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The power. God, the power was so intoxicating . It flooded through her veins like spiderwebs, spreading intricately and delicately throughout her body, pulsing beneath her skin, singing to her a siren’s song of promise . The promise to be something more. To be everything . To be at the top, to be the most , to stand above all the rest. Singular. Individual. Unique.
Darrrcy, it whispered, slithering around in her head. I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted.
She stood in the center of an empty street in New York, crushed cars pressed up against crumbling, abandoned buildings, a circle of energy having spread from her just minutes before, surging out to thrust everything away from her. Her eyes darted, taking it in, the cloudy skies above, lightening crackling over a blue-black blanket of worry and concern.
Thor, she thought, her gaze focusing forward. He stood, panting, blood dribbling from a cut on his cheek, sweat dampening his blond hair, dirt smudged on his golden skin. He gripped his hammer tight, but it hung at his side, posing little threat when faced against a friend.
Friend.
Friend.
That’s what these people are.
Were.
Her eyes, bloodshot, took in the group in front of her. Haggard, bloody, beaten. The Avengers. Her team. Her friends.
Clint stood atop a car, his fingers flexing on his bow, his jaw set, his brow furrowed. He would take the shot. He would. He would. He might hesitate, though. He already had. And what would an arrow do, even one of his trick arrows, against the power thrumming inside her? She could turn it to dust. She already had. No, it had. But ‘it’ was she, right? Did the distinction matter anymore?
It— She— They could turn them all to dust.
Particles in the wind, peppered in the oxygen she sucked into her lungs, a part of her forever. Alive no more, but always with her.
Her friends.
Just in front of the car Clint stood atop, a gun in either hand, was Natasha. Tensed, bruised, blood seeping from her lip and a cut the curled around her eye. Darcy couldn’t remember how. She could remember a fight, vaguely, but that was before, in a hallway in Stark Tower. Something had happened, triggered her, and before she knew it, they were engaged. Her body responded without her thought. Her arms moved so quickly, her legs thrusting forward and lurching back, kicking, swiping, eager to knock down her opponent, to make her feel defeat, defenseless, powerless. But it wasn’t Darcy.
It was never Darcy.
It was this thing. This power that grew inside her.
She could blame it on Jane, blame it on Thor for unwillingly bringing it to earth. But in the end it was just Darcy’s curiosity that got the better of her. She should have known better; never touch squishy oddly colored things, even if they looked harmless, discarded on a tabletop like jam that dripped unnoticed from a piece of toast and hadn’t been cleaned up. She touched it, poked it, really, and it reacted. Fusing with her, sinking into her skin, embedding itself inside her, collecting around her heart and spreading through her like a disease, infecting her, forcing itself into her veins, her thoughts, her brain, until it was one with Darcy. A whisper in her ear, a force that guided her through her days, that sifted through her thoughts, her memories, and used them to become the perfect enemy against the Avengers, against earth, against humanity itself.
Who thought a poli sci intern would get this far? Sure, she wasn’t an intern anymore. She was the top assistant to three of the brightest minds on earth, friend to the Avengers, trusted ally of Thor. She was considered no threat at all, and that was what made her the perfect host.
Only the thing that infected her was supposed to take her over entirely. Wipe out what made Darcy, well, Darcy. It was supposed to mimic her, enabling it to fool the others into thinking she was still who they thought she was. It wasn’t counting on her being so strong willed. She wouldn’t lay down arms, she wouldn’t let herself be eaten up completely. She was still there. She could fight it.
In fact, she had, just before it killed Natasha, fingers clutched around her neck, squeezing so tightly, watching her claw at Darcy’s hand, her skin turning a terrible purple. With a lurch of breath, Darcy had retaken her body once more and dropped Natasha to the floor, stumbling backwards, blinking wildly, confused and terrified, pulling at her hair.
She’d been having blackouts, little ones, she thought. She’d just been tired, skipping meals, she didn’t think much of it, really. But then the voice started. The voice that promised her glory. If she wouldn’t lay down and let it take over, then she should share in the spoils. Power. Recognition. She would rule them all. But did she want to? Was that what she’d wanted? Once upon a time, she’d joked that one day the ‘lowly intern would take over the world.’ But it had been a joke, hadn’t it? She didn’t want to rule over these people. She wasn’t like Loki. She didn’t want absolute power. She didn’t want minions or slaves or death for anyone.
What did she want?
What?
What?
Raising her hands, she watched the team flinch, ready to attack, to put her down, to do what was necessary to save the rest of the world. She thrust her fingers into her hair and twisted it, tugging on it tightly as she clenched her teeth and tried to think. Past the voice. The hissing promises. The pulse of energy just beneath her skin, like a burning, boiling, rushing fire. The gnawing at her gut.
This is your destiny. You’ve earned this!
No, no, no.
You have the ability to make them bow at your feet. They should kneel before you. They should beg for your attention. Pledge their allegiance to you!
I don’t want that. I don’t.
“Darcy!”
Her eyes opened and she searched for the voice.
Natasha stepped forward, ignoring the discouraging sounds behind her. Of Clint stepping forward, his face stricken. Of Steve readying his shield, as if he thought Darcy would throw another blast of energy and was ready to throw it forward, to cover Natasha from the hit.
Her heart broke.
Steve. Who watched TV with her in his ratty sweatpants with the tear in the knee and made the best popcorn. Steve, who liked to draw her doing innocuous things like stirring her coffee or tapping away on her laptop. Who took her teasing about being a dinosaur in stride and frequently used ‘old-timey’ speak because he knew it made her smile. Who asked her to teach him how to cook and was, possibly, the worst cook she’d ever seen in her life. Who stayed up letting her cry on his shoulder after a bad break-up and promised her he didn’t mind that she was getting snot all over his shirt. Steve, who was, arguably, one of her best friends, was ready to defend Natasha against her.
Tears clouded Darcy’s eyes, clinging to her lashes, and the ground trembled beneath her. Rocks and debris clattered on the ground, hopping up and bouncing all around, as if it felt her grief.
“Darcy,” Natasha said, this time her voice a little more stressed.
Her eyes raised and found Natasha’s across the divide.
“Listen to me, сестра, this isn’t you…” Natasha paused in her steps then and tucked her guns into the holsters at her hips.
“Natasha,” Clint called, sounding worried.
She raised a hand up to stop him, a silent motion to tell him she knew what she was doing, and then she raised her palms forward, letting Darcy see that she was unarmed. She continued forward then, walking toward her carefully, like Darcy was a frightened, cornered animal. “We know you. I know you…” She stared at her searchingly. “Talk to me.”
Darcy stared at her, her chest heaving for each breath, and loosened her fingers into her hair, letting her palms slide down her face, her cheeks damn beneath her touch. “I didn’t mean to touch it… I didn’t know what it was…” She swallowed tightly and kept her eyes solely on Natasha. “I can feel it, inside me, talking to me.”
“What’s it saying?” Natasha wondered, her voice level, calm.
“It…” She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment and just listened.
Kill her. Destroy her. Destroy them all! Decimate. Kill. KILL!
Darcy’s eyes sprung open and narrowed on Natasha. “It wants to kill you. All of you.”
“For what purpose?” Thor asked, walking forward then, his red cape billowing in the wind. He was still upset, the skies were waiting to open up and send a downpour on their heads, but he was trying to keep his feelings at bay.
Darcy regretted that she caused him that pain. That he was probably thinking of Loki and wondering how those he trusted, those he called family, could turn out so wrong.
“To rule,” she said quietly, but it was loud enough for them all to hear, to understand.
“And what part do you play? Where do you come in?” Tony wondered, shifting in his suit, agitated, angry. Stress was a familiar look on his face, but it was usually better fit in his shop when he was working on the next suit or worried about the next fight. If things were different, they would volley snark back at each other until he’d calmed down. That wasn’t the case now; Darcy wasn’t sure it ever would be again.
“She’s just a host,” Bruce piped up, readjusting his glasses. The Hulk, for the moment, was absent. Darcy hadn’t even seen him shrink.
She stared at him, the fuzzy scientist she brought tea to every day and engaged in conversation about yoga and different kinds of music that helped him stay calm. A man she regularly took out for lunch just to convince him he could be comfortable around people, in crowds, to show him she wasn’t afraid of him and he shouldn’t be either.
“Kill the host, save the world,” Darcy murmured. Her fingers curled into fists, resting against her shoulders, staring out over them. “But do it quick, because it’s gaining up, and it’s not as friendly.” A tear tripped down her cheek and she offered a crooked, empty grin.
“Darcy…” Steve said quietly. His shield was lowered then and he walked toward her, stripping off his helmet and tossing it to the ground.
She took a step back and away from him, cringing when he flinched. “I’m not safe. You need to stop.” She let out a hissing breath and stared at him. “I can feel it crawling beneath my skin. And all it wants is for me to tear yours from your bones. Steve, please.”
He didn’t pause in his steps. She loved and hated him for it.
This wasn’t fair. For months now, she’d been struggling with her feelings, telling herself it was okay, that she only loved him as a friend. But the truth of it was, it was so much more than that. Steve was her best friend, but that feeling grew and spread and, before she knew it, she was in love with him. But he didn’t love her back, not like that, and she was prepared to accept that. Friendship was enough. She would always have him in her life. Only now her life was so much shorter and that felt like such a shitty deal.
“Stop!” she told him, thrusting a hand out. A burst of energy left her and scorched the ground a foot in front of him. It crackled as it hit, leaving a black, smoldering burn on the ground with cracks spread across the pavement.
His jaw tensed and then, as if to prove something, he took another step forward, staring her straight in the eye.
“Do you have a death wish?” she growled, glaring at him.
“I’m stubborn. I always have been. You used to tell me it was my best and worst characteristic.”
Her brows raised. “It still is.”
He sighed, swallowing tightly. “If what you’re saying is true… If there’s something inside of you, then all we have to do is get it out of you.”
She shook her head, tears burning the back of her eyes, her throat burning. “You can’t.”
“Darcy—”
“Listen to me,” she snapped. “It’s not just in me. It’s a part of me. Do you understand? I can feel it. It—It’s not a person. It’s a disease. It gets inside you and it grows, taking over, until it is the host.”
“But it hasn’t. You’re still you. You’re fighting it!” he argued.
“For how long?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Look around you… I did this. I took out a whole city block. People are probably dead because of me. I’m dangerous, Steve. I’m the enemy here.”
“No!” he said, his voice thick and ferocious with denial. “You’re our friend. You’ve always been our friend. You always will be.”
Her lips quivered before she whispered, “I’m not Bucky.”
Steve winced.
“You can’t save me. You can’t hold my hand and tell me who I used to be. You can’t get me through this. And it’s okay.” She nodded at him encouragingly, cracking a trembling smile. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you. I… I did this. I was so stupid. I should know better than to touch weird things in Jane’s lab. I… I’m surrounded by weird. I should’ve known.”
“This isn’t your fault. You’re innocent in this. Anything that happens here, it’s not you. Darcy, you are not that person. You can’t… You couldn’t hurt a fly.”
“But I have. And this, I can’t forgive myself for this. I…” She laughed hysterically, thrusting a hand toward Natasha. “I almost killed her. I had her by her throat. I could see the life draining out of her. I felt it when she stopped struggling. She almost died and I did that.”
“You stopped.” Natasha stepped forward again, still aware of how close she was getting, of not spooking her. “You’re right, it had me, I would have died, but you stopped it, Darcy. I saw you. Your eyes cleared and you let me go. You didn’t want to hurt me.”
“I don’t. I won’t.” Darcy looked from her to Clint, who had leapt down from the car and moved forward to join the rest, his fingers still twitching on the string of his bow. He would shoot her if he needed to, if she posed a threat to Natasha. He, more than the others, was still ready to act. She’d heard Tony’s suit power down. He wasn’t on the defensive anymore; he saw her as in control again and wasn’t prepared to kill her. Bruce was Bruce instead of Hulk. Thor’s hammer hung loose from his fingers. Natasha’s guns were holstered. Steve’s shield was lowered. Even the red dot that had formerly rested on her forehead had lowered to the ground; Bucky wouldn’t take the shot, not yet, not until he was certain.
Darcy still remembered the first time she made Bucky laugh. How his face, always so uncertain, filled with wariness, had cracked, and the smile had made him look ten years younger. He had a contagious laugh; the kind that automatically made her grin and search out a way to make him do it again. It was the first time she saw the guy Steve always talked about with such affection and not the soldier that haunted the hallways. Two years later and she still went out of her way to make him laugh, to make that tough exterior crack. Sometimes she knew he wanted to smile but didn’t, just because he liked how hard she tried, how much attention she gave him without being worried that he might snap. She’d been proud of him when he unofficially joined the team, even if it was usually from a distance, like now, playing sniper.
If she wanted him to kill her, she needed only to threaten Steve. The idea bounced around in her head and she felt it move, twisting up inside her, sending bursts of energy over her fingertips. The problem was finding a viable weapon. A bullet would only work if it was went unseen, unexpected. Bucky was fast. He was the best. But Natasha had shot at her and the bullets were vaporized before they made it close enough. Thor’s hammer never got close enough to do damage and the energy it expelled was only sucked up inside of her, absorbed and then thrown back at him. Steve’s shield bounced off the wall of energy she threw up around her. Clint’s arrows, like the bullets, were destroyed almost as soon as they left his bow. The thing inside her saved her only because it liked her body, it liked how useful she was.
So what were her options? These people, they couldn’t get close enough, their weapons were useless, and they were too emotionally tied to her to do the right thing.
“Darcy?”
She turned at Steve’s voice, but it was Tony that spoke up, still nodding to something Bruce was saying. “You need to come with us, kid. We’ll do a scan, we’ll figure out what it is, take some blood, work out what’s going on… We can get it out of you. At the very least, we can try.”
She stared at him, looking serious and far more sincere than usual. He had a hand raised, even though he was too far back to reach her, but she understood the gesture. Come on, take my hand, let us help you.
Tony called her ‘kid’ the first day he met her. She was twenty-three years old and he told her to get her ‘dirty mitts off all of his shiny, expensive toys.’ But she could see the amusement in his eyes, the pride in how she gravitated and fawned over his inventions. He told her to get back to Jane’s lab and play lab hamster instead of bugging him, but it was all a show. He liked her. He liked her snark and her taste in music and he even put down his tools to talk to her, bringing food and news from the outside world, even if he did complain that she was interrupting genius. He was her friend.
They were all her friends.
She looked at his hand and then down to her own, still sparking with energy, ribbons of it crackling over her skin, rippling up her arms. She turned her hand over and opened her fingers, watching a ball of blue and white sparking energy form in her hand, constantly moving, spinning, molding beneath her fingers, under her guidance.
What are you doing? the voice asked, curious and wary.
What you told me to, she answered.
She turned her fingers back and watched as the energy lengthened from a ball into something long and cylindrical, like a pipe but not quite. She focused on it, on what she wanted it to be, twisting and turning her fingers with purpose until she had a small sword-like instrument, made entirely of moving energy.
“Darcy?” Steve said, a note of worry, of fear, creeping into his voice.
She raised her eyes to meet his and wondered if he could read her intentions.
To attack them would be pointless. They would attack back, maybe, but not fatally, just enough to keep her from hurting them, and they would fail. Both from stopping her and from staying uninjured. When she lost control, and she would, she could feel it building up inside her, it would take her over and it would decimate them. It would destroy everything in its path, anything that posed a threat. It would turn it to dust and ash and laugh as the world as she knew it crumbled under her feet. A dusty cemetery for her to sit high on a throne of death, looking down on it all in triumph.
Because she had shown signs of being able to stop it, they wouldn’t want to hurt her. They would worry too much about her and not what was using her body. And that made up her mind for her.
“I can’t risk you,” she answered.
"This isn't just about you. It's about what's best for all of us…” Steve moved forward, ignoring her when she raised her other hand to keep him back. “I won’t leave you. I won’t walk away. You’re in control. Right now, you have control. So you have to make your choice.” He stared at her searchingly. “Let us help you.”
But they couldn’t help her. They weren’t listening. For people who had seen the worst of the world, they were entirely too optimistic. She supposed that was partly her fault, for always trying to cheer them up, to look on the bright side, to remember that they were heroes and as long as they were around, at least the world had a fighting chance. It seemed all of her sunny positivity was finally coming back to bite her in the ass.
She cast her eyes away from him and toward the others, taking in the grim understanding on Clint’s face. He had to understand, didn’t he? He knew what it felt to be under someone else’s control. To do their bidding, going against every instinct, putting those he cared about in danger. He knew what it was like to be undone, but he, at least, could come back from it. He had the team, he had Natasha, he was putting himself back together. She wouldn’t get that chance. She gave him a short nod before she let her eyes move to Natasha, whose brow was furrowed, her chin tilted to the right, ready to argue. Darcy loved her for it.
If there was more time, if she’d been allowed to plan this out, she would have said her goodbyes. She would have told Natasha that she deserved this life, these friends, that she’d been honored to be her friend, even on those shitty early mornings when Natasha forced her to work out, leaving her bruised and complaining.
She would tell Bruce that he should stop hiding, that he wasn’t just an angry green rage monster, but he was a friend and a scientist and a good man. She would ply him with tea and make him a playlist and tell him to stay zen.
She would snark with Tony and fiddle with his tools and tell him she knew he wasn’t half as annoyed with her as he pretended to be. And then she’d pick his brain and make him laugh and mock his love of classic rock and facial hair.
She would hug Thor and tell him it was okay, that she didn’t expect him to save her, that she wasn’t like Loki and she didn’t want him to remember her like that. She would ask him to look out for Jane and make sure she remembered to eat and sleep and do things other than science. She would tell him sunny days were ahead and that was how it should be.
She would challenge Clint to a Nerf war and ogle his ‘guns’ and tell him to stop holding back and go after Natasha already, that they deserved each other.
She would make Bucky laugh until his ribs hurt. She would stuff him full of homemade pie and make fun of his hobo hair and tell him not to blame himself so much. She’d make him watch shitty reality TV and talk him into dancing with her and mock his awful pick-up lines, even if she was sometimes tempted. And she’d hug him and tell him to watch Steve’s back and tell him it wasn’t his fault and he shouldn’t blame himself.
And Steve. She wouldn’t say goodbye to Steve. She’d tell him his hello was her favorite. She’d hug him longer than a friend should and bury her face in his neck, breathing in that smell of leather and sweat and cologne that was all him. She’d tell him to remember to have a life outside of being a soldier and she’d remind him to keep up on their shows and warn him to never get too close to a stove unless he wanted to kill someone with food poisoning. And then she’d kiss him, because if she was gonna go, she was gonna kiss the guy she loved before she went.
But she didn’t have time for any of that. She didn’t have that option. So she twisted the energy sword in her fingers and she stared at Steve, memorizing every handsome, chiseled, painfully grief-stricken inch of his face.
And then she smiled. “It’s been real,” she said, saluting them even as a tear tripped down her cheek.
Stop! What are you doing?
You told me to kill. So I’m killing. You should probably be more specific next time, asshole.
Darcy didn’t hesitate then; she thrust the energy sword through her own chest, directly through her heart, where it began and ended. She felt her skin give, as if the sword were truly solid, as if it the edges were sharp enough to cut her. She felt it sink through her heart and her blood burn on the fiery dagger that kept its form for only a moment. And then she felt it fizzle out, sucked inside of her. The energy she’d been crackling with, that had spun across her skin like a web shielding her from enemy fire, rippled before it was pulled inside of itself, climbing into to hole in her chest. And she wasn’t sure what it was going to do, if it meant to collect together and burst out of her, taking out everything around her in one final hurrah. But she could feel it building and so she choked out her last words as blood dripped from her lips, “Take the shot.”
“No!” Steve yelled.
She watched the red dot leave the ground, she heard the twang of the bow, and then it was over.
A bullet between the eyes and an arrow to the chest. She was dead before she hit the ground.
Everything went silent. Or maybe that was just Steve, just sound evading his senses as shock rushed through his body.
He hit his knees beside her, shaking, his breath leaving him in a rush, murmuring ‘no, no, no’ under his breath.
“Darcy…” He brushed her tangled hair back from her face, blood dribbling out of the hole and seeping down to pool around her left eye. His breath hitched, a terrible, agonized whine building up in his throat. “Darcy,” he choked out, staring down at her, unmoving, silent, empty. His fingers uselessly hovering over her, searching for some way to fix it, change it, bring her back, but there was nothing he could do. It was over.
The others crowded around them slowly, all but Clint, who kept his distance, and Bucky, who was still high up and far away from the scene. But Steve could hear him in his ear, the choked cry Bucky gave before he ripped his comm. from his ear and threw it away.
“You shouldn’t… touch her,” Bruce managed, his voice thick and stilted. He was fiddling with his hands, vibrating as he struggled to stay calm. “The… thing. Whatever was inside her… It might still be alive. It might be searching for a host. I… We should…” He swallowed tightly, his eyes bouncing from Darcy to the ground as the scientist inside of him tried to focus on facts and not on the very real casualty.
Steve turned to say something, no doubt harsh and cruel, but he stopped, he paused when he saw something climbing up the shaft of the arrow. It was an off-yellow color, like pus, but the texture was jelly-like, and it was moving sluggishly, sliding up the shaft to get away from the body it had escaped from. The host it was abandoning. Steve stared at it and then reached for the bottom of the arrow, snapping it off, his stomach turning when he felt blood squish under his hand. He turned the arrow over and raised it up for them to see.
Natasha produced a bag with the old SHIELD logo on it from somewhere on her person, one of the many pockets on her suit, he was sure. She quickly covered the arrow shaft, sealing the baggie and holding it away from her, between pinched fingers.
“I’ll take it,” Bruce offered, moving forward to take the bag from her hand. “I can… examine it, run tests, find out where it came from and why.”
“I’ll join you,” Tony said, following after him.
Steve looked up and at each of them, wondering what he would find. It wasn’t as if they weren’t her friends. They were. All of them. But they all dealt with grief differently. He wasn’t surprised when Tony took the unaffected route, trying to keep his distance, to walk away before it became too much, too real. And Bruce, who had to control himself or terrible things would happen, needed to focus that grief into something important, something that would give him answers. The two of them walked off, saying nothing more.
Tension hung in the air, a cloud of it, and, as if in answer, the sky finally opened up, sending a torrent of rain pouring down on top of them.
Steve turned to Thor, watching as his face crumbled and he turned from the sight of Darcy, his large frame shaking. He didn’t say a word before he left, disappearing in a blast of lightning and thunder and a billowing red cape.
It was Natasha who took a knee on the other side of Darcy. She didn’t hesitate as she reached down, closing Darcy’s eyes and resting her hand there a long moment. “Ваша дружба была честь, сестра,” she whispered. Her fingers trembled for a moment before she drew them back. She raised her eyes to meet Steve’s. “Don’t be angry with her… She only did what she thought was right.”
He swallowed tightly as he stared back at her. “We could have helped her,” he said, his voice thick. “I…”
“There was nothing you could do.” Natasha lowered her gaze to the woman between them, her brow furrowed. “She struggled. When it had me, when it was trying to kill me, she fought to get the upper hand. I don’t think she was supposed to. Darcy was an enigma. I think it was supposed to conquer her. She was only meant to be a shell. But she was stronger than it expected. She fought back. The only reason we’re alive, the only reason that thing didn’t destroy all of us, is because she wouldn’t let it… But even someone as strong as Darcy can’t hold out forever… She did the only thing she thought she could to save us. Do not dishonor her sacrifice by wondering ‘what if.’”
Steve flinched, his heart clenching tightly in his chest. “So I should just accept it? I should just accept that she’s dead because it was the right thing to do?”
“Not accept. You have to grieve. It’s not… It won’t be easy. But she wouldn’t have done it unless she knew there was no other way.”
“She’s gone, Natasha.” He glared at her, his chin raising stubbornly. “You can’t tell me there wasn’t another way. That somehow, some way, this could have gone differently. That we could have done or said something that would’ve convinced her.”
“The truth is, no ‘what if’ will bring her back. You’ll only torture yourself playing out every scenario.” Natasha stared at him, her own eyes red-rimmed. “She was my friend. I will miss her. We all will. And I know that it’s different for you, that you loved her…” She shook her head. “So grieve and miss her and love her. But don’t blame yourself for something you couldn’t control.”
“I—”
“She loved you, Steve. And she would be the first person in line to tell you not to blame yourself for this.” Pushing up to her feet, she cast a look behind her to Clint and then above, to where she was sure Bucky was. “She wouldn’t blame any of us.”
Turning on her heel, Natasha walked away, and Clint, after taking a moment to stare at Darcy’s prone body, regret and sorrow painted in the lines of his face and heavy in the slouch of his shoulders, moved to follow her.
And then it was hollow and quiet and Steve found himself sitting in the middle of an empty street with his hand buried in the hair of a woman he fell in love with the moment she smiled at him, bright and snarky and full of life and hope. Darcy. With her endless jokes and her witty banter and her love of memes and cats and knitting. Darcy who let him cry on her shoulder when he feared Bucky would never be who he was. Who always knew when he needed space and when he needed a hug. Who preferred sugary cereals and cartoons in the morning to jogging or any physical exercise of any kind. Darcy who went out of her way to take care of them, to show them they were people, that they deserved friendship and forgiveness and understanding. Darcy who snorted when she laughed and chewed on her hair when she was bored and who never saw how amazing and important wonderful she was.
He stared down at her, rain washing away her blood and tears, leaving red streams down her cheeks. He hunched over her and blocked out the rain, trying to rub it all away, trying to find the happy, smiling woman he was used to underneath it all. The woman before it all went sideways. The woman before the host. His friend. His love.
Steve crumbled then, bending his head down to meet hers, his hand cupping her cold cheek as he cried while the other clutched at her shoulder, through her soaked, knit sweater. He trembled with the sob tearing at his throat and fell back to his seat on the ground, pulling her with him, his arm wrapping around her head, fingers tangled in her hair, and the other behind her back. He hugged her, shuddering with the force of his loss, and wondered when he would stop losing people he loved. When good people would stop dying for awful reasons.
It could have been minutes or hours before he felt the heavy hand land on his shoulder. And then Bucky was there, kneeling beside him, chewing on the edge of his thumb, looking at Darcy with haunted, bloodshot eyes.
“’m sorry,” Bucky choked out, looking between them. He clenched his teeth, grinding them, and shook his head. “She told me to do it… I… I had to trust her.” His eyes filled with tears and slipped over the edges, quickly wiped away by Bucky’s shaking hand.
Steve stared at him, and he wanted to be angry. He wanted to blame somebody. But it wasn’t Clint’s fault or Bucky’s or even Darcy’s. The fault laid solely in whatever it was that had used her, that infected her, unaware of just who it was that it was going up against. Not him, not the Avengers, but Darcy herself. There was no more formidable an enemy than her. And he got it then, what Natasha meant. Part of him didn’t want to, it wanted to rage against the injustice of it, but she was right. Darcy had made a choice. And she chose herself. She chose to do what she felt was right, to be the unsung hero she’d always been and save them by being exactly who she was. She was the only one who could fight what lived inside her and so she did. She took herself out of the equation before the enemy could use her to do what she would never do. Hurt others.
And he loved her for it. He loved her even more than he had before, and he hadn’t thought that was possible.
“I know,” he said, to Bucky, yes, but also to Darcy.
He knew why she did it. He knew it had to be done. He knew she wouldn’t want him to blame himself or any of them. He knew it was her choice and there wasn’t any other option. He knew she loved him and that she would do it all over again if given the chance.
But knowing didn’t make it hurt any less. It didn’t make the crack in his heart mend itself. It didn’t make that part of him that was quickly becoming hollow any more full. Darcy was gone. She was gone, and he never even got a chance to tell her he loved her. And maybe she knew. Maybe she’d always known. He’d never really know for sure. It was just another pointless ‘what if’ to add to the pile.
So instead he just held her and he leaned against Bucky and he cried.
For her, and him, and every life she’d touched and never would again.
{end.}