Okay, so this one's a bit short, both in length and on detail.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Marvel Cinematic Universe or any of the characters contained therein.
WORD COUNT: 527
None of them saw it coming. For all that they had scores of enemies wanting to take out the Avengers, they hadn't expected those enemies to have the balls to fly up in a pair of helicopters and start firing on the Tower.
Darcy was in the lab when it happened. More specifically, she was just about to walk into the lab to set up, and was behind the glass walls that were supposed to be bulletproof when the attack happened. Instead, they shattered, showering her with sharp fragments.
When rescue personnel found her, she had a huge glass shard stuck in her back. They were very careful in removing it, but some of the damage was irreversible.
Bucky didn't find out about his fiancée's injury until after the fight was over, and then he was forced to sit through a debriefing before he was finally allowed to go to her side.
It was then that he got the bad news. "I can't walk," she told him brokenly, "The doctors said I'm paralyzed from the waist down. I'm never going to walk or run or dance again."
To say that the next few months were an adjustment would be an understatement. Tony went all-out when it came to having their apartment renovated to accommodate Darcy's wheelchair, and her healthcare plan as an employee of the Avengers Initiative covered all her medical costs. But no amount of money could change the pain she was in.
It came in two types: physical and emotional. The wound in her back still hurt her, even though she was getting physical therapy. But much more impactful was the emotional pain. She stopped listening to music, because when her favourite songs came up, she would automatically move to get up and dance, only to remember that she couldn't, not anymore, and she would burst into tears. She stopped going to training sessions with Natasha, since she could no longer take part in hand-to-hand combat.
Bucky was by her side the whole way. He helped her in and out of bed, assisted with her physical therapy, and kept reminding her that she was still a strong, confident woman, that he was never going to stop loving her, and that she would get through this.
Their upcoming wedding was delayed as Darcy got used to her new situation. She became more practiced with her wheelchair. She started listening to music again. She changed her training lessons with Natasha to the use of guns and throwing knives, something Bucky and Clint were more than happy to help her with.
When the wedding day finally came, Darcy rolled her chair up a ramp so that she could meet Bucky's eye level (she was quite pleased, since that basically made her 'taller' than she'd been before the attack). And when the time came for the first dance, he picked her right up out of the wheelchair and held her close in a bridal carry, which they felt was appropriate.
(Not to be outdone, her step-dad did the same thing for the father-daughter dance.)
Coming up next: Severe illness.