs over the door, like Natasha had shown her, and set off in the Jeep.

At least this got her out of the facility and into the real world: the others were cooped up, stuck patrolling the grounds when it was their turn. Cabin fever had long since set in, so they stuck to their own territories as much as they could. Steve spent his time in the training area, Tony stuck to the lab, Pepper was often found in the kitchen organizing meal plans and color schemes. Natasha was like a ghost, and Clint spent most of his time in the house overground, getting as high as he could to survey the land around them. Darcy's spot, when not in the lab or at the espresso machine, was here on the couch.

Jane hadn't gone outside since they'd arrived. In fact, she didn't leave the lab much, only coming out for meals and sleeping. Tony refused to let her eat in the lab, and it wasn't safe for her sleep there either, though if she'd found a way to skip the two, she'd do it. Jane had always been focused, the real world a distant second to whatever her brilliant mind was working away at, but this was something else. She didn't talk about Thor, and when someone mentioned his name she only talked about how great it would be to see him when they finished the bridge. The glassy-eyed combination of denial and determination would have made Darcy haul her to see a doctor, except that was out of the question.

The best thing about the Jeep? The radio. Music was a blessing given the ever-present hush of the facility—minus the occasional explosion from the lab. Here, without Natasha present to roll her eyes, she could crank up pop songs she would ordinarily have hated and sing along at full blast.

She headed for one of the stores they'd only been to once, just off a busy road leading into downtown Albany. Only when she parked did she rummage in her purse for the cell phone Natasha had entrusted her with. She'd been forbidden from turning it on until when she was well away from the facility, as a means of contacting them if something went wrong. There was exactly one number saved in the memory, for the phone's twin, which Natasha carried with her at all times. They were burners, whatever that meant, and supposedly untrackable according to Tony, once he'd spent half an hour fiddling with their source code. Natasha was the one insisting on caution, keeping it turned off when within a twenty mile radius of their hideout.

If Darcy was being honest, she lingered in the craft aisle, but no one else was around. She picked out a new pattern book and ten balls of yarn. She did grab three different kinds of coffee bean, so that nobody would complain she hadn't got their favorite. At least she knew Tony was bankrolling all this spending, and didn't feel too bad about the regular fraud she was committing.

Her visit to the second store was much the same, though she bought less yarn. It was when she left that things went to hell.

Despite not receiving any super-spy training, even Darcy could tell when someone was tailing her. Or maybe it wasn't so much that another car followed her as she pulled out of the parking lot, as the type of car. SHIELD-issue, nearly guaranteed, down to the tinted glass.

"Shit."

Her hands shook on the steering wheel as she paused, waiting for a break in the flow of traffic to exit the lot. The glass meant she couldn't see who was in the car, but it was probably more than one person. Hell, even if it was one person, she was screwed. She was unarmed and no match for anyone who'd gone through the training SHIELD required of its agents.

Keep calm. What would Natasha do?

Not lead them back to the facility, for a start. She needed to act like she hadn't even seen them. She was Darcy Lewis. All their intel about her would say she had no skills to speak of. There was no way could she outsmart them. Well, she had desperation on her side, and no way was she getting delivered to Loki.

She turned in the wrong direction, heading further into Albany, brainstorming ways to throw them off her tail. She wasn't a great driver and though there were plenty of SUVs around, no other Jeeps, so she stuck out on the road. The one piece of luck she had on her side was that it was rush hour, commuters clogging the roads, and dusk would make it harder for them to watch her.

Up ahead, a crowded strip mall lined the road, and she waited for the last minute to pull across the lane and make the turning. While they went sailing past her, the beeping of horns telling her they were causing traffic chaos while trying to turn around, she strode towards a drugstore as confidently as she could manage.

The place was busy enough she could lose herself in the crowd. She grabbed a pack of hair ties and a hoodie from a rack of merchandise for some movie that had just been released. She almost made the mistake of paying for them, but since she was already on the lam, she might as well add shoplifting to her rap sheet. In the customer bathroom, she changed as quickly as she could: plaiting her hair and pulling the hoodie on over her t shirt. Then she shoved the cell phone, credit card and ID into her pocket, leaving her purse behind.

Two grey-suited men were in the drugstore when she emerged and she crept down another aisle, making a break for the door while they were talking to the cashier. Outside, she almost headed back to the Jeep, but saw another Grey Suit across the lot, keeping watch. She'd have to leave it behind for now. Instead, she turned on her heel, crossing the pavement back towards the road and the line of people waiting for a bus. The small amount of cash she had would be enough to pay the fare into Albany. They could wait for her to go back to the Jeep until it turned to rust.

It should have been that easy. Relief was already surging through her body, carried along on adrenaline, as she joined the waiting passengers, shuffling into the heart of the group. She allowed herself one backwards glance—casual, uninterested—as the city bus pulled up, and saw him.

Loki. In the parking lot, beside the Jeep, his sharp gaze searching the area for her.


Did I mention I like cliffhangers? I like cliffhangers.