Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 6
October 5, 2012 – Manhattan, New York – Stark Tower
When Darcy's emergency cell rang, she jumped up from Tony's couch so fast that she almost fell, barely managing to catch herself from falling face first into the doorframe.
"Lewis," she answered. Her mind was instantly on high alert.
"I need you to come get me. I already sent you the coordinates. Get Nat and get a jet."
"Clint? What's wrong? Where are you?"
"I don't have much time. You've got the coordinates."
She didn't hesitate. She'd managed to suit up when Clint was talking, barely zipping up her Kevlar as she holstered a gun, precariously holding the phone by squishing her shoulder against her ear.
"I'm on my way," she promised, forwarding the text he'd sent her to Natasha before barking out, "JARVIS! Tell Talia to meet me on Tony's private landing pad. Wheels up in five." She took a deep breath and softly said, "I love you, Clint. Hold on for me, okay?"
There was a ragged sigh on the other side of the line and her gut clenched. "I'm waitin', Darce."
The line went dead and Darcy propelled into action. She grabbed the pistols she kept stashed in the penthouse and made her way to the landing pad, not at all surprised to see Natasha already climbing into the jet.
"Myshka," she nodded, flipping on the jet and closing up the door as soon as Darcy walked in. "I assume this is important and not just a social call?"
The brunette's mouth was set in a hard line. "Clint called. He went AWOL. I sent you the coordinates that he sent to me – " she stumbled when Natasha took off, not wasting time after Clint's name slipped out of her mouth. "How far out are we?"
"Fifteen if I fly safe, seven if I – "
"Go as fast as you can," Darcy said instantly. "Do you know where the coordinates – "
"It's SHIELD, myshka. He's stuck at SHIELD and something's wrong." The redhead shook her head. "We haven't been checking in with Coulson because of…trying to find you. How long have you been back?"
She looked down guiltily. "A few days. I planned on going after Pierce once I had time to regroup. I didn't want anyone to worry – "
"But Clint knew you were at the tower."
It wasn't a question and Darcy knew it didn't need answering.
"You know how close we are, Talia. He figured it out on his own."
The other woman nodded. "Get ready for landing. It looks messy down there and we might need backup."
Darcy pinched the bridge of her nose. "Call them. My priority is Clint. I'm going in to pull him out. Call the boys, leave Bruce out if you can, though. He's sciencing pretty hard right now and I don't want to pull him if we don't have to."
Natasha's reply was drowned out from the sound of blood rushing through her ears. As soon as the jet touched down, Darcy ran out, pistol in hand.
SHIELD Headquarters looked like a warzone. Bodies were strewn across the landing pad and blood covered nearly every surface as she made her way inside.
"It's too quiet," Natasha said, catching up to her and holding her pistol up. "It looks like STRIKE was called in. But it shouldn't be this much of a bloodbath."
They wasted no time taking the elevator from the landing pad on the roof to the lower floors, both taking a mental minute to make sure that all of their weapons were easily acceptable. Darcy was nervous, but Sirena was refusing to let the fear sink in. She had a mission that she had to complete.
"Send Rogers to SHIELD with Stark. Keep Barnes up high. Give him a rifle," Natasha said to her com as she cocked her gun. She paused and rolled her eyes. "Stark, I have her. No, Rogers, everything's fine. Recover Barton at all costs."
The brunette's com was hanging out of her ear. Listening to all of them bicker would merely upset the resident Russian inside her that was trying to size up the situation.
"Myshka…" Natasha muted her com and placed her hand on Darcy's arm. "I don't know what kind of condition Clint will be in. I need your head in the game – "
"It's always in the game, Natalia. I will recover Clint. And I will kill anyone who gets in my way."
As soon as the elevator doors opened, Darcy bolted and left the redhead with a headache blooming behind her eyes. Un-muting her com, she sighed, "Lewis is rogue. Approach with caution. Stark, let medical know to be expecting Barton in, hm, about fifteen minutes."
"Did you already find him?" Stark asked through the com.
"No – "
"A little self-confident, aren't you?"
She smiled, unholstering her other pistol. "Lewis is on the warpath. Anything between her and Barton will be cleared in a matter of minutes."
Bang bang bang!
The kick of her gun reverberated through Darcy's bones as she took down three targets. It couldn't have been more than five minutes since she left Natasha's side, but she'd already taken out more agents – STRIKE, mind you – than she could count. Sirena was at the forefront of her mind, guiding her moves and nudging her in the right directions to find Clint.
Clint.
Her heart ached at what might be happening to him. Why the fuck would he try to infiltrate SHIELD? He had a nifty little ID card that would let him in whenever he wanted.
She heard the telltale buzz of the com near her ear and she knew that they were trying to get her attention, but she couldn't let them pull her out right now.
A bullet whizzed passed her and she flipped around, firing a single shot and hearing her opponent's body hit the floor.
"Get down and stay down! Your little girlfriend is coming, isn't she? What is she expecting Agent Barton? An easy in and out? That she'll get you out of here alive?"
Darcy's blood boiled at the sound of the man's voice, a sound that was so familiar. Normally, it was belittling her or demanding she obey commands. It was a sound that used to strike compliance through her veins and make her cringe.
But she wasn't Sirena. Not anymore.
She was Darcy fucking Lewis and he had no control over her.
Clint blinked lazily, his green eyes focusing on the worn ceiling of the trailer he and Darcy called home. Sitting up, he looked out the window and could see her hanging their clothing up on the line and, if he listened hard enough, he could hear her humming.
But something wasn't quite right.
He wasn't seventeen anymore. He didn't perform in a traveling circus. This wasn't his Darcy.
"Calm down, son."
Clint's head whipped to the sound, noting a man about his age – his current age – wearing a striped button down and ridiculous red suspenders. He had a crooked smile on his face and Clint felt like he knew him.
"Who are you?"
"Name's Sean, but near ery'one calls me Spot," he answered, holding out his hand after he stood from Darcy's small chair. Clint stared at it for a moment before he pulled it back with a shrug. "Wonderin' what's goin' on?"
"No offense, but this isn't my life. Anymore," he added hastily. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sighed. "Did I die? Is that what this is?"
Spot scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Not exactly. You're kinda in th' in-between. Not alive, not dead. Our girl out there is doin' ery'thing she can to keep ya alive, though."
Clint remembered breaking into the lower levels of SHIELD and starting an all-out panic that resulted in STRIKE being called in and revealing themselves to truly be HYDRA. And that's when he managed to find Pierce. Pierce…
"Ya got shot up real good. Blood ery'where," the other man said conversationally, watching Darcy sway through the open window. "I thought that when I died, there was nothin', but I was wrong. I gotta see all the shit she went through. Saw how ya took care of 'er when she couldn't take care of herself."
It all clicked for Clint. He was talking to Spot. Darcy's brother.
"Steve 'n' Bucky were good for her, y'know? Balanced out all that hot air that was in her head. But ya were real good for her, too. She slowed down with ya, learned that there was more than fightin' 'n' hidin'."
He nodded. Darcy had told him that she was forced to slow when she was with him, but hearing it from someone else made it more real somehow.
"She made a good choice takin' ya in, son. She'd always been a mother hen and I think she needed ya when ya came along. Ya helped her ground herself."
Clint swallowed hard. "Why am I here?"
Spot shifted his eyes from the window and met concerned green. "I thought this might be a better view than th' one goin' on upstairs, so to speak. It's not pretty, son."
"Is she okay?"
"She took down that big motherfucker and now she's workin' on gettin' ya breathin' again."
"Did she get my – "
"She's got that bag ya were carryin'."
Clint heaved a sigh of relief. He needed that bag. Needed what was in that bag.
"So, why'd you get stuck guarding the makeshift afterlife of a middle-aged archer?"
Spot cracked a smile. "That girl out there meant ery'thing t' me. Didn't even get married even though my words were faded 'cause I held out hope that she'd come home eventually." He sighed. "But ya were a different story. She loved ya as much as she loved me. I pushed her away. And ya two…ya were both at diff'rent points when ya were interested in each other. But ya don't wear her words. Your girl, th' one that wears your words, she's waitin' for ya. That's why I'm here, y'know. One broken-hearted sap to th' other. Darcy's got her boys now. You're gonna get your girl soon."
"I'm so in love with her," Clint groaned, his eyes focusing on her small form and wishing that she was underneath him, panting his name. "I'm not gonna love anyone else like I love her."
"That's what I said, too. And I stuck by it. Take it from an old sumbitch that knows a thing or two. Ya don't want to die alone in a nursin' home, son – "
"She came to you – "
"And she shouldn't have had t'. The point is, I should o' had kids or a wife or somethin' t' take care o' that part. But I didn't. I died the day I heard she was killed and I never came back from it. Don't let that be ya, son."
"I'll always put her first."
Spot smirked, a downright mischievous look. "Why else do ya think I'm lettin' ya live?"
"Myshka! Stop compressions, it's been almost five minutes!"
Darcy shook her head, the tears filling her eyes clouding her vision. She did not come this fare to have her best friend die in her arms. From what she could tell, his lung was punctured, he took three bullets to the chest, and, judging from the blood pooling behind his head, a deep laceration and a concussion. When she'd reached him, he held her cheek in his hand before closing his eyes.
It wasn't until after she took down Pierce that she realized that he was no longer breathing.
"Where's Stark?" She growled, slightly out of breath as she fought back a cringe; a rib had cracked under her ministrations.
Natasha swallowed. "Trying to get clearance down here. SHIELD is making a fuss now – where are you going?"
The brunette had stood, slinging Clint's beat up bug out bag over her shoulder before doing the same with the man. She huffed a bit under his weight – she wasn't nearly as strength enhanced as her male counterparts – but she could handle it.
"If they can't get to us, I'm going to them." She shifted, fitting her com back in her ear. "Stark, make sure the jet's on standby. Wheels up as soon as I get there."
"Lewis, where the hell are you? Rogers and Barnes have been traipsing around downstairs for the past ten minutes – "
"They don't have the clearance to get down as far as we are. I'll be up – "
"Honey? We're coming. The elevator – "
"On my way," she replied shortly, cutting the com. Natasha followed her dutifully, gun in hand incase any unfriendlies showed up again. But Darcy was confident in her search and destroy mindset that they were all clear.
Every step had her anxiety climbing.
It was a blur when they met up with Steve and Bucky in the elevator. She audibly growled at Steve when he offered to take Clint and Bucky knew better to even offer since his mind was still pretty deep in his Russian mindset as well.
"Please don't die," she whispered as the quinjet took off. She could feel her soldiers hovering behind her as she kept up compressions. Tony was piloting, arguing with Natasha that the jet could and would go faster.
Medical was on standby as soon as they landed, wheeling Clint away on a gurney as she rushed to follow them. Fingers wrapped their way around her forearm and caught her.
"Darcy, honey – "
"Steve, please," she managed to ground out.
Bucky sidled up behind her and she was effectively sandwiched. And not going anywhere.
"Baby, we haven't seen you in months. We were worried sick – "
Darcy shook her head violently. "I'll come back, I promise. But Clint…I can't lose him. I can't! I have to…"
They let her go, watching as she ran into the tower and left them both in the dust.
"She already lost Spot, Steve. We can't force too much on her at once."
Steve rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. "I know. I just…I feel like we're losing her, Buck."
"She'll always come home. You know that."
Thirty-seven stitches, one two-hour surgery, and six IV bags later, and Darcy was curled up in the hospital bed next to Clint. She snapped at anyone that tried to come in that didn't have an MD after their name and listening avidly to everything that was happening around her.
Steve and Bucky had left food and a change of clothes with a nurse and she had put them on, not bothering to go into the adjoining bathroom. She regretted being so harsh with them. She had blipped out of their lives to go fight some big bad – well, now Steve knew how she felt when he left on a mission. It wasn't the same, but she didn't care.
She hummed softly, brushing back the blood-soaked hair from his face. God, how she loved him. She was so proud of him, proud of the man he'd become in her absence.
"Mmm. You always had the most beautiful voice."
She pulled back and looked down, letting out a happy sigh when she saw his tired green eyes staring back at her. "You scared the shit out of me."
He laughed and winced, holding his side. "Jesus. I feel like my chest is collapsing."
"That's what'll happen when someone spends nearly twenty minutes doing chest compressions." She gave a one-shouldered shrug. "The doctors told me to stop. Natasha told me to stop. Everyone did, really. I mean, your brain was without oxygen for almost twenty minutes. I…someone was looking out for you."
Clint pulled her down and kissed her forehead. "I had you, Darce."
"Thank goodness."
He settled back down and closed his eyes. "By the way, SHIELD is HYDRA. Might wanna get Fury or someone on that."
Darcy was normally really good at avoiding things. Like so good that it was suspicious. Honestly, she just didn't want to deal with the backlash of her actions from her soldiers – Clint included.
Bucky had been more that standoffish since their confrontation. She'd apologized profusely for taking off without warning and that had not gone over well.
"Bucky, please! I'm sorry!"
"Do you think that just 'cause you apologize that it's gonna make everything better?" He snapped, slamming his left hand down on the dining room table hard. "We were worried sick! HYDRA isn't a joke – "
"You think I don't know that?" She screeched back. She was shaking with rage. "They had me, too, James Buchanan Barnes! I needed this! I needed to end them! And now that SHIELD has went ass up, we have bigger fish to fry!"
Steve had been remarkably quiet during the little tirade, sitting at the kitchen bar and peering at them curiously. They'd always argued, but normally it ended up with one of them on their backs. If he'd learned one thing since waking up, it was that Darcy had clung to modern times like a life preserve and she did not take well to getting ordered around.
"Buck, she did what she had to do," Steve sighed, running his hand through his blond hair as he squeezed his coffee mug to keep from lashing out. "Just like you shoved Pierce in that damned chair before you destroyed it."
Darcy gaped like a fish as the brunet shot a death glare at his best friend. "You're kidding," she finally managed to say. "Pierce was taken into custody – "
"By SHIELD – "
"HYDRA," Bucky growled. "I couldn't let him slip through the cracks again. He knows our triggers, he could've – "
The petite woman held up her hand, silencing the words that were tumbling out of his mouth. So, Pierce wasn't in custody. He wasn't an issue anymore. Bucky killed him to protect them. To protect her. She was used to him being protective, but killing for her…
Hadn't she done the same for Clint? She dismantled SHIELD to find him, to bring him home. Maybe Russia still lingered in her veins a little too much.
"I can't fault you for what you did," she whispered, "I just wish I would've had the opportunity to do it."
"Baby – "
"I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry I didn't tell either of you face to face. But I did it for us. So we could have a somewhat normal life without the threat of being taken or wiped." She shook her head, wiping away the tears that had gathered underneath her eyes. "I'd do anything to turn back time and be back in Brooklyn with my guys, but the here and now needs us, too. We're not done yet."
Since everything, she'd been dividing her time between the penthouse and Clint's hospital room. If she was being honest with herself, she was running ragged. She couldn't remember the last time she slept. Or ate. On the morning she'd argued with the boys, she'd made breakfast, but she lost her appetite.
Clint periodically found reasons to span his hands around her waist, clicking his tongue when he found it too small or the circles underneath her eyes too dark. He made comments about how she was drowning in her clothes. It was a battle she wasn't winning.
Natasha noticed when they sparred, but didn't say anything. Although it was hard to do when the brunette changed her shirt in the locker room and every single rib was visible under taunt skin.
Tony tried to tempt her with expensive food and promised delivery, but Darcy just didn't want anything.
When the first call to assemble went out, Darcy had kissed both of her boys fiercely – the first contact in practically weeks. It was difficult letting them go. Not knowing if they'd come back was harder.
Since then, she'd spent time with Clint – who was still off-duty until further notice and refused to let her go on a mission without him – and they'd had a marathon of musicals in the common room of the tower. A whole week of singing.
The boys had gone dark, leaving her to her own devices, which didn't bode well for the archer if the prank war they'd started meant anything. It was only a matter of time before they'd decided to work together and fill Tony's suits with glitter. Craft glitter. The kind that stuck to everything.
"Darce, did you grab my bag from SHIELD?"
The girl in question looked up with furrowed brows. "Uh, yeah. I left it in Bruce's lab. He wanted to make sure it was safe." Her eyes flickered back down to her tablet, swiping through the news and trying to see anything out of the ordinary.
Mainly something that said the Avengers were fucking shit up somewhere.
"Oh, good," he sighed, wiggling around on the couch and accidentally kicking over the bowl of popcorn he'd been trying to reach for on the coffee table. "Fuck me."
"I tried. You turned me down," Darcy deadpanned. A smile tugged at the corner of her red lips as he gaped. "Calm down, soldier. I was kidding."
Silence flittered between them before he asked, "Bruce is still here, isn't he?" At her nod, he continued, "Probably a good thing. Big Green isn't exactly stealthy."
Bucky had found the last unknown HYDRA base and she'd willingly let them go, knowing how important it was for him. She'd been able to burn away her past and it was his turn now.
Clint pulled her from her thought as he ambled to his feet. "You hungry?"
"No, I'm okay."
He glared at her. "We're gonna talk about your eating habits soon. I'm gonna go talk to Bruce."
"I'm not pausing RENT for you."
"Wouldn't dream of it, sweetheart."
"So, you discovered my secret."
Bruce looked up from the bright blue vial that was in his hand. "Clint? Do you know what this is?"
"Why do you think I risked my life to get it?" The archer snarked, engaging JARVIS' privacy protocols in sign language. "Pierce was hiding it. I have a chance to let her have a normal life. She deserves that much."
"She should really run it by Steve and – "
"No," he interrupted immediately. "It's Darcy's choice. They don't get a say in it."
Bruce nodded. "I have to test it more thoroughly. I can use her blood samples she has on file. Just…don't say anything until we know what will happen."
"You got it."
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~Grace