Murmurs on Heartstrings
a sequel to
Things Left Unsaid
Chapter 2: The Wake
By Thessaly Corgin
o
The day was dark and dreary with the rain was flooding the gutters, but that didn't stop her excitement when she saw a familiar black car pull up on the street outside. She wanted to scream with relief: finally something was happening! For the whole month the S.H.I.E.L.D networks had gone quiet, and she had absolutely no idea what had gone on. She waited in anticipation, expecting Coulston to be at her door at any moment; when she opened the door her face only fell.
"Hello Miss Lewis," the unfamiliar suit said, "It was requested by Jane Foster that I pick you up. Perhaps you'd like to put on something more suitable, black perhaps?"
The man wore the S.H.I.E.L.D badge and had the same cool yet violent air of Agent Coulston, but he wasn't the same - he was too polite.
"Jane… I…"
Darcy met the eyes of the man, realizing how sombre his expression was: his eyes distant and mouth clenched tightly closed. Jane wasn't asking for a social call, obviously. Without wasting another second she ran to her room, quickly throwing on whatever she had on the floor.
Darcy rarely went through the city by car, it wasn't really a luxury she wanted to waste her money on. S.H.I.E.L.D still paid her out as an employee every month, but it wasn't really enough to live large. Buildings turned to water, to trees, to rolling hills as they drove on into the afternoon. After what felt like hours they pulled into one of the open fields, Darcy's mouth dropped open in shock.
People were scattered all over the field, some recognizable and some all too familiar. Shoes were caked with mud and suits were wet, guests desperately trying to huddle under their black umbrellas. Tony Stark stood talking to a large circle of listeners, assumably bragging about some huge feat he accomplished during the alien invasion. Behind him Pepper stood solemnly, draped in a long black dress and a black lace veil, checking something on her phone. Looking down at her jeans and t-shirt, Darcy felt vastly inadequate. People who she recognized but didn't know stood together chatting idly - Steve, Clint, Natasha - and no one seemed the least bit pleased. Finally she spotted Jane, who stood with a surprisingly cleaned up Thor.
It was odd seeing Thor dressed and groomed, as she had either known him as a tag along hippie or some kind of god.
"Jane!" Darcy yelled, running over to the pair, "Jane what's going on?"
The pair embraced briefly, and Darcy realized Jane was crying.
"It.. I'd finally gotten used to not seeing him around headquarters. It feels so empty and heartless... I'd finally started to adjust, and… and then this. Why did they have to leave it so late?"
Darcy looked to Thor and then back to Jane, her stomach sinking as she tried to figure out who had died.
"Jane… I don't know what happened…"
She said, looking around and trying to pick out who was missing. Before she could, an all too familiar voice boomed across them.
"Ladies and gentlemen… I'm sorry to interrupt but I ain't standing here in the rain all day. Let's get on with it."
Everyone turned at once and started walking towards the coffin, standing for lack of chairs. Nick Fury had no microphone and stood on the same level as everyone else, the rain running down his face.
"Now Phil Coulston was a good man, better than most. He did is duty better than you bunch of vagabonds, and because of that he lost his life."
Fury wasn't at all subtle about his sweeping glance towards The Avengers as he said the word 'vagabonds'.
"He wasn't just an agent, he was a part of the damned furniture. The man was a fixture, and I'm pretty sure we're all noticing how empty it is around here without him. He's left a big hole, and no one is ever going to fill that."
Darcy felt her body go numb, suddenly feeling dizzy and confused.
"But we all move on, as it is in our nature. We can't mourn our friend for the rest of our lives. We have an organization, a city, a nation to rebuild, and that aint gonna happen if we're all crying ourselves to sleep. Just be happy you're alive, and you still have a world to protect."
Darcy stood in a daze as one by one, agents, people and members of the Avengers stood up to speak. Steve Rogers said something about American heroes, his voice echoing clearly through the fields. Natasha and Clint each took a turn to talk about some funny experience they'd all had together as agents. As they cycled through Darcy got more and more stuck in her own head, trying to understand how and what had happened. Was Loki responsible?
"So uh.. I'm going to talk about Greg now."
Tony Stark's voice cut through her thoughts, causing her to look up. Pepper, panicked, ran up to Tony and whispered something in his ear. Tony cleared his voice and started again.
"Phil. I'm going to talk about Phil. You'll have to forgive me, I'm not used to talking in front of people."
His signature sly grin evoked a dry laugh from the crowd, which quieted quickly.
"There are good men and there are bad men. We've all had a run in with a very bad man - uh, god, actually - who took from us a very good man. Now I'm going to be honest here: I didn't really know the guy. But I do know how much he meant to every single one of you, and because of that he means that much to me."
His gaze cast towards Pepper, who looked back with watered eyes.
"We're rebuilding lots of things right now, as Commander Fury said. Our hearts, our relationships, our city. But we're not building them the same way we did, no. We're building them stronger, better than before. Our hearts will ache and our relationships will forever be burdened with the weight of what we've shared… but some times things are destroyed to make way for something more, that couldn't have been created without loss."
Darcy noticed Nick Fury listening to something on the receiver on his ear, and then quickly pace up to Tony, who stopped talking. The crowd looked to each other and shrugged as Fury whispered something in Tony's ear.
"Okay everyone!" Tony said with a clap of his hands, "Looks like the media found us, they're on their way with helicopters and all sorts of goodies. Let's skedaddle back to my place for drinks before all of the damned reporters get here."
Like magic everyone began to disperse with quick, driven steps into helicopters and various other vehicles, disappearing before Darcy could make any sense of anything that could happen. Like a sheep she was herded into a car by Jane, staring numbly at the seat in front of her. Thor sat just a seat away from her, and the question she wanted to ask burned behind her eyes like a headache.
"How did he die?"
Was the question she settled for, hoping it would lead to the information she craved. Both Jane and Thor cast their eyes downwards, Jane fiddling with her fingernails.
"Stabbed. He was…"
Her voice trailed off and she looked to Thor, and Darcy strained her ears as if she could hear the wordless conversation that went between them.
"It was… Loki…"
Thor said quietly, not breaking eye contact with Jane. Darcy felt her fingertips burning, her stomach churning as her mind exploded on her, the breath knocked out of her.
"Pull over the car!" Jane yelled, knocking on the glass between them and the driver, "Pull it over right now!"
"Two hundred journalists will be here in minutes, Jane, Commander Fury told us to go right to the Avengers Tower."
"I don't care… just… pull over."
With a sigh the driver pulled over, stepping out of the car with his gun. As the other three poured out Thor looked the agent up and down.
"Do you think that a gun will protect us from the cameras, from the questions?" He asked the man with a smile. The agent waved him away, muttering something about how a hammer wouldn't be any better.
The road was lined with a wire fence and a sparse dusting of grass, trees fading off into a darkened forest as far as the eye could see. The edges of Darcy's vision darkened as she collapsed onto the ground, coughing violently and trying not to vomit. Everything she had worked through, all of the hurt she had come to terms with flooded her all at once, shades of emerald green dancing before her eyes.
"He-he didn't love me," she coughed, grasping her chest as if it would make the pain leave, "He loved violence more than he loved me."
Thor shook his head as he kneeled down, resting a hand on Darcy's shoulder, "It was nothing to do with you," he said simply, making firm eye contact, "Loki is a twisted mind, crafted and honed from years of impossible expectation and mistruths. Loki wanted to rule, he wanted to feel his feet on top of others. Love was never a part of any of it."
Slowly, with the help of Jane, Darcy stood up and walked back to the car, resting her head against the inside window as the made their way gradually back towards Manhattan.
o
Stark building, aptly renamed The Avengers Tower, was beautiful to say the least. While the top levels were still being reconstructed, the bottom levels were lined with high ceilings adorned with murals, marble floors and winding stair cases. What was once clean cut and business-like was now ornate and classical, especially what was serving as the grand ballroom. The ceiling was painted with a grand stretch of The Avengers, heroically standing in a circle as they faced some unseen adversary. The painting was immaculate and accurate, a pleasure to the eye.
The marble floors were polluted by the squeaking feat and dripping water of the wake attendees, all gratefully accepting hot, cold and alcoholic drinks from a variety of waitstaff. Along the walls were chairs and long stretching tables, dotted with just about any food you'd ever imagine to find on a tray. Tony Stark was sparing no expense on such occasion.
Darcy sat on a chair along the side, desperately trying to make herself hungry as she eyed up the most amazing food she'd seen since the Stark Industries Gala the year before. Her eyes moved along the chocolate strawberries, fresh crayfish, baked potatoes, sesame fried noodles. No matter which cuisine she tried to convince herself to eat, she could only feel her stomach curled into a ball as it cramped time and time again from nervousness. Not even a drink appealed to her.
"Darcy… I know it's hard… but you've got to leave it all behind."
Jane sat beside Darcy with a bowl of strawberries and a glass of champagne. It reminded Darcy of the time at the Albuquerque headquarters when Jane got astronomically drunk and spilled every single secret she had.
"Jane… I just… you don't get it."
Jane sighed and took another swig of champagne.
"Look Darcy, I do know. I know what it's like to wake up crying, and not know which dreams are worse: the dreams where he loves you, or the dreams where he doesn't. I know what it's like to catch a glimpse of long blonde hair in the sunlight, and feel your stomach drop when he turns around and isn't the man you're dying inside to see. I know what it's like to sit out in a lightening storm, praying to whatever gods may or may not exist in this world, that one of them will come back to you."
"But do you know what it's like to have that man leave on his own accord? To come back and destroy your home? To find out that he's killed someone who you greatly respected and loved?"
Jane went silent, motioning for Thor to come over.
"Look Darcy… there's something you should know. Thor doesn't think you're ready… and no one else knows… but…"
Darcy looked to Thor, feeling the tears running down her face.
"Darcy… " Darcy took a deep breath in, preparing to hear that Loki was dead. "I let him go. I sent him back to Earth as a mortal. The same way that my father once did to me."
For the second time that night, Darcy felt the breath knocked out of her as she collapsed onto the floor.
o
A/N: Sorry, was in the hospital for some months, not energy to write, it sucked etc. If you want to hear my ranting/raving about the fics I write and updated news about when I'm writing chapters, follow my tumblr: tcorgin.