"Miss Darcy, I must advise against this course of action. Again."
JARVIS' tone sounded as if he had absolutely no expectation of being listened to, but then again, he was Tony Stark's AI so that shouldn't have surprised her.
Darcy paused in the doorway of the main medical floor, the one that had been cleared as a safety precaution, the glass door held open by one hand. Outside of the Tower night had fallen and the majority of the floor was cloaked in shadows. Since it wasn't being used by more than the one occupant and his doctors very few of the lights were on. It lent a spooky sort of air to the place.
"I know JARVIS, but I've never been very good at listening to good advice. Dive in head first and all that jazz."
"That is how one obtains a concussion at best, or a broken neck at worst," JARVIS replied.
"Duly noted," Darcy said, stepping through the doorway. Above her, JARVIS sighed. It made her smile, just a bit. His protests were practically perfunctory, as if he simply wanted to clear his conscious and be able to say 'I told you so' to her later.
Darcy followed the familiar route to James' room, her steps quiet on the linoleum. When she rounded the final corner and saw the empty hallway outside of James' room she frowned to herself.
"JARVIS, why isn't there any security here?" She had fully been expecting to have to talk her way into the room, or at least justify her presence there, but the hallway was just as empty as the rest of the floor.
"Stark Industries employs very few actual security personnel as I am perfectly capable of controlling the Tower with far more efficiency," JARVIS said, a slightly haughty tone to his cool British voice.
She approached the window into James' room and frowned when she saw nothing more than a rumpled bed and an empty hospital room.
"JARVIS? Where is James?" she said sharply, reaching for the door handle. "He's not in his room?" She tried the door, but it was locked.
"Sergeant Barnes is within, Miss Darcy. He is currently crouched against the wall beneath the window. I do believe he heard your approach."
Darcy glanced at the window again, almost expecting to see his head pop up from below like a contrite child caught hiding where they shouldn't be, but nothing changed. If he was hiding where JARVIS said he was—and JAVRIS ought to know—then he sticking to his plan.
"Let me into the room, please, JARVIS."
"Miss Darcy, his reaction is unpredictable. He could kill you. I cannot, in good conscious, let you in there."
He was right, and she knew it. Unconscious or in a vegetative state he was easier to control, but awake, alert, and most likely not working with a full deck of cards? Who knew what he would do. He could kill her before she even got a word out.
"Well, then…Call for Steve," Darcy said, moving to stand in front of the window once more. "He'll go in there with me."
"The Captain is currently on his way," JARVIS replied.
Darcy turned to the nearest security camera and arched an eyebrow at it. JARVIS sighed again. "I alerted the Captain to your whereabouts and intentions the moment you arrived on this floor."
"And it's a good thing he did."
Darcy spun again, this time to face the sound of Steve's voice. He stood at the turn of the hallway, Jean Grey at his side. "Darcy, we don't know what he's capable of."
"I know," she said, hating that she sounded petulant, but she was getting tired of hearing the same thing over and over. She crossed her arms over her chest, tucking her hands away, even though she wore her gloves. "I just…I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking."
"You want to help."
Darcy couldn't help but shoot the other mutant a dirty look as she and Steve approached. "Stay outta my head."
Jean Grey arched a thin, red eyebrow but held up her hands in the universal sign of surrender. Darcy turned her attention to Steve.
"Will you go in there with me?"
Steve's face softened with some emotion she couldn't name, but he nodded all the same and reached for the door handle.
"JARVIS? If you please."
"Of course, Captain."
The lock clicked and Steve turned the handle, leading them into the room.
He had barely stepped across the threshold when he was thrown into the wall to his right with enough force to crumble the plaster. Darcy was close enough that she felt the disturbed air of their passing, her heart stuttered in her chest for a second, and then she too was shoved aside.
"Move!" Jean Grey yelled, shouldering past her and into the room.
Her brain kicked in and Darcy caught herself against the door jam. The sound of another mighty crash kicked her into high gear and she darted into the room just in time to see Jean Grey reach out towards James, her body several feet away from him, and lift him into the air. Steve let out a yell as James soared through the air and slammed into the opposite wall. Instead of sliding to the ground in a heap, however, he remained suspended against the cracked plaster. His eyes darted wildly around the room, never staying stationary for more than a few seconds, as he struggled against the impossible force of Jean Grey's mutant powers.
"Jean, let him down!" Steve yelled at her.
"He wants to kill you," she barked back, her eyes focused solely on James.
As Darcy watched, James let out a terrible sound, thrashing his body against the wall. It was part scream, and part whine, but completely terrified. Darcy grabbed Jean's arm, trying to force it down.
"He's terrified! You're not helping."
Jean's eyes darted towards Darcy quickly before refocusing on James. She cocked her head slightly and her eyes narrowed for a moment, but then she slowly began lowering her arm. With the gesture, James slowly slid down the wall. His feet scrambled against the floor the second he reached it, and the moment Jean Grey released him from her hold he threw himself into the corner of the room, crouched and ready to attack again.
Darcy's heart was pounding in her chest as she glanced between the three other people in the room. Steve lay sprawled on the floor, the wall above him an absolute mess. His perfectly combed hair was in disarray but other than that he seemed unharmed. He didn't move to pick himself up off the floor, but he watched his friend with sharp, keen eyes. Beside her, Jean Grey was watching James with a shrewd look on her face, her head still cocked slightly to one side as if she were listening to something no one else could hear.
James' eyes continued to dart around the room, shifting from Steve to the window, from the window to Jean, from Jean to the door, from the door to Darcy. She couldn't be sure, but it seemed that his gaze lingered longer on her than on the others, and that gave her the courage to step forward. She'd barely shifted her weight to the other foot, however, when Jean's hand shot out and gripped her forearm in a steel trap.
"He recognises your voice," she said lowly, her eyes still on James, "but he still thinks everyone in this room is a threat."
Darcy glanced down at Jean's hand and then up at the older woman. Jean chanced a quick look at her. "Be careful."
Jean released her hold as Darcy nodded. Turning back to James, she found that those piercing blue eyes that she remembered from just before she passed out were darting solely between her and Jean Grey. Slowly, oh so slowly, Darcy approached. Carefully, she stepped over Steve's splayed legs. Pieces of plaster crunched underfoot, and she could hear Steve's increased breathing. She ignored everything else as James' attention shifted to her, his crazed eyes sizing her up.
"James?" she murmured, trying to keep her voice from shaking. Approaching a crazed assassin the way one would a wild animal was probably the stupidest thing she'd ever done, and if Jane were in the room there'd be hysterical berating of her idiocy, but despite the fact that she felt her entire body vibrating from the adrenaline rush, Darcy didn't stop. "James, do you remember me?"
She held out a hand towards him and his eyes shifted towards it for a second before darting back to her face. "James, I come and visit you sometimes and I—"
The rest of her words were lost as he suddenly lunged forward. Darcy knew a split second of absolute terror, she heard the twin cries of Jean and Steve, and then she was yanked forward by her outstretched hand and slammed up against the wall. The force of it knocked the breath from her lungs and she gasped, trying to get air into her body. She expected to see James' face, to see the insanity in his eyes, just before he killed her but instead she got…the back of his head?
Once again, it took her brain a few precious seconds to catch up with what had just happened and she found herself pressed against the hospital room wall, tucked right into the corner to be precise, with James' warm human hand pressed against her shoulder, keeping her in place. The other hand, the metal one, was held in front of him, fingers splayed and ready for whatever may come forward.
"He's…protecting her," Jean Grey said slowly. Darcy could only slightly see the other woman over James' shoulder. He was a lot larger when he was standing up in front of her, rather than lying in a bed, or curled up in a corner. "From us."
Darcy heard, rather than saw, Steve get up. The crunching and sliding sound of broken plaster was distinctive. "Buck, we're not here to hurt you, or Darcy."
She heard Steve take a step. In response, James removed his hand from her shoulder and dropped into a slight crouch. His position gave Darcy a better view of the room, of Steve standing there with his hands held up and his eyes intent on his friend. Darcy glanced down at James' back and for a brief, wildly stupid second, she contemplated jumping on his back and attempting to subdue him, but she dismissed it almost the second it entered her brain. She wasn't strong enough by any stretch of the imagination considering that he'd tossed Steve around like a rag doll, and it would break whatever little trust he might have in her if he was willing to put himself between her and his perceived enemies.
"Stand down, Steve," Jean Grey commanded, her tone hard and sharp. Her arms were slightly raised from her sides, ready to lash out and take physical control of the situation if need be.
Steve held up a hand to her, and took another step forward. James mirrored his movement, which put him right up against Darcy. He was close enough that his butt actually brushed against her pelvis, and maybe in another life Darcy would have burst out laughing at that fact, but James was ready to attack the best friend he didn't remember and it certainly wasn't the time to be giggling about awkward positioning.
"Steve, can you not?" Darcy said, tension making her tone snappy. James shifted slightly at the sound of her voice, but neither of the men took their eyes off of each other.
"You are going to make this situation worse, Steve," Jean Grey bit out, frustration clear in her tone. "Step back, come outside with me. There are things you need to know."
Darcy watched the muscles in Steve's jaw flex as he ground his teeth together, and for a moment she thought he would ignore Jean again, but then he stepped back and slowly raised his hands in surrender. Darcy, close as she was, noticed that this display of vulnerability did not make James relax. In fact, he tensed further. She had a thought, it flew lightning fast through her mind, and before she could debate upon it she had whipped off her glove and reached out to grasp his bicep, the flesh and bone one, just as he began to move forward.
Instantly, she was swarmed by his thoughts and emotions, of his intention to lunge and take advantage of Steve's—of the target's—weakness. It all slammed into her like a fucking freight train—the fear, confusion, the anger—and she let go of him reflexively, falling back to let the wall take the majority of her weight. He twitched away from her, casting a quick look over his shoulder at her, before switching back to Steve and Jean. If his mind had been chaotic when he was catatonic, it was an absolute war zone now that he was awake. In just a few seconds, she had been swarmed by a myriad of images, all confused and jumbled together, along with thoughts and snippets of remembered voices. Overlaying it all had been the desperate need to neutralize the threats.
"Darcy!" Steve looked like he was about to rush over. Darcy held up a shaky hand.
"I'm all right Cap'," she told him. She glanced down at James, still crouched, shifting his weight from one foot to the other much like a jungle cat getting ready to pounce. Steeling herself, she reached out and gently pressed her fingertips to the skin of his human arm.
She was a little more prepared for it this time, and she was able to hold herself apart from him a bit. Knowing that he would probably only give her mere seconds before he pulled himself away from her touch, she simply shoved her memories at him. They were target specific, and while it lacked finesse, she was able to push images of him and Steve, pictures from history textbooks and the internet, pictures of them as teenagers, and as soldiers during the war.
As she'd predicted, he wrenched away from her touch the moment he registered it. They'd barely made a mental connection before he'd terminated it, and Darcy couldn't be sure that he'd even seen any of the things she'd tried to shove into his head, except that he pivoted to look at her, a gasp escaping his mouth. His eyes turned wide and for a brilliant second Darcy thought that she'd gotten through to him, that her tiny little intervention had somehow triggered his memories and he remembered Steve, such was the look on his face. But then his expression crumpled and he squeezed his eyes shut. Before she could draw another breath, both of his hands were up, taking great big fistfuls of his hair and pulling with enough strength to rip his scalp right off. From his mouth came a terrible, animalistic keening sound that speared Darcy right through the chest.
Steve lunged, his friend's name on his lips, and slid to his knees in front of James but the second his hands made contact with James's wrists, the other man lashed out.
"NO!" he screamed, kicking out at Steve and sending him flying into the wall yet again.
James toppled back into Darcy, knocking her to the floor, but he barely spared her a glance before he was scrambling to his feet and hurtling himself over the rumpled bed towards Jean Grey and the door.
Darcy watched as Jean lifted her hands again, her fingers splayed wide and her palms flat out towards the advancing assassin. One second he was running towards her, the next he was standing stock still, his body frozen in motion.
"I'm sorry, but I cannot let you do that," Jean said gently, her calm tone at odds with the chaos around them. In the next second James crumpled, his body going loose as a marionette with its strings cut. He fell towards the floor but never made impact as Jean shifted her hands and gently cradled his limp form with her power, guiding him back to the bed and setting him down.
Steve's groan snapped Darcy's attention away from Jean and James. Slowly, Steve picked himself up off the floor, one hand on his chest where, presumably, he'd been kicked.
Darcy wanted to ask if he was okay, but she was still reeling a little, her breath still coming in fast, and if she were honest with herself, she'd much rather sit in a quiet room for a little bit and maybe shut her brain off. She glanced at Jean, who was looking between Darcy and Steve with a less than impressed look on her face.
"So. That went well."
Steve shot her a look, still rubbing his sternum gingerly. "What did you do to him?"
"What does it look like?" Jean retorted sharply. "He's gone night-night, and will stay that way until we leave the room. Hopefully he'll keep sleeping naturally, because he hasn't done much of that in a while, but I'd rather not have to deal with him when conscious so can we maybe…?" She jerked her thumb towards the door, taking a step back.
Steve glanced back at the bed a tad reluctantly but followed Jean out the door. Darcy followed, but then stopped at the end of the bed and let her eyes sweep over James' prone form. Even in sleep, he did not look peaceful. His brow creased in a frown and his body tensed sporadically.
"Darcy."
Jean stood in the doorway, gesturing impatiently to her with one hand. Darcy crossed the room, picking her way between pieces of plaster, and closed the door behind her. She heard the lock engage the moment the door was in place.
"What happened in there?" Steve demanded, looking between the two of them for answers.
"I'm not even fucking sure," Jean said, frustrated. "His mind is chaotic, I can barely get a thread on what he's thinking before it switches over to something else. He's got too much going on in there, I don't know how he's processing it all."
"I don't think that," Darcy gestured with her head towards the window, "counts as 'processing it'."
Jean tilted her head to one side, raising her eyebrows briefly. "He's processing some of it, because he remembers you." Jean gestured to Darcy. "I think it's why he was protecting you."
"But why would he think we're threats?" Steve interjected. He looked both confused and frustrated, raking his hands through his hair and mussing it up even more.
Jean's expression softened as she looked at him and, instantly, Darcy recognised it as pity. "I'm not sure, but he's equal parts terrified of you, and furious with you."
"Me?" Steve echoed, staring at Jean.
"You're the target," Darcy murmured, turning to look back at the window. "That's what I got from him when I touched him. In his mind, you're still his target, and Jean is an accessory, another threat." James continued to slumber, and she wondered if it was natural or not, if Jean had released her hold on him.
Steve went silent. Darcy glanced back at him and felt her guilt swell at the look on his face. Perhaps she shouldn't have told him that part, though he'd be bound to put it together sooner or later. The whole attacking bit was a big hint, and Steve was far from stupid even if he wasn't properly educated.
"But he saved me," Steve said, more to himself than to Darcy and Jean. "He could have let me drown, but he didn't."
"He may not remember that," Jean pointed out. "His mind is a sieve. There are a lot of holes, and it's all running around at once, so he doesn't exactly have a good handle on reality."
Steve turned from both of them at that, one hand going over his face. His shoulders hunched up, as if trying to protect himself, and the next breath he took shook his frame. Without saying another word to either of the women, he walked away, his long legs taking him rapidly down the hall and around the corner.
Darcy looked down at her hands, and belated realised that she only had one glove. The other was in the room, probably on the floor in that corner, where she'd dropped it at some point.
"You won't need it," Jean told her.
Darcy glared at her. Stay out of my goddamn head!
Jean's eyes narrowed and she quickly closed the gap between the two of them, getting right into Darcy's face. "Make me," she growled. "Learn how to control it, learn how to block me." She turned slightly and jabbed her finger towards James. "You want to help that man? Then learn from me. This isn't a game, and there are consequences if you fuck it up!"
"Then why don't you do it?" Darcy's words burst out of her, laced with anger and frustration. "You're the expert telepath, the Omega mutant. You help him! I didn't sign up for this!"
"You think any of us did?" Jean demanded, her face screwed up in anger. "You think any of us wouldn't give pretty much anything to have been born normal, to never have had to deal with the shit that we've been through?" She scoffed. "This is the hand you've been dealt, and there's no going back on it now, because that man in there? You're the only person he recognises right now, the only person he even remotely trusts. Why? I haven't a fucking clue. His brain is so fucked up, even I have trouble making sense of it, but what I do know is that he thought he was protecting you from Steve and I. And that fucking matters, so you're going to learn how to help him, starting tomorrow."
Darcy opened her mouth to tell Jean Grey that she could go fuck herself but the other woman held up a hand. "That's not a request, Darcy Lewis," she said quietly, her soft tone threatening. Without another word, Jean turned on her heel and walked away, her back ramrod straight and her gait stiff and angry.
When she was around the corner, Darcy spun around and faced the glass, anger still thrumming through her veins. She pressed her fingertips to the glass and ground her teeth together to keep in the scream of frustration that wanted to escape.
It wasn't that she didn't want to see James helped. His circumstances, and the emotional upheaval that she imagined Steve must be going through, it tore at her heart, but that didn't mean she was the person to set it to rights. She had called for Xavier because she knew she was out of her depths, not so the burden of responsibility could be thrust upon her shoulders.
She didn't want to learn how to use her so-called gift. She wanted to pretend that it didn't exist and go back to tinkering with her machines and yelling at Jane when she tried to put her hand to something that wasn't directly astrophysics related. She feared letting Jean Grey into her head, not because she had something to hide, but because there might be things there that she didn't know existed, memories that had been suppressed. What else had her mother hidden from her? Darcy had barely made any inroads at trying to understand her mother's intentions with the binding and now Jean Grey wanted to remove it entirely, letting loose whatever her mind contained.
Even if were there no other suppressed memories, what of her powers? Her ability to move objects had always been so weak, and now she knew why. If the binding was removed, who was to say she could control it at all? She could hurt people.
And if all of those fears weren't enough, the possibility of hurting James was very, very real. She had virtually no experience in the healing of minds, though she knew it could be done by powerful telepaths. Darcy didn't even understand the bare bones of psychology, let alone how to heal the mind of a traumatised, nearly hundred old amnesiac who probably had a whole slew of other issues that hadn't been uncovered yet. By all rights, Jean Grey should be the one helping him, she could build trust with him, and in the end he'd be better served by having her rooting around in his head instead of Darcy.
In the room beyond her, James let out a moan as he shifted in the bed. It's a sound that held no pleasure what so ever, and it made her gut clench in guilt. Jean Grey had clearly lifted her hold on him, but instead of being released into a natural slumber it seemed that he was in the grip of a nightmare.
"He doesn't look too good."
Darcy gasped and whirled around.
"Does everyone around here walk on fucking air?" she demanded, her heart thumping wildly in her chest.
Tony Stark smirked at her and gestured toward his feet. "Two thousand dollar Italian loafers."
Darcy turned away from him, her eyes returning to James and his nightmare. As she watched, he began to flail around, thrashing on the bed as if trying to escape something, or someone.
"What are you doing down here Stark?"
"It's my Tower," he said, and she didn't even have to turn around to know he'd given her an indolent shrug. "And JARVIS told me he was fucking shit up down here. Figured I'd come assess the damage."
"He threw Steve into the wall a few times," Darcy told him quietly.
"That's like foreplay to Capsicle."
Darcy didn't reply. She wasn't in the mood for witty banter, and the last she'd seen of Stark he'd been livid with her so she wasn't exactly sure why he was standing just behind her and acting as if none of that had ever happened.
"Watching him isn't going to change anything," Stark said out of nowhere, his voice no longer tinged with its usual sarcasm. "Come to my workshop, I have something for you."
"What?" Darcy turned to look at him incredulously.
Stark scrunched up his face and shook his head. "Don't do that. I don't do the whole talking it out shit, okay? Just…Just come with me. I've got DUM-E all taken apart and cleaned. I'm waiting for you to put the poor bastard back together." Stark turned for the exit and gestured with his hand over his shoulder. "C'mon, Lewis."
Darcy contemplated telling him to go fuck himself, but she recognised the Stark olive branch for what it was, and while she knew she needed to go sleep—her body was lagging quickly—she also knew that Stark had an entire vending machine worth of energy drinks and other caffeinated beverages down in his play pen that would keep her going for hours. And she'd much rather tinker with DUM-E than head up to her room and open her mind up to the dreams she'd surely have.
With a sigh, she followed after Stark, noting that while her Chucks made a soft squeak against the linoleum tiles, his stupid Italian loafers were silent as the grave.