Darcy woke to warmth and comfort. She stretched luxuriously, the kind of stretch only afforded when waking without an alarm and nothing pressing to be done that day. The mattress was soft, and the duvet cozy, and since she couldn't think of anything that needed her attention she decided that she would stay in bed a bit longer. Hell, maybe the whole day. She'd pull up a book on her phone, or find her iPod, or just go back to sleep. Really, the possibilities were endless.
The bed beside her shifted suddenly, and then there was a sharp poke in her side. Darcy shot up like a doll on a spring, the covers flying back from her face to reveal a pretty middle aged woman watching her over a pair of spectacles.
"Are you going to sleep all day or what?"
Darcy frowned. "Mum? What are you doing in my bed?"
"Your bed?" her mother echoed, eyebrows going up. She closed the book in her hands and put it down on her legs. "Take a good look around you, little miss."
Still frowning, Darcy did as she was told. The familiar lavender walls, dark wood furniture and tacky little angle ornaments were all hail marks of her mother's room, and Darcy felt the unconscious tension bleed from her shoulders.
"Oh." She felt a little foolish.
"Oh, indeed," her mother said, a smile twitching up the corner of her mouth. "Now, are you ready to get up?"
Darcy shrugged and slid back down into the comforters, inhaling the clean scent of freshly laundered sheets, her mother's perfume, and soap. It was a scent straight out of her childhood, and for once Darcy was glad that Clara Lewis was so very resistant to change.
"I suppose that answers my question," her mother muttered, picking up her book once more. "It's a good thing you don't have school today."
"Mmmhmm," Darcy hummed her agreement and scooted closer to her mother's warm body, snuggling up until her cheek was pressed to her mother's hip.
"Good heavens, Darcy Lewis, what has gotten into you? First you crawl into my bed in the middle of the night and now you're clinging like a monkey." The covers were pulled back and a hand gently placed on her head, brushing the hair off of her face. "Are you all right?"
"M'fine," Darcy mumbled, shrugging at the same time.
"You're far too old to be snuggling with your mother."
Darcy grunted and pressed her face closer to her mother, feeling the softness of her body. "Never too old," she insisted.
If asked, Darcy would not have been able to give a reason, but she just couldn't bear the thought of getting out of the bed. All she wanted to do was spend the day next to her mother, feeling her warmth and inhaling her scent.
"Darcy." Her mother's tone was no longer playful, but concerned, and Darcy tipped her head back to look into her face. Blue eyes, the same shape and shade as her own, stared back at her, a frown between the brow and creases in the corners.
"I'm fine," Darcy told her. "I promise. I just want to stay here, okay?"
Her mother didn't answer immediately. She watched her daughter with a keenness that only the parent of a mutant child could have, her sharp eyes roving over Darcy's face, looking for a lie. But Darcy had nothing to hide from her mother, she wasn't sneaking out of the house, or stealing spoonfuls of Nutella from the jar, so she stared back and waited for her mother to see the truth of her words.
"Okay, then," her mother finally said, fingers resuming their stroking in Darcy's thick hair. "But we can't lay in bed all day, you know."
Darcy turned and pressed her face against her mother again. "No rules against it."
"Common decency forbids it, Darcy Lewis."
Darcy smiled, closing her eyes. "Pooey."
Fingers tapped gently on her head. "Don't sass your mother."
Her smile widened as she listened to her mother pick up her book again and search for her page. The gentle scrape of paper against paper was another childhood familiarity. Her mother always had books lying around, though Darcy had once learned the heard way that not all of them were child appropriate.
"Remember that time I found one of your smut books?"
Her mother gasped, and the book came down sharply on Darcy's head. "I do not read smut!"
"Ow! That's child abuse!" Darcy said laughingly, turning to look up at her unimpressed mother.
"It's a soft cover." She held the book aloft, one finger marking her place.
"Still abuse," Darcy pointed out, eyes zeroing in on the cover. "And that's smut!" She pointed at the picture of the woman on the cover, her breasts barely contained while being bent over the arm of a handsome man in a peasant shirt.
"It's romance," her mother insisted. "You're too young to know the difference."
"Is there sex in it?"
She watched with glee as her mother's cheeks pinked ever so slightly. "Perhaps," was the grudging reply.
Darcy grinned gleefully. "Then it's smut!"
Her mother slapped her with the book again, this time on the shoulder. "It is not!"
"Sure, sure," Darcy conceded, though her grin belied her words and her mother knew it. With a sigh, she opened her book again and proceeded to ignore her daughter.
Darcy wrapped her arm around her mother's waist and closed her eyes. It felt like a long, long time since they had spent any quality time together. Without a father in her life, and a big ol' secret that she couldn't really share with anyone, her mother was her closest confidant. Even when Darcy was pissed off at her, as daughters are wont to be with their mothers, Clara Lewis was always the port that Darcy sought in a storm.
"Darcy."
"Mmm?"
"Darcy, open your eyes."
It wasn't her mother's voice anymore. Alarm shot through her and her eyes snapped open. The first thing she saw was a pair of legs encased in black trousers next to her mother's bed. Darcy pushed herself upright in a flash, looking up into the kindly face of a bald, white man.
"What the fuck are you doing here!?" she shrieked.
"Calm yourself, Darcy, I'm not here to hurt you," he said, his voice patient and soft.
"Calm myself?!" she echoed, her voice taking on a hysterical edge. She drew herself up to her knees, opened her mouth to start screaming for help, when she caught sight of her mother out of the corner of her eyes.
Clara Lewis continued to read calmly, her eyes flickering over the words on the paper, her fingers slowly turning the page as she finished with it.
"I…I…"
Darcy stared at her mother, uncomprehending. There was no way her mother couldn't have heard, or seen, the man in her room, and yet she showed no signs of being aware.
"It's time to wake up now, Darcy," the man told her.
She looked back at him, her mouth slightly parted in shock. He watched her with calm, grey-green eyes, and an air of infinite patience.
"What's happening?" she whispered, fear tingeing her words.
"You've had a traumatic experience," he explained. "Your mind is trying to compensate for that."
Darcy frowned at him. "That's not an answer. What kind of traumatic experience?"
"See for yourself." He gestured with one hand towards her mother's old television, a 'boob tube' she called it. It sat on the chest of drawers opposite her mother's bed, and as Darcy looked toward it, it flickered to life.
On the screen, she watched herself as a man with a metal arm grabbed her by the throat, holding her up and pinning her body against a wall.
"Is that…?"
"Yes." She looked up at the man, but he was watching the TV screen. "That's you."
Darcy watched in horrified fascination as her face turned an alarming shade of red, and the furniture in the room began to rattle as if an earthquake had struck. TV Darcy reached out feebly, trying to make contact with the man's skin, but her arms were much shorter than his and her fingertips scrabbled uselessly against his shirt.
"Am I dead?" She whispered the words, not sure if she wanted an answer. Part of her wanted to look away, sure that she was watching her own death, but the other part—the greater part—was sickly fascinated.
"No."
"No?" That broke her concentration on the TV. She looked to the man, meeting his eyes. "Are you sure? Because that looks pretty much like dying."
"Watch," he instructed, gesturing once again to the TV.
Darcy obeyed. The furniture in the room continued to rattle until it began to slide across the floor, seemingly of its own volition. She knew better, of course. A side table smashed up against a wall, splintering into a dozen pieces and Darcy was mildly impressed with her TV self. She'd never been able to get things to move with such speed and force before. Of course, dying could have something to do with that. She was just about to open her mouth again when the bed launched itself across the room.
"Damn."
The bald man made a non-committal noise, a quiet hum in the back of his throat as they watched. The man with the metal arm dropped her TV self and Darcy heard her body make a horrible wheezing sound that stuttered and choked.
She watched in shock as the man looked down at her, and then dropped to his knees, reaching out to roll her over. One hand, his flesh and bone one, went to her neck but it wasn't to finish the job. He pressed two fingers against her jugular, checking for a pulse.
"Darcy."
Her name left his lips on a gust of breath, almost too quiet to hear, but she felt it in her gut. She brought one hand up to cradle her throat. Her chest felt tight, as if there were too much air in her lungs, and her heart began to pound.
The man looked around him, his eyes more than a little wild.
"HEL—"
His voice was cut off in a crash. Plaster flew everywhere, kicking up a cloud of dust but her view was not diminished. She could clearly see a red and gold robot burst through the wall and drop kick the man kneeling next to her body as if he were nothing more than an old pigskin.
"Tony Stark," the bald man beside her explained.
"I think I knew that," Darcy murmured, watching as the metal armed man's head snapped back. His body followed, almost as an after thought, and he crashed into the overturned bed. Stark—Iron Man, she told herself—watched him for a second, waiting for him to get up, before he turned away from the metal armed man and scooped her limp body into his own metal arms.
His faceplate flipped back, revealing panicked features. "JARVIS!" he screamed.
"Medical 2, sir. Surgery on standby," came the reply. Darcy frowned at the sound of it. It wasn't as cool and polished as she'd been expecting.
"You are well liked, Darcy Lewis," the man told her, turning away from the TV. The screen flickered and died as he did. "Tony Stark is a man of action, and those actions tend to speak louder than his words ever could."
"You're telling me that Tony Stark cares about me?" she asked, confused.
He nodded. "More than he will probably ever admit."
"I…I'm confused," she admitted. "In more ways than one."
The man smiled. "That's quite all right. Understandable after all that has occurred."
"That all happened?" Darcy asked, gesturing at the dark TV.
"It did," he agreed. "Which is why you must wake up. There are many people anxiously awaiting to see you return to yourself."
"Return?"
"Hiding in your own mind is a dangerous habit to indulge in," he told her.
Darcy stared at him blankly for a moment. "You're not helping with the whole confusion bit."
He smiled again, wider this time, and far more genuine. "I shall explain, as soon as you wake." Holding out his hand to her, palm up, he asked, "Will you come with me, Darcy?"
She hesitated instinctively. Glancing back at her mother, still calmly reading, Darcy reached out to touch her arm. "Go where?"
"She's not real, Darcy." His voice was kind, but there was pity in it that she didn't like. "Not anymore."
Inexplicably, tears rapidly welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, hot and wet. She didn't feel sad, exactly, but there was the echo of a hollow ache, right behind her breastbone, making her feel like she couldn't quite catch her breath.
"Of course she's real," she whispered, more to herself than to him, her hand still on her mother's forearm. She could feel the warmth and life just beneath her mother's skin, a sure sign of her realness.
"You know better, Darcy."
His hand came down on her shoulder, and she shifted away from it. It felt wrong, a signifier of terrible things to come. Somehow, she knew that her time with her mother was coming to an end, and she wasn't ready.
"I don't want to." Her words came out hoarse and choked.
"I know."
He reached out again, gripping her shoulder firmly. "I'm sorry," he told her, and then he yanked her backwards.
It was like falling in a dream, total Inception style. One second she was staring longingly at her mother's face, and the next it felt like the rug was being pulled out from under her. Her consciousness slammed into her body with the grace of a derailed freight train; her eyes flew open and every muscle in her body twitched as reality flooded in—ugly white ceilings, bland coloured walls, and the fire of a fucking goddamn suns in her throat.
She gasped, and the fire spread down her throat. Panic rose and she reached out blindly. A hand grasped hers and a familiar face loomed into view.
"Relax, Darcy, relax," Jane crooned. "Breathe slowly."
But she couldn't, she didn't know how. The panic kicked into overdrive and memories of choking swam up from her consciousness, she felt her throat close up and that wild, desperate instinct for survival made her thrash in the bed, clawing at the sheets and at her own throat.
"NO! Darcy!" Jane cried, reaching for her bare hands. Jane's emotions flooded into Darcy, bringing even more panic, and for a split second Darcy thought that she wouldn't be able to handle it, that her heart just might stop.
Another hand touched her. Cool and smooth, it pressed against her forehead, and from it seeped a blessed calmness that started in her scalp, making her skin tingle, and spread down throughout her body until every muscle relaxed and she went limp.
Slowly, Darcy turned her head towards the owner of that hand. The bald man from her dream sat beside her bed, looking exactly how he had in her head, only then she had been sitting in her mother's bed instead of a hospital one.
It was as if she'd lost her mother all over again. Grief welled up and crashed over her in a great wave. For the briefest moment she had been blissfully ignorant of her mother's fate, and in that respite the memories which had been dulled by time were sharpened by a dream so realistic she would have sworn it was real.
Great wracking sobs wrenched their way out of her chest, setting her throat on fire again, but Darcy hardly noticed the physical pain. She closed her eyes against the memories, both old and new, and just as they had done in her dream, hot tears spilled down her cheeks.
I can't. I'm not strong enough.
The hand on her head moved, fingers brushing against her forehead, and in her mind his voice echoed. You are stronger than you realise.
"Get out of my head," she rasped, shaking her head in both a denial and an attempt to dislodge his touch.
"Darcy, don't try to speak," Jane urged her in soft tones. "Your throat is damaged. They had to do surgery to repair your trachea."
Darcy didn't really give a shit, not in that moment. "Go away," she rasped.
"Darce—"
"I said—"
Her voice cut off as pain lanced through her throat and she began to cough, further inflaming her throat. The man beside her reached out and touched her arm. As before, cool calmness radiated from him. Her muscles relaxed and the pain in her throat melted away, along with the urge to cough. Part of her wanted to know how he did it, another wanted to yell at him to leave her alone, but mostly she didn't care enough to do either.
Wearily, she rolled over, dislodging his hand. She closed her eyes against Jane's pale, worried face. She couldn't close her ears, though, and the sound of Jane's rapid breathing—a sure sign that she was trying not to cry—permeated her self-absorbed pain. Guilt crept in, but she kept her eyes squeezed shut until, some minutes later, Jane quietly excused herself.
Darcy remained where she was, letting the silence of the room press in on her. She should be enjoying the quiet, the peace that she had asked for, but instead she felt like a piece of shit, physically and emotionally. Jane hadn't deserved such treatment, Darcy knew that, but she'd wanted so badly to be alone. She wished she could roll over and scream into her pillow, to let it out in some physical way, but that just wasn't an option at the moment.
With a sigh, Darcy flopped over onto her back. That's when she spotted the bald man from her dream again, still sitting beside her.
"What part of—" she began in her raspy voice, but halted when he held up his hand.
You will do damage to your throat if you continue to speak.
Darcy frowned at him, not bothering to hide her irritation, but replied mentally nonetheless.
Who are you? What are you doing here? And what part of 'go away' escaped your notice? Better yet, what the hell were you doing in my dream?
His eyebrows went up slightly, though Darcy couldn't tell if it was because of the number of questions she threw at him, or the tone in which she did it. Probably the latter.
I am Professor Xavier. I am here because you asked for my help.
Darcy's thoughts ground to a screeching halt and for a moment, she forgot her grief as well. Sitting up, she stared at the man beside her, only just realising that he sat because he had to. Her eyes raked over the sleek, almost alien looking chair and wondered why he hadn't had that in her dream.
On the mental plane I am not bound by reality, he answered her unspoken question.
Isn't there some kind of etiquette amongst mutants with telepathic powers? Darcy glared at him. You know, no rooting around in someone else's head without a very good reason?
He chuckled, both aloud and in her head, making a strange sort of echo in her mind. There is, and I am observing it. His smile widened, making the lines around his eyes crinkle. In order to communicate with you I must maintain a very small connection to your consciousness, but I promise you that I am not 'rooting around'.
How do I know you're telling the truth?
He shrugged one shoulder. It was an inelegant gesture on an elegant looking man. Perhaps, with training, you will be able to taste a lie but that would require a skin-to-skin connection for you.
So I'm just supposed to trust you?
Trust is earned, not given, but you did call for me, and I am here now.
Yeah, Darcy sounded bitter even in her head, now that I've been nearly throttled to death by the Winter Soldier. Now you're here.
That was a regrettable encounter, and I would have done much to stop it, but your Soldier is difficult to predict. His mind is not his own most of the time. If it counts for anything, his distress at the sight of what he had done was genuine. He was about to call for help when Mr. Stark arrived.
Darcy remembered watching that scene unfold on the television in her mother's room, but she had forgotten about it in the wake of realising that her mother was still very much dead. That happened?
It did. He nodded once. Thankfully, the part of him that remains James Barnes, took the fore in his mind before he did any permanent damage to your brain.
How can you know that? Darcy asked.
I visited him while you were in surgery. His chair swiveled slightly and he gestured towards one wall. He is not far from you, though he is restrained and under guard.
Is he okay?
He is well enough. He smiled widely at her, his blue eyes practically disappearing in the crinkles. Sedated for now, but physically healthy.
Why do you look so pleased about that? Darcy asked, eyeing him warily.
The Professor let out a bark of a laugh, startling Darcy after the silence in the room. I am merely pleased to hear you ask after him. It would be difficult for you to help him if you bear him ill will for something beyond his control.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Darcy held up both hands. You expect me to go back in a room with him and try to help him after that?
If not you, then who?
Darcy stared at him, giving him the up and down. He shook his head, a small smile still gracing the corners of his mouth.
But it's you that he trust, Darcy.
That earned him another look; one that said she thought he was straight up certifiable and judging by the light in his eyes, he knew just exactly how crazy she thought him.
He tried to kill me.
Professor Xavier nodded his head slowly, his face calm and serene.
Yes, but in the end, he also tried to save you.