Well, lets see how this goes...
So, it turns out law school is kind of hard. And then I kind of dropped out of the fandom world. And then I saw Thor. And the Avengers. And AO3 happened. And, in a very Apocalypse Now kind of moment, I got dragged back in. And I started writing this...thing. That has eaten up my life. So I'm just going to post it without much preamble. Also, because apparently I wont get an invite to AO3 until some time in November. Sad face. Anyways, I haven't named the whole thing yet, but here is chapter one...
Rated M for violence
Summary: You can never leave it behind you, and it will change your life if you let it.
Pairing: Darcy / Bruce (eventually, I promise)
Darcy was out. Way out. Like, hazy, sepia-tone flashback out.
That whole Norse gods, giant metal fire-monster thing was something that she couldn’t quite connect with herself. Like how summer vacation never seems to be real by the beginning of October.
Turns out, super-secret government organizations don’t give the intern who accidentally got caught up in world changing events a job, they give her a huge stack of non-disclosure agreements and tell her not to contact Jane again. Ever.
That sucked, but what’s a girl to do in the face of a room full of black suits who could probably kill you with their pinky finger? Well, being honest, it was more the look on Jane’s face when she said “I won’t bring you into this Darcy. I won’t. It’s not safe.”
So she moved on. She finished her political science degree (finally). She did a masters in political theory, and she got a job as an assistant to a campaign planner on a pretty important senatorial campaign. Things were going well.
Which is why Darcy could not quite understand why she had been dragged back. She couldn’t wrap her head around why leaving Senator Selkirk’s campaign office is the last thing she remembers before this cold cement floor, dimly lit ceiling crisscrossed by ductwork and walkways, and the uncomfortable weight of metal shackles on her wrists.
Her head hurt and her mouth felt fuzzy, but she dragged herself to a seated position anyways. There was a clock ticking somewhere. The seconds felt like they were dragged out, amplified by the brushed cement floor and the heavy brick walls. The building she was in looked like some kind of warehouse. A few yards away there was a heavy steel door that Darcy didn’t have to get any closer to to know that it wasn’t going to be her way out of here. There were no windows, and the only light in the room came from a bare fluorescent panel, humming slightly against one wall.
A hook hung from the ceiling attached to a series of pulleys, like the ones used for packing heavy boxes. Darcy noticed that it was hanging directly over a drain in the floor. Her overactive imagination had just enough time to take her to places that make her break into a cold sweat before the door opened and a man walked in.
Two slow seconds passed by: tick, tock.
He was tall, broad shouldered, probably in his mid 50s, but the sort of mid 50s that looks like it could kick the crap out of most 20 year olds. There were no weird capes or costumes, no robot appendages. He wore simple, vaguely military, black pants, well shined boots, and a black t-shirt. He did not look like the type to be kidnapping 25 year old PR assistants from campaign offices.
Then again, he was also followed by a heavily armed, very mean looking flunky in black fatigues and a beret, so you never knew, did you?
“Good morning Miss Lewis,” he said, quite calmly, “I’m glad to see that you’re awake.” He smiled at her in a disarming manner and then made a quick motion to the soldier who had followed him in. She was jarred to her feet, the soldier dragging her manacled hands up in front of her and throwing the chain that linked the cuffs on her wrist over the hook that hung from the ceiling. The other man pressed a button on a wall control and the hook began to rise up with a grinding clank, pulling painfully on Darcy’s arms and leaving her barely able to put any weight on her toes.
Tick, tock.
“I’m going to be reasonable here Ms. Lewis” he said.
And Darcy had to laugh at that as her feet scrambled for purchase on the slick concrete floor and the metal of the cuffs dug into her wrists.
“Reasonable is a meeting over coffee,” she said. “This? This is insane.” She was aware that she sounded a bit hysterical, but she was also pretty sure that this was exactly the sort of situation that called for hysteria.
“Desperate times, Miss Lewis” he said, withdrawing a wicked looking blade from a sheath that sat against his hip.
A deep and unsettling feeling exploded in her belly. She was pretty sure it was panic. “Hey hey hey!” Darcy exclaimed, ineffectually trying to draw away “I can be reasonable here! I don’t even know what the hell you want! Shouldn’t you be asking some questions before things get all…knifey?”
“Very astute Miss Lewis,” he said, advancing towards her “But I always find it is more effective to present the inducement and then ask the questions. It’s a fairly basic negotiation tactic. I will present to you what I am offering and then I will ask for what I want in return. Does that sound fair, Miss Lewis?” He placed the tip of the blade against her breastbone.
All that was running through her head, oddly enough, was that he had terrible coffee breath. And then she was suddenly struck by an image of this guy, sitting quietly at his desk, sipping a coffee, telling his wife he’ll be a bit late for dinner, and drawing up world class psycho take over the world plans. Somehow, this made him far more terrifying than if he was wearing some weird costume and indulging in evil laughter.
And the light buzzed, and the clock ticked away, and she thought about sunlight.
“I don’t suppose what I think really matters, does it?” she said carefully, her voice only shaking a little.
“No Miss Lewis,” he sounded almost apologetic, “it does not.” His knife flashed in the dim light.
Darcy winced, expecting to feel the blade, but instead all she felt was a draft. He had sliced her shirt down the front. He then proceeded to make two careful cuts across the shoulders and it fell away. She watched it a little sadly, it had not been cheap. She was still adjusting to how much professional attire actually cost compared to her largely thrift store based college wardrobe.
Apparently, she was also still adjusting to the situation, because she was pretty sure that being worried about her clothing budget should not be her top priority when she was chained to the ceiling in a room with a crazy kidnapper who had just left her in her pencil skirt and white lace bra. Maybe she was in shock. She shivered.
“Sergeant” the man called out in a clipped tone.
The soldier in the black fatigues stepped up beside him crisply. She wondered if any of them actually bought the whole playing military thing, like surplus fatigues, salutes and a rank somehow made villains into honorable men.
“Give Miss Lewis a demonstration if you will.” He said as he stepped away from her. The ‘sergeant’ walked around behind her, unclipping a truly awful looking braided whip from his belt. He uncoiled it with a purpose and efficiency that made Darcy notice how large his biceps really were and made her eyes widen in fear as he disappeared behind her.
She knew it was coming, and yet there was nothing in her life that could prepare her for it. The whip cracked across the exposed skin of her back twice in quick succession. She rocked forward onto her toes from the force of it, the added pressure on the cuffs at her wrist nothing against the burning, blinding pain in her back. No one had ever intentionally hurt her before in her whole life. No one had ever raised a hand against her in violence. The fear of it and the inability to control the situation was just as bad as the pain itself.
And it pissed her the fuck off.
“Now Miss Lewis,” he said, his voice still calm and smooth, “I am offering to let you walk out of here in exchange for a piece of information.” He pulled a small wooden chair over and sat facing her, neatly crossing one leg over the other knee. “All I want to know is the last piece of the bi-frost equation, the connection that Dr. Foster never wrote down in her files.”
Buzz…tick, what?
And now Darcy was pissed the fuck off with a generous helping of confused. She looked up at him, “and you thought I would know something about Jane’s crazy math? Boy have you got the wrong girl.”
“I’m going to ask you again Ms. Lewis, it is very simple. What is the connection? How did Dr. Foster rebuild the rainbow bridge?” The voice is oddly calm and sterile, a direct counterpoint to the dirty, gritty, painful reality that Darcy had found herself in.
“What, the rainbow connection?” Darcy said, “little green frog, ‘the lovers the dreamers and me’? Boy you must have had a rough childhood.” Because she wasn’t going to be a girl about this. And sarcasm had always come easy to her. She got it now, she never used to get it, why the heroes in action movies chose to mouth off rather than cooperate. Cooperation was not an option: them, because of duty and honor and all that bullshit; her because she just didn’t have the answer.
“Very amusing Miss Lewis,” came the voice again. “I know you think you are hurting now, but I promise you I can make it much, much worse.” The voice was smooth, soothing, and utterly chilling. “All we need is one tiny piece of information. We know you handled all of Dr. Foster’s data, so we know that you have the information we are after.”
“Hey, I can tell you all about her spreadsheet color codes if you want, but all the numbers might as well have been Chinese to me.” She cut out through gritted teeth.
He sighed, “It is unfortunate that you are planning to be difficult Miss Lewis. I had so hoped we could resolve this like reasonable people.” He made a gesture with his hand and the whip came down across Darcy’s back again. She cried out in pain and anger.
“Look, I got coffee, I did the spreadsheets, I spell checked, even the most basic of the actual physics stuff was beyond me.” She was trying so hard not to panic here. Maybe the crazy kidnapper would listen to reason, right? It was hard to think clearly through the pain, she thought her reasoning might be a bit off.
“Your loyalty to Dr. Foster is admirable Miss Lewis, but unnecessary.” He stood and began pacing rather dramatically. “All I am attempting to do here is restore order. The Avengers, and Thor foremost among them, have brought this country and indeed the world into great peril. Before Dr. Foster opened the bi-frost, our problems were our own. And now they have brought the troubles of the universe upon us and given the government that controls them an iron grip over this nation. All I want is to overthrow the tyranny that has taken over the US government and to do that, I need to make sure the Avengers are eliminated. That is where you come in Miss Lewis. I must be able to close the bi-frost. In the name of justice Miss Lewis, and the responsibility of man to rise up against leaders who are no longer responsible to the people.”
Darcy knew she should be crying and cowering, it was pretty much what she thought she’d be doing in this sort of situation. Turns out, her fight or flight response was super confrontational and really stupid. She let out a choked laugh. “Been working on the monologue for a while there Shakespeare?”
She felt a mild satisfaction at the faint look of chagrin that crossed his face, but it was quickly drowned out by screaming agony. She may be responding oddly aggressively to the situation, but she was not even attempting to stop herself from screaming. Tears ran down her face, and she wasn’t sure if they were of fear, pain, frustration, or anger. The clock was unbearably loud to her.
“Look,” she croaked out damply,"it’s not like this doesn’t really really hurt, and the pain is really effective, It’s just that your listening skills need some work, I have no idea about Jane’s math.” Sarcasm aside, she was pleading for her life, and wasn’t even a little bit ashamed of it.
He strode up to her and grabbed her face in a way that was sure to leave bruises. Well, she supposed in an oddly detached way, you didn’t become a psycho who wanted to bring down the Avengers and the government without some anger issues.
“Miss Lewis,” he hissed at her. She was really starting to hate being called that. “We know that you were with Dr. Foster from the time of the last data entered into her files until the point when the bi-frost was opened. You know what information was missing from her files and you will tell me Miss Lewis, or you will die in agony.” He was screaming at her by the end of it. Darcy felt like vomiting, but when she opened her mouth…
“You should deal with that coffee breath” was all that came out. Ahhh, word vomit then. When she got out of here, Darcy was pretty sure she needed some intense psychotherapy to find out why her brain was behaving like such an idiot. “And I still have no idea what information you’re looking for.”
He exclaimed at her in frustration and anger, grabbing a fistful of hair and wrenching her head painfully back. “Think about your choices Miss Lewis. Think hard. Because I will be back. Sergeant!” He called abruptly and they left her there, hanging from the cuffs.
Several long second ticked away, the sound of the clock echoing against Darcy’s harsh breathing in the empty room, the buzz of the light unbearably loud in the silence.
And she did think. She tried to picture Jane’s scribbled notes on the whiteboard in front of a crowd of agents, she tried to picture all those memos of photocopied handwritten instructions that were passed around when they were jerry rigging the mechanics that brought Thor back, but the whole reason that it wasn’t in Jane’s file was that it was rushed and never going to be published. She was sure the government had it somewhere this guy couldn’t hack, but photo recall wasn’t her thing.
That was OK with her. She wasn’t stupid; the guy wasn’t wearing a mask. She was dead if she talked or not, and not having the information made it way easier to mouth off. At this point, she was getting down to “ways she could die faster” plans. She sincerely hoped she made a really extreme mess for them to clean up.
So yeah, she was terrified and she didn’t want to die, and she cried and screamed for a while and she did produce some actual vomit. But by the time they came back, she had settled into a curious emptiness. At least she wasn’t going to go out by betraying her friend, even if she wanted to. She felt detached from the real world by a few paces, except for the pain, and the buzz of the light, and the clock ticking away towards the end.
After a few more whip cracks, blood stared to pool around her feet and her skirt stuck to her, clammy and cold. Her throat was raw from screaming in pain, yelling every curse word she knew. Her attempts to be clever were getting less funny, but she soldiered on.
Tick, tock.
The second time they left, she passed out. It became a pattern. They came, there was pain, bright and sharp, they would leave, and she would fade away from the pain and the hunger and the horror of it all. They would come back, dump a bucket of water on her, and start again.
Buzz. Tick, tock.
At one point, they felt the whip was not enough, the pain when they unhooked her chained wrists was incredible as the blood rushed back into her battered wrists and then the sergeant started breaking the fingers on her left hand.
She screamed. The sergeant hurt her. Shakespeare monologued, she passed out. It was like some sort of horrible montage.
Buzz. Tick, tock.
As one frame of this nightmare was drawing to a close, he hissed in her face. “I am growing tired of asking nicely.”
She managed a strained laugh “yeah I bet your mother is real proud of your good manners.”
“You are starting to really piss me off Miss Lewis. All I need is the link, the one fucking missing piece. What is it Miss Lewis?”
She said nothing, which was pretty normal by this point, and he stalked off, also normal. Only it wasn’t, because somewhere in the part of her that was still tied to the real world, something clicked into place.
Tick…
And all of a sudden, Darcy knew what they were looking for. And they were right, she did have the information.
She had been there when Jane figured it out. They had spent months out in the desert and Jane had come so far, but kept being pretty incomprehensible about the elusive “third point”.
“Triangulation,” she had explained to Darcy “plotting the movement of objects through space. You need three values. If you think about it on a simple graph, you need to know the x value, the up and down, the y value, the side to side, and the z value, the near and far” she said as she scribbled on the lab white board. “But we’re dealing with dimensions here, so it’s not quite as simple, but the same principle applies. To unfold the connection to Asgard, we need the alignment, which we have - you’ve organised those start charts, the dimensional distance, which we’ve got now, but there’s a third point.”
“so, “ said Darcy, trying to wrap her head around Jane’s cryptic whiteboard pictogram “You’ve got the when and the where, but not the how?”
Jane froze. “The how?” she started scribbling madly on the board “of course! I was stuck in a directional mentally, but the transitional vector doesn’t matter if we have to cross the energy matter spectrum!”
Darcy looked at her blankly. “Uhhh, English?”
Jane kissed her full on the mouth “You are a genius!” she said “Energy! We’re missing the energy!”
Shortly after that, a bunch of those crazy SHIELD guys had shown up with this weird blue thing and then bam. Thor was in, Darcy was out.
And now she knew. And there was still no way she could tell them. Not only did she still kinda feel bad about tasering Thor, but he’s a pretty good guy and he and his buddies sort of save the world a lot, so opening up his home and the source of his power to attack by the crazies? Probably not a good move for the world.
…tock.
But something was not normal elsewhere as well. She dimly realised as she hear static from walkie talkies and a few alarmed male voices, and boots on concrete from outside the door.
He came back in almost right away. Definitely not normal. Her brain was working sluggishly though and she couldn’t process this new development.
He walked over to her and kicked out savagely, a steel toed boot slammed into the side of the chair she was tied to, knocking her over sideways. Unable to break her fall, her shoulder slammed into the ground, pooping out of the socket with a sickening crunch. Darcy cried out once and then bit her lip until she could taste blood, just desperately trying not to move, trying not to make it worse.
She lay there, blinking up at the ceiling, whimpering. Yeah, she figured that was fine now. Since she was probably about to die. She had managed to process the gun in his hand.
Buzz.
A steel toed boot slammed into her side. She thought she felt a rib crack. But so did the wooden chair. Though the pain in her left shoulder is agonising, she could feel the tension on her arms from where they were tied to the chair lessen. She held still. Wouldn’t do her any good if they found out.
“It’s a simple thing, Miss Lewis” he draws out her name, sibilant and forced, like this really is his best effort at good manners “all we want to do is even the odds a little. How responsible do you really think a government can be when they have gods and monsters on their side? Do you think it’s fair that our government can enforce its will on the people through the violence of their super soldiers? Do you really want Tony Stark,” he almost spits out the name “to be the power behind the throne? Let them lose their ability to call on gods, let them lose their superhuman mutants and their machines, and then let us see how well they reflect the will of the people. Let us see how long they can hold on to power then.”
“In the face of your world domination plans? You know, I really prefer a villain who can be honest with himself, if we’re telling the truth here. Stop pretending to nobility you fucking piece of shit.” Suddenly the right side of her face exploded in agony and she spat out a mouthful of blood. She blearily searched for something to come back with. “And here I thought I put my own foot in my mouth a lot.” It came out mumbled, Darcy gave herself a C+ for wit at best. She was going to die, she was pretty sure.
Tick, tock.
She would have liked to have been feeling all calm and noble about it, but she was terrified. She was thankful that they probably couldn’t see the tears running down her face what with all the blood. She was pretty sure she was going to vomit any minute now. Apparently vomit and sarcasm was how her body tried to cope. Awesome. She just hoped they’d do it before she lost the last shreds of her grip on reality and told them whatever they wanted.
She heard an odd, muffled thump from somewhere outside the heavy metal door to her concrete cell. The man stormed over to the door and looked out. She couldn’t quite process what was going on, but this seemed like a pretty good time to test the cracked chair.
She slid her hands downwards, whimpering at the pain, but she figured that was pretty much expected when you were just some civilian girl lying bleeding on a concrete floor. The back of the chair was completely separated from the seat on one side. She managed to slip the chain underneath it, and the pain in her arms decreased a bit. The other side of the chair back was loose. Darcy was pretty sure she could get free of it pretty quickly if she had to.
“you are becoming a serious liability Miss Lewis.” He looked pissed “for such a little girl.”
Her brain was still ticking slowly along, whirring along to the pace of the clock, and while it hadn’t quite caught up yet, that statement caused a flare of hope somewhere deep underneath the haze. Darcy looked up towards the ceiling, far away in the dim light, cluttered with pipes and railings. She thought about praying. She thought about Jane. She also connected to the fact that the ceiling was blinking back at her, which was also somewhat out of the ordinary. She gathered her focus.
Eyes, attached to a pale face. A finger against lips, scary intensity. Oh. Oh. Yes that was hope. It drew her back to herself.
“I bet you say that to all the girls” she managed to croak out through her ravaged throat, not taking her eyes off the steady blue ones looking back at her. She thought she saw him, whoever he was, smile.
“I’ll give you one last chance, Miss Lewis, what’s the link? Tell me,” he cocked the gun “help me put an end to this destructive government. Help me put an end to the tyranny of the Avengers, and I will let you live.”
Tick.
“No fucking way” said Darcy with as much venom as she could manage “not if it means listening to one more minute of goddamn monologuing.”
She heard a new sound, one she recognised quite well from the movies. It was a lot scarier in person. A round clicked into a chamber, light glinted off of a barrel. It all happened incredibly fast. An arrow flew from above her and hit her captor in the shoulder. A scream of rage flew from him and he swung the barrel of the gun upwards. Darcy immediately rolled to her knees, used her freed hand to crack through the rest of the chair, and lashed out with her foot, flinging the chair at the man as he fired wildly at the ceiling. A good chunk of the chair hit him square in the face. Darcy thought she saw blood, but everything was getting pretty hazy. She could vaguely appreciate that her captor was getting away. He was flying, but that made no sense. And she couldn’t move to go after him. There were blue eyes looking at her and someone said her name. Then nothing.
+++++++
When she woke up, she was still in the big empty warehouse, except she was significantly more comfortable. She was lying on a cot, which, given that she had been expecting to wake up wet, in pain, and restrained, was pretty much heaven.
“Hey kid,” a low male voice came from beside her, withdrawing a needle from her arm. The world was starting to pick up speed.
She tried to sit up and immediately let out a loud “oh holy fuck” and then wished she hadn’t done that either because her face really hurt.
“Hey, take it easy” his voice was low and calming, like the sort of tone her Dad used to use with the unbroken horses back on the ranch. “I’ve just given you a shot of adrenaline. It’ll get you on your feet for long enough for us to catch our ride out of here and we’ve got to go fast. The rest of them will be back.”
“back?” he must have seen the terror in her eyes.
“Yeah,” he said, looking at her as if he was waiting for a meltdown but he continued talking to her straight. She liked that, it made her feel safe. “We’ve created a diversion to draw most of them out, but they’ll figure it out eventually. We’ve probably got a few minutes here though.”
“Who the fuck are you” said Darcy, without much energy, because skepticism was healthy but she wasn’t tied up anymore and the adrenaline was pushing the pain away and clearing the fog.
He grinned at her like she had just said something really witty “smart girl” he said. “Agent Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye, of the Avengers initiative” he gave her a cocky little salute.
She breathed out a little sigh of relief. But she was in absolutely no mood to be star struck. “Awfully full of yourself there, aren’t you Barton?” she croaked, but she at least attempted a smile at him while she did. She didn’t know how well it came across, her face was pretty banged up. But he laughed, so she figured he got that he was pretty much the biggest hero in the world for her at the moment. Step aside captain America, go fuck yourself Tony Stark.
“Yes ma’am” he said, still smiling, “Jane said you weren’t much of a damsel type” he slipped an arm behind her, careful to keep it high on her shoulders, away from her ruined back. “That sort of thing can be pretty hard on a guy’s ego.”
“I’ll remember that next time and not kick a chair at the guy shooting at you” she said through clenched teeth.
“You’re a sweetheart, kid” he said sarcastically “one big hurdle before we get you out of here though” he looked serious, Darcy did not like that look.
“What’s that” she asked warily.
“Your shoulder” he said “It’s gotta go back in the socket. Not even adrenaline is going to get you to the chopper with that.”
Darcy looked down at her shoulder. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t noticed the pain, but she hadn’t seen it dangling there like a dead fish. “Really?” she was pretty sure she sounded about 12, but that had to soothe Barton’s ego a bit, right?
“Really,” he said, looking at her sympathetically “But It’ll be quick, I promise kiddo.” He looked at her with steady eyes, and he was Hawkeye for god’s sake, so she nodded.
“Lean forward” he said, gripping her elbow and arm firmly “and turn your head away”. She did.
“On the count of three” he said. But Darcy wasn’t an idiot, so she was expecting it on the one. She screamed louder than she thought she had left in her. Everything went a bit fuzzy for a minute. Clint was holding her shoulders steady as she retched, nothing left in her to come up.
She was crying, she realised a few moments later, and Clint’s voice was talking to her “You’re okay, you did good.”
She sniffed “promise you won’t tell anyone I almost blacked out and vommed all over Hawkeye?” she muttered.
He snorted, amused “Sure thing,” he said, “as long as you don’t tell anyone that the damsel I was supposed to rescue probably saved me a bullet by kicking a chair at the bad guy while suffering from a severe case of dislocated shoulder and shirtlessness.”
“Deal” said Darcy, “now can you please get me the fuck out of here.” Her voice sounded choked and pitiful, even to her.
“Nothing I’d rather do darling” He was way too chipper, Darcy thought, for someone in the middle of a hostage situation.
He wrapped her arms tightly against her stomach with a bandage to keep it from moving. Then he picked her up as though she were a feather pillow and moved briskly towards the door.
A sudden though struck Darcy, “Agent Barton?” she said cautiously.
“It’s Clint.”
“Clint,” she said, a little awkwardly, “thanks for saving my life. I swear I usually have better manners…it’s just kind of been a rough week for me.”
He grinned, “I bet it has. And you’re welcome.”
She rested her head against Clint’s shoulder, the world getting a bit hazy again. He back screaming at her, a million pains flaring to life. She must have said something.
“I know kid, I know it hurts. We’re almost there, I swear. Just hang on” and then she smiled, because she couldn’t hear anything but the wind, and everything went mercifully black.
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If you made it this far, THANKS! Also, I'm looking for a beta. Please?