Darcy woke slowly to the sound of rhythmic beeping, a deep ache in her head, and a thick tongue. Blearily, she pulled open first one eyelid, then the other and quickly realised that she was, once again, a guest of Stark Medical.
"Good morning, Miss Darcy," said JARVIS, his voice softer than usual. "How are you feeling?"
"Rough," she grunted, slowly heaving herself upright. "We've got to stop meeting like this JARVIS."
"That would be preferable," he agreed mildly. "Can I assist you with anything?"
Darcy paused to think about it for a second. Her mouth tasted like she'd licked the inside of a garbage bin. "Some water, please? And maybe an aspirin the size of a small bus, if you've got any."
"Of course, Miss Darcy. I will send for it."
She took a quick inventory of herself as she waited for JARVIS to round up a lackey. Her body was still tired, though the clock on the wall and the light shining through the window told her that she had at least slept through dinner and the entire night. The throbbing in her head intensified when she moved too quickly, so she quickly decided that the best strategy would be to lie back down. Slowly. She had just made herself comfortable again when the door opened.
"Steve. Hey."
He smiled at her, looking equal parts strained and yet still relieved. "Hey, Darcy. How're you feeling?" he asked, crossing the room in a few big strides.
"I've got a headache the size of Texas, but other than that I'm okay," she told him. "What happened to—"
Darcy stopped midsentence as a woman she didn't recognise walked in holding a mug and a plastic pill cup. She was tall and thin, much like Pepper Pots, but that was where the similarities ended. This woman's hair was a much brighter, more vibrant red, and her eyes were brown instead of blue. Where Pepper always looked like she belonged on the cover of the Economist, this woman was dressed much like the Widow did on her casual days—a pair of slim fitting jeans, comfortable boots, a plain tee, and a leather jacket.
"Hello, Darcy. My name is Jean. I heard you could use a few of these." She gave the pills a little shake as she approached.
"Uh…" Darcy glanced at Steve, looking for direction. The other woman was clearly not a nurse, nor any Stark Industries employee Darcy'd ever seen—not that she knew all of them—but Steve seemed relaxed enough around her.
"Jean Grey is a member of the X-Men," he told her.
Darcy's gaze snapped back to the woman, taking her in with new eyes. She had heard of Jean Grey, almost every mutant had, especially mutants like Darcy. Jean Grey was both feared and revered, depending on whom you talked to. Everyone knew she was an Omega mutant, the strongest of their kind, and in possession of both telepathic as well as telekinetic powers. The woman could change the orbit of the goddamn moon if she so pleased, but as Darcy stared at her she couldn't help being struck by how utterly normal the other woman looked.
Suddenly, Jean grinned at her. "Do I?" She looked down at herself. "Logan always says this jacket makes me look like I'm one step away from joining a biker gang."
Steve chuckled as Darcy blinked in shock, gaping at Jean for a moment, before her brain processed what had just happened. Clearly, her thoughts were not to be her own. She didn't quite know how to feel about that. Part of her wanted to feel violated, but it was hard when she'd done the same thing so many times through unexpected handshakes, or accidental brushes of skin. "So that's what that's like."
Jean's grin widened. "Sorry," she said, slightly apologetic. "I have a bad habit of doing that to new people. Xavier says I have trust issues. Logan says I just have broad spectrum issues."
At the end of her bed, Steve snorted. "He's one to talk."
"Right?" Jean flashed her smile at Steve, and suddenly Darcy felt like the odd man out.
"Who's Logan?" she asked.
"Wolverine." They answered simultaneously, and Steve grinned. Darcy looked between the two of them, and the third-wheel sensation intensified. Darcy'd had no idea that Steve was at all familiar with the X-Men, not that she'd made any effort into finding out those kinds of details. They were either really good friends, or the Captain and Jean Grey were knockin' boots, Darcy decided.
"Definitely the first one," Jean said apropos to, seemingly, nothing. She put the mug and the pills down on the bedside table closest to her and then pointed at the obligatory bedside chair. "Mind if I sit?"
"I'm not in much of a position to stop you."
"True enough." Jean shrugged and sat down, leaning forward so her elbows rested on her knees. "Professor Xavier sent me in his stead, along with his apologises for being unable to help personally."
Darcy's heart contracted painfully, both in relief and shock. She'd had faith that JARVIS would send her weird, rambling plea, but she'd had no idea that help would come, let alone so quickly. She glanced at Steve again, seeking affirmation. His short nod told her everything she needed to know.
"Oh, sweet fucking Christ, thank you," Darcy blurted out unthinkingly.
Steve's eyebrows shot up, but Jean Grey let out an unholy sounding cackle. "I knew I should have dragged Logan up here with me," she said, slapping her knee like an old man.
"I'm suddenly glad you didn't," Steve said under his breath, rubbing one hand over his face.
"Sorry," Darcy muttered, embarrassed.
"Please, don't be," Jean said. "You should take those pills though," she added. "Your head still hurts."
Darcy's eyebrows went up, and Jean shrugged. "Doesn't take a psychic to see the way you wince at the light."
She did as she was told, downing most of the water to rid her mouth of the furry feeling that came with vomiting and then passing out.
"Any chance of me getting out of here so I can brush my teeth?" Darcy asked.
"You're free to go whenever you're ready," Steve told her. "The doctor said you're physically fine."
"I'm exhausted," Darcy admitted, rubbing at her eyes. The lethargy hadn't gone away, but simply taken a backseat for a moment. The second she thought about it, however, it seemed to swamp her again.
"You're unused to exercising your gift, so it takes a toll on you every time you use it for such lengths of time, and under such stress," Jean explained. "It's like a muscle. It takes time to build up stamina."
"Oh," Darcy said dumbly. It sounded perfectly legitimate, but she'd never thought of it that way.
Jean smiled slightly and held out her hand. "Do you mind if I…?"
Darcy hesitated for a second; it went against her instincts to offer her bare hand, especially to strangers. On top of that, she knew that Jean Grey would be searching her mind. Then again, the other mutant didn't need touch to achieve that, so did it really matter?
She placed her hand in the other woman's, her brain registering the soft warmth of another's skin only seconds before she realised that there was no accompanying rush of thoughts and emotions. Darcy looked up at Jean's face, shocked.
"How…?"
Jean shrugged slightly. "There are very few beings that can force their own consciousness upon mine," she told her, very matter of fact.
For the first time in as long as she could remember, Darcy held the hand of another person and her mind was her own. Not even the throbbing in her head could stem her happiness, and a grin split over her face.
"This is so cool."
Jean squeezed her fingers. "Would you like to learn how to do this?" she asked, gesturing with their joined hands.
"You think I could?" Darcy asked, hope plain as day in her voice. She didn't even bother to contain it.
Jean tilted her head to the side slightly, her eyes focused on the empty space between them. She frowned slightly and reached out with her other hand, brushing her fingers over Darcy's temple ever so gently.
"Who bound you?" she asked sharply, her brown eyes refocusing on Darcy.
"What?"
Jean pressed her fingers against the skin of Darcy's head, but still Darcy felt nothing but the physical. "You've been bound," Jean told her. "It's old, and crude, and it's coming apart but still there."
Darcy stared at her blankly for a second before shifting her gaze to Steve, who looked just as perplexed as Darcy felt. His eyes were swivelling between Darcy and Jean's hand upon her face, a little furrow between his eyebrows. Darcy's hope began to fizzle as a little seed of dread began to grow in her gut.
"Another mutant did this. Purposely," Jean continued, arching an eyebrow at Darcy. "You don't remember?"
"I've never met another mutant," Darcy told her. "Not that I know of. Well, other than you," she amended.
Jean's head tilted slightly to the side again, her eyes losing focus again even as she continued to speak. "No. That's not right…" She trailed off, and Darcy watched as her warm brown eyes darkened to pitch. She was about to open her mouth to ask just what the hell was going on when suddenly her vision blurred.
The room dimmed, and then she was standing in a old, musty looking parlour, looking at an end table that seemed unreasonably high.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
Warm, papery hands touch the sides of her face, leaving gentle traces of emotion. Concern, sadness, affection. It doesn't rush at her the way they usually do, instead it seems to slip over her softly, like the fuzzy blanket on her bed that her mama bought for her last Christmas. Darcy smiles up at the older lady, and the old lady smiles back, making all the lines in her face jump and move. It makes Darcy want to giggle, and to touch, but she's not supposed to touch anyone but her mama and so she keeps her hands to herself even though the lady is touching her face.
"I need to protect her, even if it's from herself."
She looks up at her mother, concerned at the tone of her voice. Her mother's face is upset, her lips thin and hard, the grooves next to her mouth deep the way they get when Darcy does something wrong. Without thinking, she reaches out to touch her mother's hand, a silent question that she passed through her fingertips and into her mother's.
Her mama looks down at her and smiles slightly. "Don't worry baby, I'm not mad at you."
"She's talented. This will stunt her."
"She's not talented, she's cursed."
The other lady sighs and gives her mama a look that Darcy can't understand, though it doesn't seem nice. Slowly, she shuffles over to a sofa that's covered in plastic and sits down heavily. With one hand, she pats the seat beside her.
"Come here, kız bebek."
Darcy looks up at her mother for permission before going for the sofa. She has to hoist herself up, and feels a pair of hands grab her by the arms to help her over the slippery plastic. When she's upright, she looks between her mama and the old lady.
"What's kiz beh…?"
The lady smiles slightly. "It means 'baby girl'."
Darcy frowns at that. "I'm not a baby."
"Of course not," the lady agrees. "Come closer." She pats her lap.
Darcy looks to her mother again, who nods. She isn't used to being able to touch people, and this is a treat. She practically scrambles over the lady's lap, sitting down on her brightly coloured skirt. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, Darcy reaches out and touches the lady's face the way she had wanted to do early. Her skin is warm and papery, just like her hands.
"One day you will look like me kız bebek," the woman says. "Now, close your eyes."
She does as she's told, and feels those warm hands on her face once more. Those gentle, soft emotions slip over her again and Darcy smiles. She likes this lady, even if her house smells a bit funny and the couch is slippery. She's just deciding that she'll ask her mama if they can visit the lady again when she feels the pressure in her head.
Her eyes open, and she frowns at the lady in front of her. The older woman's eyes are closed, but somehow Darcy knows that that feeling is because of her. She tries to pull back, but the lady's hands tighten on her head, the fingers almost closing around all of her face. The pressure builds and starts to hurt.
"No," Darcy whines.
"I'm sorry," the lady whispers, but she doesn't let go of Darcy's head. Her face creases, the lines getting deeper, and she holds tighter.
The pain increases, stabbing through her head, and Darcy starts to cry. Hot tears fall down her cheeks and she tries to turn to see her mother. "Mama," she cries. "Mama, make her stop. Mama."
She jerks back sharply, trying to pull away from the lady even though she knows it will mean falling off the couch backwards, and that will hurt too, but maybe it will hurt less than what the lady is doing to her head. Suddenly, there are hands on her shoulders, holding her in place, and Darcy knows that it's her mother.
"Mama!" she shrieks.
Behind her, she hears the sound of someone crying, but the pain spikes through her head and it hurts so bad—
Darcy sucked in a deep, shaky breath as the old lady's face disappeared to be replaced by Jean Grey's concerned one.
"Wh—what was that?" Darcy asked, her voice unsteady. She reached up to touch her face, the memory of those large, warm hands on her skin still lingering. She was surprised to find that her cheeks were wet with tears that she didn't know she'd shed. Hastily, she wiped them away with the back of her hands.
"That was a memory," Jean said softly. "You were made to forget, as part of the binding."
"What are you talking about?" Darcy snapped. "What the fuck is a binding?"
Jean's lips thinned. "Your mother had another mutant bind your gifts, or part of them, in an attempt to protect you from them. It's not unheard of to do with children who have gifts that can cause harm to others. It was done to me."
Darcy shook her head, ignoring the way her brain protested the movement, and held up a hand to stem the flow of Jean's words. "Wait, wait, wait. First off, my mother would never…" The words felt false in her mouth, even as she spoke them. Darcy knew that her mother had always loved her, deeply and desperately, but she also knew that her mother's greatest disappointment and fear was Darcy's abilities.
She looked up to see Jean Grey's face drawn in concern, and maybe a bit of pity. Darcy had the sudden and irrational desire to tell the woman to fuck right off. She didn't want to see the pity, and she didn't want to confront the idea that her mother had done this, had hurt her, in front of a complete stranger because Darcy wasn't sure she wouldn't start bawling.
"What, exactly, did this binding do to Darcy?" Steve asked, breaking the lull of silence. Darcy looked up at him, torn between relief and resentment. She wanted to know. And yet she really, really didn't.
"The woman who did it was not very skilled, so it has been breaking down steadily for a number of years," Jean said. She turned back to Darcy, her eyes brown once more. "It was the telekinesis that she tried to contain. Your mother most likely saw it as a danger to others."
"That's…That's not…" 'Not possible' is what she wanted to say, but Darcy knew better than that. She lived in a world where things that shouldn't be possible definitely were, and not just because she'd been born with a few mutated genes. She glanced at Steve, a man born almost a hundred years before, whose current existence was owed entirely to a brilliant scientist and engineering genius. Darcy knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that her mother would have seized any opportunity to make her daughter 'normal' with both hands and held on for dear life.
"If you wish to learn," Jean interjected into her thoughts, her voice quiet, "the binding must be lifted."
"Can you even do that?" Steve asked. "Or does it have to be the same person?"
Jean cast him a look like he was a complete idiot. "It's not hocus pocus, Steve."
"Well, how am I supposed to know?" he countered, shrugging his massive shoulders.
Jean rolled her eyes slightly but nodded, turning her attention back to Darcy. "I can remove it for you, if you wish, but it's not going to last forever anyway. The more you use your powers, especially telekinesis, the more it's going to unravel."
"Will it hurt?" Darcy asked quietly, thinking back to the recently rediscovered memory. Her mother had stood behind her and held her still as that old woman had made her head feel like it was being split in two, and Darcy had no idea how to feel about that.
"Not like that." Jean shook her head. "Maybe a headache. You're not used to having someone tramping around up there."
"Does it do that with everyone?" Darcy asked suddenly, thinking of James.
"I don't know if he gets them," Jean said. "I've never met him."
"You didn't?"
Jean glanced at Steve, making Darcy look his way. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "Whatever you did, he woke up," he told her, "but he's not…Well, he attacked a doctor and almost killed him so he's being kept in isolation."
Darcy's eyes widened. Theoretically, she knew that he was capable of such things but he'd been comatose for so long that part of her expected him to stay that way.
"Is the doctor all right?"
"Yeah, mostly bruises and a few stitches." Steve shrugged again, going for nonchalant but failing miserably. Darcy took a closer look at him, seeing once more the strain in the lines around his eyes, and the way his entire body seemed just a little bit slumped as he stood beside her bed, hands in his pockets.
"And what about Ja—Barnes?"
If Steve noticed the slip, he didn't acknowledge it. "He's…Well, he's paranoid I think. We left him crouched in a corner. Not that I can blame him." He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck again before stuffing it back in his pocket. "I remember when I first woke up I didn't know who to trust." His lips twisted in a grimace. "It didn't help that they tried to trick me into thinking it was still 1945."
"Trick you?" Darcy echoed. "How?"
"A room in some S.H.E.I.L.D basement designed to look a New York hospital. They were playing a radio broadcast of a baseball game that I'd attended as a kid," Steve said. "Kind of tipped me off."
"Someone got fired that day," Jean murmured. Steve smiled slightly.
"Probably."
"But…Why the trick? Why not just honesty?"
"S.H.E.I.L.D is a spy organization," Jean said. "If I couldn't read Fury's mind I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him." She grinned suddenly. "Bad metaphor. I could throw him pretty far."
"You read Fury's mind?" Steve echoed, his blue eyes wide.
Jean waggled her eyebrows at him. "Why do you think he avoids me like the plague?"
"Because his secrets have secrets," Steve said on a sigh.
"Well, that and he says finishing his sentences isn't cute anymore." Jean looked entirely unrepentant.
Despite herself, Darcy smiled. She could understand why someone like Fury would avoid Jean Grey, or the Professor. She'd never met the man, but she'd heard things. And if he was the head of a spy organization, now defunct or not, he probably had quite a few things to hide.
"You're almost as bad as Tony,"
"Speaking of Stark, I should probably pay him a visit," Jean said, standing up. "I sort of dropped by unannounced." Looking to Darcy she added, "Think about what I said. The offer stands."
"All right," Darcy agreed quietly.
"Good." To Steve she said, "I'll talk to you later?"
He nodded, and together they watched Jean Grey leave the room. Silence descended and Darcy entertained the idea of getting up. Exhaustion clung to her bones, weighing her down, and the idea of getting up to go back to her apartment seemed like an unreasonable venture considering the perfectly good bed she had at her disposal.
"How're you feeling?" Steve asked.
"Head's better," she told him. "Pills kicked in, so that's nice."
"Are you going to stay here?"
"No," Darcy sighed. "I should probably go find Jane. I'm surprised she isn't banging down the door already."
"Oh, she was already here," Steve said, and the tone of his voice told Darcy all that she needed to know.
She groaned, dropping her head into her hands. "How pissed is she?"
"For a woman her size she has a lot of…" he paused, clearly weighing his words. Darcy peered at him through her fingers, waiting. "Presence," he finally said.
Darcy snorted. "You should have seen her when S.H.E.I.L.D took all our stuff. I seriously thought she was going to clock Coulson."
She slid out of the bed and bent at the waist to hunt for her shoes. She found them, tucked neatly under the bed and pulled them out.
"And then she ran over Thor," Darcy added, tugging one shoe on. Someone had been nice enough to actually loosen the laces. She usually just struggled with stuffing her foot into her Chucks rather than unlacing them, even though logic said she'd get them on faster if she made the extra effort. Some habits were nonsensical, but they died hard. "Twice."
"You tasered him," Steve pointed out, "I'm not sure where that falls on the scale of using physical violence when compared to a car but it has to count for something."
"If a man dropped out of the sky and started referring to himself as Thor Odinson, you'd tase him, too," Darcy countered, shooting him a look as she struggled with her other shoe.
"I got into a tin can as a 100 pound shrimp and came out like this." Steve gestured to his torso. "And my best friend is a metal armed assassin, so I think I could handle a man falling from the sky."
Darcy paused to stare at him for a second, shocked to hell that he'd just made a joke about James, but he had a look to his face that said if he didn't laugh, he'd cry, so she smiled.
"Touché."
"You going back to your apartment?"
Darcy rubbed a hand over her face. "I want to, but I've been neglecting Jane lately, and technically she is my boss."
"Technically," Steve agreed. "C'mon, I'll walk you."
Darcy followed him out of the room and into the hall. She didn't recognise the area she was in, and she'd become pretty familiar with Stark Medical as of late, either through visiting James, or from ending up in a bed herself. She frowned, looking around.
"Where are we? This isn't the medical floor. Is it?"
Steve's lips thinned and he got that look on his face, the one that she was coming to realise meant whatever it was he was about to say really bothered him. "Everyone's been moved out of the usual floor because of Bucky."
"They're isolating him?"
"Pretty much."
"Is he that bad?"
Steve sighed and turned a corner, guiding her way out. They approached a metal door that looked like it ought to lead to a storage room, but when Steve opened it Darcy recognised the dark tones of a Stark Industries hallway.
"He won't let anyone near him, especially not me, or the doctors. We were hoping that Jean Grey would go see him, but she said she wanted to see you first."
"Me?" Darcy echoed. "Why me?"
Steve shrugged and turned for the elevators. "She wouldn't explain. Just said that Bucky would keep and that she needed to see you first."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"I try not to overthink things when it comes to her, or to the Professor," Steve admitted. "It just gives me a headache."
Darcy smiled slightly. "You seem to know her pretty well, though?"
"I know Logan better," Steve told her as they stopped in front of the elevators. Most floors didn't have a call button as JARVIS always knew when someone needed an elevator so they didn't have anything to press. "I know some of the others through him, but most of the mutants I knew are dead now. Logan is the only one left."
"I thought Wolverine was, like, middle aged or something?" Darcy said slowly, frowning at Steve.
His lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. "That's part of Logan's power. He doesn't age."
Darcy's eyes widened. "You mean…ever?"
Steve dipped his head to the side slightly, an approximation of a shrug. "Not yet, at least."
That gave Darcy pause. She couldn't imagine, didn't want to imagine, what essentially being immortal would be like. To watch everyone you'd ever known or loved die while you remain the same? She looked up at Steve, at his young face.
"You two have quite a bit in common then, huh?"
Steve made an odd huffing sound, half-laugh, half-agreement. "You could say that."
The way he said it set alarm bells off in Darcy's head. There was the subtle tone of helplessness in it, which she didn't really expect. She knew about Peggy Carter, everyone did, but she also knew that Steve was starting to at least think about moving on. Sort of. A thought suddenly occurred to her.
"Do you age, Steve?" she asked in a whisper.
He looked at her, and his expression was so bleak it made tears well up in her eyes. "Not really sure, to be honest. If I do, it's very slowly. I mean…the ice kind of messed things up but…Banner was running tests for me before he was called away to Africa."
It made sense. A sick, horrifying sense, but sense nonetheless. Steve was a super soldier because he could heal rapidly. Human aging was nothing more than cells losing their ability to heal themselves as time went on, and so they wore out until the organism as a whole died. It was the reason why people turned grey as they aged, or their skin wrinkled…or why their hearts gave out.
But Steve's cells didn't do that. They were designed not to.
Darcy reached out for him, wanting to grab hold of his hand and show him just how utterly heartbroken that made her feel, but she didn't have that kind of permission from him, and her head probably couldn't take another rush of someone else's emotions so soon after her overload. Or whatever it was. Instead, she grabbed the sleeve of his Henley and held on tight, feeling the warmth of his skin and the firmness of his muscles underneath. There was nothing she could say to that, nothing that could make it better, and even if there was she wouldn't know how. He seemed to understand though, because he smiled sadly at her, and patted her arm where her sleeve also covered her skin.
"Yeah, I know," he said quietly. He swallowed heavily and then looked away, focusing his eyes upward at the ceiling. "JARVIS, what's taking the elevator so long."
"Apologies, Captain. I did not wish to interrupt yours and Miss Darcy's conversation," came the AI's voice. With a soft ding, the doors in front of them slid open smoothly. "Where may I take you?"
Darcy shot a look at Steve, he looked mildly disgruntled, but not upset. He gestured for her to enter ahead of him, the consummate gentleman.
"Jane's lab, please, JARVIS," she told the AI.
"Of course, Miss Darcy. Do you require anything? More bus sized pills, perhaps?"
Darcy smiled as the doors closed after Steve. "No, but if I do, I know who to go to."
"Most excellent, Miss Darcy."
Silence descended in the elevator for only a moment before Steve turned to her and asked,
"Are you going to remove the binding thing?"
Darcy made a face. She was kind of hoping he wouldn't bring it up, because she really didn't know what to do about that, let alone how to feel about it.
"I don't know," she admitted. "Jean said that it's coming apart on its own. Maybe I should just leave it."
"But you wouldn't be able to learn anything about your gifts if you did that," Steve pointed out.
"It's not a gift," Darcy snapped, turning to face him in the elevator. "It's a nuisance at best, and a curse at worst."
Steve frowned at her slightly. "It's part of who you are, Darcy."
"Well it's not a part I want." She crossed her arms over chest, feeling the prickle of tears behind her eyes. She looked up, blinking rapidly, and reminding herself that crying wouldn't fix anything. That didn't stop the ball forming in the back of her throat, or the burn in her eyes, though. "I didn't ask for this, Steve," she told him, her voice wavering. "I didn't sign up for it like you did. All I've ever wanted is to be normal."
"I'm not sure normal really exists, Darcy," Steve said gently. He took a step closer, pretty much crossing the elevator to stand next to her, and placed a big hand on her shoulder. She could feel the heat of him radiating through her shirt. "Even if things look normal from the outside, they usually aren't. And look at people like Pepper, and Bucky, and even Bruce. They were normal once, and then life happened to them."
"That shit happened to them because they were in a place where they were in danger of something happening to them," Darcy said. "I'm not saying it's their fault, but it's not the same either. They were normal once." She pulled away from his hand pointedly. "I have no idea what that's like."
"And you want to."
"Of course I do," she glared at him the sheer stupidity of his statement.
He glared right back at her. "Then let Jean Grey help you. She said she could teach you, but she has to remove the binding first. You want to be normal, or the closest you can get? Then do this."
Darcy looked away from him and hugged her arms a little tighter around her torso. "I wonder if letting her take it away means I'll get any new memories that my mother had supressed," she said quietly.
She startled a bit when she felt Steve's hand close around her upper arm and gently pull her towards him. Darcy didn't even put up a resistance, but went willingly and tucked herself into his broad chest, her hands trapped between the two of them. His arms wrapped around her and suddenly she was enveloped in warmth and the clean scent of man. The tears she'd been trying to hold back sprang up with a vengeance and Darcy closed her eyes against them.
"I think I'm angry at her," she whispered into his shirt. "I'm not sure."
"Your mother?" His voice rumbled through his chest, and she felt it more than she heard it.
"Yeah."
His arms tightened. "What happened to her?"
"Liver Cancer," Darcy told him quietly. Hot tears slipped out from underneath her closed eyes, half soaking into his shirt. "It's why I know so much about being a liver donor. I wanted to give her part of mine, but they said it wouldn't have helped. By the time they found it, it had spread to other organs." She laughed wetly in a short burst of sound. "We were both mutants, she and I. Only her mutations killed her, and mine didn't."
Steve's hand was warm on her back, slowly sweeping up and down her spine. It had been a long, long time since she'd been held in such a way, the kind of way that made her feel safe.
"I just want to know why," she said suddenly, her voice cracking at the end. "Why would she stand there while I screamed for her help and not do anything? I want to know why!" She grabbed two fistfuls of Steve's shirt, clenching it tightly in her hands.
"I think she probably wanted to protect you," he said quietly. "I imagine it's a lot easier to teach your child not to touch people's skin than it is to teach your child to control her ability to move things when you don't understand it yourself."
"Well, then it was all for nothing," Darcy told him bitterly. "They still found out about me, they still came after us like a goddamn lynch mob, they still ran us out of town like a couple of…of…pedos or something."
Steve pulled back slightly to look down at her, allowing Darcy to see the wet spot with the smudge of mascara on his grey shirt. "Shit, sorry," she muttered, wiping ineffectually at the spot.
"Forget the shirt, Darcy," Steve said dismissively. "What are you talking about? Lynch mob?"
Darcy shrugged and wiped under her eyes with her sleeves. "It's what happens when you live in a small town full of bigots and they find out that someone among them is a freak."
Steve frowned. "You're not a freak, Darcy."
"Actually, I am. That's kind of the definition of a mutant. Abnormal. Aberration. Other words that don't start with A," she said dully, remembering how much her mama had hated the word 'freak', especially when Darcy said.
"You're just different, Darcy. That's not a bad thing."
She shrugged with one shoulder. "It could be worse. Rumour has it there's a girl at Xavier's school who kills people by touching them. At least I'm not that girl."
Steve's eyebrows went up slightly. "That wasn't what I meant, but yes, I guess you're right."
"Of course I'm right," she said briskly, pulling away. She wiped at her face again and looked up at the digital number display above the door. "JARVIS, why aren't we moving?"
"We are moving, Miss Darcy. Merely at a very slow speed," came the prompt reply. Darcy glanced at Steve, who smiled slightly, though he still watched her a lingering look of concern.
"Don't be a smart ass, it doesn't become you," she told the AI as she felt the elevator pick up speed. "You can stop giving us privacy now. I've finished blubbering all over Steve's shirt." She glanced at the wet spot on his chest, right between his pecs, and grimaced. "Sorry about the shirt, by the way," she said to him.
"I've got more shirts," he told her, "but only a few friends."
Darcy felt her throat close up again. "You're going to make me cry again. Friends don't make friends cry, Captain."
That got a short laugh out of him. "Then I'll do my best not to make you cry."
"You do that," she said, sniffing slightly as the elevator came to a gentle stop and the doors slid open. "Would you look at that? We made it. Thanks JARVIS."
"My pleasure, Miss Darcy."
The moment she crossed the threshold from elevator to hallway she could hear Jane. There was a metallic bang and then a muffle voice, most likely her boss lady cussing out a piece of equipment. Darcy picked up her pace and headed down the hall towards Jane's lab, where she'd hopefully find all of the equipment still in an untouched by Jane state. It was unlikely, but Darcy had hopes.
"Hey," Steve suddenly, reaching out to lightly touch her elbow. Darcy paused and turned around. "I don't know if it counts for much, but I think you should let Jean help you. And, if you want, I'll be there for it. But only if you want." He looked down at her, a face full of sincerity and earnest concern, and Darcy knew then exactly why Steve Rogers had been chosen for Project Rebirth. He was far too selfless.
"What did I say about making me cry?" she asked him quietly.
He smiled crookedly at her. "It's a work in progress."
Darcy huffed a laugh and reached out to poke him in the belly, her finger meeting only hard muscle. "That's okay, you give good hugs so I think you can be forgiven."
His grin widened. "Glad to be of service, ma'am."
She rolled her eyes and turned to walk into the lab. She consciously straightened her spine and forced the dark thoughts to another corner of her mind, to be dealt with at another time. "Don't ma'am me, or I'll make you lift the spectrometer and move it to another floor."
Jane, upon hearing her voice, popped up from between two machines like a meerkat coming out of its burrow. "Darcy! You're better!" she exclaimed happily, seconds before her eyes narrowed. "You've been crying. Why have you been crying?"
Darcy tipped her thumb back at Steve behind her. "Steve's fault."
Jane's eyes narrowed further and her gaze slid to Steve.
"I didn't—not on purpose!" he spluttered. "She ain't telling the whole truth here," he insisted, a bit of his old Brooklyn accent creeping into his tone.
Jane glared at him for a moment longer before transferring her look to Darcy. "I don't doubt that, actually."
"Hey! What happened to having my back? It's like the rules of feminism, you know."
"I'll have to take your word for it," Jane shot back. "Now come here. I can't make this work."
"Of course you can't, because you break shit, Jane. That's what you do."
"I don't bre—" Jane began indignantly but Darcy cut her off at the first sight of all the wires sticking out haphazardly from a panel in the side of the machine.
"You totally broke it," she sighed.
Behind them, Steve began laughing.