Refusing Silverware

Chapter 3: Color Me Surprised

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Author's Note :

Holy Whack-a-moley. I did not expect so many people to actually want to watch this as much as there are. You all astonish and amaze me with your patience. I'm sorry that third chapter took forever for me to update. I get side-tracked a lot of the time and Darcy comes and goes when she wants to so I jump from project to project. I will try to get things up in a more timely manner because you guys are the literal best for waiting for so long for this next part.

Also, if I post this while drunk, I am so sorry.

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Drowsy from the constant hum of the rumbling engine and the warmth of the actual heaters blasting through the edge of the cold, Darcy Lewis knew she was in a predicament when neither of those things were present. Probably why she had woken earlier than she thought. In fact, she shivered as she opened her eyes slowly to get her bearings. She wasn't on the comfy leather cushion from earlier. With a turn of her eyes, she quickly saw she was on ground, pressed down in the dirt and rocks, including one that was digging into her right leg. From the stiffness of her body, she knew she could guess that she had been on the ground for an hour and that there was probably a bruise there. According to her leg, the bruise was the size of Oklahoma but she and her leg didn't major in geography.

It took a moment later before the ex-intern could voice any questions. Her mouth was dry and looking at the ground, she had a drool puddle as big as her fist. Secretly, she hoped that Hottie McLimbs hadn't seen it, then again, speaking of McLimbs where was he?

"Hey! Where am I?" Rough with a hacking cough, Darcy started trying to sit up when she found that her hands were bound and she was on the ground with a rock digging into her legs. 'Well, that sums up my life right there,' the college graduate thought before hearing the shuffle of cowboy boots that stopped to settle in the ground in front of her. Blue eyes darted upwards in wide surprise as she took in the long legs of the man she had grabbed a ride from. Well, there's the Lone Ranger she was looking for, though she certainly did not like the look in his brown eyes that looked down on her. (She hated that look. Her high school crush had given it to her after he had pushed her down to the ground and kicked her in a drunken haze as she puked on his boots.)

"Shut up." His tone brook no argument but Darcy Lewis, if anything, did not listen to authority well. There was more than one time when her parents had told her as a child that her mouth would get her in trouble and her sass would end up with a slap on the face, but that was before they had her little sister who took all the heat from Darcy's troubling flaws almost immediately. (Someday, if she lived through this part of her life, which was becoming smaller by the second, Darcy would send her a thank you card, anonomously of course.)

Darcy's mind swiftly went into a sense of overload, floating past the designation of finding a way out of the bindings she was in and making a clean getaway as fast as possible to "Where the hell is my tazer? Oh my numerous gods, I'm going to die." She couldn't move that well, if that well meant not able to, but hey, she wasn't keeping a literal interpetation here in her crisis.

McLimbs moved away from her towards what looked to be a large fire pit, ash and charred bits of a person, whom she might soon be joining and didn't want to be joining, seemed to peek out of the remains. There were logs ontop of the remains along with newspapers. Great. She was going to be burned to death next to Hagar the Horrible complaining about his wife and Garfield stealing yet another tub of lasagna.

That was rather an unclassy way to die honestly, she decided. Who would want to be killed next to the remains of the LA Times? Especially the comic section? If she was going to be burned to death, he could at least use the business and economy section. It could be a statement on how screwed up the world is, something she could use to define her death, not Beetle Bailey and his men of the world's worst army unit in the world.

For some reason, bravado seemed to be her best choice for this outlet, not that she had many other options. She could sit there and watch him cook up a fire, bringing it to a full blaze quietly or sobbing like a high school prom queen runner up in all her prima donna glory with wet mascara running down her face like a fountain and ruining her dress or she could do something about it.

At that moment, Darcy knew she would not be a stupid chick from all of those action films she had seen. She would not be Jane after Thor left. She would not be Mary-Jane Parker crying because she needed someone to save her. She would be Wonder Woman. She would be David to Goliath. She would be Darcy-Who-Tasered-A-Goddamn-Norse-God-Lewis and there was nothing any one could damn well do about it.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?! I tasered a god just to let you know!" Indignant over the newspaper balled up with kindling, Darcy projected her anger as much as she could. He stopped his attempts at drawing the flames out of the few sparks he had gotten started. The look in his eyes were nothing short of his intentions to murder her in cold blood. The length between them decreased rapidly as he easily stepped over to her with those long, long pretty-boy legs she had been thinking indecent thoughts about only a few hours before.

"I said shut up." He had raised her easily up by her shirt, pulling up on shirt she had paid only a few dollars for at the thrift store. His eyes narrowed and Darcy Lewis had a feeling she was under the scrutiny of an eagle about to take out his prey before he sighed and tossed her back from him, releasing her to gravity, which honestly, was a harsh mistress as the single ex-intern landed awkwardly on her back.

Despite crying out in a twinge of pain, Darcy knew she was in trouble as soon as she was able to sit up right and saw the silver knife that was probably sharper than it looked as Legman wiped it off his jeans, tilting his brunette covered head to the side as if she was a quantum physics problem to figure out without a calculator at his aid.

"G-Get that knife away from me!" He shrugged at her with a cruel laugh echoing the sound between them, creating a chasm as he turned around and returned his attentions back to the bone and kindling that looked as if it was lagging behind the murderer's time table. She figured that getting a fire going was somewhere between tea-time and dinner, then again she used to be a college student who tended to eat ramen, pop tarts, and graham crackers when she felt the culinary inclination hit her so she wouldn't really be able to tell if tea time was before or after dinner. In this case, she could suppose tea time was after roasting the college chick.

"Scream all you like, sweetie-pie. Ain't no one gonna hear you." He sneered, working on the fire with a flint rock and no matches. Well, that was one way to let her know that she could have enough time to try her best to get out of these ropes. If there was one thing Darcy Lewis always kept on hand, it was movies and the plots that came with them. Her pop culture knowledge was almost infinite, though she thought IMDB could easily one-up her most days still.

That was when it hit her. She had landed on her back and could sit up and with that came the freedom to try and slide her hands under her bum, the lovely derriere she had whispered lovingly in every pair of jeans she ever owned, to under her ankles, like many leading ladies who were smart enough to get out of rope ties had been in her movie data base.

'Where's a time lord when I need one? Or a god, I can take a Norse god falling on me right now, Heimdall!' Unlike other heroes that seemed to have little trouble with doing what she was attempting, Darcy was trying to be quiet enough with her moving to not cause attention to herself, but was having trouble with her legs. One foot was asleep and wasn't that just a peachy bitch for once in her life? If Darcy had a nickel for how many times her bad luck had been showing in the last few weeks, she could only get enough for maybe a plane ticket, but it was still a plane ticket and not on the cold hard ground. A sense of despair ran its course down her body in ice before her blue eyes caught sight of the LA Times comic pages. Oh, hell no.

"I'm gonna roast you with chestnuts. I got some good ones down in LA. Now, shut up. I gotta build this fire." Her fire was stocked and starting to blaze in more ways than one. Her ropes slid from under her heels to the front of her feet before releasing from the strain of being put behind her. It took her only moments to find the right rock that looked like it was hefty enough to carry the strength she needed to escape.

She raised her hands with the rock in her hold before closing her eyes as tightly as possible and taking the biggest swing of her life. The feel of hitting such a solid object frightened her that she dropped the rock into the fire. Murdererman hit the ground in front of the ashes, barely inches from the fire he had been bringing to fullness. The man was out cold and bleeding to which Darcy could thank her lucky stars.

Okay, they weren't that lucky but at the moment she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Truthfully, she might but right now was not the moment to do that in. Darcy's blue eyes found the knife he had set aside while working on the flames in front of her. She worked quickly, hardly taking notice of just how much blood her potential killer was losing steadily.

Finally, it came down to the wire on what in all of tarnation she should do with him. She couldn't tie him up that well and honestly, the guy had killed another woman by the looks of the bones in the pit before it was lit up in the dusk. She bit her bottom lip slowly, thinking ahead of what she should do. She could take his car and drop it somewhere if he came looking for it. preferably somewhere he wouldn't find it, but what about his health?

She took a shaky warble of air between her pink lips. Darcy was a good girl who thought of others. That was how her mother and father raised her. She was safe and cautious. She was not rambunctious and unthinking like she was of late. (Oh, how her mother would turn in her grave if she knew what Darcy Lewis was contemplating.)

Technically, she was supposed to be evading the cops. If she was seen at a hospital, Darcy knew Coulson would hop on it faster than a new suit. He seemed like he never ran out of suits. What if he tore one off if there was a stain on it and there was a suit under it anyway? She shook her head firmly. She had better things to think about. If she wanted to save her hide, she knew that she had to leave without him.

"Just for whoever asks, you were freaking me out." Even to Darcy, who had finally used the knife to finish cutting the ropes that bound her, it sounded like a paltry excuse to all the lessons of life she had been taught early on in her life. She didn't move him except to rummage in his pockets for the keys to volkeswagon and any money he had on him. Grimacing at the idea that she might be taking from a dead man, Darcy left him there, trying her hardest to let go of her revulsion. She needed to look at everything in the car and make sure she didn't carry any of his murdering tools.

"I mean, put in a nice word for me if you died. I forgot to ask Thor if there was an afterlife, him being a god and all….." She took one last look after having gone through the trunk of the car and the interior for anything that could possibly indicate murdersome uses at his body lying there next to the fire before turning back into the driver's seat and pulling out the map.

"Okay, Darcy, you've been through worse. This is no worse than a random metal-golem doing the disco dive with his molten face in your town. Now, time to get some ass moving." With her motto spoken shakily, she turned the key in the ignition and put the clutch in before peeling out of the gravelly roadside and onto the dirt path back to wherever the road was, guilt eating at her with each mile. Little did she know, her wallet had fallen out of it's pocket on her body with all her identification into the fire.

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It had taken about a week and some change to get to the point where she was now in a dingy little studio room filled to the brim with electronics and computers that Darcy Lewis knew were likely stolen. The guy in front of her on the swivel chair that looked as if it had seen way better days, much like she had, was doing his magic for her new identity. She had paid him enough and he didn't ask questions. The internet cafe and some of the hacker forums she had visited had given him a good enough reference and she had made sure to send a hard to trace email to Jimmy Novak, at least that's what he was calling himself.

Jimmy had replied with a call to the go-phone she had bought a few hours beforehand when she got dropped off by Ralph, the trucker who had picked her up from Lexington, Kentucky, where a different driver, Oliver, had dropped her off from Grande Island in Nebraska, where she had been dropped off again by a greyhound she had slipped on board back in Tahoe, California, where she made the volkeswagon from McMurderbreath drive into the lake in the middle of the night.

"And your name is Max?" Darcy liked Maxium Ride and thought the idea behind the name would be nice, but Maxium would be too noticible and there was no way she was gonna take the name Maxine. She would rather take a name that was short and manly enough. Darcy had to be tough now. There was no more leaning on Jane Foster or her Culver university degree that she was hoping to attain to a doctorate.

"Well, it is now, pro-bono." There were a lot of things that were her now. One of them was her need to second check herself at all times, another was to look as poor as possible without looking homeless to blend into Brooklyn where the poor got poorer and the rich were the mafia. Honestly, Jimmy seemed a nice sort for a guy selling fake identification to the illegals like her.

"Got a last name?" The idea of a last name had yet to really come to her during her entire journey on the way to Jimmy's. The truckers that she had grabbed rides from asked for a last name and she gave a few different ones along with different first names, but this was for her new life. This was for the name of someone who wouldn't be looked twice at. Smith was too general and to her taste, overdone. The same thing with Jones. Looking at all of his monitors and towers, Darcy got the immediate feeling as if she was falling into the void. The radio that was on hit a tune that she knew by heart and had written essays to on her ipod. Rolling Stones and their 'Paint it Black' lulling Novak and her into an uneasy quiet.

"Yeah, make it Black." Jimmy's wild blue eyes under the rough amount of brown bed head he sported seemed to laugh in mirth at the play on the song before nodding. It only took a few minutes, but soon a new identification was dropped in her hand along with a social security card. Novak, with his grin, laughed at her astonishment. Oh, crime was very expedient it seems when she paid well.

"Aight. Lates, sugarcube." Pointing to the door, the hacker only smiled in goodbye to the silent woman who as soon as she stepped out of the door would no longer be Darcy Lewis.

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Wandering around the streets, dirty streets that only made the new Max Black cringe at the idea that her only pair of boots was getting splashed with muck she didn't know what to name. That was strange to not know what was exactly hitting her nice comfortable boots, but she had no doubts that she might puke if she knew all of the contents of what was hitting her.

"You look lost, sweetheart." A voice out of the din of people walking back and forth and the sounds of taxis being held stopped her. It was an elderly old man, black and smiling at her with all of his wrinkles and a merry twinkle in his eye that Darcy knew that was mischief in it's softer form.

"Am. I'm looking for some dive, handsome." She grinned over at him, cocking her head to the side. Her messy brunette hair wild without conditioner whipped back and forth due to the wind in the city as the older man tightened his hold on his coat, taking her in as if measuring her truly, seeing the dark secret of the man in California and her harried need for escape. "Williamsburg Diner. It good 'nough?"

"Oh? That hole in the wall?" A snort was her only reply. She had heard down at the laundromat where she had put her only other outfit in the wash that it was hiring due to new management. Something about the owner buying the diner from the Russian mob. Maybe he was a tough guy and honestly, Darcy needed some tough guys in her life if only to help her keep the illusion that she was still in full control of her destiny to stay away from the suits. "I know a hole in the wall when I see one. I was born in one and that was before it was called the Hole in the Wall."

"If all your humor is this great, I can't see what you're like when you take me out," For the first time since she had met Jimmy Novak and left California, Darcy let out a raucous laugh that became louder as she bent over holding her stomach. There was no reason why she should be laughing so hard but the elder smiled softly at her when she finally cleared her laughter away. He knew she was running. There was no other words for it, but for once, the once-college graduate wasn't scared and wasn't gonna head out back into the blue yonder.

"I see that you fell from heaven. What name you got, angel of mine?" He was sweet, she decided quickly. His hat covered his white hair from her view but Darcy wasn't going to let him think it bothered her any. Her hands brushed off her jeans, straightening up what she could before giving him her hand out.

"Max Black." The name sounded right for the first time since she chose it out of all the other possibilities, toying with the staccato sounds. She was a child tottering on uneasy legs, testing the waters with her hands out as she gave her name. Could she trust him? She didn't know yet. Did he seem trustworthy? He was better than some others she had seen. Was he a pimp? She had yet to really see.

"Earl, baby." He tipped his black leather cabbie hat towards her. Darcy smiled gently at the rather gentlemanly way he was treating her. It was strange for a city like this to have someone like Earl, but she could doubt that out of however millions of people lived in New York City and it's suburbs that there wouldn't be one at all. It was just nice that for once her stars were looking up.

"Earl, are you going to wine and dine me?" She grinned, teasing him. This new her was playful enough and knew to be cautious with who she gave her true feelings to. Earl seemed as if he could one day be one of those people. If she didn't know better, with his wide smile and congenial face, she had no doubt that he picked up stray kittens for a living and fed them with his table scraps as often as possible.

"Only if you want me to, otherwise I was gonna try my charm at some lovely new ladies I saw down the road." He winked before pointing down the road to a street corner where some rather tightly outfitted women were standing around, all with their own multitudes of color and make-up. Darcy snorted at Earl as he laughed at her face in return.

"Earl, you're a man after my own heart." It was the start of a beautiful friendship, she decided, when she took his proffered arm and smiled whole-heartedly at the older man, with his black leather cabbie hat and old button up shirt that looked as if it survived the seventy's.