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Chapter Text

With the reports of the readings from last night's information gathering Jane and she did on the desk in front of her, Darcy pretended to enter and graph it into her computer. What she was actually doing was bringing up all the surveillance cameras she'd planted around the lab. Seeing about twenty men wearing full tactical gear and carrying assorted weaponry positioned around every exit and what looked like two sharpshooters jogging off assumably to the surrounding buildings, Darcy knew there was no way out.

They must be very good to have disabled her outside security without triggering any alarms and she had to believe the two guards Tony sent with Jane and herself were already dead. Well, that's if one or both of those guards wasn't a mole because that explained them getting so close to the lab building without any alarms as well. She was just lucky the camera feeds were on their own network and hadn't been found yet. Darcy groaned and started encrypting the data they'd collected in the last few weeks and sent it to a secure server located in sub-basement eight of the Avenger's Tower before implementing a multi-pronged virus that would completely wipe out every hard drive in the building.

Sliding her eyes to the cup of coffee a lab minion she'd never seen before had set on her desk five minutes ago, she sighed. The "lab monkey" had tilted the cup as he set it down and Darcy had seen that the sides of the cup had a white residue where the coffee had shifted. Fucking idiots. Frankly, it was insulting. At least stir the drugged coffee before handing it over to the victim. Seriously, there were stir sticks right there next to the coffee machine. Also, no one had ever gotten her coffee, even if she asked for it.

Checking the status of the virus she'd released, Darcy looked mournfully at her Ipod and Stark Phone. The Virus used the lab's Wi-Fi to connect to all portable devices in the lab, and even the ones that were out in the field right now, to corrupt all their data and turn millions of dollars worth of equipment into nothing but pretty and shiny decorative pieces. Saying a silent apology to her long kept and cherished iPod, she put the earbuds into her ears and pretended it still played music as her computer screen went black. Rule Number Six: If you're unable to prevent, escape, or fight your way out of an imminent siege or kidnapping, make yourself seem like an easy target. Underestimation is one of the best tools a fighter can have.

As soon as the virus was released, an alert was sent to the Avenger's Tower along with the last location of Jane and herself, and the tracker that had been inserted in Darcy's bicep would be activated. Tony should be able to access her camera feed since he knew the network's encryption key or Jarvis would just hack it. Jane would have been notified on her phone to get to the Avenger's Tower or a nearby safe house and wait for extraction before her phone was destroyed by the virus. Really, the virus was a work of art that took Tony almost a month to create. That was a lot of time in Tony's creating mode.

Unfortunately, even with all the preventative measures in place, there would be no stopping herself from getting taken. The lab was the new one Tony had built in New Mexico, in the same spot the old car dealership used to be. The Avengers wouldn't make it there on time to extract her because they were on a mission in Singapore hunting down a sect of Hydra that went off the grid after SHIELD was found to be the newer face of Hydra and was dismantled.

Darcy liked to call that day The Reckoning. Then again, she didn't have very many good feelings for SHIELD. She couldn't really be sure how much of the corruption and cruelty she'd seen while working there was actually Hydra's influence or SHIELD's. Darcy knew about making hard choices and having to kill one to save hundreds, but hiding behind a phrase like "It's for the greater good" or "The end justifies the means" never set well with her. That's what the heads of SHIELD liked to say as if it washed all the sins and blood clean.

It didn't.

Darcy never missed that Hydra used those same lines while torturing and slaughtering thousands of innocent people throughout the years. SHIELD could account for just as many bodies. While she wasn't naive enough to believe they didn't have a need for organizations like SHIELD, she did think there needed to be more accountability. Towards the end of SHIELD, Darcy had started to question whether she was going to become just another weapon for a self-serving man. The lengths SHIELD would go to achieve what they wanted sometimes sickened her, and the disregard some supervisors showed their agents' health and safety was at times terrifying.

Regardless, her choice to join SHIELD after the battle with the Destroyer taught her a lot and instilled a confidence in herself that Darcy never had before. She had trained with a single-minded focus she had only ever employed when listening to new music, and eight months later Darcy was sent on her first mission. During the four years that she was an agent, Darcy had gotten a reputation for always surviving. She wasn't the best, she wasn't the strongest, but Darcy was creative and could find her way out of almost any situation. Even if that meant pulling the trigger on the gun a target held against her shoulder to hit the man behind her and startle the target so she could disarm him, shoot him in the head, and make her escape.

Darcy realized she didn't suffer from the same type of guilt for killing someone point-blank as a lot of the other agents did that day. It was him or her, and Darcy chose to survive. It didn't make a difference if she killed him from a distance or if she killed him while holding a gun to his temple. In the end, she still ended his life and his blood was on her hands regardless. She just found that she could wash the blood off easier than others. It wasn't because she liked or relished killing, it was because she knew that the world was full of horrible, horrendous, and truly evil people. Most of them were too powerful to be punished or stopped by regular means, so she would stop and punish them, knowing without a doubt she'd just saved countless future victims.

Demons and monsters do exist.

They just happen to be human.

Before every mission, she'd do her own research into the targets and decide if they really were bad people because she trusted no one to tell her who needed to die or not. When it came to killing the kind of people that ran human trafficking rings, raped children, experimented on innocent people, and planned terrorist attacks that would kill thousands of people, she felt no guilt. There were a few times when the information SHIELD had given her didn't match with the information she gathered on her own, and those missions she refused. She could live with her own decisions, but not with someone else's.

She'd be her own weapon. Not theirs.

Here, now, all that training and those experiences told her that the only way out this situation was to allow herself to be taken, gather all the information she could, and make an escape from whatever location they brought her too. It was a risk, but it was really the only option she had. If she tried to fight her way out, she'd only be able to take out about half the soldiers before she was overcome or the sharpshooters took her out. So she'd play the naive and innocent intern she'd never been and play along with them.

Darcy grabbed all the papers strewn across her desk and Jane's lab table and acted like she was sorting them into their right places in the four large steel file cabinets lining the right wall of the lab. While putting away the papers wherever they fit, Darcy entered the number 1500 into the mini keyboard the far right cabinet had inside the middle drawer and pressed the red button with a fire symbol printed on it. Closing the drawer, Darcy heard the soft click of all the drawers locking as the Incineration Protocol was activated. Fifteen minutes from now there would be nothing but ash left from all the paper copies of Jane's research.

While walking back to her desk and picking up the obviously drugged coffee, Darcy glanced at the room that held the portal machine Jane had just finished two days ago before she went on an emergency trip to pick up Dr. Selvig from a jail in New York. Unfortunately, it too would be destroyed in fifteen minutes when the bomb attached to it was detonated. People trying to steal Jane's research wasn't a new thing and the fail-safes had fail-safes. However, the stars aligned in a non-convergence causing way and fate decided to save Jane from this situation and save Darcy from being just a dispensable lab assistant. Jane wouldn't get kidnaped, and since Jane wasn't here, Darcy became the main target. Being the main target ensured her safety in terms of kidnapping and information gathering. You don't kill your information source or bait.

Darcy sat in her chair, swiveled the cup in her hands and hoped Jane had made it to the Tower or a safe house already since she would have still been in New York. Darcy took a deep breath and lifted the coffee cup to her lips, praying she wasn't wrong about it just being drugged with an incapacitating agent in pill form and was actually poisoned. Darcy let out a breath and swallowed a decently sized gulp of the still warm coffee. She had to work to keep the grimace off her face as the bitter and chalky aftertaste of the pill stuck to the back of her throat.

Fucking idiots. The insults just kept racking up. They didn't even shell out for a tasteless pill or attempt to counter the aftertaste. It was harder to keep the offended scowl off her face than the grimace was, but she managed to seem like she was just playing on her computer, innocently oblivious to her surroundings, the music from her iPod blocking out the stomping of multiple boots getting closer to the lab. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes made them sting slightly, but she did let out a frustrated sigh at their stupidity before taking another large swallow of the coffee.

Smacking her lips, Darcy sighed loudly in fake happiness once she drank over half the cup. Her tongue went numb first, followed closely by the tips of her fingers and the cup rattled in her shaking hands when she set it down. Her hands flew to the edges of the desk to stabilize herself as her vision started to swim, her body language screaming panic while she was calm and cool as ice inside. Good. It was a knockout drug.

"What the fu-" Darcy slurred, maybe exaggerating it slightly as she let her body go limp and slumped against the desk. She let her head hit the desk hard enough to make a thudding sound, but not hard enough to injure herself. If she could make them think she was unconscious before the drugs actually went into full effect she might be able to hear where they were taking her.

Not even ten seconds passed before the lab was full of the sound of generic thug boots stomping around. Okay, she didn't know for sure that they were generic, but hell, they didn't buy the right drugs, it wouldn't be a stretch for all their gear to be sub-par. Two men grabbed one of her arms each and lifted her off the chair after ripping out her headphones and one of them tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. Letting herself be tossed around like a rag-doll, Darcy tried to absorb every detail about their bodies and what they said that she could.

There were only five minutes left before the cabinets incinerated everything and the machine would be destroyed, and she'd really like to be out of the room for that. Theoretically, the machine room was supposed to be sealed and the explosion contained inside of it, but who knows when Stark makes explosives? That could be a mini-nuke in there for all she knew. However, she was content in knowing the soldiers would never be able to hack into the files or that room in under five minutes. Maybe not even if they had a full day.

"Take the dumb bitch to the car Mick. She has to be heavy. You're on babysitting duty," a man with a Russian accent ordered.

Darcy would remember that voice and accent so she could punch him in the mouth for implying she was fat. She'd trimmed down a lot while working at S.H.I.E.L.D and kept up her training daily. Most of her was all compacted muscles even though she'd only lost about half a cup size when she'd started losing fat and gaining those muscles. She was proud to still have curves, thank you very much Mr. Douchey Russian Asshole.

Darcy felt Mick nod and begin to march down the left hallway towards the front door, her body swaying with each step. The swaying motion was making her nauseous as the drug worked its way further into her bloodstream. She bit the side of her cheek sharply to clear her head but not hard enough to break skin and forced herself to pay attention. She felt the warm breeze of the desert against her face a few seconds before she was tossed haphazardly into the back of what she assumed was an SUV. It was always a SUV.

"Hurry the fuck up dude. The drug's only good for four hours and the boss wants her in Portland before it wears off," a man with a fairly standard American accent said in a frustrated voice. Yeah, kidnapping was a thankless job. Darcy snorted mentally.

Also, what the hell was in Portland of all places? She'd thought they'd take her to some remote warehouse in a jungle or something. Fucking Portland? Who were these imbeciles and where did this "boss" find them? Regardless of their idiocy, she stored Mick's name, where she was going, and how long the drug would last in her memory palace. Sherlock had taught her that one.

Mick slammed her door shut and hopped in the front seat, but before he closed the door a very loud explosion echoed from inside the lab building and the car windows rattled. The two thugs up front jumped and swore in surprise and Darcy valiantly kept herself from reacting in any way. It was easier than it should have been because the drug was finally pulling her under and she couldn't feel her body anymore. Even as her thoughts started to fade she picked up Mick yelling for Greg to start the car. Darcy filed that name as the car lurched forward and her body rolled into the back of the seat. Darcy lost consciousness listening with a mental smile to the sound of angry yelling and cursing coming from over the radios the thugs were carrying.

Chapter Text

Darcy woke up all at once and had to struggle not to move. Her honed reflexes kicked in and her body tensed for less than a second before going lax once again. She needed to survey her surroundings and create a few escape plans before they knew she was awake. Taking slow, deep breaths, she started counting each passing second. Knowing exactly how long she was being tortured or held captive always had the strange effect of relaxing her and making her feel more in control.

Once Darcy reached a minute, her mind calmed, she took stock of her body. There didn't seem to be any new or unaccounted for injuries except for the sharp sting in her left bicep and she cursed mentally. They must have detected her tracker and cut it out. Well, it looked like she was on her own. That was fine, she knew how to survive alone. She flexed the muscles in her left arm and found they were fine, so at least the person that did the cutting only made a shallow incision and bandaged it when he was done. Annoying, but not debilitating and easily ignored.

Her hands were restrained behind her back through the rails of what felt like an old wooden chair with zip ties. Unfortunately for her kidnapper, Darcy always wore one article of clothing that had a hard plastic strip sewn into it that was sharp and strong enough to cut through zip ties. Natasha insisted on Darcy doing so, and Darcy knew that the world rarely followed the rules and figured she'd end up in a situation much like this at some point, so she followed Natasha's instructions and spent two days sewing.

Unfortunately for Darcy that plastic piece was in the bottom left pant leg of the jeans she was thankfully still wearing. Trying to get to that wasn't going to be fun and was most likely going to involve a lot of pain. On the plus side, she was fully clothed in her jeans and a tank top, minus her sneakers, and that was always a win. Torture was always more horrendous when you were completely naked. There were a lot more interesting places for them to scar and mangle. However, being clothed didn't negate the possibility of your torturer ripping your clothes off. Rape and sexual abuse were still the leading ways to torture a woman.

Cracking an eye open, Darcy surveyed her surroundings and found she was in the middle of a dark pale gray room with one large steel door with no window, a metal industrial tub already full of what she guessed was frigid water, and a table of the typical horrifying torture tools. A barbed whip, pliers, blowtorch, various sized knives and needles, and a few syringes. The cement floor slanted towards a drain a foot away from the chair she was in. It was all very cliché. Scary yes, but still Cliché. She must have seen this same scene in dozens of horror movies. No imagination.

Reaching two minutes and eighteen seconds, Darcy let the repetition of counting calm her again and started preparing herself for what would happen to her in this room. She knew exactly how to shut her emotions off, how to remove her heart and inner self so far away from a situation that nothing could touch her. She'd learned by necessity a long time ago and knew it was a very useful tool to have in her arsenal.

When she was a kid she used to create different fantasies she could escape into in her mind when things became bad in her house. She's not ashamed to admit to playing with Barbies when she was young, and the main reason she did is because she could create this whole new life that was exactly what she wanted it to be and live that way for a time. When she got older, she joined the theater and speech clubs, acted in the school plays, and entrenched herself in various different worlds and became someone else as often as she could. Sometime between the Barbie stage and the school plays stage, she started viewing her real life as the play and her various characters became the reality.

As long as it was a play, her emotions and mind couldn't be touched. It wasn't real. She'd survived more than half her childhood implementing that practice, and after she remade herself she remembered it. She didn't escape from reality on a daily basis after she had remade herself and has since been always firmly rooted in the present, but she could escape at will.

Darcy felt her real self slide away and she became someone else. Useless Intern Darcy slid to the front of her mind along with all the strong parts of Darcy. Still counting, Darcy could almost picture the ice forming around her heart and felt her eyes fall flat behind her eyelids, emotionless. No, Darcy wasn't a perfect assassin like Natasha but she was creative.

Natasha could become someone else in a second too, but Natasha always kept a little of herself in the forefront of her mind. Natasha said it was because someone stole who and what she was once, unmade her, shoved a new person inside her and she never wanted to revert back to the person they created. She needed that piece of herself to tether her to reality.

Darcy was different. Darcy had been unmade once too, but she was the one to shove that new person inside herself. She had built herself up from empty nothingness piece by bloody piece. Darcy would never again lose the knowledge of exactly who she was because she'd remade herself, was still remaking herself. So Darcy kept no part of her more fragile emotions attached to this new character, only cold logic.

It was probably the only thing she'd ever be able to do better than Natasha, but she always felt a little smug about. She still couldn't kill someone with her thighs, though, damn it. She could strangle them a little though, that counts for something, right?

When she reached five minutes and thirty-three seconds Darcy again cracked an eye and took in the rest of the room, no windows at all and she decided the walls and paint were fairly new, so she was in a finished basement somewhere that was well maintained. There didn't seem to be any cameras in the room unless there was one behind the chair she was in. It had been a little over four hours since she'd been kidnaped, and she was in Portland. She had no idea how long a flight to Portland from New Mexico would take, but they would have had to transport her on a private plane.

So her kidnapper was rich, well connected enough to hire paramilitary soldiers, was smart enough to scan her body for possible trackers, was after Jane's Einstein-Rosen Bridge technology, and knew or had someone that knew their way around torture. If he was that rich and well connected, he'd have to be at least a little bit of a public face, so if she actually saw his face, she'd be able to identify him. Once she figured out who he was, she could start figuring out how to burn his world down once she escaped.

Darcy stayed lax and motionless, counting and memorizing the layout of the room and pinpointing where that plastic piece was. At ten minutes and five seconds, Intern Darcy fluttered her eyelids and groaned. Smacking her lips, she blinked her eyes blearily open and lightly tugged on her arms. Making her eyes goes wide in sudden shock, she looked around wildly and started tugging her arms more forcefully, making the spindles her arms were strung through creak.

Wow, they went so far as to cut her open to take a tracker out and then tied her into a chair with spindles that were made out of hollow wood? It's like a mixture of professional and amateur hour around here. Intern Darcy whimpered and her eyes teared up, her face filling with fear when she saw the table with the torture tools.

"Oh my god! What the fuck?! What the fuck is this place!?" Intern Darcy burst out, her voice getting more hysterical with each word. She tugged again on her arms, but gently because Darcy didn't want to break the chair before the time was right or make her kidnapper aware that is was that fragile.

Tears began dripping down Intern Darcy's face and she started taking huge gasping breaths, eyes still locked on the torture tools. At twelve minutes and forty-one seconds, the metal door slammed open and a man in black cargo pants and a black long-sleeved shirt strode in. He was approximately forty years old, had black hair in a military buzz cut, the hair by his temple graying. His skin and features pegged him as all Caucasian and he walked with a slight limp, his right leg the weaker one.

Intern Darcy flinched away from his angry green gaze and whimpered, her head tilting down so her chin rested on her chest. "What do you want? Why am I here? Who are you?" Intern Darcy asked in a pleading tone.

Strong bony fingers snapped out and grabbed her bottom jaw in a bruising grip, yanking her head up sharply. Intern Darcy shrieked and his right hand smashed into her face with a hard backhand, the fingers digging into her jaw keeping her from toppling over with the force. The blow rattled through her bones, her right eye felt like it bulged slightly in its socket, and blood dripped from her mouth, her cheek getting cut on her teeth.

"Ask me any more questions and I'll hit you so hard at least one of your pretty little white teeth will fall out. Do you understand?" the man demanded in a cruel but cultured voice that held a slight German accent, his cold eyes boring into hers. Intern Darcy jerked her head in a nod as much as she could with his fingers still gripping her jaw and sobs wracked through her body. "Good."

Darcy studied the man she labeled M since she could see the monster in his eyes. The anger in his eyes was only surface deep, the glee and satisfaction making her bleed brought him glowed right underneath it. M moved with deliberate steps towards the table and scanned the tools with his back towards Darcy. He was very obviously a professional and normally that would make this a more precarious situation in terms of escaping, but that unholy glee in his eyes made him far too excited to cause her harm.

So while Darcy wouldn't escape this situation without some scars and bodily damage, M would be too focused on her pain to pay much attention to her escaping. After all, he just thought she was a weak intern with no battle training. Darcy was more thankful every day that she'd brokered a deal with Fury when she joined SHIELD that all her files not be entered into the database. She didn't want everyone and their mother able to see her past if they were able to hack into SHIELD. When SHIELD burned down she had made sure the paper copies burned along with it.

M's tactics were pretty admirable. He still stood there at the tool table, seemingly disregarding her presence, and hummed every now and then in consideration. It was meant to hype up the tension and terror in the victim and usually worked quite well. The victim's mind would start frantically thinking of all the things he was going to do and it would lead to the victim being panicked and off balance. The victim's imagination helped a lot in torture.

However, Darcy's imagination didn't stray to what could happen or what he was planning. She knew how horrible it could get and accepted that as a possibility. She spent her time figuring out how to get him to do exactly what she wanted. Again, his eagerness to cause pain would be a huge advantage. It wouldn't take much to push him over the edge and make him strike her hard enough to knock her chair over. After that, this was her game.

Intern Darcy whimpered again and her sobs got louder the longer M stood at the table, the tears falling faster with each second. At eighteen minutes and eleven seconds M grabbed the metal chair that was beside the table and started dragging it towards her, the screech of it dragging against the cement floor echoing in the room. Really? They tied her to the flimsy wooden chair when there was a metal one right there? Fucking idiots.

M positioned the chair so that when he sat gracefully in it, he was less than half a foot away. He crossed his legs and leaned back while looking at her contemplatively, his hands fiddling with a knife. Intern Darcy's eyes went wide and frantically looked at the knife in his hands and her breath stopped momentarily. She flicked her eyes to the table and back to the knife before looking into M's eyes with her pleading ones.

Darcy had noticed the pliers were also missing from the table and another knife, so he at least had those weapons on him right now. The single bulb above their heads casted M's face in shadows, and really, that was almost too cliché for her to accept. Torture was just as much about theater as a school play was, and there was always that one douche bag that went too far and ruined it.

"I'm going to ask you a series of questions and you're going answer every single one of them. For every time you say you don't know or don't answer, I'm going to use this new sharp knife of mine to slice a part of your pretty body. If you still insist you don't know or don't answer, I'm going to use the pliers in my pocket to rip out one of your fingernails, starting with your cute little pinky. If you continue insisting you don't know after that, I'm going to break your nose and start all over again. Do you understand dear?" M said calmly as if he were discussing the weather and with a conviction Darcy couldn't question. That was exactly what he was going to do.

Intern Darcy cringed away from him and her sobs were so loud that she couldn't answer him. His hand reached out and yanked her head forward by her hair and he leaned into her space even more, his face a few inches from her own. His other hand started rolling her tank top up, exposing her stomach, and he kept his eyes locked on her as he set the blade against the skin right below her left sixth rib. M slowly dragged the blade across her skin, the sharp tip edged upwards so Darcy felt it scratch against the rib bone.

Intern Darcy screamed, unable to move away from the pain, and watched with almost confused eyes as her blood ran over the silver blade and her skin was torn open. Her breath came out in pants and her yells didn't stop even after the knife was removed, her blood rolling down her stomach and staining the top of her jeans. Blood was always bright red when it was a small cut, but it grew darker the larger the cut was, and the blood on her jeans was turning a deep crimson as more blood pooled there.

M yanked her hair again with the hand still tangled in it and pulled her head up to face him, her nose bumping into his. "I asked you a question. You didn't respond. If you don't answer again, I'm pulling off your pinky fingernail next. Did you understand all my terms for this conversation we're having?" M demanded coolly, but his eyes were lit with an inner excitement. A true sadist then.

Intern Darcy tried to nod her head but her hair was still being firmly held and it hurt, so she cleared her throat and tried to speak through the pained whines. "Yes, Yes I understand. I understand! Please don't cut me again! Please, I understand!"

"Whether you get cut or not is all your decision my dear," M smoothly commented as he let go of her hair, wiped her blood from the knife onto the thigh of her jeans, and leaned back into his chair. He inspected the knife while recrossing his legs, making sure it was clean. "Now, since all the records from Dr. Foster's lab were destroyed, we need your less that intelligent input. Where do you keep the backups of that data?"

Intern Darcy looked shocked at the news, as Intern Darcy would never have been able to plan to destroy all the equipment, and would have been knocked out as soon as she finished the coffee. "I...we...they get sent to a server in Stark's building," Intern Darcy stuttered out, frantic to not get cut again.

Darcy knew that whoever kidnaped her had to have at least known that, and getting into the Tower, especially the basements, was like trying to get into a heavily fortified bunker. It wasn't happening. M nodded condescendingly, looking both pleased and disappointed that she'd answered.

"Yes my dear, very good. Is there another portal machine already made?" M asked, his demeanor almost bored, his fingers twitching slightly against the knife he still played with.

"Ye...yes," Intern Darcy choked out, her eyes focused on the knife before trailing to the still sluggishly bleeding slice on her stomach.

"Where is it?" demanded M, seeming to get frustrated with the questioning. Really, he was almost too easy to read.

Darcy knew she'd have to make him run through his listed punishments soon before she was cut so badly that she wouldn't be able to defend herself once she escaped. Bracing herself for the coming pain, her mind went ice cold. This was going to be a bitch.

"I think...it should be in Stark Tower too," Darcy mumbled out, her body cringing away from the frustration in his voice.

"What floor is it on and how do we get to it?" M asked, his impatient eyes boring into hers.

"It...it's in one of basements...I don't think you can get to it," Intern Darcy faintly replied, eyes wide and starting to go into shock.

Suddenly the knife was slicing into her stomach right above her sixth rib and the other cut, the blade scraping against the top of the bone this time. Intern Darcy tossed her head and screamed in agony, spit flying from her mouth while tears clogged her throat. Gasping sobs ripped from her throat as M tore the knife from her flesh, tearing a small chunk of skin along with it. Her arms struggled against the wooden spindles, her next scream masking the sound of them creaking and becoming loose.

This slice was messy and ragged, done with an angry and impatient hand. There was a quarter inch chunk of her flesh laying in a small puddle of blood on her thigh and her blood was covering her whole stomach, this wound bleeding much more than the last. M took a chunk of her hair and used it wipe the blade clean, shearing off a few strands and caking her hair with her own blood. Fuck, that one was going to need stitches.

"I'll ask you again dearest, how do we get to it?" M said, his voice calm on the surface but carrying an undercurrent of excitement.

Intern Darcy was still panting, eye wild and horrified, and she looked unseeingly up at M. Blood and spit were trailing from her mouth and she shook her head, the blood drenched strands of her hair sticking to her cheek. "I...Ju..." Intern Darcy paused, swallowed the blood in her mouth and tried again, "You'd have to have the passwords and...and..." She stopped talking because Intern Darcy had no idea how to get down to the basement levels unobserved.

M sighed in mock disappointment and stood from his chair. He strolled around her chair and bent over to put his mouth right next to her ear. "It's a real pity, my dear, your fingernails are such a fetching shade of red, but the pinky nail must go. You know the rules," he said in a falsely sympathetic voice, one hand petting her hair as the other lightly ran the back of the knife down her arm.

Intern Darcy frantically shook her head and started yelling, "No, no, please no! I answered! I answered!"

M grabbed her right hand and forced her pinky finger to straighten, making the zip cord dig into the skin on her wrists. She felt the cold tip of the needle nose pliers fit almost gently around her pinky nail and pause there, drawing out the fear and horrible anticipation. All at once they were shoved forward, slicing under her fingernail and stopped right before reaching the nail bed. Intern Darcy let out a sound like a dying animal, the horrifying sound echoing back into her ears.

She felt the warmth of her own blood against her fingers, but that was overshadowed by the searing agony rippling from the tip of her pinky all the way to her toes. Darcy felt her stomach roll and bared down on the feeling, refusing to throw up. Reaching thirty-five minutes and fifty-one seconds, her mind was blank again, the pain blocked out as she prepared for the next part.

She felts the pliers slide slightly in her blood before getting a firm grip and then M started pulling her nail out as slowly as he could, making her feel each drag and every single ounce of pain. She could feel the nail scratching against the inside of her skin as it was removed, the pain so sharp her whole hand throbbed. Intern Darcy shrieked, her head tossing from side to side and her left hand clenched so tightly it broke skin. Her struggle had made the cuts on her stomach stretch open and more blood rolled down her stomach.

With a final tug, the nail was ripped from her finger and Intern Darcy screamed again before slumping back into the chair, her breath coming out in ragged pants. M Leaned over her shoulder and held the pliers with her bloody and mangled nail in front of her eyes and said congenially into her ear, "Such a lovely red, isn't it? The blood really compliments the polish. The next one will be your left pinky nail, then we'll have a matching set."

Intern Darcy made a keening sound and closed her eyes, her body beginning to tremble. M clicked his tongue at her and strode back over to the tool table and set her bloody nail on it before coming to stand over her. "I'll keep it over there for safe keeping. Now, answer the question or you'll lose that pretty face of yours too. How do we get to the machine?" he softly questioned with an almost fanatical look in his eyes.

This was her chance. It would hurt and she might end up with a broken nose, but it would be worth it in the end to see him dead on the floor before her. She'd definitely feel no guilt killing someone who took such joy out of harming others. Her hands slowly curled around the wooden spindles of her chair and she ignored the stabbing pain from her pinky when she gripped them.

Intern Darcy hiccuped and tried to talk around her sobs, but all that came out was a strangled sound. She cleared her throat, flinched at the rawness of it, and whispered a broken, "I don't know."

M's lips compressed into a flat line and he sighed as if she were a disobedient child. "That's a shame dearest, I did so enjoy looking at your face. Well, I suppose it can't be helped," he said, and for a second she could picture him being a dad when he wasn't torturing people, and that was more horrifying than anything he'd done so far.

Chapter Text

M's right hand curled into a fist and he swung it hard and fast towards her face. Darcy tilted her head to the right so the blow wouldn't hit her nose, but the blow was so hard she felt her teeth rattle. Pushing subtly with her feet off the floor to help the force knock the chair over, Darcy's chair toppled over and she slammed into the ground on her right shoulder, the chair breaking around her. The landing was jarring, but it didn't injure anything luckily, and her body ended up curled into a ball so that her feet were near her hands. The pain exploded from her cheek and radiated up to encompass her entire face.

Intern Darcy's eyes clouded over and her eyelids slid shut as she slumped, appearing to pass out from the hit. Darcy heard M swear and bend down to check her pulse and then his relieved sigh when he found her alive. He grunted and she listened closely to his footsteps walk towards the table. Not wasting any time, Darcy's fingers went right to the back of her left leg and started tugging out the plastic strip that was in the hem of her jeans. It came free with an almost silent tearing sound and she immediately started sawing at the zip tie restraining her hands, struggling as her blood made her grip slippery.

The zip tie snapped open and fell off her wrists and Darcy started on the one around her ankles. The angle was more difficult and she only got halfway through when the plastic slipped from her fingers and she cursed mentally. Her fingers trailed around the ground and just when she grasped it again, she heard M's footsteps coming closer. She went back to sawing while listening carefully to his every move.

"You know, my dear, I really had hoped you'd be just a little stronger than everyone said, but I suppose that was a fool's errand. Time for your wake-up call," his sickeningly pleasant voice said right before Darcy heard something whistling through the air and the barbed end of the whip sliced into the skin of her upper chest.

The tie on her ankles broke as her body jerked from the strike and she struggled not to react even as he ripped the barb out of her skin, sending blood droplets flying into the air, some hitting the back of her still-closed eyelids. As he started swinging the whip again Darcy's eyes snapped open and she locked them with his ecstatic green ones. There was no Intern Darcy in her eyes anymore. Her eyes were flat, filled with ice, and held a sharp focus that was soundly directed at M.

His eyes flinched instinctually at her look and as the whip made its way towards her Darcy caught it with one of the wooden spindles. The whip coiled around it and Darcy used her free hand to help propel herself into a crouch before tugging sharply on the spindle. M jerked forward a foot before letting the whip go and it was his turn to feel fear. Darcy rapidly uncoiled the whip from the spindle and snapped it out towards him. It coiled around his neck and she tugged sharply once more to tighten it as his blood started soaking his chest from where the barb stabbed into his neck.

She sauntered over to him as she pulled the handle of the whip downwards causing him to fall to his knees, his hands clawing at the leather around his neck to get breath. She picked up the knife he dropped and wrapped the rest of the leather rope around his neck so there was no slack. Sliding the knife into her back pocket, Darcy checked his pockets and found two more knives and a syringe that she also slid into her back pockets.

Leaning down so that her face was just a few inches from his, she smirked. "Now, I'm going to ask you a series of questions and you're going to answer every single one of them. For every time you say you don't know or don't answer, I'm going to break one of your fingers. If you still insist you don't know or don't answer, I'm going to string you up and cut off one of your balls and feed it to you. If you continue insisting you don't know, I'll disembowel you and show you where that ball you ate ended up in the flesh. Do you understand dear?" Darcy said in a completely calm and dead honest voice. Her eyes bore into his watering ones and impassively watched them sink into panic as he saw how serious she was.

Darcy didn't relish this, she didn't enjoy threatening or hurting someone, even if that person did the same to her, but she was pragmatic enough to know it sometimes had to be done. M would never tell her anything unless he knew she was serious and she had to know where she was, who kidnaped her, and how to get out if she wanted to survive. And Darcy always survived.

Darcy was creative that way.

Sometimes creativity is a little horrifying.

Darcy had never claimed to be innocent and as she watched M kneel before her with his blood staining his neck, she felt no pity for him. She could still see her blood on his hands and the knife that had cut her open was a heavy weight in her pocket. No, she felt no joy in this, but neither did she feel guilt.

"Who is your boss?" Darcy demanded while nudging the handle of the whip into the underside of his chin.

M croaked out a sound and pretended he couldn't talk with the whip around his throat. Darcy's face went blank and she snapped out a harsh kick against his chest, knocking him flat against the concrete. She grabbed his left hand and shoved it across his chest, planted her foot over it to hold him in place, and then gripped the middle finger of his right hand and yanked it sharply and forcefully back.

The sound of the bone snapping preceded his high-pitched squeal by only a millisecond and Darcy screamed in mock agony to cover the sound. Emotionlessly watching his eyes fill with fevered agony and involuntary tears drip down his cheeks, she leaned closer to him, putting more weight against his chest. "I know the whip isn't tight enough to stop you from making sound, you just proved it. Answer my fucking question before I have to get creative. Who is your boss?" Darcy demanded flatly while ignoring the sharp tugging pain bending over caused, the wounds on her stomach staining her tank top with blood.

M cleared his throat before rasping out a desperate, "Hammer. Justin Hammer. He...he hired me for Dr. Foster, but you..."

Yeah, but Darcy was there and Dr. Foster wasn't. She already knew that, but it was interesting that Hammer was her kidnapper. It also explained the weird mixture of professional and amateur behavior. You could hire a few pros, but you'd also end up with idiots when you used hired goons. Also, Hammer never seemed to know what kind of villain he was that week, so it was probably confusion all around. She'd never known him to actually torture someone though, so he must want Jane's data extremely badly.

"What building are we in and what floor is this?" Darcy asked impassively, her hand grasping his right index finger as a reminder.

"Hammer Health Industries building in Portland. Basement level three. Please...I was just doing my job," he croaked out, his eyes starting to become red from not getting enough air.

Darcy nodded at him and reached back to palm one of the knives. "I know, but you also enjoyed it. I want you to at least know I don't and won't enjoy this," Darcy said before sliding the blade between the coiled rope around his neck and slicing his Carotid Artery. She jumped back and avoided any blood spray and walked away without a second look.

She wiped the blood off of the knife onto her jeans, they were a dead loss anyway, and took off her tang top. Setting it on the tool table she cut the fabric into wide strips and started wrapping them around the wounds on her stomach. She still had her sports bra on, and putting pressure on the still bleeding cuts was more important than modesty. She also struggled a wrapping around her raw and seeping pinky finger and tightened the knot with her teeth. Checking the tightness of the temporary bandages, she started sliding the rest of the knives into her pockets.

Tilting her head, Darcy wondered what was in those syringes and if it would be worth taking them. She shrugged and put them in her left front pocket after making sure they were caped. Rolling her shoulders, Darcy started stretching her muscles. She needed to be loose and ready to run or fight as soon as she opened that door. Darcy then turned her head and let out blood curdling scream and more fake sobs, just in case anyone got curious about it being too quiet.

At fifty-six minutes and four seconds, Darcy silently made her way to the door, her breathing regulated and ears straining to pick up any sound. Eyeing the hinges of the door, she was relieved to see they looked new and at least well oiled. She readied two blades in her right hand and slowly twisted the handle, cracking the door open. Celebrating in her head about no squeaking, she scanned the hallway beyond the door.

There were three other doors in the long hallway, two on the left and one on the right, and all three were wide open. She couldn't hear any voices or footsteps, but that didn't mean no one was there. She scanned the ceiling and noted two cameras with an internal curse. Neither of them pointed right at her door, but she wouldn't be able to get around them without being seen.

Her best option was to make it to the closest room on her left and hope there was something in there she could put on for camouflage. Either way, she was leaving now and if she had to kill everyone in her way, she would. Taking a cleansing breath and clearing her mind, Darcy slipped out of the room and flattened her body to the wall on the left. Slinking towards the first open door, Darcy saw it was a break room of sorts. There were two men in camo she could see from her position, but there could be more.

She silently filled her left hand with two knives, matching her right, and tested the weight and balance of them. Once satisfied, she flung two knives simultaneously and watched one lodge into the hollow of Thug One's throat, the other missing her mark but stabbing in Thug Two's upper chest. Thug One choked on his own blood, dark red bubbling from his mouth, and fell to the ground while Thug Two stumbled back into the wall.

During all of that, Darcy dove into the room in a roll and came to her feet facing the direction she couldn't see from outside. She flung another knife at Thug Three as he was lifting his handgun and it stabbed through his left eye and into his brain, blood, and gooey eye juice splattering. Watching an eye burst was pretty much the most disgusting thing she'd ever seen to date.

Shuddering and swallowing the urge to gag, Darcy pivoted and dove to her right just in time to avoid the punch Thug Two aimed at her. His second swing slammed into her right side, thankfully not hitting her cuts, and she grunted in pain. Dude's fists felt like fucking bricks. He started reaching for the gun Thug Three had dropped and Darcy flung herself onto his back but accidentally dropped her last knife. Cursing, she reached around his broad shoulders while groaning and swearing each time one of his fists landed against her back as he tried to shake her off. Her hand closed around the handle of the knife still in his upper chest and she yanked it out and slashed it down into his chest, hoping to hit his heart, his warm blood spurting over her hand.

The fists that were slamming into her sides and trying to yank her off dropped away slowly and he pitched forward. Darcy leaped off him and landed in a crouch, picking up the knife she dropped and aiming it in case he wasn't done yet. He staggered in a drunken way and then crumbled face first into the ground, eyes open and unseeing. Darcy panted, wiped her hand clean with the bottom of his pants, and tried to calm her racing heart. She should have made sure he was dead right away, but you live and learn and all that.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Darcy moved to the closets, stepping over Thug Three to get there. Fucking idiots. It was good for her, but really? The closet was full of camo pants and shirts, boots, and there were even hats. Darcy quickly grabbed the smallest pants there and transferred her weapons into the pockets and tugged them on over her jeans, then tossed on the smallest long sleeved black shirt and tucked it in the pants before tightening the belt. Looking down at her blood covered bare toes, she grabbed a pair of boots that were two sizes too big and shoved the too-long pant legs inside them before lacing them up.

After snagging a camo jacket, Darcy walked over to Thug Two and used her newly booted foot to nudge him onto his back and tugged the knife out of his chest. She stepped over him to get to Thug One and tugged the knife from his throat, sliding both of them back into her pockets. She decided to leave the knife in Thug Three because she didn't want to ever touch eye goo. Suddenly she remembered the cameras in the hallways and snapped her eyes around the room, but thank Thor, there were none. She really needed to get her head on straight or this all would have been for nothing.

Darcy rocked back and forth on her heels to get used to the feel of the boots while sliding on the jacket and buttoning it. Grabbing the hat from the table Thug One and Thug Two were at, she twisted her hair up and set the cap over her head before grabbing the ID card with the picture of a scowling Thug One. She walked over to the mini kitchenette and looked at herself in the mirror above the sink. Grunting, she grabbed a towel from the counter and turned on the water and washed her hands before scrubbing the blood off her face. Once her skin was fairly clean, she dried her face and grabbed an unused mug from a cabinet. She swished water around her mouth and when she spit it out it was pink. Grimacing, she did it again three more times before the water came out clear.

Scanning the room one more time, Darcy spotted a first-aid box bolted to the far wall, and she smiled. She quickly yanked the cover open and grabbed the small bottle of hydrogen peroxide inside and a roll of gauze and medical tape. She unscrewed the cap and took the seal off the hydrogen peroxide before tugging off the makeshift bandage around her pinky. Stuffing a clean towel in her mouth, she poured the hydrogen peroxide over her raw and still bleeding pinky. Her scream was muffled and barely made any noise in the room, but it echoed in her head. Watching the liquid bubble on her pinky, she let her finger air dry while spitting out the towel. Gritting her teeth, she quickly wrapped the finger in gauze and secured it with a strip of tape. Now she wouldn't have to hide her right hand completely, it looked like a normal wound that anyone could have now that it was bandaged the way it was. Unfortunately, she'd already spent too much time in this room and couldn't afford more in order to clean her other wounds.

Taking a deep breath, Darcy marched towards the door while shoving her hands into the pockets of her cargo pants to palm her knives. Ducking her head, Darcy strode from the room like she belonged there and marched down the hallway. Her eyes flicked to the right open door as she passed, but it was nothing but an empty office. Slanting her eyes to the left as she got close to the last open door, Darcy heard snoring coming from inside. As she walked passed, she saw two men in camo like the others, sleeping.

Fucking idiots. All of them. They must really have been so sure she wasn't a threat. Also, it said something about a person when they could fall asleep to the sounds of screaming. Although, it was good they were heartless bastards and could sleep through yells of agony because they didn't even wake up from the sounds of her killing three of their goon buddies. At the end of the hallway, she turned right and marched to the stairway door and swiped the badge she'd pinned to her jacket. It unlocked like a dream and she strode trough the door and up the stairs until she reached the second floor.

This was where it got tricky. She didn't want to alert them to her escape before she could get far enough away from the building, so she needed another disguise in order to leave unnoticed. Letting her face fall into stern lines, she cracked the door and scanned the hallway that opened into a cubicle farm. She held her breath as a woman in a black pencil skirt, a tan blazer, and a large black purse trotted by and entered the bathroom to the right and about twenty feet from Darcy's position. Tilting her head in consideration, Darcy waited a few seconds to make sure no one else was coming down the hallway and calmly walked into the same bathroom.

Making sounds like she was entering a stall, she checked if the woman with the huge purse was the only one in here. She was. Darcy smirked and waited silently, keeping her shoes out of view for the Purse Woman. Darcy heard the toilette flush and when Purse Woman opened the stall door Darcy slapped her palm over her mouth before she could make a sound. Pushing her back into the stall, Darcy nudged the door shut with her foot. It was a tight squeeze, but it would do.

"I'm sorry, I don't want to hurt you and I swear you won't be any worse for wear when you wake back up, but I need your clothes," Darcy whispered while pinching Purse Woman's nose closed and waiting for her to pass out.

Purse Woman's eyes were wide and begging and her tears dribbled onto Darcy's hand. Darcy was sorry for scaring her, but to survive, it had to be done. There would be no lasting effects and she'd be fine when she woke up. Purse Woman's eyes went blind right before she passed out, her body slumping limply into Darcy. Darcy unzipped the back of her skirt and set the woman gently on the toilette after the skirt slid to the floor. Darcy stripped quickly and quietly down to her underwear, keeping the bandages around her waist. Making a face of disgust when she noticed fresh blood seeping from them, she took a knife and cut the long sleeved shirt into larger strips and added them on top of the others. She shimmied into the skirt and found she had to fight it to get it to zip as she was a little more hippy than Purse Woman.

She maneuvered the blazer and blouse off Purse Woman and put both on before checking the size of her shoes. Size seven. Fuckity fuck. These were going to hurt to wear as Darcy was a size eight. Sighing in annoyance, Darcy locked the stall door and piled all her camo gear on the top of the toilet so it wouldn't be visible except the jacket, which she laid over the lingerie-clad Purse Woman. With a second look, Darcy took the boots and put them on Purse Woman's feet so no one would wonder why the hell a barefoot person was walking around and using the restroom.

Darcy crawled out under the door, dragging the huge purse with one hand and the evil high heels with the other. Smoothing the outfit of wrinkles, Darcy eyed her now messy and still blood soaked hair. She dug through the purse and pulled out a hairbrush, toothbrush and toothpaste, makeup, hair ties, and a headband. Well, she could work with this. Purse woman apparently needed all the room the purse had. She quickly brushed out her hair, dried flakes of blood raining into the sink, and started putting up into a slightly messy but still professional bun with her bangs framing her face and semi-covering the bruises there.

Sliding in the dark blue headband that matched Purse Woman's shoes, she made sure the blood wouldn't show. Seeing no sign of it, she grabbed toothpaste and squeezed out just enough on her finger so that she could clean any residual blood stains off her teeth and rinsed her mouth when they were clean. Checking her teeth, she quickly slapped on some makeup, making sure to cover the bruising that was already littering her face, and finished with a light pink lipstick she actually liked. Spritzing a little perfume she hated to cover any smell, Darcy stood back and took her new ensemble in. The blouse was too tight and showcased her chest way more than it should, but it covered the cut the whip had left and the flower motif wouldn't show any blood that seeped through immediately. Also, it being too tight would make sure men's eyes were focused away from her face. The blazer was a little tight in her shoulders, but overall, she looked like a good little office minion.

Smiling at her reflection, she checked the ID for the girls name. Marjorie Feinstien. Well, that was unfortunate, but it would have to do. She tossed everything back in the purse after she had taken Marjorie's cell phone and wallet out. She tossed the phone in the trash can and searched through her wallet. Marjorie had about fifty dollars in cash and Darcy shoved that into her bra before the wallet too was tossed. She crammed her feet into the too small shoes, grabbed the huge purse, and left before she could mourn leaving her weapons behind too much. This building most likely had a metal detector and she was hoping to just waltz out undetected.

Sauntering from the bathroom she went directly to the stairs door and went down one flight to the first floor. Taking in a bracing breath, Darcy put an inane and innocent smile on her face and walked out into the lobby. It was all glass and stainless steel, but she saw the doors and the sun warmed her like she hadn't seen it in weeks. She also noticed there were no metal detectors for people leaving and swore up a storm in her head. She could have brought her fucking knives!

Darcy never broke stride and walked right to the doors with her head tilted away from anyone, tossing a wave over her shoulder to the bored looking security guards like a few other workers leaving before her did. Keeping the smile on her face, she reached the outside sidewalk and turned right. The high heels pinched her toes and rubbed roughly against her heels, but she kept walking until she was a block away and she tossed the purse into a large garbage can. She started walking again, and as she walked passed a little deli that had outside seating, she pretended to trip and caught herself on a table where an overweight businessman was typing on his computer.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't spill anything did I?" Darcy said in a sincere voice, her hands fluttering as she leaned towards him, conveniently putting her breasts directly in his line of sight.

" N-no you didn't. It's alright babe," he said with a greasy smile, his eyes never looking away from her boobs.

"Oh, well if you're sure! I'm terribly sorry again. I hope you have a good day handsome," Darcy winked and sauntered off, pocketing his cell phone that he had left on the table.

Once she was a few blocks and random turns away from both Hammer's building and that cafe, Darcy entered a quaint little bookshop and called the only person she knew who was in Portland that would be able to help.

"What?" His rough voice demanded in lieu of a hello.

"Eliot," Darcy greeted, unsure if he would know who she was by her voice since it had been over a year.

"Darcy," Eliot grunted, and Darcy chided herself for doubting him. He never forgot a voice, ever.

"I'm in Portland...I need help," she said impassively but did so with a wince. The front of her stolen shirt was beginning to soak through with her blood and she needed to get stitches before she lost too much blood. All the moving around wasn't helping anything, and pretty soon the bruises on her face wouldn't be able to be covered by Marjorie's makeup. Her back was starting to tense up and throb from Thug Two's hits, and her fucking feet hurt. She wasn't a machine, she couldn't keep going when she was this sore and hurt unless she had to. Added to all of that, someone must have discovered her escape by now because Marjore wouldn't have been unconscious for long, and they'd start combing Portland for her.

"Where are you?" he demanded, but she caught the concern lacing his tone.

She could hear shifting from over the phone and something in her relaxed. Apparently she still had trouble believing people meant it when they promised to help if they could. "I'm in a little bookshop called Novel Ideas. I didn't see the address as I walked in, but I can send you the directions in a text. I'll have to get rid of this phone after that," Darcy said, the relief more obvious in her tone than she intended. She paused, then said, "Hurry."

"I know where that is. I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Orange Dodge Challenger," Eliot clipped out and hung up.

Darcy checked for cameras and saw none so she took the battery and sim card out of the phone and cracked the sim card in her hand before tossing all of it into a mini trash can at the end of a book isle. Sighing, she grabbed them all from the garbage can and used her shirt to rub her prints from all available surfaces before tossing them back. She didn't need to worry about any prints or blood she'd left at Hammer's, it's not like he'd be able to press charges and she was certain he'd compensate Marjorie so she didn't tell the police. Well, Darcy hoped he would and he didn't just decide to kill her. Christ on a cracker, she needed a nap. It had been a long fucking day.

Darcy grabbed a cheesy romance novel off a random shelf, snorting at the picture of the shirtless pirate on the cover. She took the money out of her bra, using the bookshelf so the elderly sales lady didn't see her and pulled a ten out of the roll, tucking the rest into the blazer's pocket. She brought both to the register, paid, and grabbed the bag before saying thank you and walking out of the shop. She walked across the street and entered the diner there, nodding to the guy behind the counter and ordering a caramel latte. Taking a seat in the corner, the entrance and window right in front of her, and the back exit to her right, she slid off the blazer.

At eighty-five minutes and three seconds since she woke up, her coffee arrived and she took her book out to settle in and pretended to read while watching for that orange car.

Chapter Text

Darcy was actually getting into the cheesy romance book that was thinly disguised erotica. If she ever met the hero in reality she'd probably stab him in the dick for pulling all that "me macho man, you weak female crap", but the book was working it. Just as the book was describing Rock Slade's throbbing manhood, she saw a man pacing on the sidewalk in front of the cafe.

Sighing and seriously questioning her life decisions, Darcy stood calmly from the booth and tossed the book and a ten dollar bill on the table. Laying the blazer over her arm and using it to cover the ever growing bloodstain on the front of her blouse, she headed for the restrooms in the back of the cafe. The women's room was right next to the door to the kitchen, and when she saw the man had a ski mask hanging out of his pocket, she veered into it instead.

A fucking ski mask. What kind of self-respecting robber acted sketchy and nervous in full view of everyone inside the restaurant they were going to rob before putting on a ski mask? Did he think that putting on a ski mask instantly erased everyone's memory of his face? She was doomed to be surrounded by idiots that made her brain feel like crying.

Beyond the mental anguish such stupidity caused, the dude was seriously cramping her exit plan. Robbing this cafe would mean police, camera footage, and possibly news footage. All of those things could not happen. Growling under her breath, Darcy pushed through the revolving door into the kitchen.

Smiling at the busboy that was pushing a cart with a huge tub passed her, she nodded and continued on like she was supposed to be here. He did a double take, shrugged and slammed out the revolving doors. Striding into the kitchen, her eye widened as she saw the hugely overweight cook bouncing around to the techno music playing, his back to her. Using his distraction, Darcy slid the two paring knives laying on the counter under the folds of the blazer. She was starting to get to the point where she'd have to admit to her addiction for knives.

Not pausing to see if he would turn around, she strode through the kitchen, out the back door, and into the alley. Wrinkling her nose at the stench of rotting trash, she tucked the knives into the back of the too tight skirt and shrugged on the blazer. Cracking her neck, Darcy studied the man at the end of the alley who was just about to pull on that Thor-forsaken ski mask.

"Fuck a duck, how is this my life?" Darcy bemoaned to the universe. She silently moved to stand right behind the saddest robber she'd ever seen and snatched the gun out from the back of his pants. He didn't even notice until the gun was in her hand and she'd backed up at least five feet. The criminal world was seriously in danger of being embarrassed by him, and him alone. Even the gun was embarrassing for her to hold. A freakin' S&W M&P nine millimeter. She'd have a better chance hitting a target by chucking the gun at it than actually shooting it.

"The fuck!" Mr. Robber yelled out in panic and wrenched around, the ski mask half on his head.

Aiming the inferior gun at his forehead, Darcy sighed and said, "I've had a shit day Clyde wanna-be. If you just turn around and leave I won't have to shoot you in the dick. Sound fair?" When it seemed like he was going to argue she clicked the safety off and pulled the slide back, chambering a round, and pointed the barrel towards his crotch.

His hands flew up in the international sign for peace even as he turned and ran off down the street. Darcy quickly popped the round from the chamber and pocketed it, flicked the safety back on, and tugged off the blazer to cover the hand holding the gun. Sighing, she untucked the blouse from her skirt so that the back would cover the knives she didn't even need.

Eliot had better show up before aliens invaded again or a zombie apocalypse happened, because that was just the way her day was going. Darcy looked heavenward with a challenging look, just daring the universe to make her thoughts a reality, and moved further into the alley for some cover. She'd just leaned back against the grimy brick wall when a car screeched to a stop in front of her. He wasn't lying when he said orange. That was a lot of orange.

She immediately opened the door and moved the seat forward to slip into the backseat, pulling the door shut behind her. Grunting, she pulled the knives from her skirt and finally tugged the horrible shoes off her feet. Eliot pushed the passenger seat back into place as she laid down on her back facing him, setting the knives and gun on the floor of the car.

"Hey Eliot, how's life been?" Darcy said flippantly once he'd started driving, eyes still alert for trouble and watching the passing scenery as much as she could from her position.

"Oh, hey Darcy. I've been doing awesome," Eliot's gruff voice mocked with an absurdly fake pleasant smile. His customary glower shadowed his face and he took a turn much faster and sharper than necessary, making Darcy slide in the backseat and the cuts on her stomach stretch. "What the hell have you gotten into this time?"

Darcy was clenching her teeth to hold in any pained sounds, but a groan escaped and she pressed the blazer more firmly against her stomach to try and staunch the blood. Eliot glanced back and scanned her form with narrowed eyes, his jaw clenching when he saw the blood staining the blazer. "Yeah, if you could not angry drive right now, that'd be great, buddy," Darcy snarked. She really was okay, all things considered.

"How bad?" Eliot demanded, turning down a street that looked familiar.

"You might want to avoid Hammer Health Industries, just FYI."

"Damn it!" He swore and the car turned off that familiar street and turned a few more corners smoothly before heading in the opposite direction. "How bad?"

"I've been asked a lot of demanding questions today," Darcy mused before hurrying on when Eliot growled and raised an impatient eyebrow. "Nothing some ice, sleep, and a few dozen or so stitches won't fix. You have supplies for that right?"

Eliot grunted and opened his glove box, tossing a clean looking towel at her. "You stain my leather and you're paying for it."

"Aww, there's that warm and fuzzy concern I've been missing. I feel right at ho-" Darcy stopped talking when she noticed something in his right ear and her blood went a little cold. She'd made a mistake. No...no Eliot was the most loyal man she knew...she still let one of her hands drop to the floor near her knives and felt her body tense. "Why are you wearing an earbud Eliot?" Darcy asked in a harsher tone than she'd intended.

He tensed when he noticed her tense, because of course he did. He was a freakin' ninja that way. His jaw clenched harder and his eyes stayed resolutely on the road, not answering. Darcy felt real panic swamp her because as awesome as she was, she couldn't overpower Eliot. If he was working for someone, she'd have to fight with everything she had just to make it out alive.

"If you don't answer me I'm shooting my way out of this car in the next thirty seconds. It's been a trying day Eliot, and I'd really like to know at least one person is on my side," Darcy ended in a whisper, sliding her body as far away from his reach as she could in the confined space, her hand switching the safety off the gun again. She couldn't afford to blindly trust anyone today, not if she'd been so wrong about Eliot. One part of her was screaming that he'd never turn on her, but the cynical part that had saved her life more times than she could count was screaming not to trust him until she got an answer.

He pulled over and put the car in park before turning towards her and Darcy raised the gun, pulled the slide back, and made sure to keep it out of his immediate reach. Ignoring the voice that whispered that she'd regret hurting Eliot for the rest of her life, she let her eyes go hard and her face blank. She'd survive, no matter what. She'd already done too much not to.

Eliot raised his hands slowly like he was cajoling a feral animal, which he kind of was, and spoke calmly. "It's something I use for my job."

"Why are you wearing it now? Who's on the other end Eliot? And stop shifting more my way, I know you holding your hands up means shit when you want to disarm someone. I don't want to hurt you and I know I couldn't win a fair fight between us, but you know me. I always find a way out," Darcy's voice wavered with more emotion than she wanted, but her left hand still clutched the knives and her right still aimed the gun steadily.

"They're...you don't know them."

"Not helping your case at all."

"I...they're people I trust," Eliot grunted out, stumbling a little over his choice of words, not out of fear but out of discomfort saying it out loud caused him. "They're only trying to help."

Darcy studied him for a long moment before slumping down, the adrenaline rushing out of her body along with a relieved sigh. She set the weapons back on the ground after unloading the gun again and shifted back into a prone position to show him she wouldn't do anything rash. "Okay." That was really the only word reverberating through her entire system. Okay, she hadn't made a mistake. Eliot was just the kind of person she'd always thought. It was okay.

He blinked at her, his face actually showing a little befuddlement. "Okay?"

"You would never admit to trusting someone unless it was the absolute truth and if you really were taking me back, you'd have just disarmed me as soon as I reached for the gun. Onwards chauffeur! Or are you trying to make me pay for all new leather?" Darcy said imperiously, her hand waving towards the new blood soaking into the towel.

He growled and sped off again, shaking his head in annoyance. "I forgot how damn annoying you are."

"Just admit you missed my lovely personality and accept it honeybun," Darcy grinned.

"Call me that again and I'll stop for dinner while you bleed out."

"If I bleed out, the stains will never come out."

"It'll be worth it. What happened?" Eliot asked with his serious face.

"Oh, you know, Kidnapping, torture, more torture, a few battles to the death, a daring escape, some theft, and an attempted robbery and possible hostage situation. The usual Wednesday."

"You got kidnapped?" Eliot asked humorously. He'd seen her fight when they ran into each other in Syria over a year ago and she could definitely hold her own.

"I let myself get kidnapped. There were over twenty paramilitary soldiers and at least two snipers. I wasn't getting out alive any other way," Darcy sniffed defensively, scowling at the side of his face.

"From where?"

"New Mexico. Why Portland was decided to be the best location for torture, I have no clue. I suspect it's because Hammer didn't have enough balls to hold me in New York and doesn't have very many secure facilities left after the whole expo debacle."

"Damage?"

Darcy was silent for a minute, knowing exactly what he was asking. She wasn't ashamed of her actions, but she didn't feel the need to tell people she didn't even know about it. "Can those voices in your ear hear everything you can?" She asked instead.

Eliot paused, glanced back at her, and said, "I'm off comms." He took out the earbud and tossed it in the front pocket of his button-up shirt. "No one else is listening."

"Not even the two in the large black van that's been following us for the last ten minutes, coincidentally moving closer after I aimed a gun at you?" Darcy arched an eyebrow, flicking her eyes out the back window.

His lips twitched with a shrug before shaking his head. "No, they can't hear us."

"Not even the one holding a parabolic microphone towards us?" Darcy leaned up and locked eyes with the blonde girl in the van five cars back in the other lane before she ducked down with the microphone. The man behind the van's wheel jumped and started sliding down the seat so that only his eyes were above the steering wheel.

"Damn it, Hardison! I told you not to tail cars with that van! Shut up. No, drive ahead, everything's under control," Eliot growled into his earbud before snatching it back out and waiting for the van to pass his car and turn a corner before speeding back up and driving passed that corner.

Darcy couldn't hold in her chuckle and relaxed back into the seat. "So, you're a team then," Darcy decided, and the relief in her voice was clear. If they were a team, then they were on Eliot's side. He was too familiar with this Hardison not to be a close team or friends. "It's nice having friends," she whispered while closing her eyes.

Eliot didn't respond to that, but she knew he understood what true friends meant when you chose this kind of life. He just looked back at her with an expectant look and she sighed. "Injuries: two knife wounds on the left side of my stomach above and below the sixth rib, an extracted pinky nail, a laceration from a barbed whip that might need one or two stitches, and various bruises absolutely everywhere. Damages: One dead torturer, three dead goons, and one knocked out Marjorie," Darcy said casually, curiously watching a more lively section of the town come into view.

"What did Hammer want?" Eliot asked, turning down an alley and parking in front of a side door, his car hidden from the street.

Darcy's face closed off and she moved into a sitting position before saying, "Dr. Foster's research. That's all I can tell you." She paused and her eyes widened when she saw the name of the bar above the back door. Leaning forward to look Eliot in the eye, she stared a moment before starting to laugh.

"What?" he snapped out, eyebrows furrowing.

"Stark mentioned a group of thieves who have a penchant for ruining wealthy and corrupt business men about a month ago. Said he was compiling data in case he ever ended up on their hit list. Do you work for Nathan Ford, Eliot?" Darcy chuckled out. She couldn't believe she didn't recognize the name Hardison after listening to Tony rant about him trying to hack into JARVIS for almost a week straight. She had assumed at the time that whoever Hardison was must be good to even get on Tony's radar.

Eliot opened his door in anger, his default emotion, and pointed at her. "Get out of my car!"

Darcy laughed even louder and slid out of the car barefoot after stashing the knives in her skirt again and hiding the gun yet again, slamming the door closed harder than necessary just to get on his nerves. His eyes narrowed before he turned and stalked to the back brewery door, punched in a code, and went inside without even holding the door for her. Darcy scrambled to catch it before it shut and stuck her tongue out at his back. "You've gotten more childish as you've aged," She taunted.

"Should have never answered the damn phone. More trouble than you're worth," Eliot grumbled as they turned through another door and into a room with a huge screen and a table curved around it where four people stopped what they were doing and watched her with varying levels of distrust, concern, and if she wasn't mistaken, a pout. "Darcy Lewis. Nate, Hardison, Parker, and Sophie," Eliot clipped out while motioning to each person and then stalked out of the room, hopefully, to get a first aid kit.

The silence that his exit left was a little discomforting, and Darcy shifted before grimacing as she felt a small new gush of blood drip down her stomach. She pressed the towel more firmly against it and tried for a winning smile. "Hello everyone. I've heard a lot about you. Not from Eliot obviously, but Stark seems to fear you," She rambled out, the exhaustion of the day catching up all at once.

They all seemed to still in surprise at that for a second before Hardison's eyes went wide and his mouth opened and closed a few times. Nate's eyes seemed to be calculating everything she did or said with an uncomfortable knowing gaze. Parker was glaring at her like she was a fascinating insect to be studied, and Sophie had a pleasant smile that only Darcy's experience with liars told her was fake.

Darcy shrugged and moved closer to the table while saying, "As a show of faith, I'm going to lay down a gun and two knives, all the weapons I have on me. Then I'm going to sit in this chair before I fall over."

Darcy popped out the magazine of the gun and set them both on the counter besides the two knives and sat down with a sigh. The silence continued, but it did seem less tense than before. All of a suddent Hardison was in her space, leaning over the table towards her with an excited gleam in his brown eyes. "You said Stark?"

Tilting her head, Darcy nodded slowly and said, "Yes, yes I did."

"Tony Stark?"

"Right again."

"Iron Man!?"

"...last time I checked, yes, he was still Iron Man," Darcy glanced around, hoping someone would come and put a leash on him. No one seemed surprised by his behavior, so it must be expected.

"Tony Stark, creator of the most advanced artificial intelligence in existence?!"

Darcy sighed at him and raised an unimpressed brow. She hoped Eliot hurried the hell up. Then she remembered how tech savvy Hardison was and understood some of the fanboying that was going on. "If you have an untraceable phone I could use, I'd even let you talk to him," Darcy said conspiratorially.

That seemed to snap Hardison back into full functioning mode and his eyes flew to Nate pleadingly. Nate nodded slightly and Hardison smiled charmingly at Darcy as he pulled his cell phone out. "Ain't nothing tracing this baby back here and there will be no record of a call ever being made," he said a little smugly, but he deserved to be smug if it worked.

Darcy gave him a relieved smile just as Eliot walked back in carrying a huge medical bag over his shoulder, a bottle of tequila, and a shot glass. He eyed Hardison's excited chatter with Parker and set the bottle and glass before Darcy. He understood she wouldn't want to take pain pills that would knock her out with a bunch of strangers. When you were on pills, the sleep was heavier and it was uncomfortable to fall asleep in unfamiliar surroundings when you couldn't wake up immediately if you needed to.

He poured her a full shot and she swallowed it in one go, followed by another, and then she sipped the third one slowly. He tilted his head towards Hardison and asked, "He already ambushed you about Stark, didn't he?"

"Could you tell from his very distinctive stance?" Darcy snarked back, the liquor bringing her snark back full force.

Parker barked out a laugh, Sophie let out a surprised chuckle, and even Nate seemed to smirk a little. Hardison snickered out a, "Girl's got your number."

Eliot scowled and thumped the tequila bottle down out of Darcy's reach and pointed towards the stairs behind her. "Move your ass before I make you stitch yourself up. Second door on the right."

"Sir!" Darcy saluted a surprisingly correct salute, grunted as she hopped off the stool and winked at Parker as she headed up the stairs. She heard their voices murmuring behind her but just went into the mentioned bathroom, dropped the bloodied towel and tried to take off the blouse. It clung to her stomach, the blood that dried acting as a glue and would probably be painful to take off now. Not to mention fully rotating her shoulders was becoming difficult as the muscles in her back tensed up.

"Here," Eliot interrupted her struggle and waved a pair of scissors in his hand. Darcy turned towards him and he cut the blouse in two from the top to bottom, making sure to leave her sports bra. Darcy shrugged out of it and he carefully cut off the makeshift bandages, slowly pulling them away. She whimpered when one of them tugged painfully at the cut, apparently it had actually been pushed inside her skin. He tossed them all into the waste bin next to the sink and whistled at the top cut. "Yeah, that's goin' to need some stitches."

She had a brief thought of how movies always sexualized a scene like this. The strong warrior man stripping the beautiful, strong, and yet completely feminine battle-hardened woman, and his medicinal touches turned sensual and the sexual tension practically oozes off both of them. It ends in wild and exotic sex or a steamy kiss that promises more. In reality, it was nothing like that at all. She hurt everywhere, smelled like sweat and death and doing any kind of physical activity when you had just gotten stitches was the absolute worst idea ever. Nothing ruins the mood like torn out stitches and soaking your lover in your own blood. Eliot was proficient and steady, taking care of her wounds his imminent and only concern at that moment. Frankly, she'd rather have the reality than the movie version at this moment.

He soaked a towel in warm water, gently cleaned off her stomach and laid a large gauze pad over the cuts. When he put on surgical gloves and picked up a large bottle of hydrogen peroxide, Darcy grimaced. She unzipped and slid off the skirt, stepped into the tub, and took the leather strap he handed her, placing it in her mouth. He stopped right before pouring it and his blue eyes looked into hers as if he was searching for something. Darcy clenched her jaw as her eyes hardened and curled her fingers around the shower curtain rod above her. Staring back into his eyes, she nodded.

It was easily a hundred times more painful than when she had cleaned out her pinky. Her scream still sounded loud through the leather keeping her from breaking her teeth and her knuckles ached from how hard she was clenching her hands around the shower rod. Her eyes burned, but didn't water when she felt the bubbles sizzle inside her skin. Her blood and the hydrogen peroxide swirled together as it stained her panties and washed down her legs. As the sharp edge of the pain faded away, she panted trough her nose and nodded again before bracing herself once more.

Eliot's face was as hard as his eyes but his jaw clenched when she moaned in pain as he ran an alcohol swab over the raw angry skin of the cuts and the whip laceration. He handed her a towel and laid one down on the tiled floor before threading a needle. Darcy gently laid down on her back and repositioned the leather in her mouth. Eliot leaned over her and immediately started suturing the top cut closed, being careful not to to make them too tight.

Darcy clenched her hands into the towel below her and looked away. The feeling of something tugging and piercing her skin was painful obviously, but more than that, it was a disturbing feeling. She started counting again to block out the pain, and her mind calmed by the time he was putting the final stitches in the second cut. He motioned for her to sit up, the fingers of his gloves covered in her blood.

Once she was leaning back against the tub with the towel covering her underwear, he quickly sutured the worst part of the whip laceration closed and tied the thread off before rubbing over all the wounds once more with an alcohol swab. Darcy spat out the leather strip and took in a deep breath, layed the gauze he handed her over the wounds and taped them down. Slumping back, her skin sticky from the sweat the pain caused, she tried to relax. The skin around the stitches were a mixture of unappealing colors, but the job was done well and they all looked clean. That's all she could really ask for.

"Thank you. I owe you," She rasped and drank half the water bottle he pulled from nowhere.

Eliot tossed everything back into the medical bag and sat against the wall, his arm resting on his bent knees. He did that searching look again and softly said, "You can start repaying by telling me what you're planning."

Darcy warred with herself, listing all the reasons she should keep her mouth shut, but he deserved honesty from her after all he'd done. "He needs to be taken down Eliot. He can't...he can't be allowed to do what he had done to me to someone else. Jane's who he really wanted, and I won't allow that," She whispered, steel lining her voice.

"You're not going to..." he trailed off, lifting an eyebrow.

"No. I...you know I don't carry guilt around for killing truly evil people like other's do Eliot," Darcy paused to look at him pointedly and continued, "but if I went that route, something about the way I escaped would be mentioned and I'd end up on the suspect list of a detective. No, that's not an option right now."

Eliot opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was interrupted by Parker waltzing in with a pile of clothing, which she tossed at Darcy before plopping down to sit between Darcy and Eliot, making a semi circle. "We could help. Taking down corrupt business men is kind of what we do," Parker said, and Darcy was surprised to see Eliot nod.

"No," Darcy snapped out, causing them both to rear back a little and she softened her glare. "Thank you, but no."

"Now's not the time for hurt prides Darcy," Eliot snapped back, glaring at her glare.

"It's not about pride. Pride can get you killed faster than stupidity. It's about Hammer probably working for Hydra," Darcy explained through gritted teeth and nodded at the understanding entering Eliot's eyes. "Yeah. Why else is he suddenly desperate for Jane's research when his focus has always been Stark before? Where the hell did he get a professional interrogator with a German accent? It all points to a Hydra sect that can't operate in the open. If your team gets on Hydra's radar, you'll never be safe again until all of them are captured or dead."

As Eliot and Parker processed that information, Nate poked his head in and said, "Get cleaned up and we'll discuss this downstairs. Hardison has some information." He disappeared down the hallway and Darcy scowled. Nosy bastards, all of them.

Chapter Text

After Nate's instruction, Eliot tossed her some saran wrap and duct tape and followed Parker out of the bathroom, closing the door behind them. Darcy sighed, stripped off her underwear and quickly wrapped her stomach with the saran wrap, sealing it with the duct tape. Laying a strip of saran wrap over the cut on her chest, she covered the whole thing with one long strip of tape. Rolling her shoulders, she turned on the shower, grabbed a washcloth, and leaned over the tub to get her hair wet.

She cleaned herself as carefully and quickly as possible, staring into the red swirling down the drain. Once her body and hair were clean and she no longer smelled of death and grime, an idea hit her as she wrapped a towel around her hair. Turning to the medicine cabinet, she froze and let out a startled laugh. There on top of the sink was a box of red hair dye. She was hoping to find blonde dye, but red would work too. Parker really was terrifyingly sneaky.

An hour later, her hair was an actually beautiful auburn color and her eyebrows were carefully dyed with the leftover blonde dye she'd found in the medicine cabinet, turning them a lighter brown than her natural color. Never dye your eyebrows the same color as your hair, it always looks fake. She was dressed in black sweat pants that fit surprisingly well, a large sweatshirt, which she was thankful for since her bra was a dead loss and bunnies smiled at her from her sock-clad feet.

Her wounds had new gauze and her pinky was re-cleaned and wrapped. She poked lightly at the swelling around her left eye and pouted at all the dark purple bruises littering her skin. Under the sweatshirt, her entire back and stomach was a mottled purple yellow color and there were a few band-aid covered blisters on her feet. Grunting and dismissing her reflection, she picked up the phone on the counter and called JARVIS.

"Who is this?" Tony answered in an usually clipped voice.

"Tony, didn't Pepper teach you better manners than that?" Darcy greeted, a smile growing on her face at his familiar voice.

"Hooters! I won't tell Pepper if you won't," he snarked, but she didn't miss the relief in his voice. "What the hell...who's phone are you using? Why is my computer telling me you're in Somalia...now it's saying North Korea...You're not this tech savvy, Tits McGee."

Darcy chuckled in delight at his aggrieved tone and felt the weight she didn't know she was still carrying slide off her shoulders. "A girl can pick up a few new things every now and then."

"I demand answers, minion!"

"I've never been your minion Stark."

"You've always been my minion, Darcy," Tony said, suddenly serious, and Darcy's throat closed up.

Clearing her throat, Darcy's smile fell away. "I'm safe Tony. Did you get the camera feeds from the lab?"

"Of course I did, I'm Tony Stark. Immediately after the virus was sent I hacked into them. The others said you did the right thing by letting them take you, but personally, I think your acting was a little over the top," Tony complimented, turning it into a backhanded one to lessen his discomfort because ew, feelings.

Darcy smiled softly and shook her head. "I'll take an acting class for next time. All the research safe?"

"Yes, yes, everything's good. Where are you?"He demanded, and she could just picture him fidgeting impatiently.

"I'm safe. You can't...I can't leave yet Tony. Is everyone there?"

Tony grunted and there was a soft click before he said, "Yeah, the whole motley crew is present and accounted for, mistress."

She heard the various voices of the avengers, Pepper, and Jane greeting her, Jane's almost hysterical voice rising above the others. "I swear Darcy, if you got yourself kidnaped to save my research, I'll hurt you!"

"I let myself get kidnaped because any other option would have ended with me dead Jane," Darcy said with fond exasperation. "As much as your research is your bread and butter, it's not mine. In fact, if it makes you feel better, I incinerated everything to save my life. They had to keep me alive with it all destroyed."

Darcy chuckled at Jane's squawking and listened as the others tried to calm her down. Then Thor's booming voice echoed over the phone and Darcy had to hold it away from her ear. "Lady Darcy, how do you fair?"

"I fair pretty well, big guy. I'm in a safe place with someone I can trust. Listen, people are waiting on me, so let me lay everything out without interruptions, please. Everything was coordinated by Hammer an-"

"That weasel of a man, Hammer?! What, he couldn't get my suit so he decided to go for something else?" Tony, of course, interrupted.

"Someone tape his mouth shut or I'll never finish," Darcy sighed and paused. She didn't want to say the rest in front of Jane and Pepper because they would worry too much and they'd never really discussed what she did for SHIELD. They would never leave the room now though and Darcy decided to just lay it all out. She described M, told them about Mick and Greg, and described the thugs. "What would cause his sudden attention shift towards Jane's portal research and the contacts to hire a professional?"

"Hydra," Bucky spat out, his voice dripping with disdain. "Did he have green eyes? "

"Yes," Darcy immediately answered. She'd spent enough time looking into them. "A limp in his right leg and he enjoyed his work a little too much."

There was a beat of silence before Bucky said, "He sounds like one of the interrogators Hydra had called Oberleutnant Beckert. He wasn't accounted for after SHIELD fell."

"Well, he and those three guards are dead now," Darcy said coolly and ignored the stab of pain Jane's appalled gasp caused. She did what she had to do, and Darcy would never regret it. If Jane couldn't understand, Darcy would just have to accept that and move on.

"Darcy-" Jane started to say in a horrified and slightly chiding tone, and Darcy just couldn't let her finish.

"There was no other way to get out alive Jane. Should I have let him continue cutting me open and just let myself die there?" Darcy said a lot harsher than she meant to. She came to the sudden realization that while she didn't regret her actions and didn't hate herself for them, Darcy really wanted Jane and her friends to not hate her for them either.

Jane spluttered and Darcy sighed and said softly, "I'm sorry for saying it that way Jane, but I did what I had to. You may not understand that, but I love you regardless, okay? Let's just move on." She waited for Jane's subdued agreement and Darcy's heart clenched at the thinly veiled horror in her tone, but she forced the hurt down and steadfastly moved on. "If Hammer's working for Hydra, he's not going to give up. Jane needs to be locked down and Hammer has to be taken out of play. The only way to do that is wait a few days for them to clean up any of the evidence I left behind and find something to lock him away."

Everyone seemed to agree with that and Clint was the one who asked, "What are you planning?"

"I'll stay and do some recon and try to figure out who exactly is running the show. I'm sure Tony's already on it on that end. If we can find proof that he has Hydra connections, you guys could deal with him, but they'd have to be undeniable connections."

"I don't like it. Why do you get all the fun?" Tony pouted, but there was concern there.

"Because you can't do anything subtly, Tony. Okay, I've made these people wait too long and have to get downstairs. Tony, I could really use a new identity and some moolah if you're feeling generous," Darcy wheedled, before remembering her promise to Hardison, but Tony beat her to the punch.

"You mean the people consisting of that little shit who keeps trying to hack JARVIS? You consorting with the enemy, Hooters?" Tony demanded, sounding hurt and insulted.

"Oh, you called Eliot," Natasha said, apparently satisfied now. Darcy really didn't want to know how Natasha knew about Eliot.

"Yeah, yeah I did. Oh, Natasha, those plastic mini knives? Awesome idea. I owe you at least a pair of shoes," Darcy said, happily ignoring Tony's noises of outrage at being ignored and headed out of the bathroom.

"I'll send you a bill for the new boots I just bought today," Natasha replied, and Darcy could practically see the cat-like grin.

"Stop it! Is no one else worried about Ms. Stacked being in a den of thieves and con artists!? That's it, Darcy, we're going to have a little chat, you and I," Tony said and she heard another click and the protesting voices growing further away, Tony assumably moving away from everyone. "I'm concerned about your life choices Tits McGee. Don't go further down the rabbit hole. It's not too late."

Darcy smiled and when she walked back downstairs she noticed Hardison eying the phone like it was Jesus, she rolled her eyes. "Tony, you can file your complaints directly to Hardison, I don't want to listen to them," she said before putting the phone on speaker and setting it on the table.

"You're the one colluding with the enemy, Hooters! After all we've been through together, you betray me this way!? Cheating on me and JARVIS with other hackers? I'll sick JARVIS on him!" Tony's over dramatic declarations filled the room and everyone turned bemused eyes on the phone, but Hardison looked a little shell shocked and maybe a little sick.

"JARVIS knows he'll always be my number one bro and wouldn't hurt someone helping me, right J?" Darcy sweetly said towards the phone, plopping down onto the couch next to Eliot, and eyed the fancy looking dish that seemed like some kind of chicken. Eliot rolled his eyes, waved his hand towards it, and Darcy pounced.

"Quite right, Miss Lewis," JARVIS's soothing British voice answered, and Hardison choked on air.

"Is that...that..." Hardison lurched towards his phone and picked it up with an awed look. "JARVIS," he breathed reverently.

"Good day, Mr. Hardison," JARVIS answered and Hardison whooped.

"Oh no, you don't, baby hacker! Don't talk to him JARVIS, not until he swears on his first born child to never try to hack you again!" Tony demanded and Hardison look so sad for a second that Darcy almost choked on her food as she laughed.

Parker suddenly appeared on the arm of the couch right next to Darcy and patted Darcy's newly colored hair. Darcy swallowed and smiled at her, then decided not to smile like that again until the swelling went down on her face. "Thank you for the dye, it's just what I was looking for."

"It's no problem. It looks nice," Parker said almost absently, that strangely fixated look back in her eyes. She suddenly leaned forward and whispered, "Are you a superhero?"

Darcy coughed in surprise, then smiled and shook her head. "No, fortunately, I just work with them."

Parker nodded seriously and whispered, "I bet you all have to say that."

Darcy played along with the crazy, because she was more than a little crazy herself, and nodded seriously back before taking another bite of that chicken thing. Damn, Eliot was a mean chef. Darcy glanced around the room and noticed Nate and Sophie sitting at a desk in a little nook off the side of the main room. They appeared to be having a quiet but heated debate over something, most likely Darcy. Sophie caught her looking and sent her a surprisingly genuine smile. Darcy smiled faintly back and looked away.

Eliot must have told them some of what happened. That was the only thing that explained the sudden mood change. She raised an eyebrow at Eliot and flicked her eyes to Sophie and he looked at her pointedly before nodding. She narrowed her eyes and he tilted his head. Well, he told them what happened to her and that she'd had to kill to get out, but edited how many she'd killed and how. She could live with that.

Parker popped her head between Eliot and Darcy, looking back and forth between them. "Did you two just have a telepathic conversation?" She breathed, her eyes wide.

"Telepathy isn't real Parker," Eliot responded.

"It's more of a controlled micro-expression conversation," Darcy said kindly, scowling at Eliot for making Parker pout.

"Stop teaching them things, Stacked!" Tony's voice yelled from right next to her ear, making her cringe and glare up at Hardison who was holding the phone out to her. The glare didn't even dent the ecstatic aura he was projecting.

"I can't teach them what they already know, Tony. Are you done with your tantrum yet? Did you two kids make friends?" Darcy said into the phone that was off speaker mode and then noticed the forms in Hardison's hand with the Stark logo on top. "Oh no, you made him sign things. What did you do, Tony?"

Nate's head snapped up at that and he moved towards Hardison, his eyebrows furrowed. Hardison saw him coming, gulped, and starting explaining in hushed tones as they walked back to the office nook.

"Oh, before I finish your ID, did I hear something about dye?" Tony deflected, and Darcy growled in response. She quickly snapped a picture of herself and sent it to him, his whistle marking when he received it. "Hardison told me about the stitches, but you're not looking too good there, Hooters."

"You were only on the phone for ten minutes, at least five of them were spent with him fanboying over you and JARVIS, when did you even have the time?" Darcy demanded, flabbergasted. Then her head whipped towards Hardison and caught the smirk. "You contacted him as soon as you hacked his phone and beat his obviously inferior program, and traced the phone, didn't you?" Her insults aimed at Hardison and knocking that smug look right off his face.

Studiously ignoring Hardison's protests, she turned away from him and glowered as Tony said, "Pictures or it didn't happen."

Darcy tensed and her eyes widened as she saw that everyone had signed the contract Tony had sent over and Hardison was scanning it into the computer and emailing it back to Tony. "What. Did. You. Do? If you make me call Pepper, I'll tell her about what really happened to her shoe collection the last time she was out of the country," She bit out, glaring at the laptop on Hardison's lap.

"Wow, you've really gone to the Dark Side, kid. I may have made Hardison agree in writing to never attempt to hack JARVIS or my personal systems ever again and I'd let him see a suit in person as long as he signed a NDA," Tony said petulantly. Too petulantly.

"No, they all signed it. If I have to ask again, I'll ask Pepper."

"I may also have made them all sign a NDA for all the information I'm sending them on Jane's research, Hammer and his Hydra connections. Oops, there goes the Assemble alarm, gotta go. Saving the world is a twenty-four hour job, you know. Crime never sleeps and all that," Tony rushed out, hanging up on her.

There was no damn alarm, the lying jerk. Darcy tossed the phone on the table and stood up, and firmly said, "No."

Eliot smirked up at her and tossed an arm over the back of the couch, leaning back in a show of comfort. "No?"

"Damn it, Eliot!"

"Wow, she sounded just like you, man," Hardison said, gesturing at Eliot.

Darcy and Eliot both glowered at that and Sophie swallowed her chuckle, but not before they all heard it. Darcy shook her head and her face turned serious. "This is Hydra. A group that tortures people just for sneezing in their general direction."

"We're not running a job on Hydra, we're running one on Hammer," Nate said, taking a seat behind the curved table facing the large screen.

"And when, because they will, find out you conned Hammer?" Darcy demanded, forcing herself not squirm under his calculating eyes.

"We'll make sure they don't. If they happen to figure some of it out, we'll be corroborating with the Avengers, and they'll assist," Nate said calmly, his tone final in the way only a man used to being in charge can accomplish.

"All I wanted when I called was an extraction and a safe house for a few days. This is too dangerous," Darcy tried, but she knew men like Nate. Once he made up his mind, he'd never stray from his chosen path. She squashed the childish urge to throw a tantrum when a gleam of triumph entered his eyes. He knew he won.

"Yes, well, this is what we do. A client asked for some leverage and we're finding it for them," Nate said, looking away and gesturing towards the screen. "Hardison."

Darcy slumped back into the couch mumbling about how Stark could hardly be like any other client, studiously ignoring Nate's unamused look and refraining from sticking her tongue out at him like a toddler. She did, however, kick a smirking Eliot's calf muscles in the exact perfect spot to cause a painful charley horse.

Eliot's loud grunt interrupted Hardison's dramatic start to the briefing, and everyone's eyes snapped to Eliot. He was trying to simultaneously glare balefully at Darcy while sitting on the floor stretching and rubbing the cramp out. Darcy, meanwhile, had her perfected innocent face on, with a touch of confusion.

"Did you trip?" Darcy asked, faking concern.

Hardison was bent over laughing so hard she saw tears, and Nate was actually smiling. It was small, but it was there. Sophie looked a little concerned, but more avenged. Darcy wondered what the story was there.

Parker leaned into Darcy again and stage whispered, "Can you teach me that?"

"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean," Darcy said, but was nodding while she spoke.

Parker sat back with a little smile as Eliot finally got to his feet and pointed at Darcy. Objectively, he really was quite intimidating, but Darcy had known him for a while now, and she wasn't scared. "When you least expect it," Eliot growled at her before sitting a few cushions down from her and glowering at a still chuckling Hardison, ignoring Darcy's 'bring it' gesture.

"That was worth every threat in these past five years," he said, pointing at Darcy like she was his miracle bringer with a wink.

"She won't be here forever," Eliot warned.

Coughing and looking away from the outright menacing glare Eliot was sending, he clicked his remote and the screen flashed up a picture of Hammer on the front of Forbes magazine. "Justin Hammer, founder and CEO of Hammer Industries and a former American Defense Contractor. He was once a leading competitor of Stark Industries until his incarceration five years ago after his ties with Ivan Vanko were made public. However, he was only charged with one count of Voluntary Manslaughter," Hardison scoffed the last bit, his face obviously stating that was bullshit.

"He bribed someone. Judges, lawyers, witnesses," Nate commented, gesturing at the financial records from five years ago that appeared on the screen.

"Dude bribed everyone. Over two million dollars went missing from his accounts, but there's no trail to be found. Anyway, he was released on 'good behavior' early this year, only serving half his sentence. He is currently on parole, but..."

"Bribing a parole officer is standard with guys like this," Nate finished.

"Yeah. A lot of his companies did get sold off and he was almost bankrupted from all the civil lawsuits that were filed against him after he was sentenced to prison. He only has two remaining subsidiaries, but since he's no longer licensed to manufacture weapons, he decided to sell Hammer Technologies instead of try and shift the main focus of that branch. His only remaining operating company is Hammer Health Industries," Hardison explained, clicking the remote again and street view of the building popped up along with blueprints and financials for the business.

"Now, his finances all appear to be in order, personal or business. He's maintaining a humanitarian image to the public, donating medical equipment and medicine to children hospitals, paying for entire orphanages to get vaccinations, and has participated in the Make A Wish Foundation five times in the past three months. Something hinky going on there," Hardison said with suspicious look to the screen.

"Someone that's never done any of those things suddenly doing them very publicly, has something to hide," Sophie agreed.

"Now, here's his big money maker, VSV-EBOV vaccine. An ebola vaccine that has already received FDA approval. This is where things get all kinds of hinky. All the scientists that worked closely with Hammer during the vaccine's trial phases and clinical trials were all at a medical conference a month ago together. The building that medical conference was in was bombed by Hydra, and everyone died. All eighty people in the building. Thirty-five of them were Hammer Health Industry employees," Hardison paused, a group of newspaper articles about the bombing cycling on the screen. "The only person who was originally involved in the project still alive is the representative from the FDA who pushed for the approval of the vaccine. Patrick Carlson." Patrick's picture flashed up, and Hardison continued. "Who, according to Stark, is a Hydra plant."

Nate sighed, and rubbed his chin before saying, "So he had everyone that had any legitimate knowledge about possible side effects taken out of the equation and pushed on the production of the vaccine in 'honor' of his lost employees."

"He's a mass murderer, Nate," Sophie said, her voice carrying a note of horror.

"He's like a bond villain," Parker seemed to agree. Everyone side-eyed her a little, but Darcy thought it was a little true.

"If Hydra is involved, there's something more going on than just bad side effects. Even deadly ones wouldn't be worth the amount of exposure and trouble bombing a medical conference would cause. There has to be a much worse end game that this vaccine plays a part in," Darcy commented, looking back at Nate. She sighed, "You already knew that."

Darcy caught Eliot's eye and rolled her eyes towards Nate before lifting an eyebrow. Eliot lifted both eyebrows and nodded seriously. Great, Nate was always that annoying. She brushed off the annoyance and snagged Hardison's phone off the coffee table and started texting Tony. At Hardison's raised eyebrow, she waved a hand grandly, motioning for him to continue.

Security schematics popped up and Parker snorted. "Nothing we haven't seen before. Basic key card access, motion detectors in Hammer's office, and a system I've already beaten while blindfolded," She said with a wistful smile. "That was a fun day."

"The head of his security is Cade Wilson. Ex-SHIELD," Eliot said, looking at Darcy.

Darcy's head snapped up and took in the face of Cade while baring her teeth at Eliot. "Ex-SHIELD Hydra plant, you mean," She cooly replied. "He's a decent fighter with a good tactical mind, but is easily distracted by a pretty woman and really needs any form of validation. He's not a leader. I was sure I killed him in the Triskelion, shot him in the shoulder at least. So that's a weak point."

"You thought you killed him?" Eliot asked, raising a judgmental eyebrow.

"Hey, it was a crazy day. Betty, the five foot two meek receptionist for the legal department was trying to shoot me with an alien staff while the mail boy was lobbing grenades at me. I didn't have time to check his pulse. Once you've been in that situation, you can judge me," Darcy sniffed, turning away from him.

The sudden silence was broken by Parker. "Alien staff?" She asked excitedly and maybe with a little jealousy.

"No," Everyone else said besides Darcy.

"I'll see if you can try one when this is all over," Darcy promised, partly because she really liked Parker and partly to be annoying. Eliot glared at her and Nate gave her a disapproving look. Whatever, he wasn't her father-figure like the rest seemed to see him as.

Pausing at that thought, Darcy started to dissect her almost instant animosity towards Nate. The sudden revelation that he looked at her just like her older sister used to made her stomach clench slightly. Her sister always looked at her like she was trying to figure out how to manipulate her next. She maneuvered Darcy like a chess piece to get what she wanted out of Darcy and then slapped her down. Her sister, Lacy, did it out of malice and cruelty, starting from when she was just a baby.

Lacy would draw Darcy in with a smile and sweet words and when Darcy would crawl to her happily, Lacy would take Darcy's toy and literally swat her away. She learned the words 'stupid idiot', 'annoying brat', and 'worthless' from Lacy. She also learned to spot that calculating look and how a monster looked in human form from Lacy. Her sister was a diagnosed sociopath, though, and while she saw the same tendencies in Nate, she didn't think he was quite the same.

Letting that sink in, she purposefully separated her feelings about her sister and her impressions of Nate. She hated being judged based on the actions someone else in the past did and she always strived to never do that to anyone else. She'd use the signs and experiences as a guide, but not as a sorting tool. She knew he was going to manipulate her, that was a given, but she wouldn't retaliate unless his manipulations harmed her or those she considered hers.

"Ex-SHIELD agents bring us to the most recent actions of Hammer, in which we have very little information on the person who was kidnapped," Hardison said pointedly, putting Darcy's picture up, and Darcy snapped out of her thoughts.

Processing what he'd said, Darcy sat back with a smug smile. "No, you wouldn't be able to find much about her," Darcy agreed pleasantly.

"Darcy Lewis, twenty-eight, Political Science Degree, and assistant to Dr. Jane Foster. Lived in Avengers Tower for the last fours years along with Dr. Foster and has no living relatives. There is literally nothing else," Hardison grumbled.

"Not even in the SHIELD files that were dumped," Eliot added, looking a little impressed at that.

"Darcy Lewis, Ex-SHIELD agent. Joined in early 2010 and was an active agent until late in the year 2014, when SHIELD fell. I like to call it The Reckoning. Continued recon missions pertaining to Hydra movements until two weeks ago when I took a break and went with Jane to Puente Antiguo, New Mexico. You should be getting a video of the outside surveillance cameras," Darcy said, her voice cool and collected like it would be in a mission debriefing.

Hardison clicked the remote and a video of the paramilitary men popped up. Eliot sat forward and watched closely with narrowed eyes. "At least three SHIELD/Hydra agents, the rest are a mash of Marines, paramilitary, and a few Delta Force," Eliot finished with an expectant look at Darcy.

"That's why I had it sent. I don't have your ninja classification skills," Darcy said while holding her hands up in a peace offering gesture. The video showed Darcy being tossed in the SUV (she knew it was an SUV), and about thirty seconds passed before half the lab exploded and went up in flames. "Holy crap!"

"That wasn't supposed to happen?" Parker asked, finally settling between Darcy and Eliot on the couch.

"If Stark says he's making a bomb to attach to a machine for self-destruction in a sealed room, always be wary about how big of a self-destruction he means," Darcy said sagely. Parker nodded along, filing the information away. Good. Darcy had known Parker was smart the moment she'd met her.

"How were you knocked out?" Eliot asked, bringing them back on topic.

"Jane had left the day before and I was collating data when a lab minion I'd never seen before brought me coffee. There was white residue ringing the coffee mug. After I recovered from the insult of that, I sent out a multi pronged virus that killed every electronic in the lab and every electronic that ever was connected to the lab. It sent out a distress call when I initiated it to the Avengers, but they were too far to help. I put the filing cabinets on Incineration Protocol, and that armed the bomb on Jane's Machine, fifteen minute countdown. Then I drank the coffee," Darcy said, relaxing back into the couch.

Nate, Parker, and Eliot all nodded, understanding. Sophie looked confused and Hardison objected, "You just drank the drugged coffee? Aren't you trained? How did you know what was in it?"

Eliot snorted at Hardison and said, "It's not a video game, Hardison."

"I didn't know what was in it, but at least with the coffee I had a chance for survival. As awesome as I am and even with my connection to the Avengers, I am not a super powered being. I could probably take out half of the twenty, but with no weapons and nothing but a desert for cover, which is sniper heaven, if I fought my way out I'd end up dead," Darcy explained slowly, and hopefully for the last damn time. She liked Hardison, but Darcy wasn't going to keep explaining herself to people with no combat training.

Hardison looked a little sheepish, but brought up a picture of a plane. "We know now that the plane they used to transport you is listed under a shell company that leads back to Hammer. There are no legal ties, so that's a dead end," he finished.

"Alright, so, first we need to get into Hammer's safe and figure out what's behind VSV-EBOV. Parker, tomorrow night," Nate said, taking command again. Once Parker nodded, he continued. "Hardison, what's his schedule look like?"

"It's packed with appointments with the FDA, CDC, and WHO for the next few weeks. He has a press conference booked in the next three weeks to announce the vaccine approved for public distribution. Fortunately, Hammer just fired his fifth assistant this month two days ago." Hardison said and Sophie nodded in response to a glance Nate sent her.

"Check on an employee named Marjorie Feinstien," Darcy said, sharing a look with Eliot.

Hardison pulled up Marjorie's file and finances and whistled once he read through them. "Let go today with a suspiciously large severance package." He gave her a 'what did you do?' look.

Darcy was relieved that Marjorie was okay, but she just shrugged casually. "I needed a change of clothes if I was making it out of there."

There was silence as everyone imagined exactly what that meant and Eliot smirked. Nate cleared his throat and said, "Right, well, that gives us another entry point. Parker."

"I hate being an accountant," Parker complained but nodded regardless.

"Now, with Hydra in play w-"

"I've already sent for gear. I will be the distraction and later the bait, I assume," Darcy interrupted, knowing exactly where he was steering the conversation. Nate raised an eyebrow, but Darcy just scoffed. "Like you weren't already planning to maneuver me into it. I'll put the fear of Darcy into him and I'm assuming Eliot and I will be in charge of keeping any Hydra tails off the rest of you while corroborating with the Avengers."

Nate nodded and Darcy put out her fist for Eliot to fist bump. He didn't bump back but his lips did twitch. She'd call it a win.

Chapter Text

Checking Hardison's phone, Darcy smiled and stood, stretching her entire body with a groan. Darcy slid the phone into her pocket and looked into Nate's eyes. "Tony is sending over my file so that you know exactly what my skills are and you can plan your machinations." Turning to look at Hardison, she smirked slightly. "It will be sent with a virus attached that will wipe it out from any hard drives after two hours. You won't be able to do anything but read it before it's gone. Do you mind if I borrow your phone for the night?"

Hardison looked distracted with the idea of the virus she mentioned and just nodded. "So, thank you for the safe house and all that, it's really appreciated, but it's been a long day and I need to sleep," Darcy commented, glancing around and hoping someone would direct her to a bed.

"Oh! I'll show you a room!" Parker said, jumping over the couch and heading for the stairs.

Darcy smiled and waved at everyone, following Parker up two flight of stairs to the third floor and into a room that had a fire escape outside one of the windows. She looked at Parker in appreciation and scanned the room. She was up three floors but there was an easy exit and she could defend herself in this room. "Thanks, this is good."

Parker slid open a closet door and pulled out a hanger with rigging hanging from it. "In case you don't want to take the stairs."

Darcy gave her the most genuine smile she'd given all day and sincerely said, "Thank you. I appreciate that. I haven't repelled much, but it helps a lot."

"I'll teach you. Hardison always whines and screams the whole time," Parker said before closing the closet and heading for the door. "Night."

"Good night," Darcy replied, sitting gently back on the bed and feeling the exhaustion fall on her shoulders like a thousand pounds. She'd been pushing herself too much today, and the stitches throbbed in a timed beat.

She wasn't worried about all of them reading about her before and during SHIELD, but she was curious if how they acted around her would change once they knew what she was capable of. Would they look at her differently, be wary of what she would do? They trusted Eliot, but Darcy wasn't their family like he was. Darcy wasn't sure if she wanted them to treat her the same or be wary of her.

In the five years since she'd first joined SHIELD, Darcy accumulated ninety-three confirmed kills. That included all of her mission targets and any guards a target had, the two times a group tried to infiltrate the Tower, the Triskelion war, and the interrogator and three guards at Hammer's today.

It did not include the aliens she killed when New York was attacked and Darcy was part of the SHIELD ground crew called to play backup for the Avengers. It did not include the elves she'd killed when she was supposed to just be visiting Jane in London. If she added those, the number rose to one hundred and thirty-two. Usually, she separated them.

Human Kills: Ninety-three.

Extraterrestrial Kills: Thirty-nine.

Her human kills also included the one and only kill she'd ever regretted. The innocent pretty young woman just starting her adult life at nineteen who would never become older and see what the world had to offer to the innocent people that knew nothing of the darker edges of it. The life she had ended by not scouting the surroundings well enough, resulting in one Nina Karkieve bleeding out in front of Darcy from a stomach shot that Darcy had intended for the target.

That was the only guilt Darcy carried for everything she'd done, the only pair of eyes that haunted her when she closed hers at the end of the day. She remembered the name of every target and could recall every face of those she'd killed, but Nina Karkieve was the only person she considered a legitimate victim out of all those names and faces. Nina Karkieve was one of only two names and faces etched into her heart and veins.

Nina was etched with guilt.

The other was etched with hatred.

That name was in a list all of its own. The name that wasn't connected in any way to the last name Lewis. It was the name etched into the very first new piece she'd shoved into herself after being unmade.

Darcy stood from her bed, restlessness filling her. She'd already passed her limit and reached her third wind and now she'd have to wait for her mind to calm before sleep became an option. Tugging on the shoes left by the door that wondrously fit perfectly, she opened the window and climbed out onto the fire escape. Looking up at the roof, she noticed a climbing rope hanging from the edge in front of her. Someone else liked to sneak up there, it seemed?

Once she'd pulled herself up the rope and over the side of the roof, she took in the tented seating area with two huge recliners and even a mini fridge. She could get used to living this way. Chuckling, she opened the fridge and lifted an eyebrow at there being only a dozen bottles of orange soda. Grabbing one, she trudged over to the still luxurious looking deck recliners on the opposite side of the roof. A little something for everyone, it seemed.

Leaning back and looking at the stars always reminded her of that brief but wonderful time when she did the same with Jane. Jane had taught her to see more than just shining objects when she looked into the night sky and made it so Darcy always got lost in wonder whenever she saw stars. What else was out there? What was just waiting to be discovered? Who was looking back?

Tossing a wink at Heimdall in case he was watching, she took a sip of the soda and grimaced a little. She had a sweet tooth, but orange soda always made her teeth ache a little. Tucking her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt, she stilled when she felt Hardison's phone. Taking it out and checking the time, she decided ten was still pretty early for Jane.

"JARVIS?"

"Yes, Miss Lewis?" JARVIS immediately responded, proving her suspicions of Tony never extracting him from the phone and she smiled.

"Hey, buddy. Can you please make sure the texts from earlier are erased and that my future phone calls can't be recorded or overheard?"

"Of course, Miss Lewis. Would you like me to connect you to one of the Tower residences?"

"Jane, please J. You're the best," Darcy grinned and honestly meant it.

"I never tire of hearing you say so, Miss Lewis. Connecting now."

Darcy stifled the chuckle at JARVIS's sass, and as she waited for Jane to answer, all humor left. She missed Jane and didn't want to leave things the way they had before.

"Darcy?" Jane answered, a little distracted sounding.

"Jane. Can you talk or are you Sciencing?" Darcy replied, wondering if Jane being too busy to talk would be disappointing or relieving.

She heard shifting and shuffling over the phone, Thor's voice whispering something, and a door closing before Jane responded. "No, I can talk. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, everything's good. I...I just...Jane, I don't want you to hate me," Darcy finally got out, her voice a little rusty, because again, ew, feelings.

Jane sighed heavily, the sound reverberating through the phone. "I don't hate you Darcy. I just don't...I don't know what to think about you...you killing people. What did SHIELD turn you into Darcy? What did they force you to become?" Jane blurted out, her voice carrying that slightly horrified tone towards the end. Like Darcy had become a monster Jane didn't know anymore.

And if that wasn't a stab in the heart, Darcy didn't know what was. SHIELD hadn't changed Darcy into anything she wasn't already before. If Jane thought that killing a monster made someone into a monster, then Darcy was a monster long before she'd ever met Jane. Maybe it did. She was reminded of the quote by Friedrich Nietzsche. "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you," Darcy thought to herself. Perhaps she'd already become a monster, and the abyss was already a part of her. Maybe the only way to kill the monsters haunting your nightmares was to become a monster yourself. Darcy didn't know the answer to that question, but she thought that ridding the world of other monsters that harmed innocents was a good reason to become a monster yourself.

Silence stretched as Darcy tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but she eventually spoke. "Jane...SHIELD didn't do anything to me or turn me into something. I went into SHIELD with my eyes wide open, knowing exactly what I would be doing there. What did you think I did?"

"I don't know! Not...not murdering people, Darcy!" Jane whisper-yelled.

"Murdering? Do you see me as a monster because I killed people who were operating human sex trafficking rings and people who were going to slaughter dozens of innocent people? I'm the same as them to you?" Darcy asked, her voice a whisper to hide the pain she felt.

There was a long silence before Jane spoke calmly, "I don't like knowing that they stole your innocence. You were so young and naive, Darcy, and suddenly you were talking about killing four people like it was normal."

"I don't think you ever saw me clearly at all. Maybe that's my fault," Darcy murmured, loud enough to be heard. "I was never the girl you've decided I was, Jane. The last time I remember being innocent or naive towards anything was when I was four, and I remember the exact moment I lost that last bit of innocence and naivety."

"What...you were always so happy and carefree, Darcy. Not a..."

"What? Not a cold blooded murderer? Does Thor look like a murderer? Do Clint and Natasha look like they're uncontrolled monsters? Does Steve or Tony? Because I guarantee every single one of them has killed to save lives, has decided someone needed to die and killed them. Even Pepper has killed, Jane. Why am I the monster?" Darcy said with a touch of anger, the unfair standard making her feel shunned and alone.

"They did it while saving lives! They feel sorry!" Jane stumbled out after a moment of silence.

"Oh? When Thor went into battle and slaughtered people before he got banished to Earth, that was to save lives? He didn't start that battle himself for selfish reasons?"

"They were the bad side, Darcy." Jane sighed out in annoyance.

Darcy opened and closed her mouth in genuine shock. "That's a very childish simplification, Jane. Jotunheim didn't declare war, and Thor trespassed into their world and killed dozens of people just to get an answer he could have gotten in a more diplomatic way. He knows what he did was wrong and reckless, why are you so insistent on ignoring it?"

Jane was quiet and Darcy heard more shuffling. "I'm not..." Jane paused and took in a few deep breaths before admitting quietly, "I'm sorry. I keep saying all the wrong things. Things I don't mean. I don't...I don't really see you as something wrong or a monster, Darcy. I'm...realizing I didn't know you as well as I previously thought. Part of that is because when I occasionally saw a jaded look in your eyes, I ignored it. There was so much going on and...well, I didn't pay attention because I was busy."

Darcy swallowed that admission and acknowledged it as true. While she knew almost everything about Jane, Jane knew very little about Darcy below the surface. "Yeah," Darcy quietly agreed. "That's both of our faults, though. I didn't...there are things that I've never told anyone, that no one knows, and I wasn't ready to share myself then. I was still building who I was, still finding pieces of myself. It's not fair for me to expect you to accept me fully when I've never shown you. I'm sorry for that, Jane. But please...don't abandon me, Jane."

Jane laughed wetly and Darcy felt guilty for making her cry. "I'll always be on your side, Darcy. No matter what you do, no matter how angry or disappointed I may sound at the time, I'll always be on your side. And when you get back, we can start learning those old and hidden parts of each other and all the new ones. Okay?"

Darcy's eyes teared up and her chin wobbled, her hand gripping the phone tightly in emotion. "Yeah, yeah we'll do that, Janey. I love you, you know?"

"I know. I love you, too. Now get some sleep or I'll send Thor over there to tuck you in," Jane said with a sniffle.

"It might be fun to experience the change in roles, but I won't steal your blonde and cut teddy bear tonight."

"Good night, Darcy," Jane said in fond exasperation.

"Night, Janey." Darcy replied, ending the call.

Closing her eyes, Darcy slumped back into the chair. Their relationship may never be the same easy comradery it was before, but maybe when everything was shared it would be even better than before. When Darcy explained how she became who she is today, what unmade her, and about that name etched inside her with hatred, she hoped Jane would still love who Darcy was when Jane fully understood.

She didn't know how long had passed before she heard someone climbing up the rope and snapped her hand out to catch a cold pack without looking. Tilting her head back, she raised an eyebrow at Eliot and nodded to the chair beside hers. She unfolded the large cold pack and slipped it beneath her back and settled against it, sighing as it chilled her aching muscles. Eliot handed her a cold bottle of beer and sipped his as he settled in.

Taking a slug of beer before looking back at the stars, Darcy asked, "Did you hear?"

"Some," Eliot nodded once, tossing one arm behind his head to lean on.

Darcy nodded back and they sat in a comfortable silence. No undertones, no expectations, and no need for idle chatter. Just sipping their beer and getting lost in their own thoughts in the dark under the stars. Darcy had a sense of deja vu as a feeling of stillness settled into her very bones. It was the same feeling she'd had sitting with him in a desert in Syria over a year ago, under a different set of stars but the same sky.

Finishing her beer, she held out her hand for another and there was instantly one there, anticipating her. That pretty much described their relationship at the very core of things; anticipating each other. Sometimes you meet people that you just recognize, understand them instantly like they're a reflection of a part of yourself. They aren't the exact same as you because they haven't done the exact same things as you, but they have some of the same wounds and some of the pieces that make them are cut the same way as yours. They could be a lover, a friend, an acquaintance, or just someone you saw on the street, but you recognize them as familiar in some way.

Some liked to call them soulmates, but Darcy never did. The pieces that made up a person, as a whole, was a soul. No two people experienced the exact same things, felt the exact same things, and thought the exact same things. To be full soulmates, every piece of theirs would have to match every one of yours or at least complement every piece of yours. That's impossible. No, Darcy and Eliot weren't soulmates, but pieces of them would always match each other, no matter what happened or changed.

Darcy had met someone when she was younger that matched the darkest parts of her and their friendship was a cycle of self destruction that continued for eight years before they cut ties. It was painful, their darkest pieces snapping away from each other and becoming more jaded for it. Recognizing someone wasn't always a positive thing and sometimes it made you both the worst versions of yourselves as possible.

She and Natasha had recognized that same kind of darkness in each other and were always so careful not to base their friendship on that similarity. They both knew about being unmade and how easily the innocent world could be ripped away from a child. They acknowledged it, but instead of wallowing in those parts of themselves, they showed each other ways they survived and how to continue surviving.

She wondered if she and Eliot would ever face that problem, but she didn't think so. They were both pretty stable in their lives and content with who they were at the moment. When she was with him, she always felt that calmness only he brought her. Darcy knew a part of her heart was solely reserved for him and that becoming more than friends was a possibility they had both acknowledged a year ago, but never fully explored.

They didn't ignore the possibility out of fear of commitment or attachment, rather, neither was at a point in their lives where starting something that could be great wouldn't be ruined. They both had their own direction to go and they didn't coincide with one another then. They still didn't. Eliot's place was here with a family he'd created for himself, and Darcy still wasn't completely sure where her place was. She didn't know if she and the Avengers were a family, but she and Jane were as close as Darcy had. Eliot was settled now, Darcy still wasn't.

That could change by tomorrow. Darcy could wake up tomorrow or a week from now and know where she wanted and needed to be, but right here, right now, she was content not knowing. Content to let things ripple and flow however they did and take life as it came. Darcy always knew who she was even if she didn't know where she was going. That was enough.

Setting the second empty bottle down, Darcy turned her head and watched Eliot. He shifted and watched her back, their eyes searching each others. They both seemed to be saying a thousand things and nothing at all. He reached out a hand and trailed callused fingertips across her cheek before sweeping the now red hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear. Cupping his hand against the side of her face, warming her chilled skin, he stroked her temple with his thumb softly before pulling back.

Darcy smiled gently at him, catching his hand and kissing the palm before letting go. No, they weren't ready for more yet, but that didn't mean they weren't already in each other's hearts. He smiled at her slightly, wrinkles fanning out from his eyes. The honest smile changed his face, made his eyes shine and look ten years younger. He handed her another beer and they both relaxed back, once again looking upwards.

It was an amazing thing to know Eliot had read everything in her file and he didn't look at her or treat her any differently than he did before. He didn't treat her better or worse, he just treated her like Darcy. That she had even one person in the world who would do that, who would always see her, was enough to calm that last bit of restlessness and her mind was blissfully empty.

Picking up the empty bottles, she stood and tossed them into the garbage can next to the door leading inside. Leaning down, she ran her fingers through Eliot's hair and kissed his cheek, his hand warming her hip as he settled it there to hold her close for an extra second. With a squeeze of that hand, he whispered and 'good night' and slid his hand down her leg as he moved back.

With a fluttering heart, she let her hand trail across his chest as she moved away. She couldn't hide her smile as she slid down the rope and into her room, shutting the window behind her. Once she was settled in bed, she clung to the warmth of Eliot's touch and the comfort his presence always brought and slipped into a peaceful sleep.

Chapter Text

Darcy woke up all at once, her senses instantly alert to the sound of three separate footsteps coming closer to her door. There was soft thump that sounded like cardboard on hardwood followed by what she assumed was Parker and Hardison stacking two more boxes. She could tell Eliot was already walking away by the sound of his purposed footsteps. Parker followed with her light and balanced footsteps and Hardison swaggered after them.

Grinning at what those sounds meant, Darcy rolled gingerly out of bed, stretching her muscles slowly. Grabbing a hair tie off the side table she'd snagged from the bathroom last night, she tied her hair up into a sloppy bun and started a mild yoga routine. While she wouldn't be able to do anything too physically straining for at least a week, it was important to keep her muscles limber and used to movement. The only struggle was that almost every exercise uses core muscles when they're done properly. Her core muscles were exactly what needed to heal. Meaning Darcy would lose those two hours of relaxation her normal routine brought her.

Twenty minutes later, Darcy was disgusted to notice her entire body was coated in a fine layer of sweat. It wasn't a hard workout by any means, but her muscles were sore and tight from yesterday's abuse and she'd been lax in not taking time to stretch them before fully relaxing last night. She'd do the routine three more times throughout the day and hopefully by tomorrow she'd be back into the best shape as possible with stitches.

Grunting, Darcy stood up and grabbed some loose clothes from the closet and headed for the bathroom connected to her room. Stripping, she tossed away the blood-spotted gauze from her wounds and checked the stitches. Her skin was an even worse combination of colors, but that meant healing, so she was game. The stitches were still in place and the skin around them looked free of any inflammation or infection, the skin already beginning to fuse together nicely on the two smaller cuts.

Taking her hair down, she hopped in the shower and carefully cleaned the skin she couldn't get wet last night. Clothed and her wounds re-dressed, she brushed her teeth with the new toothbrush someone had left, blow dried her hair, and stood there for a moment studying her reflection. It was amazing what a solid five hours of sleep could do to help heal a body. The swelling on her face was completely gone and half of the bruising had faded from purple to that sickly yellow tint, marking the last stage of a bruise.

Satisfied that she was clean and healing properly, Darcy headed for the bedroom door. Opening it, she grinned giddily at the three huge boxes stacked there. Knowing some of what was in them, Darcy knew she wasn't able to lift them. Since bending over still pulled at the cuts, she sat on the floor behind them and pushed the stack into her room with her feet. Darcy shut the door behind her and pushed the top box off the stack onto the floor, sitting cross-legged in front of it.

The top box contained vacuum sealed bags of ridiculously expensive designer clothes, purses, and shoes. None of them were hers, but she wouldn't complain about it unless Tony expected her to pay him back. Being friend's with a billionaire for four years had beaten that part of her that used to freak out when people spent money on her. She didn't get all huffy about her independence or suffer from a hurt pride when he bought her things she could never afford on her own. That was just Tony. Also, realistically, it was stupid to refuse a genuine gift that had no strings attached and when the gifter and receiver both knew they weren't using each other.

She stuffed the new Stark phone in the pocket of the borrowed oversized zip-up sweatshirt and opened the dark purple wallet, choking in surprise when she saw the I.D. inside. Fucking Tony Stark. The picture of her with red hair was perfect. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that apparently her new name was Jessica Wabbit. Jessica fucking Wabbit. She'd light everything he loved and held dear on fire when she got home, she swore it.

Growling, she tossed the wallet up on the bed and was a little mollified when she saw combat gear mixed in with the designer clothes. She was grinning again when she pulled out her perfectly fitted combat boot with the black painted steel toes and hidden compartments in the heel that held a dendrotoxin tipped dagger and dart. The extra supported sports bra didn't hurt either.

Shoving that box away, she stood and tore into the second one. She found the gifts for the leverage team in there along with a laptop case containing a Starkpad and a Stark laptop. Setting the team's gifts on the bed, she shoved the empty box over and had to refrain from cackling evilly when she opened the last and biggest box.

Weapon cases, ammo boxes, and a rich brown leather tool kit met her greedy gaze. She gently lifted the rolled leather out and laid it on the bedside table to check over later before dragging each case and ammo box out and kicking the empty box away. She'd just opened every case to check over the contents when she heard Hardison's footsteps headed for her room. Shrugging, she went back to making sure all the weapons were cleaned but found they were, of course, all brand new.

Darcy had just picked up one of the grenades when the door was opened. Rude. He didn't even knock. Hardison froze a second as his brain processed the scene she made sitting on the floor surrounded by weapons and holding a grenade before jumping backward with a yelp. Well, he definitely read her file last night. Smart reaction.

Parker's light footsteps rushed up the stairs and her blonde head poked through the doorway with trepidation before brightening in childlike glee. Ignoring Hardison's hand trying to restrain her, Parker pranced into the room and sat cross-legged in front of Darcy, her hand twitching on the spoon in a bowl she was carrying.

Darcy tilted her head at the bowl and asked, "Are those crushed up fortune cookies?"

"He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself in enlightened," Parker said sagely and chomped down a spoonful. There wasn't even any milk. Whatever, Darcy had eaten weirder things for breakfast.

"Lao Tzu," Darcy nodded, setting the grenade back into it's designated slot in the case. Noting the blank look Parker was giving her, she elaborated. "The person who said that was Lao Tzu." When Parker didn't look like she cared, Darcy shrugged. She only knew from that time she'd gotten lost on Tumblr under the tag 'famous quotes'.

Parker pointed at the grenades and guns with excitement. "Do we all get to use these? I've never used a grenade before."

"No, unfortunately, I don't think we'll even get to use those this time. They're just...you know, in case."

"Unfortunately," Hardison choked out, slowly moving into the room as if any sudden movement would turn Darcy into attack mode. It was kind of annoying but mostly funny.

Parker nodded seemingly in agreement with Hardison, completely missing the tone of his voice. Darcy was about to close the case when she heard Eliot a second before he appeared. Dude had moved stealthily just to mess with her. She grinned innocently up at him from her circle of mass destruction and his stone cold face greeted her.

Darcy knew Eliot hated guns and never used them unless it was the only option, but Hydra would be armed to the teeth and Darcy wasn't going in unarmed. She didn't have his aversion to guns because Darcy had never been in a traditional war with regular teammates and seen them shot apart right before her eyes. It was so easy to kill someone with a gun and feel removed from the situation. She understood his dislike, but she sure as hell wouldn't follow it.

Her face went as hard as Eliot's and her eyes met his resolutely. They stared at each other for a while, Hardison and Parker watching them intently, before Eliot sighed and looked back at the guns. Parker and Hardison looked at Darcy in awe for beating Eliot in a staring contest, and she smirked.

"Tranqs?" Eliot asked, seeing the odd looking bullets, and Darcy heard the note of relief in his voice.

"Dendrotoxin based tranqs. Each weapon is modified for them and the canisters are a new blend of knock-out gas. The only traditional weapons are the grenades, mostly a precaution in case things become...difficult," Darcy grinned, pleased he seemed more agreeable to the weapons now.

Darcy chuckled when she heard Hardison's heartfelt sigh and saw Parker's pout. Hardison's hand reached out to touch one of the handguns and Darcy snapped the case closed before he could touch it. "No, no touchy. Keep your techy hands off my hardware. You have your own toys!" Darcy chided, shaking a finger at him.

"Fine, be stingy," Hardison petulantly replied, picking up one of the ammo cases and studying the blue tipped bullet. "I know the toxin comes from mamba snakes and that SHIELD had developed a viable way of using it as an incapacitating agent. So, they work just like tranqs?"

Darcy's couldn't stop her feral grin and said, "Sure, if you have to possess the ability to accurately gauge body weight of your target and be an experienced shot to work a tranq gun." At Hardison's quirked eyebrow and Parker's tilted head, she laughed a little. "You hit the carotid or femoral artery with one of these bullets, the targets dead. You slip and hit someone in the eye when you're messing around with a loaded gun, that someone is dead. You hit someone that weighs less than one hundred and twenty pounds with the standard dose of dendrotoxin, you better have an antidote ready because they'll slowly die of the poison. You hit someone over two hundred and fifty pounds just once, and you're shit out of luck if you think they'll stay down."

Hardison slowly sat the bullet back in the ammo box and Parker looked even more excited about the bullets. Eliot rolled his eyes at all of them and moved towards the weapon cases, cataloging what they had. He started pulling apart the modified M4 Carbine rifle, putting it back together and loading it, getting used to the weight of it with the new bullets.

"How come Rambo gets to play?" Hardison snarked, giving Eliot a jealous look.

"Because Rambo had been trained in how to operate every weapon here. When you have gone through extensive training, I will be more than happy to let you test out any of my weapons. Well, except my knives. No one touches my knives. Regardless, the rule is, for everyone's safety, that you do not touch a weapon unless you know how to use that weapon safely. Fair?" Darcy said to everyone, including Nate and Sophie who had just appeared outside her doorway.

"Guns? Nate..." Sophie said, fear and reproach in her voice. She obviously vehemently didn't condone weapons being present.

"Dendrotoxin, yeah?" He said, making it sound like a question when it really wasn't. Darcy nodded anyways, more for Sophie than Nate, and Sophie just looked wary at the weapons. "They're tranqs, Soph. The grenades too."

Darcy coughed and nudged the case holding the grenades closed with her foot, looking innocently at Nate and Sophie. "Yeah. Totally dendrotoxin grenades. Mostly." She hurried on as Sophie opened her mouth to protest. "Look, Hydra will be heavily armed and trained. They're not going to let us get close enough to take them on without weapons. We'll just end up full of holes. The only traditional weapons here are six grenades and they're just for the worst case scenario. If Eliot and I are going to take on a fully outfitted group of Hydra, we're going to need to match their fire power. Shoot them, knock them out, and drag them to a prearranged place for the Avengers to collect."

Sophie looked relieved at that, nodding her head while keeping a wary eye on Darcy. It kind of made Darcy want to giggle a little. It seemed that Hardison and Sophie were having the hardest time coming to terms with Darcy's file, which made sense. Both of them hadn't experienced the cruelest portions of the world directly and couldn't innately understand Darcy's chosen profession, Eliot and Parker had. Nate was just...well he was just Nate. He was too intellectual not to know and understand why such professions were needed.

"Moving on, Parker we're postponing Hammer's office until the end of the week. We have a different client for the time being, which will give Darcy time to heal before we begin with Hammer. Hardison, the file is waiting on your computer," Nate said, shifting to leave the room.

"Wait! Since we're done with this little pow-wow, I have presents. Not all those boxes were weapons of mass destruction," Darcy said cheekily, winking at Sophie.

Darcy snatched the box of absurdly expensive designer boots and handed them to Sophie, grinning at her feminine sounds of glee when she opened the box. Seriously, Sophie could make anything sensual and feminine. The lucky bitch. Darcy wasn't jealous or anything.

"Thank you. Oh, these are exquisite!" Sophie praised, running a hand lovingly over the butter smooth leather of the two thousand dollar boots. Sophie started mumbling about the perfect outfit to wear them with and absently walked out of the room.

Darcy grabbed the large box with a Stark logo on it and tossed it to Hardison carelessly, smirking as he scrambled to catch it. He started bouncing and pulled it close to his chest in an affectionate hug. "Squiggles! It's a holographic interface and projector! I've only ever read speculation about Tony Stark's system because he refuses to sell them to the general public. Oh! You put these little projectors in a specified spot based on the dimensions of-"

"That's awesome Hardison! You go do that," Eliot said, his voice wholly unimpressed.

"Not everything can be about punching people. No appreciation," Hardison said, offended. Mumbling, he waved a thanks at Darcy and left the room.

Darcy chuckled and handed an extremely curious and excited Parker a small box. Putting her finger to her lips, Darcy shook her head when Parker started opening the box in front of everyone. Parker's eyes brightened even more at the idea of her present being a secret, and she practically flew out of Darcy's window and up the rope to the roof, her thank you echoing in the room behind her.

"What did you do?" Eliot demanded, staring out the window in trepidation.

"I'll never tell," Darcy said gravely, smirking at his narrowed eyes. She may have had Tony send a green taser for the fellow taser lover, but she'd never admit to it out loud. Of course, with Tony a taser could never stay a standard taser. The one he sent was modified to self-reload cartridges and had a battery Tony invented that could last up to six months of continuous use and could recharge slowly off the heat from a body. Darcy had one in purple.

Handing an envelope with essentially a get out of free card for the whole team to Nate, she plopped back onto the bed with a sigh. "It's just another one of those in case things, for the future," Darcy explained, nodding to the envelope Nate had opened.

Nate nodded his thanks and motioned to his watch with a pointed look at Eliot before leaving. That's right, a short con was in the works. It would be interesting to see how their dynamic transferred into their field of work. Eliot's throat clearing brought her out of her musings and she looked over to see him looking at her expectantly.

Grinning, she snatched up a large and long box and one of the vacuum-sealed bags. Tossing the bag at him, Darcy started moving the weapon cases into the bottom of the closet. "It doesn't look pretty, but it goes on under your clothes. Made from Nomex and Kevlar fibers and something else Tony's mad genius created to make that thing completely bulletproof. I mean, someone could shoot you point blank in the chest, and you'd be fine. You know...besides a few broken bones or whatever. But hey, better than death," Darcy explained, grunting occasionally at the strain bending over caused.

Eliot looked impressed with the under-suit and she caught the boyish excitement new gear brought every man. Chuckling, she put the last ammo box in the closet and shut the door before motioning to the large box left on the bed. "That's your actual present. Something I believe I promised I'd find for you a year ago," Darcy said casually, expertly masking her excitement. She really wanted to see his face.

Eye's lighting up, Eliot ripped open the packing tape and a disbelieving grin moved across his lips. "No...you didn't. How...?" He said in amazement.

Taking the guitar case from the box, he very gently sat it down on the bed, his fingers slowly opening the latches. She actually saw his breath catch when he opened the lid and saw the guitar inside. Eliot hovered an almost reverent hand over the signature on the darker stained wood of the guitar. "I did," Darcy smugly replied, enjoying his speechlessness.

"A 1951 Martin 0-15 acoustic guitar. Signed by Johnny Cash. Darcy..." Eliot's voice was a little choked up, and Darcy's heart melted slightly. So very little touched Eliot, and she was glad she was able to.

Standing next to him, she nudged his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. "I promised," Darcy said simply. She had. Eliot had done a lot for her when they were in Syria and when she found out about his love for all things guitars and country music, she promised to buy him a guitar he could cherish. They had been talking about how hard it was for people that lived lives like them to have anything precious and keep it precious. Eliot was in a place where he could do that now. She just wanted to show him that.

She felt him shift before feeling his warm hand grasp hers, squeezing it gently in a sincere thank you. She squeezed back and leaned her head against his shoulder, sharing this moment with him. It was a simple moment, one that would normally be lost in all the dramatics of life. However, with the emotion swirling in Eliot's eyes and one of his hands gripping hers while the other reverently touched something he didn't previously let himself have guaranteed it would be a moment Darcy looked back on with a smile. She could hear Hardison arguing playfully with someone downstairs, there were grenades in her closet, and her stomach still hurt vaguely, but this moment was perfect. She'd remember it forever.

He closed the lid and locked the latches, his hand never releasing hers, and let out a cleansing breath. Turning towards Darcy, he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm with a small smile, his other hand brushing past the edges of her hair. "Thank you," Eliot murmured.

He said it like an 'I love you'.

Darcy's breath hitched and she felt her body freeze for a second as her heart thudded painfully. She'd known where they stood just and hour ago. She'd known they were both not quite there, but apparently Eliot had just taken that final step. She was the one lagging behind. There was just so much up in the air at the moment, and she wasn't sure she was ready for that final step yet as well.

Darcy wasn't foolish enough to think that there would ever be the perfect time for a relationship; life tended to screw over any plans you made just to be an asshole. Still, Darcy needed to be sure she was confident going into this relationship with Eliot, and she wasn't. Not right now. She was right last night. Eliot was settled, Darcy still wasn't. She reached up and cupped his face, kissing the corner of his lips, and whispered, "You're welcome."

What she really meant was, 'I love you. I'm sorry'.

Eliot leaned down and kissed her forehead, his facial hair prickling her skin lightly. With a grin, he stroked her cheek, put an earbud in her ear, and grabbed the guitar case. "There's breakfast downstairs if you're hungry," he said over his shoulder as he sauntered out of the room.

The 'I'll wait' was easily heard in his tone.

Her throat closing up and her heart swelling with an almost devotional level of love was so foreign to her that she actually felt a trickle of fear. She hadn't really thought it was possible to fall even more in love with Eliot at this point, but it was. He wasn't upset, he didn't pressure her at all, he just simply promised he'd wait. Darcy rarely thought she had done too much to deserve happiness, but she thought just maybe she didn't deserve that level of love.

The thought was gone as soon as it had come. Darcy had fought for every bit of happiness she had. There were sometimes miserable situations that she couldn't escape and were out of her control, so when she had a chance to control her happiness, it was lazy not to fight for it. Darcy had spent too much of her life not allowing herself to be happy. It had taken a long time and a lot of effort to pull herself from that mindset.

Maybe she had been hanging around the hero group far too much lately. They were all amazing people, that wasn't in question, but they all had a tendency to punish themselves ruthlessly for everything they've done or didn't do. They all tossed around the words 'I don't deserve it' when it came to them getting anything good in their lives. They were all striving to make amends for their sins and punishing themselves along the way.

The only problem with that method was when is the 'good' you've done enough to balance the 'bad'? Once you entrenched yourself into the mindset of being dirty and damaged, believed you had done things so wrong you didn't deserve to be happy, it very rarely ended. No matter how much you did to wash those sins clean, the scales would never be balanced in your eyes. The cycle never ended. It should be enough to change your ways, strive to help the world, and make yourself a better person. Nothing you did could ever erase the things in the past, so it was absurd to try.

Darcy had regrets, but she wouldn't punish herself for them for the rest of her life. There were a few regrets she'd always feel a little dirty for doing or not doing, but there was nothing she could do to change them. For the most part when she did something wrong, instead of regretting it, she learned from it. Mistakes were human, you couldn't avoid them. You could only make damn sure you didn't repeat them.

She hadn't realized she'd let that old self-punishing mindset take root again in the back of her mind, and now that she knew the cause of it, she was glad she had this break from the Avengers to separate their influence from herself. Her eyes trailed back to the door and she couldn't stop the goofy smile or the giddy feeling in her stomach. She deserved to be happy, she deserved to be loved, and she sure as hell deserved to love.

Knowing she'd taken a half step towards Eliot, Darcy felt a sense of freedom. Grabbing the rolled up leather containing her black throwing knives, Darcy tucked them in the bedside table before heading to the door with a bounce in her step. She didn't know when she'd be able to tell Eliot she was ready, but it would be soon. In the meantime, she had breakfast and a briefing waiting.