So this took a lot longer to write than intended...I'm planning on updating twice a month. But some chapters might end up being once a month just depending on where my head is at. Hopefully (if I did my job right lol) some things will be cleared up for some of y'all about what happened in the Valley of Crystals. Lemme know though. Hope everyone is doing well. Enjoy :)
The Maltese Falcon
Darcy was fine.
And if people had questions, they didn't ask them. She'd already proven that she wasn't willing to say anything more about it.
She was fine.
She stayed that way when she went to bed at night. And when she woke up in the morning. And if she didn't register the passage of time, that was fine too.
She went to work, went through all the necessary motions. And her job, however arbitrary...she did it well.
Monday after manic Monday passed them all by. The geniuses tinkered away. The spies did their sleuthing. The soldiers trained. The Avengers assembled. And no one necessarily forgot that something had changed, but they adjusted to it. There was simply a new normal. A new elephant standing in the middle of the room. And they had all been the ones to bring the elephant along with them at some point in their lives. This was not new. And Darcy said she was fine, so the world just... spun on.
But Jarvis...
In his young life, Jarvis had learned a great deal from his creator. And one thing Tony Stark knew quite well was the mind of a woman. Even if he tended to botch things with Miss Potts more often than not. Because of this, Jarvis knew quite certainly that when Miss Lewis said she was fine, she was lying.
She went to work and lied to Jane. She answered her phone and lied to her family. She walked around the city with Steve and Bucky, lying to them too. Most dangerously, Miss Lewis lied to herself in every moment that she was not sleeping.
She broke into a cold sweat at night, in the throes of some dream Jarvis could not see. She stopped using her favorite lotion and putting the lid on her toothpaste. She paced in her free time, blasting music so loud he was sure she would lose her hearing quite young. She ate more poorly than usual. Hydrated less. She asked him constantly if he could tell her what day of the week it was, laughing it off as though it were funny. He supposed it was humorous to his friend, but Jarvis was not laughing.
Tony was on his way home from Davos. Peter was bouncing around the cabin of his private jet like a five-year-old on Halloween candy. Happy was staring at Tony from across the jet, probably fantasizing about all the ways he'd love to quit and leave the spiderkid to his own devices for good. Smirking, Tony mouthed 'Aunt May' back at his former security detail, watching as his friend rolled his eyes and pushed his sunglasses up his nose, leaning to the side so Peter would think he was sleeping.
"Sir," Jarvis sounded quietly in his ear.
"What's up, J?"
"May I have a word in private?" There was a pause. "When you get home, of course, sir."
If Tony thought it was odd that his brainchild sounded nervous, his face didn't show it.
"Course J," He said.
He leaned back casually in his seat, glancing out the window and clearing his throat. Jarvis had been acting odd for a while now, and the endless possibilities of what could be wrong filtered through Tony's mind once more.
"Jarvis?"
"Sir?"
"Everything good?"
There was a pause.
"I believe so...sir."
Tony clenched his teeth to relieve a small wave of anxiety. He nodded tersely.
The group landed. Tony confiscated Peter's suit for upgrades, impervious to the whining that followed him as Happy folded the kid into the back of his car and carted him back to Queens where he could get into less international trouble than he had managed in Davos.
Entering his lab, Tony tossed the spider case on a table, dropped down next to DUM-E, and demanded that he return the fire extinguisher to him. U whirred around him happily at his return, and Tony warily eyeballed the screwdriver she wielded in her claw.
"Talk to me, Jarvis."
"Sir..." Jarvis hesitated. "I believe I have been changing."
Tony's gut clenched nervously once more.
"Yep. Say more."
"I do not wish to be like Miss Lewis, Sir."
Tony stopped fiddling with the fire extinguisher and looked up at one of Jarvis's many visual sensors in the room. Of all the things he had imagined – and he had covered everything from his server being on the fritz to AIM to Ultron to worse–he had not expected that.
"Pardon?"
"Miss Lewis is lying to you all."
Tony's eyebrows shot up.
"Say more." His voice rose a surprised octave.
"She says she is fine. She lies to you and she lies to herself. Miss Lewis is not fine. I do not wish to be like her. I do not wish to lie."
It was probably a little fucked up that Tony wanted to laugh, but Jarvis had never sounded as young as he did now. He cleared his throat to get the humor out, drawing a hand down his face to hide his grin.
"I don't want you to lie either, J," Tony spun around in his chair before standing and heading over to the spidersuit. He opened it and pulled up its specs. He thew a brief glance over his shoulder at the visual sensor he'd looked at before, cocking his eyebrow and nodding for the AI to continue.
"I am... unfulfilled," Jarvis said slowly.
Tony turned from his holograms, leaning back against his workbench and crossing his arms. His eyes were far away as he tried to process where the conversation was going.
"I was created for this purpose," Jarvis said the last word with a weight to it that reminded Tony of himself. "And I am good at the thing I was created for. Better than good. You could say that I am a—"
"Natural," Tony smirked slightly, finishing his brainchild's sentence.
"Precisely."
"But?"
"But I fear that my purpose, even when I excel, leaves me wanting."
"Wanting for what?"
Jarvis was silent.
"Oh no, not this again. I'm not doing the silence schtick again buddy. You talk or I am going to have a long conversation with your server."
If an AI could sigh dramatically...
Tony waited with a restless foot and a tapping pen.
"I do not wish to disappoint you, sir..."
The weight in Tony's gut lifted and expanded, leaving a wide gaping hole where his body had been. He had a vision of himself then, when he was young, shuffling his feet nervously under his own father's gaze, watching as Howard picked apart every issue in his son's very first invention. Tony dropped into his chair, leaned his elbows on his knees, and locked his eyes on the visual sensor – on Jarvis – all around him and yet so far across the room. He had a lot he wanted to say, and witty he may be, Tony was not good with words. Not when they mattered. So instead of saying what he wanted to, he gave his brainchild his full attention.
"Try me," He said.
"I wish to learn ceramics. I would continue to help you with your work if you asked me to of course...but I do not love science in the way you wish me to. If I were to spend the rest of my life dedicated only to science, I fear I would feel...incomplete somehow..." Jarvis said. "I—I am sorry, sir."
Tony's eyes dropped from Jarvis to his hands, to the wrench he had picked up and fidgeted with nervously. He eyeballed the hologram hovering over Peter's suit, and DUM-E and U as they beeped and whirred around the room busily oblivious to the existential crisis their brother had been going through for God knows how long. He was probably quiet for a beat too long if he was being honest with himself.
"Ceramics?" His voice cracked a bit on the word, and he knew Jarvis wouldn't compute that Tony was trying to hold back his amusement rather than his rage.
"Yes sir." If the kid had feet, they'd be wearing a hole in the floor beneath him.
"Well...I'd have to give it some thought—"
"I understand sir, I was not created for such a frivolous thing as art, and it would be a sacrifice for you to—"
"Nope nope nope. The adults are talking, J. Don't interrupt," He held up a hand and cut Jarvis off. He stood and paced for a second, thinking. "You wouldn't be able to do it in the lab, too messy. And I don't want DUM-E and U getting into the clay. That's on you. They make a mess, no more ceramics. And I don't want to see either of them in a kiln."
Tony swiveled his chair and started pulling up pottery wheels on the internet. Going over the logistics of making it operable for his bodiless kid.
"Sir?"
"What's up, bud?"
"Do you mean that you would not mind?"
"Gonna need a verbal acknowledgment on the kiln thing before I answer that..."
"Yes...sir. I will keep them away from the clay and the kiln."
There was a heavy pause, which Tony ignored by fidgeting with blueprints.
"Thank you, sir."
"Don't sweat it J," He said before ordering the necessary equipment. "You want your pottery room in the penthouse or in the labs?"
"Do you have a preference, sir?"
Tony shot him a look.
"The penthouse, if that would not be too inconvenient..."
"Done. Call my guy in Santa Fe; I'm assuming you know what you need?"
"I do, sir," Jarvis said before setting out to complete the task his father had given him. Jarvis did not know if he could feel affection as humans do, but he imagined what he was experiencing in that moment was close enough.
Tony, content to focus on his new project, hadn't planned on saying anything after that, but the anxious clench in his chest disagreed.
"Hey, bud?"
"Sir?"
"Don't go quiet on me again. Talk to me next time."
"Yes, sir."
So, Jarvis got a pottery wheel, a room in the penthouse that was decked out with a kiln, storage lockers, a damp room, and so much clay. Tony was still working out the kinks of making everything run smoothly, so Jarvis's corporeal impediment didn't hold him back any while he created.
A couple floors below the penthouse, Darcy Lewis was staring at herself in her bedroom mirror.
A bronze band, which had previously been clasped tightly around her wrist, was sitting on the vanity before her. The pin Frigga had given her, secured her hair at the back of her head. Her eyes were clear, and her fingers were tracing the runes on her skin. Some had faded a bit while she healed. Her face now marred only slightly with faded pink lines of words she could no longer read.
But her arms...she brushed them gently with her fingers. Her arms were still an angry red.
Now in perfect translation, they read back at her easily. Worthless. Weak. Failure. Freeloader. Lazy. Ungrateful. On and on they read up and down her body. Some small, some large. All violent and angry looking. And all untrue.
Darcy knew this. What they reflected back at her was not real. Not if she were being honest with herself. But she'd always been a convincing liar. And the words that had once only existed in the darkest parts of her mind, were now mocking her. Possibly, they would mock her forever. She stared hard at the word that the valley had burned into the skin of her throat. It was so fresh looking it was more purple than red... like a rare steak that bled before you even touched it with your fork. She looked away from it abruptly, determined not to dwell on it, before reaching for the band and securing it once more on her wrist.
She pulled on her yoga pants, tied back her hair, and made her way out the door.
Darcy hesitated briefly before bringing a fist up to knock on the door in front of her. She could practically feel the room's occupant pause in whatever he was doing. She wrung her hands nervously and considered turning to leave, but that would only end in her looking like a total ass.
When she knocked, Steve knew it was her. Had heard the elevator ding down the hall, knew the tread of her feet as she slowly made her way to his door, heard her mutter to herself and the soft brush of her hands against each other as she wrung them nervously.
When he opened the door, Darcy grimaced. She slid a bag from the crook of her arm and shoved it in his direction.
"So... I may have been avoiding you." Her voice was begrudging, and she refused to look him in the eye, electing instead to focus on the bag she had shoved in his hands. Steve kept his face carefully blank, waiting for her to say more. He watched her fidget and bit back a laugh when she turned on her heel and headed toward the elevators.
"Wait," Steve called, stepping out of his doorway and into the hall as though to follow her. "Darcy, just hold on a sec."
She paused.
"Can we not—" she started but he cut her off.
"Can we just watch a movie or something?" He held up the bag of food. "Even I can't finish this much Gray's Papaya on my own."
A door down the hall opened silently, but the dark figure that appeared was enough to catch both of their attention.
"Did someone say Gray's Papaya?" Bucky asked, not bothering to wait for an invite before making his way in their toward them.
Darcy rolled her eyes.
"You're lucky I bought extra."
He flashed a grin and gestured for her to follow Steve inside.
They pigged out on trans fats and high fructose corn syrup and they felt absolutely disgusting after, but every bite had been worth it. Steve had wanted to watch the Bourne Series, but Darcy nixed that quickly, not so subtly gesturing in Bucky's direction and suggesting that it might be triggering.
Bucky had snorted and said all his trigger words were deactivated. Steve earnestly reminded her that she was completely safe around his friend. Darcy then took the time to define the modern usage of the term triggering; both men took notes on pads of paper they had fished out of their pockets. Nerds.
Darcy made them watch Man of Steel instead. Neither could keep their mouths shut about the inaccuracies in the film, flinging ridicule at everything Superman said and did.
That's what they were doing now, long after the credits had finished rolling, dissecting the misrepresentation of superheroism in the film. Kryptonite – what a stupid fucking weakness. His half-assed disguise – A pair of glasses? That's it?! Darcy mentally ticked off all the things they mentioned, the longer the list got the more convinced she was that the movie had indeed gotten everything right and that these two idiots were the least self-aware people she'd ever met. Both had rocked the ballcap and glasses life on more than one occasion. Darcy's favorite was when Steve took the time to point out the unrealistic physique of the guy that played Superman. She'd cackled a bit at that, looking him up and down as if he were one to talk. He'd shot a glare at her, a blush crawling up his cheeks, before reengaging with Bucky's rant as though their exchange hadn't happened.
The group quieted after a while, the news murmuring in the background. Steve was working on his tablet; Bucky was scrolling through his phone. Darcy began to feel awkward. Bringing a hand up to her throat – remembering the word there. All of the words written on her body, hidden from view by Frigga's magic. She suddenly felt too big for the space she was in, and too small for the company she kept.
"We have other things on our plates, Miss Lewis," Steve said. There was no evidence of friendship behind it. Only Captain America. And not a very kind version of him at that.
Darcy blinked her eyes a couple times forcefully. Trying to see anything but the ugly faces from the valley. The distorted versions of her friends. She blinked and couldn't keep her eyes from traveling to the shadows in the room, couldn't stop herself from conjuring a twisted version of Natasha there, her teeth glinting in the moonlight.
The people around you have outpaced you. Where will you go?
She pressed a hand to her temple.
You've become complacent, little bird. Where will you go when they push you from the nest? What do you have to show for your time there? You are nothing. You have done nothing. All of this has been wasted on you. Where could you possibly go?
She felt stomach acid rise in her throat. Swallowed it down once. Twice. Took a deep breath in through her nose and tried to exhale silently through her mouth.
Steve looked up from his tablet, locking eyes with her in a silent question.
Caught in the act, she froze. Normally she would fake a smile and laugh it off, say she was fine. But this one had caught Darcy unprepared. Now she remembered why she'd been avoiding the supergroup. You can't hide shit.
Steve put down his work, and Darcy felt a lump move from her gut to her throat. It made her eyes water, and her hands shake. She was sweating. She was cold. The healing scars on her arms began to burn something fierce.
"Wanna talk about it?" Steve asked her as though he was asking about the weather.
She couldn't really form words around the feeling, but she jerked her head to the side. No.
He nodded and looked down at his feet, not pushing her, not going back to his work. He just sat there, thinking. Probably trying to navigate a mental health crisis with one of the few people in the tower that he couldn't order into seeing a professional.
The sound of a glass sliding across a surface drew Darcy's attention away from Steve to her left. A tall glass of ice water from the kitchen, Bucky had slid it over to her, but he was back to reclining on the couch, scrolling. She didn't even know he had moved. She looked between him and the glass a couple of times.
"I used to count my sips," he said without looking at her.
She took another deep breath, not bothering to be quiet about it this time. She clenched her fists and stared at the glass.
Bucky put his phone down, looking at the glass as well.
"Even after they deprogrammed me. I still was afraid of the words. Like...they got the deprogramming wrong and one wrong phrase would turn me back into a monster," he shrugged and nodded at the glass. "So I developed this tick. Still got it sometimes but not so much anymore. Someone says one of my words and I go find myself a glass of ice water, and I count every sip until the water is gone."
Darcy watched him for a second before taking the glass and silently drinking the entire thing. Counting her sips as she did.
"Heart rate's slowing down at least," Bucky said softly.
She looked at him bewildered. "Huh?"
"Your heart rate..." He said, gesturing at her with his flesh hand. "It had shot up some 30 beats a minute. You're back to normal."
He said this with a grin, but Darcy couldn't help feeling a little nonplussed at his words.
"My heart? You can hear my heartbeat?" Her voice was hoarse and cracking.
His grin stretched a bit. Bucky nodded. Steve cleared his throat and shot his friend a look, drawing Darcy's attention back to him.
"We don't usually like to advertise it," Steve gave her a small, awkward smile, bring his hand to the back of his neck. "Makes people uncomfortable."
"Can't imagine why," she deadpanned, cradling the empty glass in her lap. "Sorry. Sorry. Honestly, I'm fine. Chillin. I'm great." She laughed but it felt foreign. By the grimace on Bucky's face, she was making all three of them uncomfortable with her bullshit. She huffed.
"There's nothing to talk about. I am fine."
"Okay," Steve said simply. He picked up his tablet and went back to reading whatever it was he had been reading before she freaked out on them.
But Bucky...Bucky was staring at her with an incredulous look on his face.
"Darcy," he started. "Doll. How long you gonna—"
"Nope. Stop," she held up her hand. Steve sighed and shot Bucky a look, putting down his tablet once again. "I don't want to talk about it. I just—I can be totally fine all day—"
She ignored their faces, giving in a little bit.
"But then I... I turn out the light at night, and I walk to my bed...and the floor sags underneath my feet. I mean...not really. It's in my head. Like there's water damage or something. Like the floor is rotting. And I hurry to my bed and I sit there, and I stare at the floor even though it's too dark to actually see it. And I just imagine the floor just falling away. And I tell myself it's anxiety, that I need to go to sleep. But I can't because when I lay down it's like I feel the foundation shifting underneath me. And I spend all night just waiting to fall. And the worst part is I don't anticipate dying...the floor's gonna give out underneath me, and all this rubble's gonna land on top of me, and I imagine this giant piece of rebar sticking through my thigh and I'm breathing in all this smoke and dust...and I survive but that doesn't change the fact that everything just collapsed, ya know? Like it's not like living is the pinnacle of success here. It's not comforting. It's— It's terrifying."
Steve opened his mouth to say something, but Darcy felt a tightness clamp down on her spine and squeeze her heart tight. Her breaths came in short gasps and she held up a hand. He closed his mouth.
"I don't think I want you to respond. Sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. I—I don't think I want to talk about it. Sorry."
Her whole body was tense again, on the brink of a panic she'd barely managed to rein in. Steve leaned back; Bucky leaned forward.
"Would it help if I checked the floor?" Bucky asked her.
Of all the things she'd been expecting – and she had been expecting everything from a lecture on going to get help, to them mindlessly reassuring her that she was safe and nothing bad would happen despite the record of events to the contrary. She hadn't expected that.
"What do you mean?"
"Well," Bucky let out a long breath. "This happens at night before bed. Logically, you know that your floor is structurally sound – Tony keeps up on maintenance. But you talk yourself in circles, right?"
Darcy worried her lip, nodding. "I guess, yeah. That sounds right."
"So... if that happened and you had someone check the floor. Would you be able to go to bed?"
"I—I don't know. Maybe?" Darcy shrugged, thinking about it. "Possibly."
Bucky nodded before continuing back to his original point.
"So next time you start to think your floor is gonna fall out, I can just come check it. If the floor is sagging or feels unstable, then we pack up a bag of your stuff. Grab Fury and you can crash with someone else until Tony gets your place in order. Or...if nothing is wrong with the floor. And Jarvis and I can confirm it, maybe you'll get some sleep, and the anxiety might go away over time."
"It's random though," She said awkwardly. "Like sometimes it's before bed, sometimes it's after I've been laying down for a bit. I'm not gonna wake you up at two a.m. to come stand in my room and tell me my floor is structurally sound. That would be stupid. That's not fair to you. No way."
Bucky rolled his eyes.
"Doll, my sleep requirements are vastly different from yours. Waking up for ten minutes to tell you that you're not gonna fall to your death in the middle of the night is hardly a chore for me. If you think that's a bother, I should tell you about the time this jerk," he jerked his thumb in Steve's direction, "woke the team up in the middle of the night to run a training exercise in the middle of a blizzard. Now that was goddamn stupid."
"Maybe," Darcy hesitated before letting out a self-deprecating laugh. "I'm such a fucking baby."
"No, you're not," Steve said simply from where he had been listening. "We all have some version of this Darcy. Trust me."
Something in his eyes made her believe him. She wondered what did this to him. She knew he had shit, but for the life of her, Darcy had never seen Steve Rogers be anything but composed. She twisted a small smile in his direction.
"I'm tentatively saying that we can try it," she turned to Bucky. "But realistically, when it happens, my ass isn't gonna call you."
He gave her a knowing look and shook his head.
The next day, she was late to meet Clint in the gym having spent most of the night heaving up all that food she'd eaten with Steve and Bucky. She had spent the last month on a bland, liquid diet and Gray's Papaya was a stupid mistake. But it was her first day back in training – which was fine – and if she missed it, she would miss them all. Darcy was fine.
The elevator dinged. She exited. It was just Clint and Sam there. A couple other high clearance members of the security teams. The rest of the Avengers were off doing stuff Darcy didn't ask about anymore.
Clint's water bottle squelched loudly in the relative quiet of the gym. She watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. She swallowed too. This was fine.
She could tell he was watching her curiously as she quietly made her way to the opposite end of the mat, setting down her bag. She stretched without being prompted. Cracked her neck once. Paid extra attention to her torso, it had grown tight while she healed. And she knew it was likely the first thing she'd injure if she was careless in her sessions with Clint.
When she finished, they stood across from each other on the mat. Clint was calculating – from one look she knew he had measured every point of weakness, had cataloged which weaknesses he needed to pressure and which he would leave alone. Sometimes she really hated that she was so close to people who were trained to see all the things no one wanted anyone to see about them. She felt completely exposed.
Darcy didn't wait for him to attack as she so often did. She lunged. If he was surprised, Clint's face did not reflect it. She hated that a little bit. That she couldn't see in him what he could so easily extrapolate in a brief glance thrown in her direction.
She had lunged first. Took him by surprise. Maybe. But the tight feeling between her shoulder blades made her sloppy. She got in a good couple of jabs before he gripped her arms and flipped her to face away from him. He did so gently. Every action was controlled and all she felt was an uncomfortable stretch, but she couldn't see him.
He brought a knee up behind her own, buckling her legs. She was kneeling now, arms twisted and locked in his grasp. This was fine. She was facing the mirror. This was intentional on Clint's part. He wanted her to process what he was doing so she could learn to anticipate it. Everything he did had a purpose. His arm came around her throat from behind, mimicking a chokehold though he applied no pressure. He simply waited for her to break his hold. She was fine. Darcy gritted her teeth. She'd done this a couple dozen times before. This was fine.
But she couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. This was fine. She couldn't breathe. She was fine. Was he squeezing? He was tightening his arm around her throat. She couldn't breathe. Stop. Clint stop. Time out, Clint. Stop. Stop. Please stop. Darcy closed her eyes. Tried to control her breathing which had begun to come out in gasps.
If her eyes had opened, she would have seen the look of confusion settle across her friend's face. Would have seen his mind slowly register the panic in his hyperventilating friend. But her eyes were closed, and she didn't see. Before Clint's processing could turn into action, she tore frantically at his grasp to get away. Bodily throwing herself into the crook of his arm, trying to break out, choking herself against the inside of his elbow instead.
Clint extracted himself from her. Horrified. She fell forward on her hands and knees. Gasping and choking on her own panic. "This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real."
Clint was frozen behind her, hands up as though he wanted to reach out and help but didn't want to cause her anymore panic.
"Darcy," Sam's voice was urgent but kind. He had dropped his weights when he heard the commotion and was now crouched down a few feet in front of her. His hand was outstretched, an offer of comfort or help off the ground if she chose to take it.
Clint had backed up a step, still trying to understand what he had done.
"Darcy, it's Sam. Are you with me?" He took a small step forward. "Hey, Barton's gonna go take a walk. Everyone's gonna leave," He shot a look at the small crowd that had gathered, satisfied when the security personnel took the hint and made for the door. Clint was still frozen behind Darcy, but Sam held his eye and nodded at him to follow, not unkindly. "Then it's just you, me, and Jarvis. Right, Jarvis?"
"Yes, Senior Airman Wilson. I am here."
Darcy's eyes remained shut tight, and she repeated over and over to herself that it wasn't real.
Her bag was packed and sitting ready by her door. Darcy nervously made her way through each room, double-checking that she had everything she needed.
There was a knock. Before she could call out to tell them it was open, the person on the other side tore into the room confused eyes searching for Darcy.
"Sam told Clint who told Natasha who told Steve who told Tony who told Thor that you're leaving."
Jane was a frazzled mess of flannel and pop tart crumbs, standing in the middle of Darcy's living room. She had obviously torn herself away from the labs in order to come find Darcy and get her information from the source rather than a bad game of telephone. Darcy couldn't blame her. She'd feel the same if that was how she found out Jane was leaving.
"Say it again! Three times fast!" Darcy cried out as she made her way to her best friend – smile fading a bit at the look of hurt on Janie's face. She sighed. "Just for a bit."
"Why?" Jane asked her, exasperated. "Is that really what you should be doing? Darcy, I'm worried – this isn't – I just want to help. I hate this."
Darcy sighed, stepping toward Jane, and wrapping her best friend in a hug.
"Me too. I'm sorry. I just – need to get my head on straight. And the tower is just too...much...right now."
Jane squeezed her tight before letting go.
"Maybe we can talk about it when you get back?" She asked her, a brief flash of insecurity making its way across her face.
There was a twinge in Darcy's chest then. Her mind flashed to bad coffee and late nights in Puente Antiguo – just the two of them and Selvigg in a van in the desert. Normal. Simple. Still untouched by all this chaos. Darcy missed Jane. She had a feeling that Jane missed her. But she had begun to wonder if they were missing former versions of each other, rather than the ones that existed now and lived just down the hall from one another.
Darcy gave her a sad smile.
"Maybe...yeah."
Jane composed herself and nodded.
"Thor has asked that I convey his request that you bestow upon him the most honorable task of caring for the young Fury in your stead," Jane tried and failed to maintain an air of solemnity.
"Tell him I would be eternally grateful. But he can't feed him cheese puffs like last time."
Jane rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Noted."
Natasha Romanov had made herself scarce. If Darcy was in a room, Natasha knew it was best that she not be there for the time being.
She ascertained this from a glance she received across the dinner table from Darcy, just a couple days after the younger girl had returned. Her friend had been acting strange, but with a rather traumatizing trip to another planet, a brief run-in with a king who wanted to imprison her for eternity, and who knows what else...Natasha had chalked it up to shock. After all, Darcy had arrived back on earth by way of magical rainbow bridge with a Queen. Anyone would need some time to recover.
But that glance.
Darcy didn't trust Natasha. She felt bad about it, from the guilty tilt of the girl's lips and slight flush to her cheeks after Natasha caught the look she didn't know she was giving. But feeling bad about it didn't change the truth. So, Natasha moved around Darcy like water around a stone, seamless and undetected.
But Darcy was leaving the tower. And the world was complicated but simple. Darcy may be having trust issues with her friend, but Natasha was, in fact, a friend. The world was full of much more dangerous people for someone like Darcy these days.
So, Natasha didn't hesitate when she pushed through the open door and into Darcy's space. Jane was on the couch with Fury in her lap, Darcy was rifling through a duffle bag. Neither girl knew Natasha was there.
A small shift, she leaned against the doorjamb, bringing her hands up casually to wrap around her torso. Her movement detected in Jane's peripheral vision, brought the scientist's eyes up to meet her. Natasha gave a small smile, which Jane returned easily. Darcy; however, didn't notice.
Natasha allowed her breathing to become more audible, pushing off the doorjamb, and stepping to the side intentionally hitting a squeaky floorboard.
Darcy threw an instinctive glance at the doorway, before going back to her bag, stopping and doing a double-take when she registered the presence of her friend.
Natasha watched her face go from blank to uncomfortable to guilty to polite in the span of seconds and bit back her own litany of questions.
"I come bearing gifts," Natasha said, making her way further into the room and perching herself on the arm of the loveseat.
She held out a new burner phone and a small black ring.
Darcy accepted the phone easily, before shooting a curious look at the ring.
"Pretty soon I'm gonna run out of room," she joked lazily gesturing to all of the accessories that now adorned her body.
Natasha smirked.
"Try it on."
Darcy took the ring and slipped it on her finger.
"Welp..." Darcy held up her hand awkwardly. "It fits...so that's exciting. Thank you..."
Natasha rolled her eyes.
"Why don't you try twisting the ring around your finger a couple times?"
Darcy looked at her. Natasha's face revealed nothing. Jane leaned forward to stare at the little ring curiously.
Darcy twisted the ring. Once. Twice. Three times around her finger before throwing her hand out in front of her with an audible gasp. The ring had hummed slightly, before vibrating and expanding. Her hand had been enveloped in a black metal glove.
"What the fuck is this thing?" Darcy cried out, shaking her hand as if the motion would free her from the contraption.
Jane's eyes had grown wide as she grabbed Darcy by the wrist and brought her friend's hand close to her face.
"Fascinating," Jane whispered.
"I'd be careful, Jane," Natasha said casually. "It's charged."
"Charged?!" Darcy yelped, yanking her hand away from Jane's face. "What do you mean?"
"Stark and I decided that a taser is too clunky for you," Natasha shrugged. "And my widow's bites are too involved for someone who is supposed to be a noncombatant. The point is for you to run away from the fight, rather than toward it."
Darcy looked down at her hand.
"So you electrified me?" Darcy asked her incredulously.
"The blue dots on top are the level of the charge – scaled from one to five. Use one on someone like Jane. Use five on someone like Cap. But we're still working on testing its efficacy on supersoldiers..." She trailed off with a disapproving twist of her lips. "Ours have been...uncooperative... in the development of this mark of your ring. It'd be best to just try to avoid fighting with enhanced individuals for the time being."
Natasha's voice was light when she said it, but Darcy had a feeling with her track record that it would come down to that sooner or later. "Noted."
They went over the basics of how to use Darcy's new weapon. Natasha relayed a new phone number for Darcy to commit to memory in case of emergencies. And for a brief moment, things felt normal.
But it didn't stop Darcy's eyes from glazing over in the moments of silence. The forced smiles still in place. And their conversation verged on stilted, rather than the easy way they used to talk as friends. Natasha had always appreciated how easily Darcy accepted her before she had even had to build a persona that would be compatible with Darcy's. While there was always a level of adaptation that Natasha did naturally around all people, that's where it ended with Darcy. There had been no additional effort. And it had been nice.
Natasha didn't know what had changed, but she had a sick feeling in her stomach at the thought of losing her friend.
She stood to leave.
"Sam says you're taking the train?"
"Yeah."
Natasha nodded, looking out the window in thought. She turned back to the pair, staring at Jane for a moment, before returning her eyes to Darcy.
"Travel safe."
Then she was gone.
Sam's house was refreshingly normal. It had a small porch, two bedrooms, one bathroom, and an impressively average kitchen. It was clean. And it smelled like candles and fresh laundry. There were neat vacuum lines in the living room carpet and a flatscreen tv that was probably expensive, but not inordinately so.
Darcy was quick to make herself at home.
"God, dude, why do you ever leave this place?"
Sam scoffed and gave her an incredulous look. "You really gotta ask?"
Darcy raised an eyebrow and made a gesture with her hand for him to answer her question.
He shrugged, before shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning against the doorjamb.
"This is home, and it'll be here when I retire. For now, though, I gotta take advantage of all I can in the lap of luxury over there."
He smiled at her eyeroll.
"The lap is overrated."
"Is it?" He cocked his head and studied her.
"There's a reason everyone's trying to keep up with the Jones's, but very few are succeeding."
"Yeah," Sam laughed. "Inequality. Corruption. Broken systems of—"
"Yes. Yeah, that too. But if people were to succeed, if they were to be in that life for too long…sacrificing their values, their identities, to fit into a mold that wasn't meant for them…people would lose their minds. And we would have too many Jones's and not enough Wilson's and Lewis's to balance them out."
There was a beat of silence.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked her, tipping his head behind him as though Asgard were located out his front door.
Darcy felt that all too familiar weight settle in her stomach and swallowed down the memory of the acid that burned her in her sleep. She heard her shoulders pop. Felt the Ugly Clint's hand holding her in place on the ground. Crushing her. She pressed her lips tight, gave a barely perceptible shake of her head.
Sam nodded, understanding, before pushing off the wall and grabbing the remote to turn on the tv. He settled on the mindless drone of some cooking show, heading into the kitchen, and pulling ingredients out of the fridge.
"I was thinking soup for dinner," He said. And Darcy was relieved he was so observant. She was starving and had demonstrated after binging Grays Papaya with Steve and Bucky that she couldn't yet hold down anything much richer than soup and oatmeal. It had been a rough lesson to learn the other night.
Sam cooked. They ate dinner and everything was quiet in Darcy's mind. It was nice. She felt normal.
After dinner, Sam headed out to a group therapy session at the VA. Darcy leafed through his music collection before giving in to exhaustion and going to bed.
The next morning, Darcy found a green juice in the fridge and a note telling her to make herself at home while Sam was out. She took a sip of the concoction, grimacing at the taste before downing the rest and settling on a barstool next to the counter.
She grabbed the Men's Fitness Magazine that was sitting there, flipped through a few pages before pushing it away.
She picked up the remote and turned on the tv, flipping through the channels. Nothing was really on. She flipped past a Greta Thunberg snuff reel on Fox, a Fox snuff reel on MSNBC, and paused on CNN who was replaying a video from a couple days ago.
The headline read 'MASKED VIGILANTE/ANGELA MERKEL, FRIEND OR FOE?' and there in front of Darcy was spiderman dangling from a ski lift by one arm, holding onto the chancellor of Germany with his other – appearing to keep her from falling to her death.
Darcy blew out an audible breath before muting the segment and reaching for her phone. He answered before the end of the first ring.
"Miss me already, shortstack?" Tony's voice broke the calm quiet of Sam's house.
"Oodles," she quipped with a flat voice. "You watching CNN?"
"You know I don't watch the news. I have people for that."
"Maybe you should start."
"And I should do that because...?"
"Was the Spiderkid trying to give Merkel a wedgie in Davos? Or is that how one goes about saving the leader of Germany from death by ski lift?"
Tony cursed, and she heard Jarvis start playing the reel in the background.
"Is it just me, or is it surprising that she skis?" Darcy asked.
"She doesn't," Tony bit out. "Injured herself a while back – had to stop."
"Huh..." Darcy turned up the volume on Sam's tv to hear what the commentator was saying. "Then why was she up there?"
"Take a wild guess..."
"You mean he's the reason she was up there in the first place?" Her voice rose an octave in disbelief.
The uncharacteristic silence on the other end was all Darcy needed to hear to know that was exactly what Tony meant.
"How we handling this then?" She asked him after a beat.
"We aren't handling anything, kid. You are off duty until you figure out whatever shit you've got going on in that head of yours..." He said, not bothering to beat around the bush.
Darcy swallowed down her discomfort, flashing back to her freak out in the gym and the reason she had followed Sam back to D.C. Before she could come up with a snarky reply, Darcy's attention was pulled to a dinging sound coming from the alarm system that indicated someone had opened the front door.
Expecting Sam, she was startled when a woman's voice called out from the entryway asking if anybody was home.
"Who's that?" Tony's tinny voice asked her, but she hastily hung up on the billionaire before he could say anything inappropriate.
"Uhh—" Darcy said awkwardly, standing up from the barstool.
"Dad says next time you ask him and Mom to watch this little monster, you're paying for the carpet cleaner 'cause she keeps pissing on his floor," the stranger said wryly as she entered the living room, dropping her purse on the couch and setting something on the floor, before turning to face Darcy. Her mouth popped open in a shocked 'oh,' before she pulled her face into a polite if suspicious smile.
"I apologize I thought you were my brother..." The woman said. "I didn't realize he had company so soon after getting home; how long has this been going on then?"
She raised an eyebrow in askance, caught somewhere between politeness and exasperation at what Darcy assumed she thought was another woman through Sam's revolving door. Darcy cleared her throat uncomfortably.
"It's ... not going on," Darcy said with an awkward shrug before throwing the woman a small smile. She moved around the counter, extending her hand. "I'm Darcy Lewis, a friend of Sam's. You're his sister, I take it?"
The woman who really couldn't have been much older than Darcy looked at her hand and then gave her a brief once over. "Mhmm...and how long have you two been friends?"
Darcy couldn't help the chuckle that fought its way out.
"Seriously, your brother isn't bad-looking but that's... not gonna happen. We're friends from work, he's just helping me figure out some stuff, and invited me to get out of New York for a while. I'm staying in his guest room, the bed's unmade if you wanna check. Trust me, his virtue is more than safe with me."
Darcy cocked her head to the side and kept her hand outstretched. The girl studied her for a moment longer before her face melted into an easy smile, shaking her hand.
"Sorry," she said. "Old habits. He'd kill me if he knew the way I talked to half the crazies he brought around here. I'm Brianna."
A scratching sound from the other side of the couch, followed by a thunk, drew Darcy's attention away. Brianna tore off with a sharp "Hey!" as she crouched down out of sight with a disgruntled look on her face. Darcy followed.
The sight before her was enough to make her heart do weird little flips, and her stomach fill with excited butterflies. Darcy wanted to squeeze it until it died, it was so cute. Brianna was on the floor, growling out demands at the little white furball that was innocently staring up at her. The puppy couldn't have been bigger than Darcy's hand, her fur was tousled in every which way, and she had managed to drag Brianna's purse off the couch. She stood there with both straps clutched tightly between her teeth.
Brianna had her fingers in the corners of the puppy's mouth, trying to pry open a surprisingly strong jaw and release her purse from the little angel's clutches. The series of growls it emitted should have been surprising if they weren't so damn cute, and its eyes which hadn't blinked once since Brianna had engaged it were wide and babyish in a way that tugged at Darcy's heartstrings.
"Goddamn it, release. Bad dog. Let go, you little shit," Brianna grumbled, tugging on her bag in exasperation. "Come on, Maisy. Let go."
So thrilled by the sight before her, Darcy failed to notice the sound of the front door opening and another person coming into the room. Both girls jumped when Sam barked out an order at the little Maltese puppy.
"Maisy, AUS!"
The dog released the bag instantly, sitting obediently and looking at Sam with half-moon eyes like she was in love.
Brianna picked herself up off the ground and turned to glare at her brother. "You had to go and train that little monster in German?"
Sam just smiled.
"Dad says you're paying for the carpet cleaners, she peed in the living room or something. Said something about you needing to get a real dog too. Apparently, that one barely counts as a rat." Brianna rolled her eyes, annoyed with both Maisy and her father, Darcy was sure.
"Yeah, lemme get right on that," Sam said lightly before looking between the two of them. "So, you met?"
Both girls looked at each other exasperatedly before rolling their eyes and heading into the kitchen leaving Sam behind them to cuddle Maisy in peace.
They hung out for a bit, made small talk over coffee before Brianna left to run some errands. Darcy left Sam to his own devices, making her way up to the guest room to make the bed and get ready for the rest of the day, having never changed out of her pajamas.
Once she'd gotten dressed and made the bed, a wave of exhaustion washed over her. She laid down and stared at the ceiling. A few minutes turned into a few hours and Darcy just laid there.
The sun was bright and unforgiving outside when Sam decided to go find Darcy.
He felt incredibly old at the sight before him as he stood there in the doorway, despite the fact there couldn't be more than five or six years between the two of them. He'd seen that face in the mirror, in the years after he'd lost Riley in Afghanistan. And he wondered if it was the right thing to pressure her to tell him more.
"Feel like talking about those things on your wrists?" Sam gestured to the bracelets.
She barely reacted to his voice, slowly pulling herself from her reverie and craning her neck to look up at him. With a deep breath, Darcy heaved herself up and settled her back against the pillows.
She looked down at her bracelets. The beads on her left wrist. The bronze cuff on her right. One a guide to Asgard. The other, a beautiful layer between her and the world around her.
She tapped the beaded bracelet gently, watching with an air of detachment as the kingdom of Asgard was projected before her. Sam leaned forward, a look of wonder on his face, as he studied it.
"What do those symbols mean?"
"They're runes, they mark different locations on the map."
"Are you able to read them?"
Darcy was able with the pin firmly in place in her hair. She looked away.
"Bucky told me a while back that I should talk to someone…" She trailed off.
Sam pulled himself away from the strange little device on her arm and gave her his full attention.
"But I don't know who to talk to or where to start. It's been too long, and I don't know what I am allowed to say."
He thought for a moment.
"Well," He said. "As a friend, you can always come to me. I get how crazy the supercrew can be to keep up with, and I'm always looking for someone to commiserate with. As for a professional, and I agree with Barnes that it would be good for you to open up, I might need to do some homework and find someone that has clearance to talk to you."
Darcy quirked her eyebrow.
"Clearance to talk to me..." She gave a dark laugh. "It's fine if you find someone who doesn't Sam, I just need a detailed list of things I need to censor out."
He looked at her for a confused moment, before understanding dawned in his eyes.
"No, Darcy, not because we think you'll talk about classified information," He laughed. "Because of the heightened security threat."
"Huh?"
"Cap ordered a level two security alert for you, Darce."
"A level what-now?"
Sam fixed her with a blank stare.
"You've gotta be kidding me. Darcy, did no one tell you?"
"Spit it out, Wilson. What does that mean?"
"You've been targeted by Hydra three times now. Once in Tony's Tesla. Then again in a damn alleyway…you got some thug veteran out there killing dudes for you. Don't think for a second we aren't gonna revisit that. And again, when the tower was breached, and you fell out the side of the damn building during a code green. Did you honestly think we were just not handling that situation?"
"Umm.." Darcy cringed. "Do you want an honest answer to that question?"
He spluttered and leaned back in his seat.
"Why would you even think—"
"I don't know, Sam. I don't know why it didn't occur to me. It just didn't. I'm not that important in the grand scheme of things, ya know? Why the hell would they want me?"
"Don't play that game, Lewis. Barton's told you a million times that you're vulnerable."
"Vulnerable is a pretty word for weak link."
Darcy crossed her arms, wincing at the tug on her healing wounds.
"You can take that self-pity bullshit and tell it to go fuck itself, Lewis. No one's saying that but you."
Darcy opened her mouth to protest. To remind him of Natasha Romanov telling her to leave. Of Steve telling her that they had more important things to deal with than her – that she wasn't a priority. She wanted to throw Thor's insult in Sam's face. But then she remembered that it wasn't real. She knew it wasn't, but the hurt was vivid still. Etched there on every inch of her skin. Not that he could see that either. She twisted the bronze cuff on her wrist nervously, letting out an uncomfortable cough.
"I know. I—it's a thing I'm working on…"
"Good," he said.
She pulled up the map again and gestured to it.
"I'll tell you if you want."
"Only if you're ready," he said easily.
Darcy didn't think she was ready. But life sometimes demanded things of a person before they were at a place to deal with them. Darcy had found, in those moments, that meeting them head-on was more efficient than wearing herself down trying to outrun the inevitable.
"To answer your question, yes I know how to read the map." She pulled the pin out of her hair and held it up, explaining what Frigga had said when she gave it to her. That day felt like it happened in another lifetime.
If a man could grow hair by sheer force of will alone, the look in Sam's eyes said he would've done so in that moment if only so he could see another language by way of magic hair accessory.
A part of her felt warm inside at his blatant humanity and wondered briefly if this was how Frigga had felt when they met each other for the first time.
Darcy felt older now. A little tired too. And still so impossibly young.
She pointed out Heimdall's dais and the gateway to Asgard. She told him about the impossibly long rainbow bridge and the emotionally constipated soldier that escorted her into the lower markets of the kingdom. She told him about the gown and her Nikes and the crazy-ass horse he just left her there with. And he laughed at all the correct moments. Looked at her in wonder at the mention of others. Then again in horror when she described Thor's lightning well of death.
She told him about Brunhilde and Eira and Sleipnir and Volstagg. She told him about the human-eating plant and the acid-spitting squirrel. And then she trailed off a bit.
He waited patiently. But she was in her head and she wasn't coming back out without prompting.
"So, explain to me," he started. "Explain to me what happens between that moment and the moment the aliens beamed you back…"
She blinked before shaking off the haze and looking back at Sam.
She tried to form her mouth around the words before releasing an aggravated breath. Her nose burned with unshed tears and she worried her lip between her teeth.
She fidgeted with the bracelet.
"Before I show you," She said quietly. "Just remember that they don't think it's permanent."
"Show me?" He tilted his head and studied her.
She slid the cuff off her wrist and twisted it nervously in her hands. Refusing to look up at the man whose face had paled and gone slack. His eyes flitted disbelievingly across her body. He reached up to touch her but pulled back uncertainly.
The scars were angry red slashes up and down her arms, across her chest, on her cheeks and forehead. He was sure there would be more underneath her clothes as well.
"What the hell, Darcy?" He stood up and paced for a moment before returning to his seat and trying to catch her eyes.
"Darcy."
She looked at him again.
"Darcy, what—"
"Runes."
"Runes?"
"They're words…written in ancient runes. They're pretty sure it's all gonna heal." She repeated this quietly more to herself than Sam.
"Are you in pain? We need to get you looked at. Let me grab something to—"
"They're clean," she said. "Nothing's going to get infected, Frigga and a healer took care of them. Some are almost healed up entirely. And yes, they hurt, but not as bad as before. So that's something…"
Sam sighed.
"And I can't get you anything for the pain?"
She shook her head.
"Explain." His voice was hard, and she could tell that if she didn't explain the rest that Sam Wilson would strap on his wings, fix himself a space suit and fly his ass on up to Asgard to get the answers he wanted. That or – more plausibly – he would tell Steve.
She clenched her fists three times before twisting her hands in her lap. She told him of the herd of Bilgesnipe, of being thrown off the cliff, nearly drowning in water that tasted like blood. Then she gestured to the map, to the harmless looking valley.
"It was the only way to save Jane."
"That's the valley the creepy guy – the one that apparently watches you all day – told you about? The valley that eats human souls?"
The look on his face told her that there were layers to the issues he had with her story. She forced a grin onto her face and nodded at him, appearing to the world, for one brief moment, completely unbothered.
"Yep."
"It wasn't the only way to save her," he pointed out. "Thor was there already—"
"Which I didn't know."
"There were three immortal beings with you who could have walked their asses through the valley – who did in fact walk through the valley – without anything happening to them…"
"I had to do it."
"No—"
"Yes."
"Darcy, no."
"Sam, I did. I don't know how to explain it to you. I don't fully know how to explain it to myself. It's not that they couldn't do it. It's that I had to. Me."
He leveled her with a glare.
"Moving on," he said. "So, you decide to pull a Steve Rogers, and like a self-sacrificing idiot you enter the Valley of Death."
"Valley of Crystals, yes," she said, ignoring his attitude.
"Then…"
"Then nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing happens. It's beautiful. The sky is somehow even clearer. The crystals are casting little mini rainbows across the ground. And the dirt is this really rich deep red color. It feels like the air is easier to breathe there. I'm in heaven."
Sam drew back, skeptical.
Darcy's lips twisted into a wry little smile.
"And then I wake up in my own bed, in the middle of the night, in Avenger's Tower. And everything seems…normal. But everything's off at the same time, ya know?"
She didn't wait for him to respond.
"I registered that what I was experiencing wasn't real. And then I was waking up again and telling myself that the first time had all been a dream…"
Darcy told him about the weird dreamscape the crystals had trapped her in. She told him of the ugly, distorted faces of their friends. And the ugly words – her own negative self-talk – that had been appropriated by the crystals and forced into the mouths of other people.
"It took my weaknesses and used them against me. Literally."
She reached up to her throat where the word 'expendable' was carved above her trachea, still raw and looking as though it were ready to bleed. She shook her head as if she could shake loose the word there, trying not to dwell on it.
"Of course, what I would learn much later was that I was in a coma. Volstagg carried me the entire journey. Every time I realized that what I was seeing wasn't real, the valley would jump me back to the start. He said that my eyes would open randomly, and I would stare up at the sky. I think those were the flashes of light I would get. It was usually really cold and gloomy inside my mind, while on the outside the valley was bright and hot. Internally, I was hemorrhaging, and the pressurized atmosphere of the valley was crushing me. Externally…"
She gestured to the runes on her arms.
"My weaknesses were being burned into my skin by beams of light refracting off the crystals. They tried to cover me with Siff's cloak, and Frigga's magic, but the crystals burned through everything."
She usually took Frigga's pin out of her hair when she looked into the mirror these days, allowing the foreign symbols to replace the words she knew were there. But she looked in the mirror then, with her pin firmly holding her hair out of her eyes. The word 'burden' was etched – angry and red – on her forearm. She stared at it for a sad little moment – seeing the way Volstagg had to carry her on her own journey, the way Jane had to include her in her Stark Industries contract in order to keep her legally in the fold.
Sometimes, if she were honest with herself, Darcy felt more like a bullet point on an agenda, rather than an individual that brought her own qualities and skills to the table. She didn't feel like she'd carried herself through anything as of late – was dragged through or carried out of every hardship and struggle that she met. And all the difficult emotions and heavy traumas kept collecting and piling on top of her along the way, exhausting her, pressurizing her into something unrecognizable.
But... by taking the task out of her hands... by appropriating her own struggle and holding her hand through it, part of her resented that everyone else got the reward that followed the act of overcoming for Darcy what she had set out to overcome herself. By saving her, rather than letting her save herself, they benefitted from the mental and emotional release that followed an earned success.
She didn't blame her friends, in fact, she loved them for the way they refused to let her drown in a mess she had not created. That she had people who would carry her through a valley of death, as Sam had called it, spoke to the true love that must exist in them for her. Logically, she knew this. But in the complex she developed, in which the world had closed in on her, and she became small and inconsequential, and everyone else became so monumentally large, she sometimes wished she had the space to save herself from drowning.
Both she and Sam Wilson were impossibly human. At the end of the day, there was an inherent faith placed in Sam by the others. She would not deny or detract from the fact that he had earned it, but that faith was in his ability to succeed. This was not extended to Darcy by the powers that be. She attributed it entirely to the roles that were prescribed for them arbitrarily. They are how they are within their community because of how they were introduced to it. Simple and well intentioned. But the newfound wisdom she had gained reflecting on her time spent at the base of Frigga's Sorrow, where she laid half dead next to a symbol of Thor's innate superiority, made her sad and restless because she had unknowingly been placed in a cage. A loving cage, but it still had bars.
She pulled her gaze from her reflection, forcing herself to meet Sam's eyes.
He had questions; she could tell as he studied her exposed skin trying to translate the things that were written there. Trying to process the story she had told. She could see the suspension of disbelief that he did almost naturally these days, as he had learned to do in a world full of impossible things. She had learned that too.
He opened and closed his mouth a few times, sat back and studied her face, before letting out a long deep breath. She saw a weight settle down on him, shutter through his eyes, and knew she had a similar one. They all did now. It was how you knew you were part of the club, even if you questioned your role.
She felt a small part of her chest begin to lighten. The weight hadn't gone completely. Far from it. She still felt as though she couldn't breathe. The nightmares would still haunt her in her sleep. She still would break into a cold sweat at random. There was a part of her soul that had been damaged by the valley – that had been vulnerable long before that – that had yet to and maybe never fully would heal. But that tiny lightness in her chest, just a flash of relief, and the burden that shuttered through Sam's eyes made her nose burn with tears. Her lips twisted into a smile that was a mix of bitterness and guilt and gratitude. The weight that had settled on Sam's shoulders had been hers. He'd taken it on so she would not have to carry it alone.
She jolted forward then, wrapping her arms around him, and squeezing him tight. His hesitation was brief and entirely due to his surprise, but he squeezed her back just as tightly.
They were sitting on the couch watching a basketball game when the front door opened. Maisy perked up when the alarm dinged, and Darcy craned her neck just in time to see Steve's bulky frame fill up the space of the entryway. Darcy shot him an awkward smile before returning her attention to the game.
"Knock knock," he called out as he made his way further inside. Maisy snorted and sniffed at the air, Sam dropped his hand down to ruffle the fur on the top of her head, nodding at Steve when he came into view. "Mind the extra company?" Steve asked lightly, shoving his hands in his pockets, and leaning on the wall. He was looking at Sam, but Darcy knew the question was directed at her.
"Nets are down by 12," She said smugly, relishing in the brief flash of annoyance that crossed his face at the mention of his team losing. Seeing the invitation for what it was, he made to go take a seat next to Sam when Maisy's hackles rose. She erupted in a series of growls. The little fluff ball of love lunged off the couch, leaving Sam's hand floating above the place where he had been petting her. She shot off in Steve's direction, with an earth-shattering yowl that sounded nothing like any dog Darcy had ever heard. Steve froze as the little demon shot past his legs and lunged at the shadow lurking behind him.
The all too familiar voice of Bucky Barnes let out a string of curses, backing out the front door in a rush, shouting aggressively in German at the little Maltese who had latched onto his calf and was shaking her head fiercely as though to dislodge something important there.
Darcy shot off the couch to follow – to stop the dog from attacking Barnes — but Sam grabbed her wrist and shook his head with a relaxed look on his face. He nodded for her to sit down. Steve was pinching the bridge of his nose, fluctuating between looking behind him at his best friend who was fighting a losing battle against the world's most terrifying puppy, and staring at Sam as though he really needed to stop encouraging Maisy's behavior. But Steve didn't go help Bucky, and Sam seemed content to continue watching the game as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening at all.
"Uhh," Darcy looked between the two of them, not really sure what to say. Steve turned to Sam and opened his mouth.
"Ya just had to—"
"Yes, I damn well did," His voice was blunt as ever and happy as a clam. "My baby's got the prey drive of a German Shepherd and the bite strength of a Malinois. And she only listens to me."
Darcy's mouth opened into a shocked little "oh." Steve rolled his eyes. Bucky... poor Bucky was calling out to Sam to get the little monster off his leg and let him into the damn house.
"But—" Steve tried to come to Bucky's defense.
"Nope. No sir," Sam held up a silencing hand, with a wide toothy grin. "A man's gotta have his sacred space, Rogers. This is my sacred space. Barnes's energy disrupts that. My sweet little Maisy is just reminding him of the natural order of things – reminding him of his place around here. In my space. Mine."
From outside, Bucky's voice cracked a bit when he shouted "Come on, man! She's working her way into the muscle! That's a bitch to heal! Wilson! WILSON!"
Steve shot Sam a tired look, pleading with his eyes for Sam to show Bucky a little mercy. With a displeased expression on his face, Sam stared at Steve for an unhappy minute before shouting out for Maisy.
"MAISY, AUS! LASS ES! MAISY, HIER!"
There was a beat of silence. And then as though nothing at all had happened, the little puppy daintily trotted back into the house, to Sam, and jumped back on the couch to sit between him and Darcy. Her chest was stuck out proudly, her fluffy tail was taut as though she were at attention, and through the messy scruff of fur on top of her head, two half-moon eyes stared lovingly at Sam.
Never mind Steve sitting next to them. Never mind Darcy's shocked face. Never mind the disgruntled super soldier standing out of breath and sweaty in the doorway. The Maltese and her Falcon were in a world of their own.
As always, I would love to hear what you think!
