Hydra Hottie

Darcy/Bakshi

Darkshi

Theme song:

Imagine Dragons – Radioactive

For curiouskittyssaymew on Tumblr, who regularly begs me for more Bakshi. Takes place in the time period immediately after CA:TWS and is therefore AU for Bakshi's part in AoS thereafter.

"You just… just… wait until Thor hears about this!" Darcy shouted impotently after Ian as the cell door closed behind him with a final-sounding clang.

A derisive laugh was her answer, followed by "You just sit tight now, Darcy girl. The boss will be along to speak to you in a bit."

"Well isn't this just peachy," she muttered to herself as the sound of Ian's boots faded away. Looking around the cell, her shoulders dropped further. It was almost bare, only a thin pad of a mattress on a shelf extruded from the wall, a basic toilet and tiny sink, both metal and firmly attached to the wall. Nothing she could use as a weapon.

She circled the cell a few times, trying furiously to pace out some of her frustration. How could she not have guessed something was off about Ian? He'd been far too competent, too smart; but then she'd never had an intern before, and after he saved her life from the Dark Elves it had never occurred to her not to trust him. Right up until the moment she'd been watching with shocked horror as Captain America and friends crashed three helicarriers into the Potomac.

"This is awful," she'd turned to Ian, sitting beside her on the couch watching the television just as intently as she was.

"It is," he nodded slowly, looking back at her. "Such a waste. Well, it was good while it lasted, Darcy."

Her brow furrowed with puzzlement as he reached his right hand to his left wrist, tugged out the button on his watch and stabbed a needle into the back of her hand before she could so much as open her mouth to scream.

She'd woken up being carried over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Her whole body felt weak, she could barely move, and seconds later she'd been unceremoniously dumped on the floor of the cell where she was now trapped and alone.

"Bollocks." Moodily, she slumped down onto the bed after pacing the cell a few more times, wincing as her buttocks encountered the hard shelf through the thin latex. "Bollocks, shit and fuck."

"Language, Miss Lewis!" a male voice with a crisp English accent startled her, and she shot to her feet.

There was a man outside the cell door. A little above average height, impossibly handsome, with a smoothly tamed head of black curls, olive skin, black eyes that gleamed with amusement as he looked at her. He was wearing an immaculate suit, obviously tailor-made to fit him, emphasizing broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Ian stood right beside him, fading into insignificance beside the other man's sheer charisma.

Any verbal filters Darcy might have possessed completely eliminated by her rage, she snapped; "Pity they didn't send you to seduce me instead, Hydra Hottie, I might actually have enjoyed it."

Ian's face twisted with rage – and a completely different emotion came across the Hydra Hottie's face, one Darcy couldn't interpret at all. He murmured something to Ian that she didn't hear, but that made her ex-boyfriend stiffen to attention before turning and walking swiftly away.

"That wasn't an offer," Darcy realised suddenly that her verbal jab at Ian might have been taken literally by his Hottie boss.

"I didn't think it was." He was still staring at her from those midnight eyes, seemed to be waiting for something. A door closed somewhere in the distance and he brought a remote out of his pocket, pointed it at the camera dome on the ceiling and clicked a button.

"Did you just turn that off?" Darcy blinked, suddenly feeling frightened, as he next brought out keys and unlocked the cell door. She backed into the corner, as far away from him as she could get.

"I need to show you something." He peeled off his suit jacket, slung it over his arm. Unfastened his tie and began to unbutton his crisp white shirt.

"I've seen it before, I th…" she trailed off, her eyes opening very, very wide as she stared, utterly shocked, at the black words scribbled across his abdomen, just below the curve of some very nicely defined pectoral muscles.

"I'm afraid it's what's called a self-fulfilling prophecy," he murmured, and Darcy snapped her gaze up to his face. "I can't say the idea really appealed to me once I discovered what Hydra actually do, but if I ever wanted to meet you…"

"Oh, fuck," she said disgustedly.

"And I daresay my words to you have caused you to develop a habit of swearing at complete strangers in the hopes of meeting me."

He wasn't approaching closer, was standing halfway across the cell with his shirt half-open looking quite distressingly attractive. Darcy hesitated, staring at him.

"I don't even know your name," she said plaintively at last.

"It's Sunil. Sunil Bakshi."

"Sunil," she tried the name out, discovered that she liked it. He smiled, showing a dimple in his cheek – so not fair, how dare he be that attractive? "So," Darcy tried to keep her voice steady, though she suspected she was failing miserably, "I'd rather not go over to the dark side even if you do have cookies, so what happens now?"

He considered that for a moment, smile fading. "I can't just walk out of here with you, I'm afraid. Even though I'm senior in this facility, there would be too many questions asked. So I'll anonymously tip off your friends as to your location and they can stage a rescue."

"Make sure you're far away," Darcy said impulsively, "Thor can get messy when he's mad…"

"I shall." His smile turned a little crooked. "I'll find you, Darcy. I'll have to extricate myself from Hydra, and it won't be easy, especially not now. The world just got a whole lot messier without SHIELD to police it, as I'm sure you realise."

She hadn't really had time to begin to process the political implications, but it was so obviously true that she nodded anyway. They stood staring at each other in silence for several long moments before Sunil seemed to shake himself out of his trance.

"I'll have to go now. I'll make sure nobody comes into the cell block tonight, Darcy; you should be out of here before dawn anyway. Stay safe, hm?"

"Sunil," Darcy said as he buttoned his shirt back up, reknotted his tie, "be careful."

His handsome face softened, hard lines of tension around his eyes smoothing away, and he took a small step towards her without even seeming to realise it. She met him halfway, smiling up at him a little nervously as he lifted a hand to caress her cheek.

"I'll come to you as soon as I can," he promised quietly, before bending his head and kissing her, slow and sensual. Darcy's eyelids fluttered closed, her lips parted under his tongue's gentle pressure, and she swayed into him, thoroughly enjoying the kiss until he pulled back at last, pressing another kiss lightly on her forehead.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Ian was found dead in the ruins of the facility, Darcy heard later, with a neat bullet hole in the centre of his forehead. And since Thor had called in Sif and the Warriors Three to take the place down and rescue her, somehow she didn't think any of them had taken to using Glocks.

Thor decided to relocate to Avengers Tower in New York, since the other Avengers were congregating there. Thor couldn't take too much of Stark, but with Cap, Barton and Romanoff no longer working for SHIELD they proved an adequate buffer. Jane spent half her time travelling anyway now, going to lectures and conferences, and since Thor didn't care for aeroplanes he preferred not to be alone and bored when she was away.

Frankly, Thor alone and bored was a Bad Thing in anyone's books, so Darcy was more than happy that he had his superhero playmates to keep him entertained while she travelled the world with Jane, keeping her scientist organised and in the correct location at the appropriate times. Sometimes she thought of Sunil, of his promise to find her when he'd extricated himself from Hydra's tentacles – she laughed mirthlessly at the thought. But then, he could always leave a message with Thor.

Darcy was sitting alone at a pavement café in Madrid, watching the world go by while Jane gave yet another lecture, when a man slipped into the seat opposite her. She opened her mouth to tell him she wasn't interested… and left it open.

"You'll catch flies," Sunil said in amusement.

Darcy shut her mouth with a snap, staring at him, drinking him in with her eyes. He was dressed casually, grey jeans and a white T-shirt that looked fabulous with his colouring, his black curls looser, a few tumbling down over his forehead towards his eyes. He smiled at her, a slow, appreciative smile that flashed his dimple and made the corners of his midnight eyes crinkle up adorably.

"You're here," she said at last, wanted to kick herself for sounding like a complete nitwit. He didn't seem to care about her inanity, though, just reached across the table to take her hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles lightly.

"I am. I'm sorry it took a while. I had to extricate myself and build a new identity. I sent all the information I had on Hydra to Stark in an information dump yesterday."

Darcy's mouth fell open again. "So that's why Thor called last night and said they were going on mission and not to worry Jane…"

"Did he? I expect there'll be a lot of mess all over the TV in a few hours, then, if they're moving that quickly." His smile was vindictive and very satisfied. "As long as they get that bastard Whitehall. He's got a SHIELD agent tied to a frame in his office trying to brainwash the poor woman."

"I'm sure they will," Darcy said. She sat and looked at him for a minute, still trying to take in the fact that he was really here with her, this beautiful man, her soulmate. "So – what happens now?" she asked hesitantly at last.

Sunil smiled again at her. "That's up to you, Darcy." He was still holding her hand, the tip of his thumb tracing patterns over the back of it gently. "It always will be."

The agent in Whitehall's office is of course Agent 33, Kara Lynn Palamas, and everything in AoS would be changed from the point of the Avengers rescuing her and killing Whitehall. And Bakshi would have given up the location of Loki's sceptre and von Strucker, too, possibly before the Twins were changed, so AoU would also have been very different . Such a pity it didn't happen my way!

I'm still sad about the loss of Bakshi. Such lovely eye candy, and he made a really good job of being a total amoral and yet somehow utterly sexy Bad Guy.

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one!