She remembers that cruel day so clearly, so fucking clearly. She remembers waking up to find herself lying on a sterile, white hospital bed, tubes of medicine sticking out of her. Machines monitoring her status beeped near her bedside on one of those screen thingies on a pole. Her vision had been fuzzy and foggy, but she could make out the bump of a human curled up on a chair next to her bed that she assumed to be her astrophysicist boss-lady/sister-from-another-mister, Jane. She felt incredibly weak and light headed, probably more from the drugs—the good ones, yes! —than anything else, but somehow, she managed to find the strength needed to lift the arm closest to the tiny scientist. She then attempted to nudge her friend enough to wake the sleeping beauty. Apparently, she succeeded because Janey bolted right up, a startled and bedraggled expression painting her face.
"Wha—Darcy! You're awake! Thank Thor! How are you feeling?"
"Like hell ran me over and Mew Mew-" she tried to say before realizing no voice was coming from her cracked lips, only tiny, pathetic puffs of air. What in the ever-loving fuck had happened to her voice?
"Darce, are you okay? Here, I'll go get the doctor." A huff escaped her, but the younger brunette managed a half-assed attempt at a slow nod. Jane disappeared for a few moments, leaving the Poli-Sci major alone with her thoughts, before coming back with a middle-aged man in a white lab coat and a sad, soft look his face. He sat down on one of those spinning stool things that medical places always seem to have while Jane quietly slipped into the chair she'd been sleeping in previously.
"Hello, Miss Lewis, I'm Dr. Calvin. I'm happy to see you're finally awake. You've been out for quite a little while now and gave us all quite a scare," he said. Then he proceeded to inform her of the damage. Nothing too unexpected. A few broken ribs. Other fractured bones, some of which had already been healing adequately while she was in her coma. Any bumps and bruises were also healing nicely. She'd been in a coma for a couple weeks now. Then, just when Darcy thinks everything is just fine, she hears the one thing she's been hesitantly waiting for: the reason her voice is gone. It's nerve damage. None of the other injuries had made any sense. They hadn't been around her head area, and they hadn't been severe enough to warrant losing her voice. "I'm very sorry, but I don't believe you'll ever be able to speak again."
He then went on to explain how the nerve damage had affected her voice and her brain. He spouted a bunch of complicated reasoning, using long, fancy sounding words, but Darcy was not listening at all. His voice became like a background sound to her, fuzzy and not fully comprehensible. As soon as she had heard that her voice was gone, most likely for good, she had simply stopped listening. Her brain could still process words and shit in and out of her brain, but the actual speaking bit wasn't gonna happen anytime soon, if ever again. She had always joked that her mind wasn't exactly sane, but now, her head really wasn't all there.
After hearing all this, she had to know what had happened to Ian. When that ray thingy had hit the two of them, she had been knocked out by the force of it, and, apparently, she hadn't woken up since then.
According to Janey, Ian the Intern had been fine. Somehow, he hadn't really been affected by the weird space ray thingy. They think she was affected because her head had been sticking out and was potentially hit with the full force of the energy while he was completely hidden by a wall. Otherwise, it was mostly guesswork done by doctors who had no idea how to deal with injuries caused by timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly space shit that had only just been discovered by Jane like only a couple months ago. Whatever caused Darcy to be affected and whammied apparently decided to leave Ian the Intern alone because he didn't even pass out. In fact, she was told that he had even been able to crush a car on oncoming Dark Elves. After the Dark Elves Incident was done, and he knew for certain that Darcy was mostly okay, he barely took the time to breathe before deciding that he was done with this "alien clusterfuck of a mess" (his exact words) and left them for greener, safer pastures.
Since there really wasn't much damage other than a few bruises and the obvious lack of her voice, she was allowed to leave the hospital after only a couple days. It only took her a few days of being home before she couldn't take it anymore, and she started frantically looking for a cure.
Contacting Thor and asking for any oh-so-much-better Asgardian healing was out of the question. Once the battle of London had ended, and he'd been assured of his Little Lightning Sister's physical stability, he'd had to return to the Realm Eternal to help with rebuilding and ensuring the continual safety of the city, Odin's orders. As for the asking for any wham-bam healing, Odin had also ordered a ban on any interstellar traveling using the Bifrost—Einstein-Rosen—Rainbow Bridge—Whatever, barring absolute emergencies. And everyone knew that giving a mortal, a child compared to him, her voice back would hardly warrant emergency stature, so they didn't even do anything more than to rule that option out as anything more than a hint of an idea. Any hope for Eir, or any Aether healer, really, to come down and do her voodoo healing was a no-go, so Darcy had to rely on Midgardians and their "backward" ways.
It didn't work. None of it did. She tried anything and everything, which given their practically nonexistent budget, wasn't anywhere near as much as it could've been if they'd had the funds they have now. What she could afford, though, she tried. She tried it all, and none of it succeeded in giving Darcy "Fuck Yeah" Lewis her snark and sassy voice back. It was gone, and she wasn't getting it back. By the time the pair of astrophysicist and Scientist Wrangler Extraordinaire had gotten the funds for the really good stuff, the stuff that would've worked if administered early enough, it was too late. The wound had been left incorrectly treated for too long. The damage was done and permanent. Even Helen Cho couldn't do anything.
So, Darcy adapted.
If there's one thing Darcy Lewis prides herself on, aside from her ability to out-sass and snark anyone, it's her ability to adapt and go with the flow. Passed around from foster home to foster home? Sucked balls, but she handled it. Puberty stick hits with a bang? Ugh, fine. A fuckton of part-time jobs and loans to pay for college? Exhausting and tiring, but dealt with. Six measly science credits to graduate? Okay, she could do that. Only internship available is a position with an astrophysicist that the world of Science! thinks is crazy as fuck? Sure, she'll take it! The sky raining hot dudes who actually turn out to be Norse gods, but aren't actually gods and can be downed by her Taser? Cool. Giant as fuck murder bot from space, hellbent on making sure Thor never makes it back home? Not as fun, but she survived and even managed to make sure others did too! Thor gone, leaving a heartbroken Janey-dear behind? (Seriously, it was only a couple days, honey, but apparently, love at first sight is a Thing?) Okay, sure, Darcy's also a great listener. Spontaneous work in Tromso? Well, where Jane Foster goes, so does Darcy. Thor back but not to see Jane (even after a whole goddamn year)? Break out the Ben and Jerry's!
Then London and all the batshit crazy that came with it happened. Again, Darcy did her best to adapt. She learned how to survive without her voice, something that she'd always had and had been a majorly vital part of who she'd always thought she was. Before losing her voice, she was already pretty great at typing on her phone, but without having any sounds coming from her mouth, she became absolutely amazing, thank you very much. Texting became her main mode of communication. She invested some well-spent money on an air horn a whistle for when Jane became too enraptured by the wonders of Science! to notice Darcy's other attempts.
When Tony asked them to join him and the other scientists in Candyland (his wording!), Jane was skeptical at first, but then Thor was casually mentioned and off the pair of petite women went to Candyland. By then. She'd been without her voice for months, and she'd adapted to surviving without it, physically. Physically, it was okay. She was okay. Life went one, and she was forced to go with it. She quickly became the Head Managers of the Scientists once Pepper and Jarvis saw how easily she took to adding Tony and Bruce to her Jane-keeping schedule. Then, after living in the Tower for a little while, she slowly met and befriend each Avenger, and her tendency to want to take care of people branched out and latched on to them too. Soon, she added Superhero Wrangler to her list of skilllz, the job being more of a hobby than an actual facts job to her. Physically, she was good, and barely anyone was none the wiser.
Mentally and emotionally, she was lost. She kept herself busy by focusing on others because if she let herself focus on herself long enough, her true mental state started to catch up. If she was around someone, she could focus on them and help them with their problems, ignoring herself. So, she did. It was bad, toxic, to do so, and she knew it. The helping others bit wasn't bad, but she knew that the ignoring her own problems was. She just couldn't bring herself to stop. And when she didn't have someone else around to occupy her, she kept herself busy in other ways. She tried knitting and crocheting, but apparently making things with yarn just wasn't her calling. She tried cooking and baking, but, heh, who knew not paying attention in chemistry all those years ago would come back to haunt her? Eventually, after a bit of trial and error, she found out that reading was distracting enough, and she became an avid reader.
Despite trying as hard as she did to forget and ignore how lost and broken her mind and soul was becoming, she couldn't. Some part of her mind wouldn't let her forget that something inside of her was missing and would never come back. And she wasn't dealing with it. At all. Everyone thought that she was okay and that she was dealing with it fine, but she wasn't
And if she's honest with herself, even now, especially now, she still isn't. She really truly isn't. Even after all this time, she hasn't actually addressed her problems. They've just gotten bigger while she stuffs them in a closet at the back of her mind. She focuses on others and their problems instead of hers, and it's easy. It's just so easy. Aside from the Avengers and Co.™, there's no one else to tell about the nothingness in her soul. No family to care and support her during this harsh reality. Her dad was in the Marines and didn't make it back to see his little girl come into the world shrieking like a banshee. Her mother had given her last breath as Darcy took hers. As far as she knows, no aunts and or uncles who wanted to claim her as their own, and no grandparents still breathing. Nearly everyone she's friends with these days has some problem that seems more severe and painful than hers. In fact, it's practically a criterion to be associated with the Avengers. As for the daring doers, themselves, all of them have ghosts haunting them, and if she compares her nightmares lurking in the past, she doesn't want to bother them with her issues.
Clint was raised in a circus that wouldn't have won any awards for "best child-raising environment"t and betrayed by his older brother. And that was only his childhood, his clusterfuck of memories and the missions he's been involved in notwithstanding. Bruce, dear, sweet Bruce, had a screwed-up childhood before having to live on the run after Harlem. Natasha…Darcy's not even going to poke her nightmare of a life with a twenty-foot iron pole. Steve had had enough physical problems that he realistically shouldn't have survived to see his third birthday, and that was before becoming a Super Soldier. After that, well, he fought in the second World War, and everyone knows that soldiers of any war never come back whole, and the second World War was one of the bloodiest in history. Then he woke up after a seventy-year-long nap only to find his best friend didn't actually die during the war but instead became Super Soldier 2.0, assassin model. As for Thor…perhaps he's the one could claim to be the most whole, and that's saying something with his whole "brother trying to kill him with a murder bot" thing. As for Tony, it isn't well known to most of the world, but those who are closer to him know that, despite his loud, playboy personality, a therapist would get lost trying to navigate the tangle of daddy issues, being blamed for every bad thing issue, and the PTSD that had no doubt appeared, if it hadn't already, after sacrificing himself for the good of Earth only for his heroic act to immediately forgotten. Any one of the Avengers and many of their friends could break a therapist after only one session.
Then Ultron happened, and the twins were brought in, bringing with them a whole new tangled mess of problems. And after that, James decided that he was ready to be done running. Just when Darcy had almost mustered enough courage to be done hiding her issues, James came in. Then everyone became so occupied with helping him and making they didn't trigger his "Winter Mode" that she didn't think her problems were worth mentioning to anyone. So, she left them alone to fester and grow until she couldn't take it anymore.
And she can't anymore.
She's so tired of pretending that she's fine. She's so drained from giving and giving when there was nothing left to give in the first place. She's given them everything she had, and now she's just drained and empty and hollow. And it's not their fault they kept taking. They didn't even know they were drawing from an empty well. She's held in her tears for so long that she's not entirely sure that given the chance, she'd be able to let them out. The hollow, chokingly tight feeling in her chest that usually only came when she couldn't cry anymore is a common, daily feeling to her now. It's not always present and obvious, but it's always there. Things like jokes and making fun of Birdbrain Barton are no long as funny to her as they were when she had a voice that could let out peals of body-shaking laughter.
Pain isn't a game. It's not something that can be measured or compared. She knows that, but damnit, she can't help but feel that she's pathetic compared to them. They've been to hell and back, and they still go out and risk their lives so people like her could go to sleep at night. If she tells them that she's losing it, she knows she'll feel like a child.
"Don't. Don't do that to yourself." The unexpected voice cuts through her void of lost thoughts that she's drowning in. At hearing his soft words, so uncharacteristic of his normally snarky demeanor, she turns her head to glance at the owner of the voice then goes back to staring aimlessly at the window in front of her. "Don't minimize your pain. It's still real. It's still yours. And, stop me if I'm wrong, I'm gonna guess that it still hurts like a bitch." She hadn't expected that anyone had noticed her little moment in during dinner last night.
His words touch her deeply, and suddenly she can't hold the dam in any longer. The chest-heaving, silent sobs come like a fucking flood that had been held back for so long that she didn't even know they could still fall. They just keep coming and coming, and they don't seem anywhere near close to stopping at all. After the first wave of tears bursts out of her, she collapses, unable to even keep herself on two feet a second more. Then she feels strong arms wrap themselves around her, and she doesn't know or care who it is that sees her like this, a fucking mess, because she's so fucking tired of pretending that everything's fine.
She thought she could do it, could keep it hidden that she really isn't dealing with everything as good as everyone thinks, but she can't. She's broken. She's not whole anymore, and she never will be anymore. Something inside her is gone forever.
Time passes, and she's not sure how long it is before her tears have subsided to only hiccups with little creeks of liquid. Whoever it is holding her is still there. She lets out a slow, easy breath before opening her eyes to finally meet their face.
The concerned eyes that meet hers surprise her. Despite how much of an asshole he can be at times, Clinton is one of her best friends, and, aside from Jane, he'd be the one to notice if she's struggling with something. However, it's not Clint or even Natasha, who seems to have a special superpower just for detecting emotional distress. Instead, it's Tony "Holy Shit" Stark.
He smiles sadly as he hands her a slightly dirty cloth from his back pocket. Then he does something he never does, he gives her a full-on hug, and it's amazing. While they're grasping each other, he whispers into her ear. "Pain isn't a game, Darce. If it were, I'm not sure who would win and who would lose? Is the one who has the most? Or the lucky fucker who manages to mostly avoid it? Whoever's pain it is, I can guarantee you that it still hurts like a motherfucking bitch." He leans back and holds her at arm's length to hold her watery stare. "Don't minimize your pain. It's not any worthless just because it's not the same kind as mine." Then, because tonight is just so full of surprises and angst, he gives her a soft kiss on the forehead before leading her to the couch and settling down beside her, an arm slung around her shoulders comfortingly. It's so fucking out of character for him. She's not naïve. She knows that come tomorrow, he'll act like tonight never happened, but right now, she revels in this moment.
It's not long before he's passed out beside her, and she quickly follows him into the world of dreams, a kind of contentment making itself at home in her heart and soul. She's still broken and still very lost, but for now, the tears that she's shed have been enough to calm the messy hurricane raging inside her. For the first time in months, Darcy is able to fall asleep without a heavy, tangled weight inside her.