Chapter Text
Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die
Chapter One: The Running Ladies
May 2016
When it came down to it, the decision of where to settle had been out of Darcy's hands completely. It had fallen to the stars.
Sure, she had argued passionately with Jane about how the Sokovia Accords were just another World Security Council/SHIELD/Hydra mess waiting to be corrupted. When the Black Widow had aired SHIELD’s dirty laundry in 2014, Darcy had quickly found all of the files that referenced her and Jane specifically. It was clear that Hydra had big plans for both of them. Jane had been off world at the time with Thor, but when she came back and Darcy had returned to her with the news, Jane had been less than pleased.
Since then, Darcy had made sure to stay up to date on the world’s governing powers, religiously hacking in and setting up protocols that would tell her when she, Jane, Thor or Selvig where on the radar. She had gotten wind of the Accords two months ago, and had been very worried ever since. She doubted Thor would appreciate being told what to do and when to do it.. But Jane felt that the Accords might do some good. Darcy had tried to convince her otherwise. She had even had one full day where she attempted to make her point by enacting the Darcy Accords.
'Sorry Janie, can't get that box of poptarts from the kitchens for you. Have to wait for approval before I can move.'
'No, I HAD to go and watch that new cartoon movie five times in a row. It was orders from up on high. No free will here, or else I'll be labeled a vigilante."
'Please fill out the following paper work before you speak to me. We have to make sure that you'll be safe in your interactions with me.'
But Jane had been unimpressed. Especially when they finally arrived at the Avenger's facility after a six month college lecture tour to find her new lab completely destroyed. From what intelligence Darcy could gather from her many insider information providers, the Winter Soldier had been through the facility less than thirty-six hours prior to Jane and Darcy's arrival at the new Avenger's facility.
Darcy had also learned that there was a definitive split between the Avengers after all the dust settled. More than half of them were imprisoned for siding with Captain Rogers. The only super heroes left at the facility were Vision, Tony and Rhodey. Tony had eschewed talking to Darcy, a first for him, as he focused on building an exoskeleton to assist Rhodey. Vision was moping and was hardly helpful in explaining anything that had happened in the span of a week. He simply took the blame for Rhodey’s injuries and stared longingly at the kitchen.
When she and Jane had agreed to move to the facility, it had been under the conditions that a full house of heroes would be there to protect Thor’s favorite ladies in his absence. But Steve Rogers was on the run with Bucky Barnes, Natasha was nowhere to be found, and Clint was in some superhero prison with Wanda and Sam.
Darcy’s thoughts strayed to Clint’s family. They were surely safe on the farm. Darcy knew that. But they were alone, and probably worried out of their skulls. She had tried to call roughly fifty times in the span of four hours, but no one answered.
So when Darcy’s phone rang with an unknown number, she automatically picked up.
“What can I do for you, big sister?” she asked in Russian.
“Be ready to move in the next six hours.” Came the answer in Farsi, and the call immediately disconnected.
Darcy sighed. It was time to bring out the big guns to get Jane ready to move.
“Pack up Janie. We’re out of here,” Darcy ordered as she stopped Jane from the cleaning of the wreckage of her lab.
“Darcy, we can find you new eye candy to look at,” Jane promised, waving off Darcy’s surprisingly strong little hands as the slightly shorter former intern tried to pull her away. “We can’t just run off because Captain Rogers is gone.”
“We’re not safe here,” Darcy insisted. “The Black Widow isn’t here. I would like to go to wherever she is, and I’m sure Thor would feel the same for you.”
"Neither side would do anything to hurt me," Jane said confidently, as only the chosen future bride and queen of Asgard could. "My new lab is here."
Darcy heaved a sigh. If she was going to stay wrapped up in the land of hot superheroes and ridiculous danger, she would much rather prefer to be in the company of people who actually wanted to do something about the ridiculous danger. It had taken the former intern and current lab manager a little deep digging and more than a little hacking to get her trump card she had been saving to finally get Jane to see reason. She’d been holding on to it for weeks, waiting for the time to be right.
Because Jane was expected to abide by the Sokovia Accords as well. Any other worldly information she had obtained would have to be dissected by a specially selected panel of the United Nations, and if it was deemed safe enough, then and only then could she think about publishing it. If she wanted to DEVELOP new technology, she had a couple thousand forms to fill out, and then at least a two year wait until a different specially selected panel would decide whether or not she could do anything.
For the world's safety, of course.
Darcy handed her a tablet with the section regarding Jane, highlighting the good (super awful) stuff.
“You’ll be expected to sign if we stay,” Darcy gave Jane a calm, commiserating look. “I wouldn’t joke about this Jane. We have to get out of here.”
"DO THEY FORGET IT WAS MY TECH THAT SAVED LONDON A FEW YEARS AGO?" Jane demanded hotly, the thought of having to answer to over 100 nations whenever she wanted to stargaze finally getting to her.
"Oh, also, here are the meteorology reports from Wakanda for the last two years, indexed and filtered for your normal sweet spots," Darcy tried to hide her smug grin, but failed miserably. "Looks like you might get better readings in Africa. And I don’t know for sure, but I think that’s where we’re going."
"Okay, alright. You were right," Jane sighed. "Let me go shout at Heimdall so he can let Thor and Bruce know where we are."
"I'm sorry, hold the phone, Janie," Darcy held up her hands, palms facing out. Her gap toothed grin was so wide that she had a demented look about her. "Repeat that phrase you put in there. Nice and slow, you know how I like it. Do it. Do it now, Janie. Do it now."
"You. Were. Riiiiiiight," Jane rolled her eyes, tossing Darcy the middle finger before rushing from the lab. She called out over her shoulder with no small amount of amusement, "Hey Lab Manager, start packing!"
"Ugh, no!" Darcy whined. She looked around at Jane's messy lab, with her cobbled together proprietary tech, volumes of hand written notes that were strewn everywhere, and approximately enough star charts to blanket all of the football fields in the world. "Wakanda is like---the richest country in the world. I'm sure the King will swing for some new stuff!"
As it turned out, their exit from the Avenger's facility and the United States of America as a whole, was so covert and secretive and sudden that Darcy had no time to pack up Jane's lab. Three hours after Darcy’s very brief phone call with Natasha, she had received an ominous text message from an unknown number with coordinates.
She had at least managed to grab her and Jane's bug out bags before grabbing the doctor herself that was just finishing up with Heimdall at Thor's landing spot on the front lawn. She grabbed Jane's arm and yanked the tiny astrophysicist towards the car they had arrived in. She hoped they had enough gas to drive the two hundred odd miles to the coordinates.
“What did Vision say?” Jane wondered, knowing that the maroon skinned superhero had approached Darcy on their way back to their well used Jeep.
“To tell her sorry?” Darcy shrugged. “So many things must have gone down, Janie. I don’t think we know half the story.”
“But that’s why I have you. To find out the rest of the story,” Jane reminded her.
“Well, I’ll need a little more time,” Darcy huffed out. “It only happened---like, yesterday. And I think Natasha will have a lot of answers for us.”
“She always does,” Jane nodded. Natasha had been indispensable to the two women since the Chitauri Attack in 2012.
But finally meeting up with Natasha exactly six hours after Darcy’s initial contact with her only raised way more questions for Jane. They ambled onto the quinjet to find Natasha behind the controls, and in the co-pilot seat was a small boy, about ten years old. In the cargo hold was an overabundance of luggage and a few rubbermaid totes. But most interestingly was the woman sitting in a very old rocking chair tied down to the floor of the jet, rocking a toddler while another little girl pranced around her.
“Uhmmmm,” Jane’s noise of confusion slowly went upwards.
“AUNTIE DAR-DAR!” the little girl squealed in excitement.
“Lila! Hey kiddo, are you having fun?” Darcy questioned.
“So much fun, but mommy cried when we had to leave the farm,” Lila patted her mother’s shoulder soothingly. “We’re going to Africa!”
“I thought as much,” Darcy nodded.
“Darce?” Jane questioned.
“This is Doctor Jane Foster,” Darcy pointed to a confused Jane. “She’s Thor’s favorite person and she knows everything about stars and space and physics.”
“Really?” the little boy questioned, rushing from the cockpit to look at Jane. “Like, do you know about Kelu-1?”
Jane grinned in relief. She had been expecting the little boy to ask questions about Thor. She would have no problem talking about stars.
“Nerd time later, Cooper,” Darcy advised. she pointed out each member of Clint's family as she introduced them, “So, Lila, Cooper, Nathaniel...and this is the super lucky woman that married Clint Barton. Other than that, she’s very nice and awesomely brilliant. I’ve forgiven her for her moment of weakness.”
“You never told me,” Jane pouted at Darcy.
“Top secret,” Darcy shrugged. “And also, you abandoned me to go planet hopping with Thor when Shield was burnt to the ground. Clint grabbed me before Hydra could and took me to his house. I was their favorite babysitter.”
“We like Uncle Steve more now,” Lila told her with a silly little smirk.
“RUDE!” Darcy gasped in mock indignation.
“You should get married and you can both be our favorites,” Lila shrugged, her little smirk turning into something way more Natasha-like than should be necessary. “Mommy and Daddy talked about it last Christ---”
“Lila, hush,” Laura said quickly, her cheeks flushing just slightly, looking a little like she had gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She gave a weak smile Jane’s way and said, “It’s nice to finally meet you. Thor spoke of you last year when he spent some time at my house.”
“Okay, Cooper, now you can nerd out while I talk to Aunt Nat,” Darcy gave Laura a swift, strong hug before popping kisses on top of all of the kid’s heads. She would have time to interrogate the children later and find out just what Clint and Laura had been up to. For now there were more important things to find out. She hopped into the co-pilot chair and began reaching for buttons, pouting when Natasha swatted at her hands. “So...the weather has been wacky this week.”
Natasha rolled her eyes. “I screwed up. Things got out of hand.”
“I told you the Accords were bad news,” Darcy sighed.
“They needed someone on the other side who could help them,” Natasha insisted. "I know just how awful the Accords would have been."
“Okay, so where are we going?” Darcy wondered.
“I’ve been in contact with T’Challa, he’s forgiven me for trying to electrocute him,” Natasha admitted. “He’s willing to offer us all his protection.”
“Wakanda it is,” Darcy nodded. She had seen pictures of T'Challa. She was more than ready to sign up for that protection. She'd sign up a couple of hundred times.
“But first, we have a stop to make,” Natasha looked down at a cellphone as a text came in. “I’m going to need you to brush off those keyboard skills, we have a very high tech security system to take down.”
“Sounds fun!” Darcy shrugged, going for the cellphone and reading the text. “Who is Spangles?”
“Who do you think?” Natasha rolled her eyes.
The text from Spangles was simple enough. A set of coordinates prior to a short message.
Twenty-five armed guards. Will need electronic support. 1900 hours.
Darcy took a deep breath and nodded, trying not to let her face betray her very warranted nerves. Sure, she was great with a computer. But she would have to be great with a computer and four Avengers lives, plus Natasha and Captain Rogers were going to be relying on her. She sighed very softly and nodded, “We’re busting the other Avengers out of superhero jail?”
“Looks like it.”