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It was during a standard morning coffee run for the Scientists-Three when shit hit the fan for Darcy. She’d been reciting the extensive order list aloud to herself for the last three blocks, trying not to forget the ridiculous combination of coffees that kept the scientific genii running. The worst part was that she still had another five blocks to go before she got to the damned coffee shop. “Tony’s order is a venti iced soy quad-shot extra-hot no-whip Hazelnut Macchiato with one sugar. Bruce needs a mocha on almond and Jane wants…” Darcy paused, struggling to recall. “Jane wanted a triple-shot caramel skim latte, I think. Or did Tony want almond with two sugars and Bruce wanted soy?” She tried to remember, she really did, but it just made her brain hurt the more she tried. Groaning in frustration, she started to fumble through her pockets to pull out her phone so she could double-check the orders for the millionth time. She located her phone in the inner pocket of her jacket and pulled it out. She pushed the button on the side of the device to turn on the screen. Darcy’s eyes lit up when she spotted she had a new message from a certain hunky and chunky crush of hers. Swiping her thumb across the screen, she quickly opened up the new message from Bucky. She could barely contain the giant grin from spreading across her face as she read his reply.
‘Sure, dinner tonight sounds great. Pick you up at 7?’
Darcy stopped walking and let out a little squeak and did her version of a happy dance. Jumping up and down and around in circles, she saw that she was getting a lot of looks from passers-by, but she didn’t care, she was fucking giddy. Only once she’d come to stand still was she able to get on with typing out a response to Bucky. Darcy had been low-key flirting and half-serious when she’d suggested they should go out on a date. She hadn’t expected him to actually say yes, not in a million years. She’d thought that she’d have to wait for Bucky to work up the courage and ask her out, like the olden days, but this turn of events was certainly not anything to complain about. She stared down at the reply that she’d typed out, Dinner on me then ;), her thumb hovering over Send. She bit her lip as she read over her reply again, starting to second guess herself. Was that too forward? Would he even get the joke? Frowning she hit backspace and started to compose her reply again. She made it halfway through before she scraped it and started typing out something else. So fixated on crafting the perfect comeback, Darcy didn’t notice the men in black ski-masks creeping up behind her. Nor did she realise she was being kidnapped until there was a sack thrust over her head and she was being tossed into the back of the van, which started to drive off as soon as the doors had closed.She didn’t bother with screaming or crying out for help. Nobody was going to risk their neck coming to the rescue of a random girl off the street. Not in New York, not anymore at least. Also, this wasn’t her first rodeo. She knew the drill by now: stay quiet and conserve energy for when things took a turn for the worse. She couldn’t help but wonder which band of idiots was responsible for her kidnapping this time around. She really hoped it wasn’t the activists again. She didn’t think she could survive another stint of listening to the self-righteous lectures on repeat or to eat their food that tasted like goddamned cardboardDarcy screwed up her nose at the thought, which made the burlap sack rub against her face even more. God, it already made her want to scratch her eyes out. Coupled with the stench of gunpowder and sweat, her nose was stinging as well. She took in another deep breath, trying to calm herself down and regretted it. Her nose stung and she choked down a cough. She could taste salt, no, it was blood. The idiots must have busted her nose when they picked her up. She sighed, but other than that, she remained quiet. Only listening to the gentle thrum of the Villain Wagon as they travelled to the secret base that she bet was some kind of abandoned warehouse or a dodgy old bunker from the Cold War era. Or one of the kidnappers Mom’s basements. She really hoped not for their sake, because it was going to be super embarrassing for them when the Avengers turned on the GPS and came for her, and they didn’t care about knocking on the door, they’d just kicked it down. Part of the reason she was so calm was that she knew within the next twelve hours or so, help would come. So, for now, Darcy told herself that she wasn’t scared, and she believed it. For the first few days anyway.
“Yes, what lovely girl you are,” a voice crooned into her ear and her skin crawled. She could feel the soft breath on her neck and she hated that goosebumps were starting to prick up along her skin. “Such beauty.” She didn't recognise the voice, but she could hear a thick European or maybe even Russian accent. All she really knew is that it was different from the other people that had already spoken to her. “Features likes this, you would have made a wonderful spy.”
She didn’t shiver or even flinch when fingers followed, stroking her hair and trailing down her spine, stopping just above her hip. Sharp nails dug in and she couldn’t stop the hiss of pain that pushed past her lips. “Ah, yes, you still have some spirits in you.”
She wanted to cry. But she didn’t have any tears left, mainly because she hadn’t been given any water, but after everything they’ve done to her, it didn’t seem like a few drops of saltwater were going to make anything better.
“That’s right my dear, just keep holding on and you wills be rewarded,” were the last words she heard before there was a sharp prick at the side of her neck.
At first, she only felt a sting, from what she assumed to be a needle. But then came an aching cold in her bones. Her muscles ached, her body shivered and her skin tingled.
Then, there was ice. Ice in her veins. Or maybe it was fire because it burnt and it hurt. Christ, it hurt so much. Stars burst behind her eyes and she tasted blood. She’d bitten her tongue. The tears finally came and she screamed or at least she tried to. But she made no sound, her voice long gone. She only managed a few feeble raspy breaths and broken hisses of pain.
She writhed in agony; she tossed and turned; she begged for mercy, but nothing dulled the biting agony that left her will to live hollow. She prayed for it to end. But she knew nobody would answer her pleas.
Mercy came when her body failed her. It couldn’t handle any more pain. Her world faded out, her vision of white became blurry and spotty until darkness took her.
When she stirred she panicked.She couldn't move her arms or her legs and all she could see was white. Endless white, the colour of fresh snow, but it was also the sterile white of a medical room. She heard the rattling and clanking of metal. Chains. She twisted her head and writhed in an effort to get free, but nothing would budge.Her panic doubled. She was in a cell and tied down to the bed like some wild animal. They’d done things to her, and she didn’t know what. She couldn’t even feel her limbs or look down to see if they were all there.Her heart galloped as her panic climbed. She calmed slightly when she noticed that she was cold. Cold all over, and from the slight rustling, she heard that was due to the fact she was in nothing more than a flimsy hospital gown. “What’s happening? Where am I?” she cried, breathing frantically. Her mind racing as she tried to figure out what the hell was going on.Slowly, but surely her senses came back to her and from the softness beneath her, she could ascertain that she was on a mattress of some sort. She could also see that the room wasn’t just endless white, but rather padded walls of cream, grey and silver. It smelt of antiseptic and clean. Too clean. Her nostrils burnt from the smell.“Let me go,” she croaked out feebly, and her words sounded pathetic even to her ears, as they just bounced off the walls and fell back onto her own ears.She focused on trying to calm herself down. She went back through her last memories: the cold, the darkness. Pain. She curled her fingers, in and out, nails digging into her palm, and it gave her clarity. Pain gave her reality. Reality said that there was fuck all chance of escape. She doesn’t know how much longer she was going to last. Information wasn’t what they wanted from her. She didn’t know what they wanted. To hurt her, or maybe to use her. Whatever it was they were doing, it was breaking her.She has been waiting on a rescue. For one of the Avengers to swoop in and save her; to whisk her away from this hell, and take her back to the gilded Tower. It wasn’t how the story would end this time. There’d been no sign of a prince. She’d not heard the noble quinjet steed’s roaring engines. It was just her alone with her pain and doubts.She’d wait for a sign. She hoped there was a sign. Because she was starting to lose hope that they would ever come for her.She woke to the sound of the door her cell been unlocked and she froze. Staying as still as possible. Trying not to flinch at the keys as they jingled and jangled, or at the heavy-booted footsteps approaching her. She could even hear the person breathing, quiet and calm.As they got closer, her heartbeat soared, and she curled her fingers. Bracing herself for whatever was to come.The footfall stopped near her head. There was more jingling and she turned her head, trying to get a look at the person and what they were doing. She didn’t even manage a glimpse before a hand stuck her face. Her head whipped to the side on impact. Her cheek stung and she let out a small cry that was nothing more than a scratchy wheeze.She saw the shadow of the hand approaching again and she flinched. Instead of another hit, they grabbed her jaw with hard, cold fingers. “Don’t get any ideas.” Spit landed on her face as they spoke. “I’m undoing your cuffs. You only move when I say. Got it?”She nodded the best she could and tried to suppress her tremors. The voice promised pain, and not wanting to be hit again or violated in any other way, it was hard not to be scared. She kept her eyes down and hands in place as the guard went around unlocking her chains. Only once all her limbs were unshackled did the next order come.“Stand.” The voice was sharp, and almost like a physical blow with how it slammed into her. It offered no mercy or room for weakness, so she obeyed.Warily, she shifted her torso, testing her muscles. She guessed that she’d been chained up for about forty-eight hours. Gingerly she moved her legs to the side of the bed and hissed at her joints cracking in protest. Pushing the rest of her body up was hard. After being horizontal for so long, the sudden shift to vertical started to make her dizzy.“Hands on the wall,” came the next command and she grimaced.Shuffling over as quickly as she could, and keeping her hands in view she walked over to the narrow section of wall between the bed frame and the padded wall. Pressing herself up against it, she raised her arms above her head and waited.“Feet apart.”She bit her lip and slowly shuffled her legs apart, fearing what was going to come next. She’d already awoken with soreness that suggested penetration while she’d been unconscious. A lone tear trickled down her face, stinging the raw flesh, and she held back a sob.She waited for the next command to come: for her to remove her clothing or something else. She heard them shuffle closer and felt the heat and presence of their larger body behind her. She tensed her muscles and...it never came.Instead, there was a gentle whisper in her ear: “Darcy.”How did they know her name? She went to turn around, but she was slammed up against the wall. “Don’t react,” the guard whispered harshly in her ear before a blow was landed to the back of her head.She collapsed to the floor in the pain. She was so confused. She had no idea what was going on. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, I promise.”“Good,” they growled before their voice softened against. “Now don’t move. Do you know your name?”“Yes. I’m D-Darcy Lewis,” she wheezed, scared to say or do anything wrong.Hands were on her body again. Tracing over her clothes, her shoulders...everywhere. She clenched her eyes shut and tried to make herself not notice. The strange questions made it hard for her to focus, though.Hands under her armpits come and yank her back up so she’s standing again. “Who do you work for?” A shout.She licked her lips before she murmured, “I worked for Jane Foster…”Then a whisper again, so soft against her ear, almost like a gentle caress. “Do you know who has you?”“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she shook her head, her matted hair swinging and getting stuck to her face. She curled into herself and waited for another strike. She knew she wasn’t meant to move, but she couldn’t help it.The hands came back and they were...stroking her face? “Darcy. Stop, stop, stop. I’m not going to hurt you,”The guard, which she now figures to be a he, slowly unfurls her face from the protective cradle of limbs and made a show of patting the rest of her down. She finally got a look at his face and her knees went weak.It was the fucking Winter Soldier. James Buchanan Barnes.Darcy choked on her sobs. He must have been there to save her. She went to reach for him, but he slapped her hand down and glared at her. His eyes colder than a Minnesota lake in December, and she shivered and broke eye contact.She started shaking uncontrollably again. This had to be a test or some kind of sick holographic joke. She knew that Tony Stark was working on this kind of technology and since there was no such thing as an original idea it made sense they would have something similar at their disposal.“Listen to me, I’m undercover at the moment. Hydra thinks they've got me brainwashed again. They just transferred me to this facility. I heard they had a captive and I had to see if it was you. Listen, doll, I promise I will get you out of here. But you have to bear with me, okay? I can't bust you out yet. You need to hold on. I’m gathering intel—” His mouth moves, Bucky is speaking to her, but she can’t hear the words.Her ears are full of static. Her vision is blurry, and she started to wobble.“I told you not to move,” he roared at her and she flinched away.Dropping to the floor this time and fully curling up into a protective ball. She started to cry again, what about, she’s not sure. The fact that she has to wait to be freed so that they can gather information or the fact that she has been yelled at. She hiccuped and struggled to breathe.She’d thought that Buck and she were friends and on the way to being more. She’d imagined that he’d come here and rescue her and then he’d be taking her right back to the Tower. She didn’t realise, but she was now rocking back and forth.She tried to pull herself together, to force herself to stand, but Bucky had to reach down and yank her up again. In character again, he threw her back on the bed and gripped her arms above her head with his metal hand. He’d nearly finished restraining her, he was just locking her right hand up when he leaned down to whisper, “You’ll be out in a few days, Darce. You just need to hold on. Okay? Just remember that.”And then he was gone, the door slamming shut behind him, leaving her behind, where the only sound was her gut-wrenching sobs echoing off the padded-walls.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The message was clear: they were Hydra and they would break her and remake her. She would be better. Forged into something stronger and more wonderous than anything they had crafted before.
They did it differently each time. Experimenting, improving, rebuilding, rebirthing, fixing, perfecting—
Pain, torture, crying, screaming, twisting, slicing, injecting, probing, removing, shaving, replacing, pain—
Most of the time, she couldn’t recall what they’d done. Sometimes she remembered. Sometimes she was awake while they did a procedure.
She knew that last time she’d been in the chair. A chair of nightmares that shocked her with lightning until thunder rattled her skull and fried her brain. She’d awoken with cloudy thoughts and no memories of her life from before she was ten.
She’d cried her heart out when she realised that. her father was gone forever. The only thing she knew about him was that he’d died. That he’d loved her, hugged her and fed her. But what he looked like, smelt like, the sound of his voice, the feel of a warm hug...it was all a blank slate.
The day after she’d awoken to find her head feeling rather cold. Rubbing her face against a bare arm, she’d discovered her head was covered in prickly bloody patches.
She’d screamed.
Her hair.
Her hair was gone.
So it came to be that every time Darcy left her cell, she lost another piece of herself.
Soon, Darcy stopped fighting altogether.
Her dignity was in tatters, her pride a pile of ashes and her hope? Starting to fracture.
To fight, meant punishment. To fight would be a waste of energy, which she had precious little of.
Since they’d broken her jaw, they’d been getting sustenance into her via a feeding tube. Followed by a colour cocktail of drugs via an IV for dessert. She didn’t care. She couldn’t talk back, she was restrained so she couldn’t resist.
What Hydra saw seemed to please them as they showed mercy sometimes but putting her under for most of the procedures. Sometimes they needed her awake, to measure her brain waves, her nerve reactions or to measure the decibel of her screams. She didn’t know what for only that it left her raw and more broken than the time before.
She tried to tell them she was going to break. She begged for them to stop. She wailed until her throat bled. Nothing she did could make it stop. She’d almost headbutted the white coat who had whispered, “You must be powerless before you become powerful,” into her ear before cold fingers had strayed into areas they were not meant to be testing that day.
Her body was not her own. She was a tool. Not a person. A thing that was subject to anything they could think of.
Today, she was led to a table and given a numbing needle to the spine, before been told to lie down. Face first into the table, her head hanging through a hole, and back exposed to the room. She was terrified of what was to come.
It wasn’t long before there were a million bees buzzing beneath her skin as the lower half of her body eventually became numb. They rolled her over to her side so they could tap her knee cap. Checking for reflexes, with no reaction, they took it as the sign to begin.
She watched as a gloved hand approached with a vial of silvery liquid. She knew the contents well by now. It would sting and then it would boil her blood. She didn’t feel the usual pinprick of the thin metal sliding into her vein, as they injected the liquid into her legs, her arms and finally her neck.
The reaction was almost instant. Her vision went blurry, like a kaleidoscope. Millions of rotating tiles formed her world creating a spinning, dizzying view that made her stomach churn with motion sickness.
She tried to swallow back the excess saliva, but her muscles wouldn’t work. Her tongue like jelly, her throat to sore, so she ended up drooling. Creating a mess, but they didn’t care. They didn’t care if she shat herself or if she was in a pool of her own bodily fluids at any given time, the experiment would go on. No matter what.
Feeling so sick, and like a thousand butterflies were dancing along her skin, she almost didn’t catch what one of the assistants closest to her was saying. “The subject is weak, sir. It is best if we cease experimentation and resume at a later date.”
“No, keep going,” came the order. The voice spoke without hesitation or doubt. She’d heard it before, when she’d floated in and out of consciousness, but never this clearly.
“But, sir, she can’t take—”
“I don’t care. We’ve come too far now. Keep going.”
She wanted to cry when the next voice objected. “With all due respect, I don’t believe this to be a wise decision. If we push her too far, all of our work will be lost.” Bucky. He was there. He would make it stop. He was going to make them stop...
There was a heavy sigh, a slamming of something heavy and then, “she can hold on for a bit longer. Max power for the next five minutes and then you can wrap it up for today.”
“Yes, sir.”
No. God, no. Please, no. Bucky, please, she pleaded mentally. She screamed internally. He didn’t hear her.
Her eyes were wide and wild, darting around in a frenzy to lock eyes with someone. She managed to make eye contact with Bucky and she was met with nothing but ice. She blinked rapidly, trying to send him a code, she was ready for him to jump in.
He remained still until he moved out of sight. Leaving her alone, heartbeat pounding in her ears, sweat dripping off her face. Bucky, why? Tears leaked down her face, she tried to move, but her limbs were lead and…Bucky wasn’t helping.
“Machine is ready, and at full capacity. Administering full dosage at max power.”
What did they mean max power? Why wasn’t he stopping them?
She heard the ever-increasing hum of electricity, a flash of blue and–
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Darcy didn’t realise she was in a different cell when she stirred.It was bright and she needed the light to go away. Blearily, she cracked open her and glowered at the source of light: a window.She bolted upright, realising two things at once as she did. One: she wasn’t restrained. No cuffs, no chains, no tubes protruding from her body. Two: A window meant a chance to escape.Darcy didn’t even hesitate to get up. She couldn’t miss this chance. She didn’t make it further than a few steps from the bed before her knees buckled, sending her crashing to the floor.She didn‘t bother getting up or crawling back over to the bed. She didn’t have the energy.She wished she could get up and walk over to the window, just to breathe in the fresh air. To pound out her heartache and pain against the padded wall. To scream down the door.God, she needed the promised rescue to come already. She couldn’t keep going like this. She imagined that things were only going to become worse, if that was possible. More invasive, taking more things away... She choked back a sob at the prospect.She’d waited for Bucky to step in, to intervene and rescue her. He had done nothing. The sob slipped past her trembling lips and the sound she made hurt her own ears. It was raw, ugly and full of tears.Something was different from the usual procedures. She could tell that much. She couldn't identify what they’d done, but it wasn‘t good. She didn’t have time to test her limbs or investigate anything else before she passed out, drifting into dreams of home.When she woke up again, she thought she was still dreaming. She’d sat up and gone to rub her eyes when she’d noticed something different about her hand; it was glowing. Literally fucking glowing. Translucent and shimmery like moonlight.She blinked a few times, trying to clear her hazy vision and went to try to rub them again. Except, she couldn't touch her face.She rubbed her eyes, but the illuminated skin was still there. Upon closer inspection, it was more like the light was passing through her. Her skin so pale, she could see through it…She hyperventilated. Panic setting in, as she jumped up and paced around her cell, trying to figure out what the fuck had been done to her. She didn’t have a bazillion science degrees or any experience with this shit to know what is going on or why she is glowing like Casper the fucking ghost.For the first time in a while, she got angry, which she quickly regretted.Flames ran up her arm, down her hands and her fingers faded away completely. Next, her toes and her feet started to burn and before her eyes, they faded into nothingness as well. She cried out in horror. They’d erased her.Eventually, she calmed herself down, but it was a struggle to keep a grip on her emotions. No matter what she did, she couldn't make the faded parts come back. There was something in the cell, she figured out, that means she couldn't pass through it. She experimented with trying to get her hand through the door, but it didn’t make it any further than the part of her hand that remained.She tried her best to keep herself together. To not fall apart, figuratively and literally. But she failed. She didn’t want to hold on anymore. She sat in the bed's corner, looking out the window for a sign. For a quinjet or the sound of a chopper, something, anything, to keep her going.She heard the door open, but she didn’t bother to look over. It was the first time it’d opened since she’d woken up. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, bracing herself for someone to pull her from the bed like a rag doll and down the cold concrete hallway and into the tiled room of pain.Except no guard stormed over or made a grab for her. Instead, a familiar voice greeted her. “Darce, you’re still here, thank God.”Him.Bucky.
Traitor.
He was sidetracked by knocking out the camera in the upper corner of the ceiling. She tilted her head and studied him for a moment. He was decked out in a Hydra guard uniform that was overlapped with the usual Avengers tactical gear. She went back to looking at the window. The rescue was here but the sight of him...it made her sick.Apparently satisfied with the camera, Bucky rushed over to her. “Hold on, Darce, I’ll get you.” From his arms and posture, she knew that he would try to scoop her up. Except she knew it wouldn’t work. But he moved too fast, and before she could object, he had bent over, hand extended and it passed right through her.“What the fuck?”He looked up at her confusion. She kept her eyes down. Growling, he tried and failed again. “The hell?”Steve busted into the room, apparently hearing Bucky shout. “What’s going on? We’ve only got two minutes left on the signal jam.”Bucky gestured helplessly at Darcy. “I can’t touch her.”Steve’s brows shot up at first, shock at the sight of her, she guessed. Her hair was gone, and she probably looked worse than death. His brows then furrowed as he processed what Bucky had said. “What do you mean you can’t touch her? Buck, I don’t think she really cares right now about getting consent to carry her. Look, here, let me—” Just like Bucky’s hand, Steve’s hand passed straight through her.Steve’s jaw went slack and his eyes bugged out. She could see the ‘What the fuck’ question sitting on the tip of his tongue. She wished she could explain, to tell them what’s been done to her, but even she didn’t even know. “Darce…”Tears pricked at the corner of her eye. Her feet were gone, they are transparent, she’s been floating for however long she’s been in the cell. Steve followed her gaze and snapped his jaw shut, the click audible.“Shit, what did they do to her, Buck?” Steve whispered, revulsion clear in his tone. She curled into herself a little more and flinched at the sting of her arm. That would be another little piece fading out.“I don’t know, Steve. Shit, I didn’t think they would fuck it up. Whatever it is, it’ll be in the files. Don’t look at me like that, Punk. I was too busy stealing them to stop and have a read.” Bucky was gesturing wildly and his voice...god the shouting...she started to shake.“Hold on for a goddamned second and let me think. We can’t carry her, so we need another way to get her out of here.”While Steve was pacing, brainstorming, Bucky knelt before her and placed his arms out on either side, bracketing her in. “Darcy. Can you hear me? You listening?”She made herself nod.“All right, doll. Can you hold my hand?”Her lip trembled as she shook her head. She couldn’t touch him even if she wanted too. “Why not?”She met his eye and tears leak out, but as much conviction as she could muster, she uttered, “I can’t.”Looking taken aback, Bucky rocked back onto his heels, still crouched down, but pulled his arms back, giving her some room. “Why not?” he asked again.She curled her upper lip. “Why don’t you ask them?” The venom was palpable, far more tangible than anything else about her right then.Bucky blinked. “Darce…” he started, but Steve cut him off before he could finish.“Buck! We need to go now.” He glanced down at Darcy, his blue eyes alert and looking over her. “Can you fix yourself for a bit, Darcy?”She bit her lip and whispered out a hollow, “No.” She'd tried, so hard. Willing and wishing with all her might that her hands would come back, that her feet would as well, but they remained faded out. Steve hung his head. “How the hell do we get her out of here?”“I don’t know,” Bucky muttered, as he peered around the room, determined to locate something. His gaze landed on the blanket, and his eyes darted up to Darcy. “Can you touch this?” He held up the ratty blanket, that was crusty with her tears and snot.She nodded slowly, not sure where he was going with the blanket, but Steve seemed to be on the same wavelength, as he ripped the blanket off the bed and out of Bucky’s hand and threw it over her.She flinched, at first, having something touching her and covering her bare head. What came next scared her even more: Human contact.Steve’s arms came down and engulfed her in the blanket, making her a makeshift taco. Happy with his swaddling, Steve reached around Darcy and held his breath as he gripped her. He exhaled loudly through his teeth when his hands gripped her and they didn’t pass through.She hiccuped a whimper. Steve glanced down at her with tenderness and a soft smile. “Hold on, Darcy. Okay, we’re leaving now. We’re going.”She held on for dear life.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Darcy only began to stir as the roar of the Quinjets engines became a gentle purr, a soft thud soon followed along with a lot of clanking and whirring. Someone was also shouting, but she couldn’t make out the muffled words.She tried to roll over and open her eyes, to see where she was, but her eyelids were so heavy. She also found something restricted her movement, but not by chains or straps. By the feel of the fabric brushing against her hand she recognised it was the blanket from her cell, the one that was holding her together.She felt a knot rise in her throat at the thought and she grabbed onto the blanket a little tighter, not wanting to fall out, to come undone, she also realised that she wasn’t shivering. Her fingertips weren’t numb, she could feel her toes and her arms weren’t prickling…It took a bit but she finally realised what was happening. After weeks of cold floors and walls, she was warm. Heat surrounded her; it penetrated her frozen skin and curbed the chilly ache in her bones. Making her feel slightly human for the first time in so long.She continued to bask in the amazing warmth that was radiating from somewhere until the stench of copper and salt hit her nose.Blood.She smelt blood. Her breath hitched, and she retched as she continued to breathe it in. She tried to angle her head into the blanket to cover up her nose, but her body wasn’t working. She coughed as she tasted the blood in the back of her throat. The coughing rattled her fragile body and made her quake.Panic truly set in when she heard, “You got a good grip on her? Don’t want her getting loose,” been whispered above her.She knew that voice; it belonged to the man who’d tortured her and left her to rot. God, it’d been a dream, the rescue, being carried out, Steve being there... She’d been hallucinating, she was still in the cell. Instantly, Darcy began to thrash around, trying to escape, to force her eyes open so she could see where she was.But her eyes were so heavy, and her arms were equally heavy. It felt like someone had attached cinder blocks to her limbs, weighing her down, making her so sleepy. So hard to stay awake and to keep fighting....But she couldn’t stop, not now. If there was the slightest chance it wasn’t real, then she would not waste the chance to escape. Because she couldn’t take anymore. If they jabbed another needle into her skin, or another tube shoved down her throat she was afraid that she would break. Her tenuous grip on herself would fracture and she would dissolve and truly fade away, just to be free of the pain.She must’ve been whimpering and keening in pain as cold fingers brushed against her cheek. “Shh, Darcy, s’all right, Darcy.” The voice made her pause briefly. “We’re back home, you’re safe now.” Steve, she half recognised, but her mind was wrapped in cotton and at the bottom of a pool and was much as she tried to fight it, she could not help but drift off again into the dark. She just hoped when she woke up next that it really wouldn’t turn out to be a dream.Constant little blips and beeps roused her the next time. With great effort, she forced open her eyes, she realised why there was so much noise; medical machines surrounded her. Glowing little lights and numbers swirled around her, humming as they measured her vitals.Taking in the rest of the room, she flinched as she saw the colour: solid white, but not the kind from her cell. This room seemed to glow from within, each of the surfaces refracting light. Her gaze then fell upon the tubes, filled with liquids and goops that all ran down, down, down...they were in her.She let out a whimper and felt wet on her face. Tears. She knew that much. More cries rose from her throat as she became more aware and felt the tubes and where they went into her. One in her hand, another up her nose, one in her chest, another in her side…Darcy screamed. No more. No more experiments. She tried to move but again found herself constricted by the same blanket from the cell. Swaddled like a baby, her limbs were not going anywhere. They trapped her.The noise she made soon brought people in white coats rushing in. They tried to tell her it would be all right, but their uniforms and clothes were a lie, a contradiction to everything that was said.One of them tried to approach her with a needle, and the machines joined her in screeching.Another person, a man she assumed from the fuzzy outline, that was decked out fully in blue strode into the room. “What the hell is going on?”Steve. It was, Steve. It wasn’t a dream. She was actually at home.She must've called out his name, as he turned to her, and his face finally came into focus. The soft blue eyes full of concern, but his usual smile was gone, in its place a stern scowl. He whipped back around to face the other white coats and began to bark at them.They threw hand gestures around, hands were on hips and arms were waving wildly in the air. All Darcy knew is that was Steve was here to fight for her, she knew it from the pits of her stomach.She heard the swishing of the glass door opening once more and she rolled her eyes up to get a look at whose else had just entered the room. Starting from the bottom she worked her way up from brown to black and silver arm–“Get out,” she hissed, although the words were barely audible, it gave everyone pause.The attention of the room was her, but her gaze was on Bucky, who’d just walked in and was now frozen under her gaze.While she was distracted and in the staredown with the traitor, one of the white coats started to fiddle with one of her tubes. Catching the movement in the corner of her eye, Darcy darted her gaze over to the white coat, now fiddling with a cap, and in their other hand was a needle“What are you doing?” Darcy tried to shout, it came out more like a feeble crock.No response came, instead liquid ran down the line, heading for her veins. She began to hyperventilate as she watched the new liquid getting closer. She glanced from it to Steve.“What are they putting in me?”Understanding the worry on her face or maybe what she was saying, Steve threw a questioning look at the white coat and they gestured down at Darcy. “Sedative, she needs it to rest and recover.”Steve nodded and came to kneel next to Darcy, a watery fake smile spread across his lips. Darcy held his gaze and closed her eyes as she felt his hand over her bare head. She felt him recoil for a second. Her eyes fluttered back open, and she saw the sadness. She went to say that it was all right, but the drugs of whatever they’d given her were finally kicking in and she lost the word on the tip of her tongue, and fell against down into the black, with hope this time. She was safe, finally home, and they would fix her. Steve took a step back from the bed and let the Doctors get to it. They swooped in, not missing the chance to analyse, test and extract samples while Darcy was solidly under. He scrubbed a hand through his hair as he watched them delicately work around the blanket, the only thing that was keeping her anchored and stopped her phasing out. He more so sensed Bucky approaching him, rather than heard.His friend’s footfalls silent on the linoleum floor, and his silver arm coming up to grip his shoulder in a show of support. Steve brushed the arm off and made sure to keep his gaze straight ahead. Anger was coursing through him like a fire and the last thing he needed right now was to get kicked out of the hospital for getting into a fight.He licked his lips. “Why the hell didn't you tell us that she was there? We could have gotten her out before all of this." His voice was little more than a harsh whisper, but it was the best he could manage.He felt Bucky move around so that he was leaning against the glass window and he was in Steve’s line of sight. His arms were crossed and Steve knew that defensive stance from a mile away. "I was following orders,” came Bucky’s reply in an equally low pitch.“Orders?" Steve blinked at him in shock. "Orders? Since when are orders more important than helping someone you care about?! They were torturing her, Buck; Christ knows what else they did to her!" Steve stared at him for a long minute and the longer he looked at the stubborn line of Bucky's mouth, the sicker he felt. "How long?"Bucky's face screwed up in confusion. "How long what?""How long did you know that they had her?"Bucky’s eyes went wide and he looked down at his combat boots, refusing to meet Steve’s. Steve kept pressing forward though, getting into Bucky’s face and making sure he could look his friend in the eyes as he kept throwing out questions. "How long did you know that they were hurting her?!"Bucky recoiled and held out a hand to keep Steve at bay. "You think I knew the whole time? Shit, Steve. I was only transferred in on that last weekSteve felt his heart rise up to his throat. "A week? You knew they had her for a whole week? You should have dropped the mission and gotten her out as a priority!"Bucky heaved a deep breath, and Steve could tell he was struggling to keep his temper in check. “I knew what they were doing. I saw them do things to her that were worse than what they ever did to me,” he shook his head, “hell, I heard her begging. I did nothing, Steve, I know that and but I didn’t have a choice.” He looked up at Steve, his eyes watery. “I couldn’t do anything, Steve.”"Of course, it was your call!" Steve prodded Bucky in the chest, punctuating each word. “You. Were. There. You. Could. Have. Stopped. It. You left her there.”Bucky jolted with each prod but didn’t move to push the finger away. His hands were curled up at his sides into fists. Steve could hear the metal of his left arm straining under the pressure, but he wasn’t backing down.Bucky gritted his teeth and glared back at Steve through long strands of hand. "Fury said no. I asked him. I fucking begged, Steve, but he said I couldn’t compromise the mission for a civie.”Steve took a step back in disgust. “Since when do you give a shit about what Nick Fury wants?”Bucky slid a hand into his pocket and drew out a USB stick. The bit of black against the silver of Bucky’s hand drew in Steve’s gaze. “Buck…” Steve’s blue eyes went wide and then narrowed. “What is that?” He pointed to the thing in Bucky’s hand.Bucky flipped the stick around in his fingertips. “Hydra’s data on Darcy. Their intel on all of their other experiments, on me. Their brainwashing techniques, the storage data on all their assassins. This was the mission, Steve. We can take down Hydra for good now.”“Buck…” Steve took a step closer to his friend. “In the data…” Steve swallowed, “is there stuff in there on what they did to Darcy?”Bucky hung his head. “Yeah, Steve. All of that’s on here, but I can tell you now whatever it is, it’s worse than what they ever did to me and I don’t know if even Stark will be able to fix it.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The following days were some of the scariest of Darcy’s life.The first time she woke up, she felt surprisingly good. Hell, she’d go as far to say she was well-rested and more importantly, safe and sound, out of Hydra's reach. She was secure and untouchable in whatever Avenger's facility they’d brought her too.Feeling ready to face the world, Darcy cracked open an eye and began to take in her room.Bland and white, which was typical of the medical suites. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw there wasn’t anybody in the room except her and the horde of machines that sat next to her bed. She avoided staring at them for too long and forced her gaze to move on.Having surveyed the whole room and deeming it safe, Darcy pushed herself up with shaking arms and managed to sit back against the bed.Being upright was the first part of her plan, the seconds part was something that she’d been wanting to do for a long time. Raising her arms up, Darcy stretched herself out, enjoying the pull and relief that came to her muscles. She twisted and turned with her torso and went to curl her toes but she couldn’t feel them.Panic started to sink in, she ripped back the blankets and watched in horror as the lower half of her started to fade away. The desperate screams that followed altered the nurses that she was awake, and they came rushing in. Grabbing her thrashing limbs, holding her down as she sobbed and begged for them to fix her; to bring back her legs. The nurses did their best to soothe her, but Darcy knew from the prick of the needle into her arm they were forcing her under again and soon darkness took away her screams and pain.The second time she woke up was better. She saw that someone had wrapped her up in the ratty blanket that she’d been rescued with. She sat up again and peeled away the layers of blankets with care. She was relieved, to say the least when she saw her ten toes down there. She wiggled them a few times just to be sure, and counted them as well, and got the same number, ten each time. Satisfied that her feet were intact, Darcy went back to observing the rest of the room.There was a ‘no visitors allowed’ sign that had been put up above her bed, and there was a vase full of sunflowers next to her bed, but no card to say who they were from. She’d been reaching over to touch a bright yellow petal when the tip of her finger started to waiver. She’d quickly brought her hand back into the safety of the blanket and took deep breaths as she watched it materialise again.“They’re working on fixing that,” came a voice and Darcy jumped. Looking at the door, she saw Steve resting against the door frame. “Tony, Bruce and everyone in the Stark Research Labs is searching for a cure right now for you. Helen has even flown in to take a look at your results and to see if the Cradle can be of any help. We’re going to get you back to normal in no time.”Darcy nodded. “I know.” Her voice came out hoarse, probably from the fact that she'd been doing nothing but screaming over the last few days. She cleared her throat before she added, “I know they’re trying. But what if they can’t undo it? What if-” her voice cracked, “what if I’m stuck like this forever?” She held a hand out from the blanket and as expected it started to fade.Steve pushed off from the doorframe and came up to the edge of her bed and pushed her hand back into the blanket. “You won’t be stuck like this forever,” he assured, blue eyes full of hope, “you know they won’t stop until they fix you up and your back to the usual sarcastic Darcy we all know and love.”Darcy had no idea what she was supposed to say back to him. She couldn’t say that she didn’t have faith in anybody to undo what the Hydra-fucks did to her? That she truly believed that she was going to be stuck like this for the rest of her life? That she was going to just fade away and die in the next couple of days anyway?So instead, she gave Steve her best smile, albeit slightly watery and avoided making eye contact, looking everywhere in the room beside him. Her gaze did land back on the sunflowers, their brightness drawing her in once more. She longed to smell one but kept her hands tightly within the safe confines of the blanket. She would be satisfied with looking at them for now.“Do you like them?” Steve asked, breaking her trance.Darcy glanced at Steve. “Hm?”He gestured his chin at the flowers. “Do you like ‘em?”She blinked. It took a few seconds for his question to register, but it eventually sunk in and she understood what he was asking. “Oh yeah. They’re beautiful.”Steve grinned. “Great, I’ll let Buck know.”Darcy’s stomach dropped. “Who?” she rasped.Steve frowned. “Bucky. That’s who gave you the flowers.”Darcy swallowed back the urge to screech, to scream. She didn’t want anything to do with him or any piece of him near her. Anything associated or tainted by him was just as bad. Bucky - the person that she’d trusted. Bucky, the person that had allowed Hydra to torture her.In the calmest voice she could muster, she managed to get out, “Get rid of them, please”Steve looked confused. “What? Why?”Darcy gritted her teeth and sounded out each word, “Get. Rid. Of. Them.”Steve glanced helplessly between her and the flowers. “Darcy-” he made to touch her leg but she pulled it away. “They’re just flowers.”Darcy shook her head. “No.” She started to shake, “No!” she cried out a final time before she tried to shove them off the table. “I don’t want them near me!” Her fingertips brushed against the china of the vase for a brief second, making it wobble, table but found her hands going right through them. Bringing her hands back into her chest, she started to sob, rocking side to side.The distress sent her heart rate spiking and the machines into a frenzy. Beeping and alarming, she barely heard any of them, her world starting to go fuzzy and she felt her throat closing up. Her fingertips tingled and her limbs were cold and shaking.Doctors swarmed in, beckoned by the call of the machines and started checking readings. Through her blurry vision, Darcy could see that Steve was pushed back from the frenzy and was stuck to watching on from the sides.Darcy tried to calm herself, moving a hand up to run it through her hair, an old habit from her uni days. But that only served to make things worse, when she found not long brown locks, instead, she was met with short and spiky stubble that stung her palm. She ran her hand all over her head, before she let out another involuntary wail, and dug her nails into her scalp.The pain was almost a relief. She was solid, she was making herself feel something, even if it was only for a brief second. A gloved hand snatched her hand away and brought it back down to her side, and she didn’t resist.She felt her vision coming back into focus, and something yellow caught her gaze. She forced herself to focus and the blurry vision brought the sunflowers into focus once more.Sunflowers. Bucky.He’d been close to her bed, he’d been near her…like he’d been in the cell and-A loud wail escaped her and she felt herself wanting to cave in on herself again, and she felt her whole body beginning to flicker in and out. There were murmurs and shocked gasps around her.She was falling off the edge. She needed to disappear. None of the Doctors made a move to help her this time. Instead watched on from the sides as they made notes on their tablets and observed Darcy crying, none of them making a move to try and comfort her or soothe her distress.When would it end?When would the pain stop?Why was this happening to her?When would she run out of tears?She didn’t have the answers, and as she cried herself raw, and was watched like a zoo animal, she found herself looking around the cage of Doctors again, searching for Steve, but found that he was gone.She was alone, and maybe she was just going to have to get used to that. Maybe she should just give up and disappear.Diagnoses and theories were thrown around like confetti, the Doctors never seeming to be able to settle on one or be able to figure out what had been done to her. And there were a lot of Doctors looking at her.A constant stream of them floated in and out of her room, their faces a blur but they all wore white coats that whipped behind them with each sharp turn they took, darting from machine to machine to read her sudden spike in vitals or to check her IV’s.Medication after medication was pumped into her, all different colours and fed into her body via tubes and wires. Pills and creams dominated every flat surface in her room. But nothing they did was able to stabilize the random dematerialisation - yeah, that’s what they were calling it - as of yet.Technically there was a longer word that they’d used for what she did, but Darcy hadn’t been listening so it’d just sounded like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to her. Most of the time her brain felt like scrambled eggs, and she was only being held together by a few flimsy pieces of sticky tape.Slowly but surely, she worked out how to bring herself back from a ‘fade’ as she liked to call it. She’d close her eyes and imagine that her whole body was there, that she was heavy, that she was weight. They tried to make her do under all sorts of conditions, but even when they pushed her to the brink of exhaustion, they apparently still couldn’t get the kind of data that they needed to figure out what was biologically going on with her.So after a lot of convincing and promises from Jane and Steve that they would be right beside her the whole way, she agreed to leave the Medical Bay and head over to Tony’s Lab for an overnight stay. That would allow for them to run tests under different conditions and use some machines that could apparently see in different dimensions or something like that.She’d been fine leaving the Medical Bay, managing to hold herself together, much to her own surprise. Jane had managed to find a half-decent wig and had spent about half an hour helping Darcy fix it up before they headed out, which had helped with her confidence a bit.Halfway to the Lab, she’d passed in front of a window and looked down at the grassy lawns and enjoyed the brief time in the sunshine before Steve had tugged on her hand. She looked up at him and was met with a sad smile. “We don’t know how long you’re going to be solid for, Darce.”She frowned and took one last look out the window. Steve tugged on her hand again. “I promise we can come back after, okay?” She found herself nodding and being tugged along the rest of the way to the Labs without any further detours or stops.It was just all downhill from there though. She stepped foot into the place and seen the machines, the lights and heard the electronic sounds she’s travelled back to Hydra, to the experiments and-
“Someone get the blanket around her, quickly!”
“Darcy!”
“Where is the goddamned blanket? Steve!”
“Darcy, stay with us!”
“Shit, she’s fading, someone grab her-” and those had been the last words she heard.They’d been too late. She’d faded out fully and for hours they’d assumed she was gone. It’d been to everyone’s shock and horror when she’d reappeared back in her room back in Medical Bay.The Doctors were baffled and she was just traumatised, because whatever that had been, it’d changed her again. They’d found out when a nurse had come in to change her IV. They’d taken the banging off and her forearm had brushed Darcy just for a second, but she’d been shocked. Going still for a second before falling back to the floor and seizing.Darcy had screamed for help, scrambling out of bed, reaching out to touch the Nurse again, but finding that it only made her worse. Help had taken forever to arrive, but they’d encourage Darcy back to bed, being extra careful not to touch her after she’d explained what had happened.Later, more staff had arrived in hazmat suits and found that it was safe to touch her with a surface barrier, not that it mattered. It still took weeks after that to not flinch whenever someone went to touch her, but even then, she didn’t want anyone touching her. She was dirty and she’d hurt someone. Hurt them because she was now a freak and she was disgusting.Jane and Steve always berated her when she said it aloud, what she thought of herself, but she didn’t care. It was the truth, wasn’t it?It took three months of fucking hard work, sweat and tears, but Darcy was finally cleared to be checked out of the Medical Bay. There wasn’t anything more that they could do for her there. And she was a huge risk to have on-site. She’d started to fry their machines and people whenever she came in contact with them so it’d been decided it would be for the best that she be relocated to a more permanent environment.She was still going to therapy five times a week, she was still being treated like a guinea pig as they tried to figure out what had been done to her, but no one had a damned clue. It was always the same thing that they said. “Hold on, Darce. We’ll get some answers for you, soon, okay? Just a few more days, can you do that for me?”But as the days turned into weeks, she really didn’t know how much longer she was going to be able to hold on. If she even wanted to anymore...