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Before she could read her words, she thought they were beautiful. They were small and trailed elegantly from her right shoulder, following along her collarbone and ending just under the hollow of her throat. Darcy was four the first time she read and understood what they meant. She went and asked her mom if she maybe read her words wrong or if they meant something else than what she thought, but her mother told her she read and understood the words correctly. She spent the day sobbing in her room. She’s five when her kindergarten teacher sees her words. It’s summer and her mom made her wear a long sleeve shirt to school. Darcy starts to get hot so she simply takes her long sleeve shirt off leaving her in the tank top she had on underneath. Darcy let’s out a content sigh as she immediately feels cooler. Miss Karen is walking around the class checking on students. They’re supposed to draw pictures of what they want to do on their summer break, Darcy’s drawing the beach. When Miss Karen reaches her and crouches down beside her, she gets a look at the words on her shoulder. Miss Karen gasps as she reads the words on her skin. When Darcy looks over at her she’s staring at Darcy’s words, hand over her mouth and a sad expression on her face. Darcy puts her long sleeved shirt back on and doesn’t say anything for the rest of class. Darcy is six when Missy Turnit and Jacob Gredle meet on the first day of first grade, they’re soulmates. A few months later Missy calls her weird because all the girls are sharing words and Darcy won’t show them hers. Missy tells her not even her soulmate will want her because of how weird she is. Darcy punches her in the face. She gets suspended for 3 days because she refused to apologize and her mom grounds her for a month. Darcy smiles even as her knuckles ache, worth it. When Darcy is seven when her mom talks to her about her own soulmate, Robin. She tells Darcy that she’d met him when they were both in second grade. Her mom tells her about how he was hit by a car when they were in high school. She tells her that she’d never felt anything as painful as losing him and she’s never loved anyone else. She tells Darcy that no matter what her soulmate says she’ll love him. She tells Darcy it’s probably some misunderstanding that she’ll laugh about one day. Darcy doesn’t really want to think about soulmates right now so she asks about something else. She asks her mother about her father. She gives her the same answer as always. He’s a man she knew in college and only spent one night with. They never saw each other again and never would. She’s disappointed about not learning more about her dad and has confusing feelings about soulmates. She doesn’t think her words are a mistake or misunderstanding. Her mom says that she’ll love her soulmate no matter what, Darcy doesn’t know if she wants that. She falls asleep that night with a head full of questions and no answers. She’s eight when she finds her mother in the bathtub. Deana Lewis is buried beside her soulmate. Darcy hopes she finds the peace she never found in life in whatever afterlife there is. Maybe she’s with Robin again. Darcy goes to live with her grandpa in Virginia.Darcy is nine when grandpa gives her his own soulmate talk. He takes her on a drive out into a clearing in the woods of the property. The clearing is what grandpa uses as a shooting range. He has a few targets set up at the other end of the clearing. He shows Darcy how to clean and handle the gun. Makes her take it apart and put it together a few times then shows her how to shoot. As he teaches her how to shoot a gun, he talks. He talks about his own words and soulmate. His words were grey meaning it was a platonic match. His soulmate, Gregg was his best friend. He died before Darcy was born. But grandpa tells her about how they were closer than brothers. Grandpa tells her that she doesn’t need words to know what that kind of love is like. Grandpa tells her about how he loved grandma, more than anything. Even loved her more than Gregg despite the fact that the two of them didn’t share words. Grandpa tells Darcy again that she doesn’t need her words to know love, hoping she’ll believe him. Darcy is silent through the one sided conversation and after, not knowing what to say. But Darcy can’t help but think his words sound more right than anything else she’s ever heard about soulmates. When Grandpa decides they’re done shooting for the day, they start to pack up their things. Before they get in the truck he gives her one last thing to think over. “Darcy, you don’t need a soulmate for anything. A soulmate is someone by your side who will always love you, that’s what it’s supposed to be anyway. But, you don’t need a soulmate to fall in love or be happy. The words just point us to someone who might be a good match for us, but I think even the universe has to be wrong sometimes.”When Darcy is ten she contemplates buying a box of blonde hair dye with her allowance. Grandpa finds her standing in the aisle staring at the boxes. He puts a firm hand on her shoulder and steers her away from the boxes of dye. “You don’t need that, Darcy girl.” He says as he guides her over to the cereal aisle of the store. Darcy is eleven when she’s back standing in the hair dye aisle. She uses her allowance to buy a box of hair dye. Grandpa helps her do it and she has purple hair by dinner. She dyes her hair back to brown a few months later, she liked the purple but just felt so much more Darcy with her brown hair. Darcy is twelve, with her hips and chest constantly getting bigger when she skips her first meal. She starts skipping more meals, cutting up her food real small at dinner pretending to eat, occasionally forcing the food back up when she actually does eat what’s on her plate. She tries to so hard to hide it, and she’s successful for a while. She makes it look like she’s eaten, runs the water in the bathroom so gramps won’t hear her forcing the food back up on the occasions she does eat, she hides the dizziness and has been lucky enough to have been home alone the few times she’s fainted from lack of food. But eventually, he notices. He calls her down to the living room, and that night there’s a very long, serious and emotional conversation. Darcy starts trying to eat again and Grandpa starts taking her to see a therapist once a week. Grandpa tells her there’s no shame in it, he tells her about how he struggled after getting home from Vietnam and how seeing a therapist helped him cope and learn to heal. Dr. Garner starts to help Darcy heal wounds she didn’t even realize she had and she continues to see him even after she’s began to eat regular meals again, even though gramps had told she no longer had to. Dr. Garner’s wife, Melinda, starts to teach Darcy self defence after taking a liking to her when they met in Dr. Garner’s office. She thinks Melinda might be a spy, she’s a really good fighter and is leaving frequently to go on ‘work trips’ which she often returns from with cuts and bruises. But Darcy knows better than to ask. Melinda helps her heal in a way Dr. Garner can’t. She teaches her so much beyond how to fight. Darcy wants to be her when she grows up. Darcy is thirteen when she decides that if her soulmate doesn’t want her, after they meet she’ll tattoo over her soulmark so it’ll move and hopefully be in a less visible place. When Darcy is fourteen she graduates high school early and leaves for university. She’s going to the same university her mother attended before dropping out to have her. The same one where her mother met whoever her father is. Her grandpa makes her promise to call every Sunday, Melinda gives her a taser and Dr. Garner tells her to call anytime. Darcy is fifteen when a minor- okay maybe not so minor explosion happens in the chemistry lab. Luckily, Darcy hacked and looped the campus security cameras before sneaking into the chemistry lab after hours. No one at the school knows what happened so the school had no other option but to drop the investigation. Darcy is much more careful about sneaking into the labs. Darcy is sixteen when she finishes her bachelors degrees and starts on her masters. Her professors and advisor have always tried to tell her that she should work at a slower pace so she doesn’t burn herself out but Darcy knows if she doesn’t have a full schedule she’ll get bored. Finally after seeing her obtain her bachelors degrees without burning out or breaking down they’ve stopped hounding her to take a break. Darcy is seventeen when Melinda comes to visit her. Darcy just walks into her small single dorm and finds her sitting on her bed. Darcy can tell that something is very wrong but Melinda doesn’t say anything. Darcy knows she doesn’t want to talk, if she did she’d be with her husband. Darcy just drops her bag on the floor and sits beside her on the bed. She holds Melinda’s hand, letting her know she’s there and cares for her without being overbearing. Eventually Melinda’s shoulders start to shake as she folds in on herself. Melinda’s never been much of a hugger but Darcy knows she needs one. She holds Melinda for hours as she sobs. She wonders what horrific thing happened to make Melinda May, the strongest women she knows, collapse. Darcy does not want to ever be a spy if it makes Melinda break down. Eventually Melinda peels herself away from Darcy, wipes her tears, gives Darcy a quick kiss on the forehead and leaves without saying a word.A month later it’s all over the news that Tony Stark is missing. Students around her talk about trying to figure out where he is, that if they find him then he’ll have give them a job at Stark Industries. She thinks them wanting to find him only to make him give them a job is disgusting. After no sign of him for almost three months, Darcy decides to see if she can find anything. She wants to help, and she’s never been able to resist a challenge. She hacks a few things she shouldn’t have and finds some evidence of dealings between Obadiah Stane and a terrorist group called the ten rings. Obadiah Stane is also the one who would inherit Stark Industries if Tony Stark died. Maybe it’s a stretch in thinking he had something to do with Tony Stark’s disappearance, maybe he’s just a greedy asshole who is comfortable making illegal weapons deals if it further lines his pockets, but it’s the only lead she’s found. Darcy sends what she found to the personal email address she found for Tony Stark and hopes it doesn’t get deleted or put in a junk folder. She can’t find the exact location of where the ten rings operate out of but she sends in an anonymous tip to a Colonel Rhodes to look into the organization. A week later Tony Stark is found alive. A little bit after that, Obadiah Stane is reported to have mysteriously died in a plane crash right after Tony Stark as Iron Man was seen fighting a larger Iron Man like robot. Darcy’s pretty sure that robot was actually Stane inside of a suit based off Tony’s Iron Man one, trying to finish Stark off. After everything with the ten rings, and finding out about Stane, Tony looks at his personal email. The only people who currently have it are Pepper and Rhodey so he’s not really expecting anything, it’s one of the few times he’s wrong. He finds an email with evidence of Stane making illegal weapons deals with the ten rings. If he’d just checked his fucking email he could’ve figured it all out sooner. Tony tells JARVIS to track down whoever sent the email. A few minutes later JARVIS informs him that he can’t trace the email to anyone. It worries him a bit. Someone is out there who obviously hacked into secure Stark Industries files, he’s the only one who’s supposed to be able to do that! Tony and JARVIS try to trace the email but even their combined efforts turn up nothing. Tony finally admits defeat after three days, whoever it is sent him evidence against Stane so it seems like they’re at least on his side. Tony instructs JARVIS to let him know if any other emails like that one turn up and moves onto another project. Darcy Lewis is eighteen when she meets her soulmate.
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Darcy’s feeling a bit dazed as she walks across campus after leaving her advisors office. She did it. She’s got her master degrees. Opting out of doing the whole walking across the stage thing, all there’s left for her to do now is go home and wait for her fancy pieces of paper to come in the mail. As Darcy walks to her dorm she thinks about what she’s going to do now. She’s gotten a couple job offers. But she was also accepted into a political science program that she’s interested in, and it would only take her a year to get her bachelors degree with the credits she already has. She’s just not sure what it is she wants to do. Darcy thinks about the pros and cons lists she made for each option trying to decide what choice to make. She’s startled out of her thoughts by suddenly being handed a flyer that she accepts blindly out of habit. Once back in her dorm Darcy makes a call to Gramps to tell him the news, and books her flight home for the day after tomorrow. While Darcy begins to pack she takes a look at the flyer that she’d blindly tossed on her desk when she walked in. Apparently there’s a frat party tomorrow night. She just finished at M.I.T., she deserved some fun didn’t she?********Darcy learned early on not to let others see her words, which left her with quite the limited wardrobe. Sweaters and t-shirts were what she had to wear the majority of the time to keep the words covered. But she did have one dress for parties, and she went to them infrequently enough that no one noticed she always wore the same dress. The dress was red, tight, just above mid-thigh, and most importantly had a high neckline and long sleeves that covered her words. Darcy was wearing the dress and a pair of converse now, dancing in the living room of a frat house to the beat of some horrible techno music with a bunch of strangers. Deciding to grab a drink Darcy makes her way out of the living room serving as the dance floor and heads to the kitchen. There’s a table of snacks and a couple kegs of beer out in the backyard. But Darcy has a flight to catch tomorrow so she isn’t drinking tonight. The kitchen is much quieter than the living room and it’s surprisingly empty. Grabbing a can of coke out of the fridge Darcy leans against the counter, opens her drink and takes a sip. She’s enjoying her brief respite from the party when the kitchen door swings open. Johnny Storm walks in with a girl on his arm. They don’t even notice she’s there and immediately start making out right in the doorway of the kitchen, which is also the only way out of the kitchen. Darcy loudly sighs and rolls her eyes at the display, drawing Johnny’s attention, his eyes open and flicker to her even though his tongue is still in the blonde girl’s mouth. Noticing he’s looking at her, Darcy fakes throwing up so he knows she’s not enjoying the display. He makes a choked noise then separates from the blonde, laughing. He shakes his head amusedly at her and then drags the girl with him out of the room. As he leaves Darcy can’t help but think that even though they didn’t talk, he didn’t seem to be as much of an asshole as everyone says. **********A couple hours later the party is still going and Darcy is upstairs looking for a bathroom. Opening the second door on the left of the hall she finds Johnny Storm lying in a bed with two girls asleep beside him. Unfortunately for her, Storm is still awake. And he’s looking right at her with one of his stupid blonde eyebrows raised. “Uh- yikes. Sorry. Didn’t mean to walk in on that. Um- could you tell me where the bathroom is?” Darcy says trying to make the situation less awkward and hoping he’s drunk enough to forget this even happened in the morning. She’s not sure what changes but after she speaks he just seems, colder. And he begins looking at her like she’s a bug under a microscope. Like he’s examining her. Darcy can’t help shifting in her place, uncomfortable under his gaze. “No. This? This isn’t going to work. You can’t be my soulmate! You’re not even my type! I prefer my women tall, blonde and thin.” He says the words quickly with a cold harshness in his tone while gesturing to the girls sleeping beside him to emphasize his ”type”. It takes Darcy a second to realize what he said, to realize he said her words. Once she does, all she can feel is anger. Standing up straight, Darcy looks him directly in the eye. “I don’t want or need an asshole for a soulmate.” She tells him before she turns around and slams the door behind her. Momentarily she thinks she might have seen a flash of regret in his eyes right before she left but she knows it’s just wishful thinking. He doesn’t want her. He made it very clear. And she had meant what she said. She doesn’t want or need an asshole for a soulmate. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Her own fucking soulmate doesn’t want her. It feels as if her chest is going to cave in on itself from the weight of her pain. Darcy is luckily able to make it back to her dorm before breaking down, but as soon as her door is shut she feels her legs collapse under her. Darcy falls asleep crying on the floor. She wakes up from the cold after only half an hour of sleep, manages to take off her clothes and crawl into her bed before she starts to sob again. Tonight, she tells herself, tonight she can break and sob and tomorrow she’ll pick the pieces back up. **********When Darcy’s alarm goes off in the morning, there’s a brief moment where she’s on the edge of sleeping and being awake where she doesn’t remember what happened last night. And then she wakes up. She’s got a crying hangover, her eyes are swollen and her head is pounding. Her hands won’t stop shaking and all she wants to do is curl into a ball and cry, but she can’t. Darcy has shit to do now, she’ll fall apart later. Her flight home is in only three hours she’s got to be on her way to the airport in thirty minutes or she’ll end up being late. Darcy throws on some sweatpants and a t-shirt, shoves her last few unpacked belongings into her suitcases, and calls a cab to take her to the airport. On the bright side, she’ll never have to see him again. And she knows what her plans for the near future are now. **********Darcy can feel herself starting to fall apart again with each step closer to the house. By the time she’s standing on the porch her hands are shaking so badly she knows she won’t be able to unlock the door. Raising a shaking hand Darcy knocks on the front door. Suddenly Gramps is there, standing in the doorway. He’s saying something but Darcy can’t hear what he’s saying despite only standing a foot away from him. Her knees buckle, but it’s okay because Gramps is there. And he’s holding her up and guiding her into the house. Darcy knows he’s telling her comforting things even if she can’t hear the words over her loud sobs that shake her whole body. Darcy is only vaguely aware of Gramps gently pushing her down to sit on the couch. Her mind is consumed by her pain, unable to think of anything else.
Why couldn’t she be enough? Why would she be given a soulmate that didn’t want her? She’s never read about any cases of soulmates not wanting each other. Why did she have to be the first one not wanted? What was so wrong with her that she repulsed her soulmate? God fucking dammit! She knew this would happen. No matter what others had tried to tell her. She knew her soulmate wouldn’t want her. So why did it hurt so much?
Why can’t she breathe?
She feels Gramps’ hands cupping her face, forcing her to look him in the eye.
“Hey, hey, come on Darcy girl. Just look at me. Breathe okay? Watch me and just breathe, Darcy. Deep breaths, sweetie. Just breathe.” He says to her trying to soothe her. Her breathing starts to even out and the burning feeling in her lungs eases. As Darcy opens her mouth to draw in a breath she is overwhelmed with pain. It feels like she’s being burned alive. Instead of drawing in a breath Darcy let’s out a horrific scream.
What’s happening to her?
She’s aware of nothing but her pain, the heat she feels burning through her veins. She claws at her arm trying to pull out her veins, trying to stop the pain at any cost. She feels hands pulling her hand off her arm and holding her down. She feels her body arch, fighting against the hands as she screams again at a new onslaught of pain. She feels..... cold. And it’s so much worse than the burning. She simultaneously feels like she’s burning alive and freezing from the inside out. Too hot, too cold, so much pain.
What’s happening to her?
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Johnny Storm is awaken late afternoon by a startled shriek. Ugh, his head hurts like a bitch. Letting out a groan Johnny reluctantly rolls from his stomach onto his back and opens his eyes to see what’s going on. He finds one of the girls from last night staring at him and nearly crying. “What?” Johnny asks getting annoyed. “Your- your soulmark. It was black last night.” Mindy, or is it Cindy? Whatever her name is says to him. “Obviously. What’s your point here?” “It’s- I- just go look.” Getting up Johnny walks to the full length mirror he has in the corner of his room and turns around to see the soulmark that rests on his back. His soulmark is faded, like an old worn sign. The mark of a dead soulmate.
**********
The pain is cut off so abruptly it takes her a few seconds to realize she no longer feels as if every atom of her being is being torn apart. It’s takes her longer to realize she no longer feels the hardwood floor beneath her back. She can’t feel anything at all beneath her. Opening her eyes slowly Darcy sees the night sky above her; the stars look impossibly close. Why is she outside? Darcy turns her head to see where she is and let’s out a quick shrill shriek when she does. There is nothing but an infinite amount of stars stretching on for eons in every direction. There’s no ground, no fucking earth in sight. She’s somehow suspended in fucking space! Which would have been pretty cool if she had any idea what the hell was going on. Darcy pinches herself and rules out this being a hallucination or very vivid dream when she feels the slight pain. But she can’t really be in space, she can’t be. Wherever she is does not obey the typical rules of space. She’s breathing fine and can make noise meaning there’s oxygen, space is a vacuum. So, where the hell is she?
“You’re in the astral plane, dear.” Darcy jumps slightly in surprise at the unexpected sound of three ominous voice speaking simultaneously.
Darcy watches three blurry forms materialize in front of her. They look as if they’re made of the stars themselves.
“Who the hell are you? What’s going on?” Darcy demands wanting answers.
“We are the Norns. The fates. The three. We have many names through out the universes.”
Darcy opens her mouth to say something but is cut off by the self proclaimed Norns speaking in perfect unison once again.
“You will have your explanation, but do not interrupt. Perhaps you are unwilling to believe but look around you, we brought you here. Do you need anymore proof? We have seen all that has been, what is, and what will be. Well, almost all. You, Darcy Lewis of Midgard have been a mystery to us for eons. We waited for your birth for many years, curious about you. It has been so long since we’ve been curious about anything. We see all, we know all, but your destiny somehow managed to evade our gaze.
We do not decide people’s destiny as many believe, we are simply the witnesses of the universes. We see it all at once, past, present, future, time does not matter to us. You are the one exception, the one who’s fate we do not know. So many paths are laid before you, we do not know which of the billions you will take. And because of you and the impact you’ve had on the lives of others, some of the destinies around you have been blurred to our gazes. Perhaps that is a good thing, perhaps it is not. That remains to be seen. But that, is not the reason you are here in the astral plane with us. The soulmark you wear on your skin was the one that had the best chance of being your soulmate when you were born. That percent lowered to 0.3% before you were 5. You are the first soulmark we have ever gotten wrong. That is the reason you are here, Darcy Lewis of Midgard.
The soulmarks are an ancient duty and magic that was entrusted to us. Never, in all of these millennia have we failed in our most sacred duty of bestowing soulmarks, we are not about to start that practice now. It would ordinarily be impossible to remove a soulmark, magic or not. But you, Darcy Lewis of Midgard have never quite been ordinary. You have the blood of an ancient species in you. An ancient species that is the only species to bear no soulmarks at all. All species with soulmarks have those few who are happier without a soulmate, but there is only one species to have no soulmarks at all. Your blood is very diluted, more midgardian than not. But enough to serve our purpose. The pain you were experiencing was the result of us awakening the dormant genes inside your DNA. There may be some, what’s the midgardian term? Side effects? Unforeseen circumstances may arise with the awakening of your dormant genes.”
Darcy swore she saw the Norns or whoever they are fucking shrug.
“You will no longer bare any soulmark until the moment you meet your soulmate or soulmates and exchange words. The extra magic we have threaded through your awakened DNA will only recognize soulmates that are without a doubt your fated, there will not be another error. Once they speak your words they will write themselves into your skin and once you speak theirs the same will happen.”
Suddenly the Norns or whoever they were all simultaneously looked to their left, seemingly seeing something she didn’t.
“We must go now. We have told you what you need to know. Good fortune to you, Darcy Lewis of Midgard.”
*********
Darcy Lewis woke up with one thought ringing through her head.
What the actual fuck just happened?
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Between one blink and the next Darcy finds herself looking at the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling of her room at home rather than the stars of the cosmos. Darcy doesn’t want to, she can’t think about what just happened. She just, she doesn’t want think at all right now. She feels as if she can barely even breathe. It feels like she’s being crushed, like there’s an unidentifiable weight suffocating her. Perhaps it’s the weight of what her future might hold if what just happened wasn’t just some pain induced hallucination. Perhaps it’s just the weight of pain and rejection. Perhaps it’s fear that she really does have another chance at a soulmate, that she’ll have to feel this pain of rejection from her soulmate all over again. Darcy begins to sob, too overwhelmed to do anything else right now. Tears uncontrollably fall from her eyes, her nose runs, loud sobs escape her and she’s unable to care about the noise, her breaths are shaky and shallow right on the verge of hyperventilating. Darcy rolls on her side and curls into a ball as her mind whirls and she’s overcome with a hundred different emotions at once. Darcy is so consumed by thoughts she doesn’t want to have and feelings she wishes she didn’t feel she doesn’t even question that she was moved from the living room floor to her bed at some point. She doesn’t even notice Gramps sitting in a chair by her bed watching her and not knowing what to do.Darcy jerks in surprise when her hand is unexpectedly grabbed in a tight grip. “Darcy girl, I don’t know what to do. Let me help you. Tell me what you need.” Gramps says to her in the most desperate voice she’s ever heard escape him as he holds her hand. Her mouth opens a little but all she gets out is a high pitched noise before the sobs over take. Darcy makes herself move over a bit to the other side of her bed. She pulls on Gramps’ hand until he gets the hint and lies down beside her. Felix Lewis holds his granddaughter as she sobs unrelentingly. He’s reminded of the many nights he held her just like this when she’d first come to live with him. Back then it was the reoccurring nightmares about when she found Deana dead that tormented her, now, he has no clue what it is that’s hurting his little girl so much. He feels just as useless now as he did then, just holding her and hoping whatever pain his little Darcy feels goes away. ***********When Darcy wakes up next, she spends an unknown amount of time just staring at the glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling that are no longer glowing in the daylight filled room. Gramps left at some point after she fell asleep. She’s glad because she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to tell him happened now. God, she isn’t even sure she knows what happened last night. She would have gladly dismissed it all as some kinda of hallucination her brain conjured up to help her cope with being probably the first person ever to be rejected by their soulmate. But the first thing Darcy had done upon waking up was take off the oversized sweater she wore that was over heating her, leaving her in the simple light blue tank top she wore underneath. The next thing she did was take off the incredibly uncomfortable bra she ended up unfortunately sleeping in as fast as possible without having to take off her shirt as well. And then, that was when she noticed it. Her soulmark was gone. The skin usually marred with those cruel words was now blank of the harsh, jagged print. She hadn’t gotten out of bed to look in the mirror yet, to see herself without those words for the first time. She was terrified that as soon as she looked in the mirror they’d reappear as clear and stark against her skin as ever. She was also just as terrified that when she looked in the mirror, her soulmark would really be gone. The disappearance of that mark meant that she didn’t have a pain induced hallucination or some psychotic break last night. It meant that last night she really did meet the ‘Norns’, the ‘Fates’ or whatever other names they went by. She really didn’t want to think about what either situation meant for her, she only knew she wanted to avoid facing reality for a little longer. So, Darcy remained in her bed, doing her best to ignore her bladder screaming at her, because she was terrified of both answers to the question she was too afraid to ask. When Darcy can no longer ignore her protesting bladder she slowly gets up and makes her way to the bathroom across the hall from her room. She keeps her eyes on the floor the whole time, to avoid catching sight of her reflection in any mirrors she passes. Darcy does what it is she needs to do and washes her hands afterwards with her eyes still downcast to avoid the mirror over the sink. She cups her clean hands under cold running water. She closes her eyes and splashes the cold water on her face. Darcy takes a few deep breaths with her eyes still closed while her face drip dries over the sink. “Fuck it.” Darcy mutters to herself before she forces herself to open her eyes and looks straight ahead, right at her own reflection. She’s not wearing her glasses, but she can see clearly enough to know she no longer has a soulmark. She closes her eyes again, just taking a minute to try to calm her racing thoughts. What’s the worst that could happen? You’ve already been rejecting by one supposed soulmate, what’s another? Darcy thinks bitterly to herself. She goes back into her room and crawls back into her bed, where she buries herself under her blanket. Darcy allows herself to think now. About the implications of everything that’s happened since she arrived home. She’s safe on her bed and under the thick comforter, and she can breathe again. So she thinks. She analyzes the talk she had with the Norns, who she’d decided to just call the Norns as it sounded the most badass and was easier than thinking ‘the Norns/the fates/ whatever’ every time she thought of them. Darcy makes a list in her head about the conversation. Going over everything she remembers and adding important things to the growing list in her head. The list begins to grow to a length too long to recall easily and Darcy is forced to admit defeat. She pokes her upper body out of the blanket and half way off the bed to reach an old notebook and glittery pen in the bottom drawer of her nightstand. She writes what she has on her mental list down, and adds the rest of the important information from the conversation down as she continues to think on it. Just as Darcy thinks she’s done the list, she’s startled by a knocking on her bedroom door. “Come in.” Darcy says as she shoves the notebook under the blanket and pulls to blanket up to her chin, hiding the now blank skin on her shoulder and collarbone from view. She can’t tell Gramps about the Norns. He loves her, and has been the only person who’s ever understood her at least a little. But he’d think she’d gone crazy, he’d call Dr. Garner and they’d put her in a padded cell out of concern. But she will tell him about meeting her soulmate, about being rejected. She’ll tell him that whatever happened last night must have been because of that, no one else has ever been rejected by their soulmate or if they have it’s been kept quiet so it’s not as if there’ll be conflicting reports of what happens when you’re rejected by a soulmate. It’ll be a believable story. The real story is much less believable. Gramps comes into the room, carrying a steaming bowl of soup. He places it on the nightstand and comes to sit on the side of Darcy’s bed. Looking at the nightstand, Darcy sees the soup he brought her is his homemade chicken noodle soup. Her mouth waters just looking at it. She’d been living off of ramen and TV dinners for too long. “Thanks, Gramps.” Darcy tells him with a small smile. “Darcy-girl, what’s wrong?” Gramps says getting straight to business. Darcy sighs and tells him about her meeting with her soulmate. She’s proud to say that while she sniffles and her eyes water, no tears fall down her cheeks. She tells Gramps that when she got home yesterday she was suddenly in a lot of pain, she tells him it must’ve been something to do with what happened with her soulmate. Gramps just smiles at her sadly and hugs her tightly for a few minutes. He never has been a man of many words. But his familiar warm hug comforts her more than any amount of pretty words. “What do you need?” Gramps asks her as he pulls away. “Nothing, maybe just a little time.” Darcy tells him with a small half smile to try to reassure him that she’ll be okay. Gramps nods at her and gets up from where he’d sat on the side of her bed. He walks to her bedroom door but pauses right before leaving. He looks at her over his shoulder. “Make sure you eat that soup while it’s hot, even through that blanket I could tell you were freezing.” Gramps says to her concernedly before exiting her room and closing the door behind himself. At Gramps’ words Darcy realizes that he’s right. She’s cold, but not exactly in an uncomfortable way. She’s just, aware that she’s cold. It’s a bizarre kind of feeling. Darcy decides to just brush it off, it’s nothing some soup won’t fix she thinks as she grabs the bowl off the nightstand. After devouring the soup, Darcy fishes out the notebook from under the covers to go over her list and make sure it’s complete. 1. The Norns? Real!
2. Astral plane?
3. Norns see all apparently, except for me
4. Unknown why they have no clue about me, which is kinda disturbingworrying
5. Norns said they don’t have control over things only watch them happen “witnesses of the universes”
6. Apparently they can’t see other people’s futures either because of me
7. They choose soulmates (they used a percentage so they have to use some kind of mathematical equation to find soulmates with 100% certainty that the people are in fact soulmates)
8. Storm had highest chance of being my soulmate at birth.
9. Storm’s chance of being my soulmate went down to 0.3% before 5
10. First soulmark wrong apparently
11. Usually impossible to remove soulmarks
12. Also magic?
13. Removed my soulmark
14. Could only do so because of some ancient alien DNA in my DNA 15. One of my ancestors fucked an alien
15. Alien DNA belongs to only species to have no soulmates
16. Norns ‘woke up’ alien DNA and used it to take away my soulmark
17. If I meet a soulmate their words will appear on me once spoken and vice versa
18. Side effects from alien DNA? With a sigh Darcy flopped back down onto her bed. There really wasn’t much she could do now besides get on with her life and wait to see what happened. It terrified her.
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Darcy gave herself a week. A week to mope, a week of not leaving the house, of rewatching favourite movies and tv shows for comfort, a week of eating all the comfort food Gramps made her in an effort to feel like he was helping her in someway. She thinks of the Norns words for a week, turning them over and examining them again and again. They said he hadn’t really been her soulmate, but for eighteen years his words marked her skin. Knowing now that apparently there was a mistake didn’t make it hurt less. It didn’t make it less real to her. They were supposed to be soulmates, and he took one look at her and said no. The Norns said she had another soulmate, what if they didn’t want her too? Once in her week of moping she found herself thinking of Johnny, her mark was gone, was his too? Would he think her dead? Did he have another soulmate? Or was he one of the less than 1% of the population without a soulmate? In the end she decided she didn’t really care what happened with him, the Norns could explain things to him if they wanted, if not, who was she to get in the way of the will of cosmic beings? After the allotted seven days Darcy forced herself to rejoin civilized society. She showered, put on actual clothes instead of pyjamas and joined Gramps on a trip to the grocery store. He seemed relieved she was no longer wallowing but didn’t comment on it, which she was thankful for. When they got back to the house and put all the groceries away, Darcy decided she needed to make a phone call. Darcy knew herself enough to know she didn’t always cope with things in the healthiest of ways, and she knew she needed to really deal with the feelings of being rejected by a soulmate otherwise she’d just push it away until it resulted in some kind of blow up later on. So Darcy called Dr. Garner. He told her he wasn’t really seeing patients much theses day and was focusing more on teaching, but, that he’d make an exception for her. She’s glad because she doesn’t think she could trust another therapist enough to tell them about being rejected by a soulmate. Most would just think of her as an interesting case study, a way to make themselves the next Freud and revolutionize psychiatry. But her and the doc have history, he helped her with soulmate issues and issues with her mother when she was younger, she knows she can trust him. At least enough to tell him about the soulmate rejection, but she’s definitely not going to tell her therapist about her chat with the Norns, that’s one problem she’ll have to navigate on her own. When she tells Gramps she’ll be going to see Dr. Garner in a couple days, she can see the relief in his face and hear it in his voice when he agrees to let her borrow the truck on the day of her appointment. ************“Dr. Garner, it’s good to see you.” Darcy says when the good doctor opens his office door. “You too, Darcy. It’s been quite some time.” He says to her as he opens his door wider and steps to the side to allow her in. “How’s everything? How’s Melinda?” Darcy asks as she takes a look at his new digs. The office is a good size, just a bit smaller than his old one. To the left as soon as you walk in there’s his desk and two wooden chairs opposite it. There’s a small sitting area further back in the room on the right side. There’s a small couch pressed up against the back wall, a low wooden coffee table and two arm chairs facing towards the couch and away from the door. The rest of the room is occupied with shelves filled with textbooks and a couple filing cabinets. “May and I separated a couple months ago.” Dr. Garner says interrupting her examination of the room.At his words Darcy can’t help but look at him slightly shocked. “But- I thought you were soulmates?” Darcy says without realizing what she’s saying. “Sorry, I- I shouldn’t of said that. Just forget I said anything. I’m still lacking in the brain filter area.” She’s quick to say, trying to cover up her blunder. Soulmates and marks are incredibly personal. Even asking if someone had a soulmate or not is considered incredibly rude and invasive. “It’s alright, Darcy.“ Dr. Garner tells her before sitting down in one of the armchairs and gesturing for her to take the couch. “What’s on your mind today, Darcy?” The doc asks her once she’s seated on the squishy couch. “I-“ Darcy stops and closes her eyes, she takes a deep breath to gather a bit of courage. “I met him.”Dr. Garner knows who she’s talking about, she was his patient for years, of course he knows what him she’s talking about. “And? How’d it go?” Darcy lets out a bitter laugh before answering.
“It was worse than I imagined. God, I, I was so fucking stupid for having any hope that it would somehow work out, that there was some mistake and he would want me. Turns out the only mistake is me, I’m just a fucking cosmic mistake.” Darcy doesn’t realize how true those words feel until she says them. She thinks of the Norns words for the umpteenth time, she’s the only unknown thing in the universe to them, the oddity of Darcy Lewis, a cosmic mistake. “Cosmic mistake, those are some pretty strong words there Darcy.”“It’s true isn’t it?” She asks with another bitter laugh, it’s either that or cry and she’s spent too much time crying lately. “I seem to be the only person in the world to be rejected by their own soulmate. I- my mom was fond of telling me I was a mistake, that I ruined everything, I guess she was right.”“I will admit, I’ve never heard of another instance of soul mate rejection, but that doesn’t make your very being a mistake. Your mother, we’ve talked about her and the abusive things she would say to you. None of them were true, Darcy.”
An hour and a half later, Darcy leaves Dr. Garner’s office with another appointment for next week and feeling just a little less weighed down by pain. ***********The summer passes quickly, filled with weekly therapy sessions, time spent with Gramps and tinkering with things in the shed which had become her ‘lab’ when she was 11 and almost burnt down the house again. The night before she leaves for university, again, her and Gramps are laying on a blanket outside watching the stars. It’s the first time they’ve done this in years. She used to drag Gramps out here as often as she could while growing up, it was one of her favourite things. While they gaze at the stars in silence, Darcy thinks about the day ahead. Starting another university, moving into another dorm. She had almost decided to stay at home and commute to Culver everyday, it was only an hour and 15 minutes away. She drove there and back every week to see Dr. Garner already. But, Gramps was quick to talk her out of it. “Darcy-girl, I know you. You’ve always been completely dedicated to everything you do. You put your whole self into everything. Which is why you need to stay in the dorms at Culver. If you stay here you’ll either throw yourself into your studies and struggle with losing an extra two and a half hours every day or you’ll hold yourself back and hate yourself for it.” Gramps had said to her. Darcy had just let out a resigned sigh in response because she knew he was right.Now the eve before she leaves the bubble of safety around the house she grew up in, she stares up at the stars and cannot help but hear the Norns voices echoing through her head. So far she hasn’t had any side effects from whatever they did to her DNA but, Darcy’s never been the luckiest. It’s only a matter of time before the other shoe drops, it always does.
************Six science credits, that’s all she needs now to get her political science degree. The only issue is that half way through the year all the science courses with space left are ones that are going over the same material that her first year classes at M.I.T. did. She will go absolutely insane if she has to spend months listening to lectures she’s already heard and doing projects she could do in her sleep. So instead of signing up for any of the available science courses Darcy applies for every science internship offering six credits she can find. After weeks of only getting rejection emails, there’s only one internship she hasn’t gotten a reply from. If she doesn’t get this internship, she’s screwed. It’s too late now to even sign up for the science courses she didn’t and still doesn’t want to take. Out of desperation Darcy decides to stop obsessively checking her email every minute and instead finds herself standing outside of Dr. Foster’s office/lab door. Darcy knocks on the door, and waits. When there’s no reply she knocks again, and then again when the door continues to go unanswered. Normally at this point Darcy would leave. But she can clearly tell the lights in the room are on. The textured glass half of the wooden door doesn’t allow her to make out the insides of the room but it does allow the light from inside to pour through the glass and into the hallway just fine. Darcy opens the door and as soon as she does she sees Dr. Foster, she’s younger than what Darcy was expecting. She briefly wonders how much Dr. Foster’s gender and age factor into her reputation as crazy on campus and within the general scientific community. Darcy walks over to where the good doctor is leaning over some kind of machine that looks to be mostly made of duct tape, she’s so focused she doesn’t notice Darcy even when she’s right beside her. “So... what’re you doing?” Darcy asks when she’s right beside the doc. Darcy tries to pretend she doesn’t enjoy it when Foster screams and jumps away from her. It takes all her will power not to burst into hysterical laughter. But somehow she manages to maintain a mostly straight face, she doesn’t think laughing at the poor doc would increase her chances at getting the internship. “Who the hell are you?” Dr. Foster asks Darcy while looking at her suspiciously. “Darcy.” She says with a smile. “And why’re you here? In my private lab?” Foster asks her looking at her like she’s a criminal. “Don’t look at me like that! I did knock! Three times! You didn’t answer and your light was on so figured you were in here. I really needed to talk to you. You know, desperate times call for desperate measures and all that jazz.” Darcy says defending herself. “Desperate measures?” Foster questions her looking sceptical of her explanation. “Yes, desperate measures. Your internship, I need it doc. Please, I-““Oh. You can have it.” Dr. Foster says cutting her off. “What? Really? Huh. That was easy.” “No one else applied.” Dr. Foster shrugs. “Did they not apply or have you just not looked at any applications because you’ve been preoccupied with, this?” Darcy says while gesturing to the machine Dr. Foster was consumed by earlier. “I- do you want the position or not?” “Oh absolutely. When do I start?” “Now. Hold this.” The doc says while grabbing a flashlight from her pocket and shoving it in Darcy’s hands.As Darcy holds the flashlight she tried to peer around Foster’s head to see if she can figure out what the duct taped machine is supposed to do. All she can see is more duct tape. “Um, if you want I can take a look? I’m quite good with machines.” Darcy offers. Foster turns to look at her as if she just offered to do blindfolded surgery on her newborn baby. “I’ll just look I swear! I won’t touch anything unless you say to.” Darcy assures her. The doctor contemplates, looking between Darcy and the machine that’s mostly duct tape.“Alright, but no touching!” The doctor finally relents and moves away from the machine so Darcy can have a peek. Darcy’s mechanical engineering heart nearly sobs when she gets a good view of the inside. It’s an utter mess. Definitely homemade, which is probably why Foster is so protective over it. But seriously in need of some love that isn’t of the duct tape variety. Don’t get her wrong, Darcy loves duct tape as much as the next girl. But you need more than just duct tape to hold a machine together. “So Doc, here’s what we have to do..”**************Hours later, the machine is working, they’re both sweating and Darcy has a burn on her hand from the soldering gun. It was some of the most fun she’s had in ages. “I’m going to New Mexico when the new term starts. If you can, you can accompany me as part of the internship, if not I can send you things you can do from here for the internship.”“I don’t have any classes this term, I was kind of just banking on getting the internship. New Mexico sounds like fun.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
New Mexico was fun.... until it wasn’t.
A month after starting her internship Darcy is boarding a plane that’s headed to an airport in Santa Fe, New Mexico. According to their plan, Dr. Foster would be picking her up from there and driving them down to Puente Antiguo. Jane had driven out there last week to set things up. She’d left Darcy to finish packing up and shipping the things she’d need from her lab at Culver.
As she makes her way through the aisles of the plane, with a backpack slung over her shoulder and her messenger bag bumping against her thigh as she walks, she hopes Jane has showered at least once and eaten at least one real meal a day in the past week she’s been alone. The woman was a bit of a menace. Darcy was constantly having to practically tie her down and threaten to burn her notes to get her to eat something. She was even worse when it came to showering. Twice in the past month, when the smell had gotten too ripe. Darcy has had to shove the scientist fully clothed under the decontamination shower in the corner of the lab, and throw a bar of soap at her to get her to shower. More importantly though, Darcy hopes the forgetful scientist remembers she has an intern to pick up from the airport. Darcy finds her seat and puts her backpack in the overhead bin before settling in. She places her messenger bag under the seat in front of her after digging her iPod and headphones out of it, and fastens her seatbelt. As she stares out the window, into the dark night she can’t help reflecting on what a whirlwind the past month has been. Red-eye flights are meant for questioning ones life decisions after all. There were times in the first few weeks where she’d been so exhausted and was tempted to just suck it up and grovel to some professor to be let into one of the science courses she’d so badly wanted to avoid. But then Jane would let her fix one of her machines, supervised of course. She’d lurk over Darcy’s shoulder as if ready to defend her machine if Darcy made one move she thought was wrong. Or Jane would have a breakthrough, and she’d explain every detail to Darcy like a child explaining their favourite thing to their parent. Darcy would listen raptly, becoming more excited with everything Jane told her. Until they were both giddy and practically jumping in their excitement about what this meant and what came next. Now, a month in and taking a red-eye to New Mexico, Darcy had no doubts that this internship was what she wanted. It was exciting and though she would never admit it, Darcy felt it might lead her to answers. Answers to questions she’s spent months trying to ignore.
Jane is only two hours late picking Darcy up. Which is most definitely a win when dealing with an unsupervised Jane Foster in science mode. By the time they get to the old dealership turned lab, the sun is hanging brightly in the sky filling the place with light. “Okay, this is the kitchen, lab is there and there are two rooms and a bathroom down that hallway. Pick whichever room you want. I’ve been staying in the camper outside.” Foster tells her while pointing in the general direction of where whatever she’s taking about is. “Alright now that the tour’s done, we’ve a lot of work to do.” Darcy almost wants to argue with her that it wasn’t so much as a tour as it was a pointing but Jane is already going off about some stars and a storm she’s been tracking. “I’ll be right back.” Darcy yells over her shoulder as she drags her suitcase and bags to her room. Both of the choices are pretty much the same, bare bones rooms with each having a bed, a small dresser, and bedside table with a lamp. She chooses the room with the darker curtains and smaller window. It seemed the better choice as she’s sure she’ll need to sleep during the day and be up all night quite often. After depositing her bags, Darcy goes to find Jane.
**********Something changed a month into their time in New Mexico. Darcy and Jane have had a good working relationship going so far, with only a few hiccups in between caused by sleep deprivation, general frustration about the lack of progress, and simply being around each other all day everyday. Such hiccups were usually smoothed over the next day with silent offers of coffee or pop tarts. They bonded over their love of their preferred sciences quickly, each letting the other ramble about complex theories of astrophysics or ideas for inventions that are only half impossible, neither dismissive of the others ideas. Each playing the welcome part of a nonjudgmental but contemplative sounding board that believes in the impossible, something both young women appreciated immensely. The two bonded even quicker over their shared hate for all the gate keeping and misogynistic assholes they’ve had to deal with, trading stories of some of their most ridiculous experiences. It allowed them to form a relationship based on mutual respect and similar experiences, and to be on a first name basis with each other. It was a good working relationship that Darcy felt was slowly becoming an actual friendship. Though she’d never voice it aloud or ask Jane if she felt the same, afraid of being wrong and making a fool out of herself. Rejection from a soulmate? She could deal with it. Rejection from a potential friend? She might die of embarrassment. But that slow build to friendship they’d been working on for the past couple months changed in a single night. Jane had snuck off to the one bar in town when Darcy was getting some much needed sleep. She had gotten shit faced. Then, as like many drunk people before her, tried the drunk dial her ex, Donald. Instead, she accidentally drunk dialled Darcy. Who, answered the call half asleep to be greeted by a drunk Jane rambling about something she couldn’t really make out. From the few words she could understand, asshole, get, clothes, stupid, bad sex, and lastly, fuck you Donald, Darcy put together the pieces of what was going on. She found Jane at the bar, took her phone away, and held her hair back as she puked into one of the toilets in the women’s restroom. She then practically dragged Jane back to the lab. Drunk Jane was insistent on sleeping on the roof that night. She attempted to sneak off every time Darcy glanced away for a fraction of a second, until Darcy finally relented to the mad woman’s wishes, too tired to try to stop her anymore. She didn’t think Drunk Jane was responsible enough to be up there alone, so she went with her to make sure she didn’t accidentally fall off the roof or something. They ended up dragging all the blankets and pillows they could find up there and making a nest of sorts for themselves. Jane excitedly pointed out all the constellations she could see and Darcy just listened, offering a ‘that’s cool’ or an interested hum every now and then to let her know she was listening. When they were both incredibly tired, staring up at the sky on the edge between sleep and delirium, they talked. They talked about things they hadn’t ever voiced to another human. Jane told her about how terrified she was that her theories really were crazy, that she was crazy for believing in them. Darcy told her about how she constantly felt like a fraud, like she didn’t belong anywhere she was, too stupid or too frumpy, or too loud, or too slutty, it was always something. The two of them didn’t try to comfort each other or assuage each other’s fears, they just listened. And their hands somehow found their ways to each other beneath the blankets, each clasping the other tight and squeezing in a gesture that did more than words could. Jane whispered to Darcy how she loved her parents, but hated seeing them lately. She tells Darcy about how her mother just wants her to get married and start popping out babies, how she’s constantly telling Jane she should be trying to find her soulmate, not chasing the stars. She tells Darcy about how her father, a former Culver professor, sometimes looks at her like he thinks she’s crazy too. Jane tells her about how she feels like a terrible person, a terrible daughter, for finding every excuse not to see either of them. Darcy tells Jane about how she’s never met her father, doesn’t even know who he is. She tells her that as a kid, some nights she’d cry herself to sleep, wishing she had a dad. And every morning she’d hate herself for it, overcome with guilt because she had Gramps. What more could she want? They talked, trading secrets until they couldn’t keep their eyes open any longer and sleep took them. The next morning, Jane was practically falling asleep in her coffee cup and Darcy was eating a pack of pop tarts. It was a usual morning, but it was different. There was a nearly palpable shift between the two of them. They didn’t talk about what happened, what they’d said, it would have been easy for Darcy to assume Jane didn’t even remember it happening. But she could tell Jane remembered every word. She could see it in the way she looked at her out of the corner of her eyes when she thought Darcy wasn’t looking, and she could feel it in the embarrassed blushes and awkwardness in the air in the week following the night on the roof as they found their footings in their new friendship. But they found it, and though they never say it, they both know it’s special, both treasure it in a way they’d be embarrassed to admit out loud. Jane is still relentless in her pursuit of science, but she lets Darcy convince her to take breaks more. Sometimes, it’s only for a few minutes and Darcy makes Jane dance with her to whatever song comes on shuffle. Sometimes, Darcy convinces her to take the night and they’ll watch movies and eat their weight in junk food. When Erik arrives they force him to join their dance breaks, though he refuses to take up their invitations to their movie nights, preferring to visit the bar in the evenings. Darcy’s happy here, in their little bubble in the dessert, far from thoughts of soulmates and Norns. It feels like a new beginning, like she’s finally caught her breath. So, New Mexico is fun, it’s safe. Until it’s not. ***********Darcy has felt uneasy since the moment the storm appeared. It’s only when the guy Jane hit begins yelling at the sky that the feeling settles further in her gut. She did her research about the Norns. She found the relation of the name to Norse mythology, she read about the Bifrost, and it’s keeper Hiemdall. The way the dude talks, though arrogant, is not dissimilar to her memories of the conversation she had with the Norns. When he starts demanding to know what realm he’s in and begins to threateningly lumber closer, the feeling of deep unease only gets worse. So she covers it with a snarky remark of,
“New Mexico.”
And she only half wonders how he’d have reacted if she’d said ‘Midgard’ instead.
When he practically dares her to pull the trigger of her taser, she does so with a feeling of relief when he slumps to the ground.