Archive of Our Own

Darcy is a scant six years old when she realizes her Gran has a lot of friends. And she means a lot.

People from the most remote corners of Iowa drive for hours to come and see her. They bring loafs of homemade bread, pies and cakes, fruits and vegetables, live chickens and eggs, potted plants, bags of seeds and even furniture sometimes.

Almost everything in her Gran’s house was given by friends—or so Darcy’s told whenever she asks about the origin of this or that. Darcy’s super warm and fluffy comforter, the one that keeps her bed warm every winter without fail, was gifted by a sheep farmer from up north when she was a baby and Gran had just taken her in. The television was a gift from a nice family from Detroit; Darcy still remembers when the blonde couple (with tears in their eyes, for some reason) and their tall and gangly teenage daughter had brought it over last year. An older woman and her twin sister, a completely bald, frail-looking thing who looked like a stiff wind could blow her over, had brought a box filled with brand new lightbulbs.

And it’s been like that long before Darcy was born too. The old, slightly crooked bird house that hangs from a tree not too far from the backdoor was made by twin boys her Gran was friends with, twenty-seven years ago, she said. And the rocking chair in the winter garden was a present from just a week after she got married to Darcy’s grandfather (he unfortunately died in Korea and Gran still cries a little every time she speaks of it). Not only that but the old wooden table in the kitchen was a present to Gran’s mother, and the hand-painted plates hanging on the walls as well.

It’s awesome and Darcy loves it. Her Gran is more than awesome on her own, of course, but part of what makes her awesomer is that everything in their house has a story to tell.

Things friends gave them. Things her grandfather and great-grandfather made. Things passed down the family. And they all make Gran and Darcy’s centennial farmhouse a home unlike any other.

Of course, Darcy has wondered a few times already why exactly her Gran’s friends give them so many presents. Why Gran has so many friends is a no-brainer: she’s the best, plain and simple. And Darcy also knows her Gran helps all her friends all the time. No one helps more people than her Gran.

Darcy’s just a little fuzzy about the details concerning how exactly her Gran helps them all.

Usually she doesn’t question it much. Gran’s told her several times already she wouldn’t explain before Darcy was older (an answer she kind of hates, because she’s plenty old already—even her teacher at school says she’s ‘too smart for her own good’, whatever that means—she loves her Gran dearly though so she doesn’t push).

But there’s a family that has arrived at the farm just after lunch and Darcy is more curious than ever: their son has absolutely no hair—not on his head, not on his arms, not even eyebrows and it looks so strange—and he’s Darcy’s age. Gran greeted him with a hug when they got there, took his hand and led him inside so they could all sit on the sofas. Considering the summer vacations have been going on at that point for over a month and Darcy’s bored out of her mind, she doesn’t hesitate: she sneaks out of her room, tip-toeing silently like a cat down the stairs and puts her ear to the door.

“. . .is it going to hurt?” She assumes it’s the boy asking. His voice is tiny, subdued, slightly hoarse as if he doesn’t speak a lot. There’s something in it that strikes Darcy as. . .off although she can’t put her finger on it, can’t begin to explain why it catches her attention so completely.

“It won’t hurt a bit, sweetie.” That’s Gran. Darcy knows her voice better than anyone else’s. She doesn’t remember her father’s or her mother’s (she was too young when they died) but she knows she’ll never forget her Gran’s. It’s always calm and warm, and it always makes Darcy feel calm and warm, even when she’s really upset. “I know you’ve felt a lot of pain, more than most people will ever know. But I’m just here to make you feel better.”

“Like a doctor?”

There are chuckles, her Gran, and other voices she doesn’t know. She’s pretty sure it’s the parents, the two tired-looking adults she saw with the boy when they arrived.

“We explained, honey, remember? Mrs. Lewis isn’t a doctor,” a woman tells the boy. She’s a little amused—Darcy can tell—but also very sad, almost in pain. Her voice is infinitely gentle, and the mixed hope and apprehension in it make something clench inside Darcy’s chest like the woman’s feelings are her own. It takes her breath away for an instant.

“So what do you do?”

When her Gran answers, Darcy hears the smile in her words so clearly she can almost see it. “I help people however I can. People who are hurting come to see me, and I try to take their pain away.”

There’s a heavy silence, and for a second she imagines her Gran has already started helping the boy somehow. But then there’s another voice speaking up—a man, the father. “Is there anything you can do for him? Every single treatment the doctors tried didn’t work and-” He chokes up and falls silent. It’s not only pain that makes the words difficult to say, it’s love, laced thickly through each word he says (just like Darcy has always imagined her dad’s voice would be if he was still alive).

“We’re going to know very soon,” Gran replies. Her smile is gentler this time, Darcy recognizes it. “But first, Marco, would you like some lemonade? Me and my granddaughter prepared a pitcher just this morning especially for you.”

Darcy remembers. Her Gran told her the fresh batch of lemonade they were making right after breakfast was special for a friend coming over who wasn’t feeling very well. Worried about her Gran’s friend, Darcy had put all her heart into it. And, for some reason, it’s at that point Darcy realizes that, for all her curiosity and conviction she’s old enough to know this, she’s intruding on something that is deeply personal.

She slips back up to her room, feeling more than a little guilty for her indiscretion, and distractedly plays with her dolls while waiting for her Gran to be done. It takes a little over an hour.

As soon as she hears the door of the living room opening, she goes to her window, peering over the edge from behind the gauzy, see-through fabric of her curtains. Her Gran’s friends are leaving, leisurely walking through the front garden to the spot where they parked their car, right underneath the old tree Darcy likes to climb up. The father is carrying the boy who seems to be dozing off in his arms, and the mother hovers close to them, one hand rubbing her son’s back while the other fishes her keys out of her pockets and unlocks the car.

Both adults are achingly gentle as they settle the boy in the backseat of the car and, while the father goes to the driver’s seat, the mother climbs in the back. She carefully situates the child so he’s lying on the backseat with his head cushioned on her lap. One of her hands is already threading through his hair and gently brushing it before she even closes the door.

Darcy is out of her room and down the stairs before the father even starts the car to drive away.

Slipping into the living room, she finds her grandmother lying over the sofa, eyes closed and an arm thrown over them to shield them from the daylight. It’s nothing unusual—her Gran is always tired after her friends visit—but for the first time Darcy has an inkling that there’s a lot more between her Gran and her many friends than she’d initially suspected.

“Come here, honey.” Gran heard Darcy coming—because of course she did. “Sit with me for a minute while I rest my eyes.”

Darcy hesitates for a second.

Until that day, she’s never bothered her Gran so soon after a visit from friends. In the past, she’s always waited until her grandmother told her it was alright to come down but this time. . . “You helped,” she says, more than asks. No need for a question, anyway, not when there’s no way her Gran could possibly fail if she said she was going to help. “The boy’s going to feel better.”

Gran raises her arm a little, just enough that she can see Darcy while still shadowing her eyes (the exact same eyes Darcy inherited; Lewis Blues, her Gran calls them).“He will. From now on, I’ll watch over him.”

“What do you mean?” It’s the first time Darcy ever wonders about why so many friends visit her Gran all the time. Also it’s the first time she ever asks. When her Gran points to the coffee table, Darcy slips closer and sits on the small table, near her Gran and grabs the object indicated. It’s a picture. “It’s the boy.” That’s also logical: friends keep pictures of each other. “He’s my age, isn’t he?”

“Yes, and he was very sick.” With a sigh, Gran drops her arm and sits up. She gives Darcy a smile, but it looks too tired to be very convincing.

“But you helped.”

Gran nods. “I did.”

“Why?”

The older woman appears to consider the question carefully.

They’ve never talked about this before: Darcy has asked in the past what her Gran was always doing with all her friends, but was gently rebuffed and told she was too young every time. Considering that’s not what she’s asking now, Darcy’s hopeful she’ll get an answer—or maybe the beginning of one.

“Because it’s something our family has always done,” Gran finally says. The tiredness in her features recedes for a second to leave place to a seriousness Darcy has rarely seen, much less seen directed at her. “I was taught by my mother, and before that she was taught by her mother as well. Our family has always helped those who came to us seeking help.”

Darcy feels proud then. Her family helps. She doesn’t understand exactly how, but the simple fact that they do is important.

And she doesn’t doubt for a second that she was never meant to do anything else other than learn whatever it is her Gran and her Gran’s mother learned to do. That she has no idea what it is she needs to learn is irrelevant.

“Will you teach me to help as well?” she asks.

Blue eyes look at her shrewdly. “There is a lot you’ll need to learn, sweet pea,” Gran explains. If Darcy thought she was serious before, she’s quick to revise her opinion. This is plenty serious. “It’ll be a lot like school. You’ll need to know the names of all the plants I keep in my garden, and learn all my recipes for ointments and teas. And that’s only to start with. Are you sure you’d like to learn, Darcy?”

Darcy frowns a little—because, yes, that sounds like an awful lot of things to learn all by heart and she already has enough homework to do for school. “But you learned all that too, right?”

“Yes, but I was a little older when I asked my mother to teach me.” Gran raises a thin and pale hand, tucking an errant strand of hair behind Darcy’s ear before brushing her fingers affectionately against her cheek. “You’re my strong little girl, Darcy. If you really want to learn, I know you’ll do wonderfully, but you need to be completely sure first.”

That’s fair.

Gran always says you have to finish what you start, and commit fully to whatever engagements you take. Darcy understands that philosophy despite her young age, and she knows that if it’s something her family has considered as important for so long, then Darcy can’t just go at it half-heartedly.

But she also knows she wants to do this. She wants to help people like her Gran—and her family—has always done. She wants her Gran to be proud.

“I want to learn,” she states with a nod.

They start on it the next day.

Darcy is nine when she helps for the first time with a visitor.

In the two years and a half since she told her Gran she wanted to learn, she’s been learning just like she said she would. It’s not as hard she thought it’d be: ever since she was very little, she’s always helped around the house and in the garden. What most people would have called chores actually carried a lot more significance than she’d imagined.

Her Gran’s favorite blend of tea that they mix themselves with dried herbs and flowers every month is good for soothing the nerves. The bars of soap they make with different plant extracts can purify the skin—the teenagers of the neighboring towns apparently love them. The scented candles can sanitize the air just as well as bring comfort. Baking and cooking, so long as you ‘pour your heart into it’ can give back strength and courage to the most exhausted of souls.

Her fourth grade teacher called it hokum. Some of her classmates laugh and call Darcy a witch. Others are a little scared and don’t talk to her much. A few love coming over and sharing freshly baked cookies.

Not that Darcy cares much either way what people think of her Gran (or Darcy herself for that matter). She can see the good they do with her own eyes: people come to her Gran, radiating sickness, hanging onto hope by a thread and weathered by the hardships, and then they leave, tired but sound again. Exhausted but lighter somehow. They all call a few weeks or months later, thanking her Gran profusely and send care packages with presents.

She’s been too young (or maybe too naïve) to see it for a long time, but for the past year she’s started to discern it, more and more distinctly with each new person that visits her Gran’s farm. The people that come into their home don’t feel the same as the people who leave.

She hasn’t told or asked her Gran about it just yet. First, she wants to make sure she understands a bit more this new and odd sort of intuition she’s developing.

One thing she doesn’t doubt for a second is the certainty that her Gran is entirely responsible for whatever she manages to fix in all these people. It’s taken years of listening more carefully than she’s ever had to her Gran, years of watching people coming and going, years of slowly putting each little piece of the puzzle back in its place, one at a time, until she started getting the picture.

Neither Darcy, nor her Gran say it out loud. They never actually put a name on it. They only ever call it helping. But Darcy’s drawn her own conclusions—that and she’s heard the rumors and whispers in town, whenever they go there.

Somehow, her Gran heals.

Ever since that word first entered her mind (she doesn’t even remember when it happened exactly, but it feels both like it was yesterday and an eternity at the same time) she’s been itching to see it with her own eyes. There’s a determination growing in her, a feeling of purpose so right it fuels her desire to learn everything her Gran is willing to teach her.

Being allowed to assist her Gran with a guest is a major step towards Darcy finally getting down to the real business. She recognizes it as the milestone that it is.

“And here’s my granddaughter, Darcy,” her Gran says when they’re all sat comfortably on the sofas. One of her hands is petting the unruly strands of hair on top of Darcy’s head and trying to brush them back in a semblance of order.

“Hello.” Darcy does her best to imitate her Gran’s smile, the one that never fails to make people feel better for seeing it.

“Hi, Darcy, I’m Marsha.” The woman who came to visit them is in her thirties from what Darcy can tell, or maybe forties—she has a hard time guessing ages for adults sometimes. She arrived at the farm with her parents, an elderly couple with gray hair and wrinkled faces who helped her frail body from the car and into the house: the distance is short, but Marsha is particularly thin and obviously very weak physically. The colorful shawl wrapped around her hairless head only serves to make the paleness of her skin that much more obvious, a stark contrast of cheerful oranges and reds, and pasty white.

“Are you like your grandmother?” the mother asks Darcy, voice quiet, smile a bit wobbly and eyes slightly watery. She’s trying to be strong but she’s in a lot of pain too.

Although the question is a bit vague, Darcy has a pretty good idea what the elderly woman means exactly. “Gran is teaching me,” she answers.

“She’s a Lewis through and through,” Gran declares and gives Darcy a little wink. “She’ll help a lot of people someday, but for now, she’s just here to watch—only if you don’t mind, of course.”

The two parents appear a bit hesitant, but Marsha only smiles warmly. “I’m glad to hear there’s someone who will continue your work,” she says, radiating sincerity. For a woman so physically diminished that Darcy can almost smell the death clinging to her, she carries a surprising amount of peace.

“So am I.” Her smile is the same as ever, but Darcy can see her shift in countenance as clearly as she can see the difference between night and day. “But we’re not here to talk about my family’s legacy—we can talk about that tomorrow if you want to come back for tea. Today, we’re here for you. Now, tell me everything.”

Gran speaks plainly. Her smile is calm and never falters or loses its warmth. Her eyes are clear and look at Marsha steadily. She exudes confidence, just like Marsha breathes peace. They balance each other quite nicely somehow.

And so the sick woman begins her tale and Darcy listens, quiet and attentive. It starts out pretty dramatically: Marsha was diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago. It was in its early stage and doctors were hopeful. Treatments followed after treatments—chemotherapy, countless surgeries, longer and longer stays at the hospital—and somehow Marsha got inexplicably worse. Despite the specialists’ best efforts, the cancer didn’t respond to even the latest experimental treatments. Her breasts had to be surgically removed first, then her uterus. Still the cancer grew stronger and Marsha sicker, to the point that she was only the shadow of her old self, ‘disgusting’ according to her husband who finally grabbed his things and left.

The coup de grace, as Marsha calls it now with a wry smile, comes when the doctors tell her the cancer turned into a sarcoma—incurable. She only has a few months left to live and no hope of seeing her two children ever graduate from school.

“I know it doesn’t work every time,” she concludes, quiet and resigned. “My friend told me you can’t always help. But she also said you saved her nephew when the doctors were convinced there was no hope he’d live to see his thirteenth birthday.”

“There’s a chance,” the father speaks up for the first time. He wipes at the corners of his eyes and scowls fiercely as if it’ll help hide the tears that make his eyes shine. “The doctors advised us against this—said false hope could only hurt in the long run. I think they’re wrong. There’s more to this world than science can explain. And maybe it won’t work, but we’ll be infinitely grateful if you at least try.”

Gran nods, her smile tinged with sadness. “You did the right thing,” she tells them and rises to her feet. “The opinion of others, doctors or not, doesn’t matter in this instance. You need to do what you need to do to be at peace with yourself and have the least amount of regret.” When she turns to Marsha her eyes crinkle. “Why don’t we see what the both of us can do now?”

Darcy watches, sat on her armchair, as her Gran directs Marsha to lie down on the couch and breathe in and out deeply a few times. Both parents look anxious and they appear to be holding their breath. Darcy doesn’t share their worry though: that feeling of balance she noticed earlier is growing stronger still.

It’s the first time she’s ever felt this way but she knows with the utmost certainty her Gran can feel her too. And that it means she can help.

Just before she kneels on the ground by Marsha’s side, her Gran shoots Darcy a fleeting but knowing glance. The understanding that they share in that moment is all the more breathtaking that it only lasts for a heartbeat.

“Good,” Gran speaks up a second later. She’s sitting with her back straight, her legs folded neatly beneath her body, and she faces Marsha who’s looking at her curiously. “This is how I’m going to proceed: I’m going to put my hands on you. You might not feel much of anything, or it might be very intense—it’s different for everybody and I never guess how one of my guests will respond. I can promise you it doesn’t hurt though, alright?”

Marsha nods (a couple of stiff jerks of her head that look forced, as if she has to forcefully remind herself to answer) and her attempt at a smile comes short.

Unwilling to let the tension and unease linger for overly long, Gran lifts her hands and lets hover a few inches over Marsha’s body. “Are we ready?” she asks.

Marsha nods again, more assuredly this time, and oh-so-gently, Gran lowers her hands and touches them very lightly, the right one on the woman’s sternum, the left one over her left kidney. They both close their eyes and take a breath, completely in unison. As Gran exhales, she shifts her right hand and lays it over Marsha’s right kidney. The next inspiration they take is completely synchronized again.

The process goes on and time seems to freeze around them. The rhythm of the room slows, the ticking of the old clock forgotten until the only sound that Darcy can hear is the deep intakes and outtakes of air from the two women. She sits perfectly immobile, almost hypnotized by the random paths her Gran’s hands trace over Marsha’s body and the way the atmosphere is gradually lightening around them. It’s nothing tangible, nothing she can see, nothing she can accurately describe using words, but she feels it all the same.

That strange sensation she assimilated to death earlier, that seemed to cling to Marsha like a shroud, is being slowly chased away somehow.

An indeterminate amount of time later, her Gran suddenly opens her eyes again and takes her hand away. It’s only as Marsha gasps and her Gran sighs (their strange unity abruptly disrupted) that Darcy feels the dizziness and gulps in air like she was drowning.

(She never even realized it but at some point during the process she started breathing in and out following her Gran and Marsha.)

Without a word, her Gran rises to her feet, seems to almost lose her balance before she puts a hand on the coffee table to stabilize herself. She shakes her head a little, straightens back up and sends Darcy an assessing look.

Darcy has never seen her Gran so grave before. “Come with me, sweet pea,” she says in a whisper, opening her arms.

The girl doesn’t hesitate: she shoots out of the armchair, almost trips on her own two feet but eventually makes it to her grandmother who enfolds her into a tight embrace. Without a word, Darcy is ushered out into the hallway and the bathroom.

She’s bent over the toilet bowl and puking her guts out when she finally realizes that she wasn’t only dizzy but sick as well. In less than a minute thankfully, her stomach settles back down and Darcy moves to the sink to wash out her mouth while her Gran takes her turn and vomits as well.

Only when her Gran has cleaned up and calmed a little does Darcy dare speak up.

“What happened?”

Gran smiles but sighs a little. “You felt it, didn’t you?” She doesn’t need an answer to know that Darcy did feel it. “I never imagined we’d be starting this early but you’re ready.” Her smile softens and Darcy’s chest fills suddenly with an odd sort of sheepishness at the pride she sees shining in her Gran’s eyes and written all over her face. When the older woman pulls her into a fierce hug, Darcy buries her face into her shirt and breathes in the familiar smells of freshly ground coffee beans and dried leaves and flower petals. “You’re going to help so many people, my darling,” Gran breathes into her hair. “You’ll be doing so much good in your life.”

They stay there, in the bathroom, for a few more minutes, letting the silence of the small room wash over them.

Once they finally make their way out and back to the living room, they find the small family there in the same desperate embrace Darcy and her Gran had shared only seconds earlier. They slip out without a word and into the kitchen, and start preparing some snacks for everyone so Marsha can get some food in her stomach before she and her parents go back to the motel for the night.

Helping people is a lonely business, as Darcy learns when she’s not quite eleven.

Her Gran was an only child and only had one daughter. That one daughter died young with her companion, Darcy’s father, in a car accident, not long after giving birth to her first and only child, a little girl. She and Gran are the only family each other have left and they have precious few friends—they’re not pariahs per say, not when the town knows that what they accomplish in their farm, if very mysterious, is ultimately nothing short of miraculous.

But they’re odd. Different. Separate.

They’re also poor. It’s a shock that Darcy gets when she enters the sixth grade and starts going to class at the nearest junior high and finds herself set apart from her classmates.

Her Gran doesn’t have a real job—never did—and earns a few bucks selling her homemade herbal tea blends, ointments, candles, perfumes and soaps at farmers’ markets and baking pastries for local diners. Mostly they depend on the generosity of people who come to them for help: what Darcy had always imagined were presents are in fact the one way they have of living somewhat decently and on very little money each month. People bring food sometime, or things useful in everyday life, and Gran has an extensive garden that she works in for long hours everyday. Darcy never goes hungry and never actually wants for anything.

But then she starts going to a new school. Her best friend moved away with his parents to Utah. And an older girl makes fun of her clothes.

Darcy’s all the more hurt by the gratuitous mockeries that she doesn’t understand them: she loves the handmade scarves, beanies and sweaters her Gran knits for her, and she also quite likes the patches on her jeans she’s sewn herself with colorful bits of fabric.

It doesn’t help that she starts growing boobs not long after that. What makes it worse is that she’s the first in her class. The undisputed worst is that they’re bigger than those of girls two or three years older than her. (She hates her breasts with a burning passion only rivaled by the school lunch lady’s obsession with serving them mystery meat as often as she can.)

Sixth grade is also made more difficult because they receive several people in only a few months that neither her Gran nor Darcy can do anything to help.

It happens more often than Darcy would like, and it breaks her heart just as hard every time it happens. But sometimes people come to their door seeking help and there’s nothing to be done.

The first one is a man who visits them only a few months after the new school year started. Darcy’s at school then and doesn’t meet him, but when she comes back home after class she finds her Gran sat at the kitchen table staring down at a mug filled with cold tea with a somber expression on her face. When the young teenager asks what happened, her Gran explains it was too late to do anything except listen to the man and give him teas that would help with his pain and calm his mind.

The second happens only a month later. It’s a young couple with a single daughter, a girl with a round and unmistakably childish face and eyes a lot older than any six-year-old should have. Her leukemia is in its final stages and Darcy wishes so hard there was something she could do, but cruel as Fate is sometimes, Darcy knows from the moment she lays her eyes on the little girl with the sunny smile that it won’t work. Judging by the carefully hidden, rueful expression on her Gran’s face as she shows the family inside, she knows it too.

The mother cries of course. The father explodes and unleashes anger the magnitude of which Darcy has never seen before—the sight shakes her as badly as the little girl’s hopeless gaze.

“You’re a fucking crook!” the man shouts at her Gran once he’s put his little girl back in her seat. “You should be ashamed of yourself! People like you should be put in a fucking jail and left to rot there! I’ll sue you for everything you’re worth! Don’t think I won’t! Once my lawyer’s done with you you’ll never see the outside world ever again!”

And he storms out, driving the car away much too quickly to be entirely safe.

Darcy swallows back her tears best she can, because as shaken as she is, her Gran looks worse than she’s ever seen her—pale and shaky, her hands clenching spasmodically on the folds of her skirt.

“Come on, Gran,” Darcy slowly grabs her hand so as not to startle her. “I’ll make you some tea. We can eat those cookies we baked this morning.”

The elderly woman sighs and discretely wipes her eyes as they head back inside. “Sometimes there’s nothing to be done, sweetheart,” she tells her. It’s not the first time her Gran explains, but Darcy lets her speak: she can tell her Gran needs to remind herself as much as she needs to make sure Darcy understands. “No matter how hard we might want it, sometimes there’s nothing to be done. No matter how cruel or unfair, sometimes it doesn’t happen.” ‘It’ being that strange sort of connection that happens, without rhyme or logic, and enables Gran and Darcy to take the ill out of a person. Granted, ‘connection’ isn’t quite the word to describe it, just like ‘healing’ isn’t entirely accurate for what they do: what happens in truth is nowhere near that tangible or strong; they don’t make what’s wrong right again, they take away what hurts.

Even Darcy, for her youth and inexperience, could feel as clearly as she felt with anybody else how the sickness had sunken its claws deep inside the little girl’s tiny body. But she also knows with the utmost certainty that she would have found no hold onto it, no matter how hard she tried.

The little girl’s picture (that the parents forgot on the coffee table) goes into her Gran’s notebook same as all the people her Gran helped in the past and keeps on looking after.

In an oddly timely twist of Fate (but then again, Fate often has a way of doing things the exact contrary as to what you’d expect) Darcy’s grandmother passes away the summer after her granddaughter graduates from high school.

Darcy is hit all the harder that she doesn’t see it coming: her Gran’s ever the same helpful and energetic woman. There’s no hitch in her health that could have prepared her only granddaughter for what is to come. No sign of anything being wrong with her grandmother to give them time to say goodbye. They simply go to bed one night and when Darcy wakes up on the following morning the house is completely silent—and that’s never happened because her Gran always rises with the sun.

Grief-stricken as she is though, Darcy is infinitely thankful her Gran passed away in her sleep.

(She’s seen too many sick people in her short life. The idea that her Gran could have become ill in turn, diminished until nothing remained but a tired and worn shadow of her former self, without Darcy being able to do a thing about it, is the most terrifying thing she could ever imagine. The relief she feels that she didn’t have to see this makes her feel not a little guilty.)

For a couple of weeks after the funeral, Darcy considers not going to Culver.

She thinks about abandoning her dreams of studying, of traveling, of seeing and learning new things that she couldn’t in Iowa. She makes plans, how she could take over her Gran’s stand at the farmers markets. She imagines what her whole life would be, staying in the family farm that has never felt so empty, working in the garden during the day, helping the people that come to her because she’s their last hope.

“You’ll fade away if you stay here, darlin’,” Rosa, an old friend of her Gran, tells her when she comes to check on her five days after the funeral. Darcy has just admitted she’s thinking of calling Culver and telling them she won’t come after all. “Penny would never have wanted this for you. She always knew you were made for bigger things.”

Darcy snorts a little. “Yeah, well. She was kind of biased, doncha think?”

“Maybe,” Rosa admits with a crooked little smile. “But you were her only grandchild, the apple of her eyes. And even if you hadn’t been the most talented healer in the family, she would have been just as proud.” Darcy grimaces a little—she doesn’t like the word ‘healer’. What they do isn’t ‘healing’ really, but people have always needed to put other people in neat little boxes with a familiar name on it. Rosa doesn’t mean anything by it anyway. “And she was so excited when you were accepted at Culver—even more excited than that first time you helped her heal someone.”

Marsha—Darcy remembers that day vividly, and distantly wonders how the gentle woman has been doing since then. “I can’t just up and leave the farm,” she says after a second. “People are still calling. Just this morning I got a phone call from a family from Indiana.”

Rosa frowns a little. “I hope you didn’t tell them to come. . .”

“No. I couldn’t-” Darcy has no idea how long it might take before she has the guts to try and help without her Gran present. She feels more than a little anxious at the idea that she’s going to have to sooner than later. “I gave them the name of a magnetizer my Gran knows closer to where they live. They’ll go there.”

Rosa sighs deeply and sits back in her chair, her gaze unfocused for a moment. They both stay like that, sipping their tea on the porch and looking over at the countryside, for such a long time that Darcy’s almost taken by surprise when the older woman speaks up again.

“Penny wanted you to live your life,” Rosa declares, radiating honesty and gravity. “She always regretted she never took some time for herself before working with her mother at the farm.”

That little detail takes Darcy by surprise. Or stuns her, more like, and it takes a second until she finds the words. “She never told me.”

“It was a long time ago.” Rosa shrugs. “And things were different then. But we talked about it so many times when we were kids: going to San Francisco or New York, meet a nice fella and learn to Lindy Hop and swing dance—you know it was all the rage back then.”

Darcy chuckles (it’s a little watery but thankfully Rosa pretends not to notice) as she imagines her grandmother on the dancefloors with Rosa raising all kinds of Hell. “I had no idea.”

“It was our dream, trite it may be. We were teenagers, the war had ended a few years before that and everything looked all the better and brighter for it.” Rosa grins—there’s more regret there than Darcy would have expected. “In the end Penny chose her responsibilities as a healer over the rest and I met my hubby and decided I’d rather stay here after all. We were both very happy. . .But we also always wondered what would have happened if we’d made good on our promises.”

Moving to New York in the fifties for two young women, barely legal, would have been huge. Darcy imagines without a single bit of difficulty the differences it could have made in her Gran’s life—and the consequences are so far-reaching she feels a little lightheaded.

(And hesitantly starts to wonder what kind of opportunities she’d be giving up if she didn’t go to Culver.)

“What about the people though?” she asks reluctantly. “Gran gave up on her dream. She devoted her whole life to helping those who needed it. Why should I do anything else? Wouldn’t it be selfish to just say ‘fuck it’ and dump everything my Gran, and my great-Gran, and my great-great-Gran have done?”

“Language, young lady,” Rosa snaps without heat and Darcy tries to look appropriately chastened. “And the people will find something. They always do! You wouldn’t believe how resourceful we humans can be when we’re in a pinch!” Darcy opens her mouth to argue but the elderly lady cuts her off. “Nuh-uh, I don’t want to hear another word about this. This house has been here for a century: it can wait a few years while you go to university and live your own life, and Eddie and I will keep an eye on it for you. Just in case.”

With that being said, Rosa’s wind seems to drain out of her sails and she sags a little. In that moment, she looks every bit like the old lady that is, and who has just lost her lifelong friend and partner-in-crime. She lets out a long sigh and one of her old, gnarly hands grasps one of Darcy’s and holds onto it tightly.

“I know leaving is hard,” she says, tone quieter but more intense somehow. “It’s a jump into the unknown and it takes courage—God knows I never had the courage. Ultimately, the decision is yours and no one can make it for you: stay here and keep your family’s legacy alive, or go to Culver and see what’s out there. And if it doesn’t work out then you’ll always have a home to come back to. But don’t make excuses about what your Gran, or your great-Gran would have wanted. The only thing that matters is that you don’t regret that choice.”

The tears take Darcy by surprise. And they also irritate her a bit. (Sometimes she feels like she’s spent eighty percent of the past week blubbering like an idiot.) “Gran used to say that all the time,” she finally whispers. “Make your choices so that you don’t end up regretting them.”

“She was right—but then again, Penny was almost always right.”

They finish their tea in silence after that.

It’s the last pot of that homemade blend her Gran prepared before she passed, and drinking that last mouthful of liquid feels uncannily final. It’s very significant, in a sense: with her Gran gone, no matter what Darcy does from now on, nothing will be the same.

At least she still has a choice.

“I’ll think on it,” she says, long after the old tea service has been put away. “I can’t make a choice right now. But I’ll think about it.”

Rosa nods. “That’s all I can ask, sweetie. Just let me know whatever you’ve decided. I’ll send Eddie, Lisa and Tom to help with the packing.”

Rosa leaves not long after that, back home to make dinner for her whole pack of grandchildren who’s coming over. She’s invited Darcy to eat with them, of course, but the teenager politely refuses (and carefully doesn’t admit that she doesn’t feel like she has the strength to face the full might of the Lawson family).

She decides to go to Culver only a week later, after receiving a fourth phone call asking for ‘Penelope Lewis the Healer’.

She’s nowhere near ready to take over the family tradition on her own and she feels like she has things to do first anyway.

Darcy is twenty-two when she finally understands why she always felt like there was something calling out to her beyond the lines of Iowa. She’s in New Mexico, in a town even smaller than the one she grew up in, lost in the middle of the desert, and she’s interning for an astrophysicist that has the reputation in the scientific community of being a complete loony.

The series of events that’s brought her to Puente Antiguo in and out of itself is worthy of a low-budget dramatic-comedy. After leaving her hometown and starting attending Culver, Darcy’s life has become a whirlwind of activity the likes of which she’d never seen before: although on a full-ride scholarship (straight A student and an orphan to boot—the old men on the board practically cried during her interview) Darcy still needs to take a part-time job to pay for her everyday expenses. The workload from her classes, her job in a cute little teashop and the overall stress of being alone in a strange city make her first couple of years a little hectic.

And yes, she’s switched her major a few times, but the sheer infinity of courses makes her act a bit like a fluttering and utterly undecided butterfly. She doesn’t regret it though because it what leads her to political science and New Mexico.

Nonetheless, being an undergraduate has been hard. It’s also been fun. But it’s mostly been a mess. She’s made friends from all over the States and even from a few foreign countries, she’s gone out and gotten drunk a few times like undergrads are supposed to (and decided quickly after to learn how to pace her consumption of alcohol a little better), she’s attended all her classes religiously and given all her assignments back on time. End result being that she’s aced all of her units, to the point that some of her teachers have even started talking to her about considering going on to a master’s degree before her third year’s over.

This buzzing of constant work, friends and studying all culminates during her fourth year, when she goes to a routine appointment with her supervisor and finds out that she’s completely forgotten about the mandatory six science credits.

She has no idea how that happened and when her supervisor asks, Darcy blames the stress (even though she knows it’s a flimsy excuse that doesn’t really excuse anything at all). The only way to graduate like she’s planned—with flying colors because she’s worked harder than anyone for it, dammit!—is to take an internship.

And Doctor Jane Foster desperately needs an intern.

They don’t get along all that much at first. Darcy is outspoken; Jane spends hours scribbling in her little notebook in complete silence. Darcy’s been raised to always respect the sanctity of meals—around the table with the whole family, no matter how small said family is; Jane never stops working on her equations and quite frankly thinks food is an annoyance, while cooking is a complete waste of time. Darcy’s whole life is the proof that there are some things in this world science can’t explain; Jane’s unique purpose is to demonstrate the theory she’s the only one to believe in is as scientific as the rest.

They’re as different as the moon and the sun, and it makes working and living together very difficult the first couple of months. But Puente Antiguo really is tiny and there aren’t many distractions: they work together, and once work is done, they drift back together again. They talk. They get to know each other.

The friendship they end up striking is odd. Sometimes, Darcy can’t help but wonder whether she and Jane have become friends only because there’s no one else.

The moment they meet Thor puts things back into perspective.

“Also, how can you eat a whole box of poptarts and still be this hungry?” Darcy asks the blonde.

They’re sitting in the diner—Jane, Erik, Darcy and Thor. And she’s staring, Darcy knows she’s staring but she can’t help it: she’s felt it, how different he is, from the first time she laid eyes on him out in the desert. It had scared her then because he was like nothing she’d ever seen, but now that they all suspect he might not exactly be human, his strange aura makes perfect sense.

Erik thinks he’s a lunatic. Jane hesitates between tentative hope and bewilderment. Darcy believes.

Or at least she wants to believe. Logically speaking, she knows there might be other possible explanations: for example, she’s never met a mutant, and she has no idea what they feel like. As much as she wants Thor to be a real-life alien, he might be nothing more than a slightly irregular human—different, but ultimately still human.

He has an appetite unlike anything Darcy’s ever seen though. He devours Tammy’s food with an enthusiasm that flatters the diner’s owner to the point that she doesn’t say anything when he smashes a mug.

“Another!” he shouts happily. The grin on his face makes him look a little like a boy, despite his beard and imposing build.

“What are you doing?” Jane exclaims and jumps from her chair to pick up the pieces and tidy up the mess a little. Thankfully, Tammy (who’s taken a whole month before she started greeting Darcy and Jane whenever they came in) doesn’t appear inclined to comment and lets them handle that problem between themselves. Darcy makes a mental note to pay back the older woman for the broken earthenware. “You can’t just break stuff like that! What’s wrong with you?”

“I meant no offense,” Thor assures her. He’s picked up on the scientist’s anger and has lowered his voice a little. “This is the way we show appreciation in my realm.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t do that here!” Jane snaps. Darcy hands her a napkin in which Jane dumps all the bits of smashed mug she’s picked up. When the small woman gets back on her seat and catches the look on Thor’s face, who’s doing his best impression of a kicked puppy (and really, a man that size should not be able to look that adorable) she falters. “Next time just ask nicely. Deal?”

Thor nods. Scratch that—he doesn’t nod, he inclines his head and it looks regal and old-fashioned and kind of awesome.

But Darcy, dazed as she is by this strange man full of mysteries, doesn’t miss the uneasy edge that lingers, like a weight ever-so-slightly pushing down his shoulders. She isn’t oblivious either to Jane’s discomfort and restlessness. Putting two and two together isn’t too hard an exercise and leaves Darcy with the absolute certainty that before long her boss and the crazy cut hobo are going to be making out up on the roof under the stars. She gives them two days—three, tops.

Before that happens, she wants this uncomfortable tension to go away though. So she does her best to break it.

A simple dive of her hand into her pocket and she comes back up with her phone. With a swipe of her finger over the screen the camera is up and working.

“Smile!” she tells Thor. He looks back at her and reflexively does as he’s told. The man is one of the most handsome she’s ever met but she won’t be able to use the photo as proof: his cheeks are so filled with food he looks more like a chipmunk than model material. Still her friends back at Culver might find it funny anyway. “This is so going on Facebook. . .”

“A book of face?” he repeats curiously. “What is it? Some writ of your people?”

Darcy blinks, summoning what little knowledge she got from her one semester as an English Lit major to try and decode his exact meaning. In the end she decides to just go with ‘no’. “It’s a device we use to stay in contact over long distances,” she explains and briefly shows him the screen of her phone where the newest posts from her friends are displayed. She doesn’t have that many contacts anyway—she’s never cared about having hundreds of ‘friends’ so long as she could stay in touch with the important ones—so she isn’t worried about overwhelming him with a flurry of posts.

“How ingenious!” he exclaims as his eyes flitter over the screen of her smartphone. “Is this your friend?”

He’s looking at a meme of the Lord of the Rings her study-buddy from last semester published only an hour ago. (Boromir: ‘one does not simply eat bananas.’) “No that’s just a joke,” she explains and looks at the blonde mountain of a man carefully. He blinks back, entirely guileless. “One does not simply walk into Mordor? Boromir? The Lord of the Rings?” But there’s not the slightest spark of recognition in his eyes on the slightest hint of deception on his face. “You really have no idea what Facebook or the Lord of the Rings is, don’t you?”

“Who is this Lord of the Rings? Are these rings very precious? Do they hold much power to make him a Lord?” For a second Darcy almost believes he’s pulling her leg, but, even though the questions hit particularly close to their Middle-Earth home, he still looks genuinely clueless.

“It’s a story,” she explains, deciding to take him at face value. “About people from different races uniting to bring down a dark lord who’s planning to enslave them using cursed rings.”

“It sounds like thrilling tale! I would dearly love to hear it!” Thor grins and the sight is more than a little dazzling.

“Here, coffee.” Jane puts a mug filled with a fresh serving of coffee next to Thor and takes her seat back. “And don’t break that one, please.”

“Lady Jane, you have my word that I will do my best to learn your ways and adhere to them,” Thor answers. His grin is wide and bright and Darcy feels a little like she’s trying to look directly into the sun.

The earlier tension between him and Jane has apparently deserted him, and responding to his renewed ease Jane relaxes in turn. Even though she knows she really hasn’t done much, Darcy inwardly counts that as a win. She lets Jane take over the conversation after that (and back to more science-related subjects) and vaguely keeps an ear on what they say while fiddling with her phone.

It isn’t long before the conversation takes a turn into very Lord-of-the-Rings-worthy territory once again, with talks of magical rainbow bridges, hammers and kingly fathers. It all sounds entirely fantastical—maybe too fantastical to be a lie—and Darcy itches to ask him more questions. She keeps her patience though and lets Jane ask whatever she wants until Thor suddenly shoots to his feet and strides over to two locals in plaid shirts sitting at the bar.

“Where is this place you speak of?” he asks imperiously. Jane and Erik exchange a short look, dreading their strange guest looking for more trouble.

Darcy isn’t too worried though. No matter that his tone could be a bit more courteous, he’s not aggressive. He’s too intense though, filled with so much determination anyone would find him intimidating.

It feels like only a heartbeat later when they’re all standing in the street, Thor bidding them goodbye and kissing Jane’s hand like they’re in some kind of medieval romance novel. He’s without a doubt the weirdest person Darcy has ever met (and she says that fully aware of the irony of that assessment coming from someone like her) and she doesn’t doubt for a second this is only the beginning.

Needless to say she isn’t the least bit disappointed.

Exactly a month after Darcy has turned twenty-five, she and Jane move into Avengers Tower. Thor has been insisting for a while, citing his concern for Jane and Darcy’s safety whenever he has to leave and join the Avengers on their missions all around the globe.

In the end, it’s not anything relating to safety that convinces Jane, but the incredibly generous offer that Stark Industries extends.

Darcy goes over it herself. There’s promises of state-of-the-art labs, a three-bedroom apartment in the upper floors of the tower and a monthly science allowance that makes Jane drool a little.

About seven months or so after the Dark Elves tried to take over the world (and isn’t that a bad WoW joke waiting to happen?) they’re unpacking their boxes and installing their machines in a lab bigger than anything either Jane or Darcy have ever seen, with a full-wall bay window that overlooks Manhattan. And with Doctor Bruce Banner and Tony Stark himself as science neighbors too.

Although Thor and Jane have given her a present and valiantly attempted to make a coffee cake for her actual birthday, Darcy considers the move as a belated birthday present.

She’s psyched about living in New York (despite the number of Avengers vs. Villain of the Month showdowns that happen there). She loves working in the tower. She loves that she can go out every weekend and see something different.

But most of all, she loves her little, one-bedroom in Brooklyn to pieces. Of course she doesn’t live in the tower—she’s only a PA and not even all that qualified, she already feels lucky to be working for Stark Industries—but Jane made it clear she wasn’t going anywhere without Darcy and SI helpfully provided Darcy with an apartment. It’s in fact owned by SI and they prove to be as generous with their employees as the rumors say because it’s only a block away from the subway in a great neighborhood and with a rent that is beyond competitive.

It’s the first place that feels like home for her ever since she left Iowa after her Gran died.

It’s also the first time in her life that Darcy has so much money. Apparently, being a PA to one of SI’s top scientists is lucrative business and she finds herself with a growing amount of money on her account she has no idea what to do with (about four months after coming to New York, she decides to look into savings accounts).

Darcy can’t deny that everything about her new life back in the world’s most famous city is going uncannily well. A part of her is waiting for another alien invasion attempt to muck it up, while another is whispering it may be the time to finally go back to what she was always meant to do: it’s been over seven years since she last helped anyone. University was about taking time for herself and the years since then have been devoted to taking care of Jane best she could. Considering Darcy and Jane both have steady incomes and grant money, a lab with everything they need to work, and basically nothing to worry about to distract them from their respective purpose, isn’t it time for Darcy to take up hers again?

That’s without counting on the fact that the people who needed her help always found a Lewis eventually: she hasn’t even reached the five months mark of her life in New York when it happens.

Jane has left (although been dragged back home by Thor is a more accurate way to put it) only minutes ago and Darcy is tidying up some paperwork and notes to digitalize for later before she goes back home. She’s entirely absorbed by her task and doesn’t see at first when a man comes inside the lab. It’s the sound of his footsteps that prompts her to look up and find someone that she doesn’t know walking up to her. He’s wearing a pair of plain blue jeans and black combat boots, a black muscle shirt that shows off a very impressive pair of biceps and his short blond hair is cut in a way she suspects might be military regulations compliant. With his nose that looks like it’s been broken a couple of times, he’s handsome in the rugged, bad boy kind of way, and although he’s not overly tall, his build would make him quite intimidating if it weren’t for the fact that his blue eyes are kind—if a little guarded.

“Hi, I’m sorry but Doctor Foster just left for the day,” she tells him. For some reason he looks somewhat familiar, but she’s completely certain she’s never met him before. She’s made it a point ever since she started working for SI to be professional with people she didn’t know—she was fine with Tony, Bruce and most of the science staff on their floor now. “If you don’t mind waiting you could drop by again tomorrow. Or I could take a message?”

“No, that’s fine,” the man says with a slight shake of his head and shoves his hands inside his pockets. For some reason, he’s uncomfortable and at the same time still trying to appear self-assured. “I was looking for you, actually. Do you have a minute?”

Darcy blinks. Already, she’s starting to get an inkling of what this is about. “Sure, I just finished, I have plenty of time. And you are. . .”

“Right!” One of his hands shoots out of his pocket and extends toward her. “Clint Barton—don’t know if you’ve heard of me, but I’m-”

“Ah, yes, the infamous Hawkeye,” Darcy grins and shakes his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Tony. Thor as well, but mostly Tony. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too.” And back into the pocket the hand goes. “So I have a question I wanted to ask you. It’s kind of weird, so feel free to tell me to shut it and leave you alone in case I got the wrong person.”

The inkling is strengthening quickly and venturing into certitude territory, but Darcy doesn’t let it show.

She’s done this a thousand times before (granted the most recent time was seven years ago and over the phone) and she knows how it goes. Not being under direct focus sometimes makes people more comfortable, so Darcy quickly slips the last of Jane’s notes in the appropriate file and then walks to the filing cabinets to properly put it away for the night.

“I’m pretty good with weird after two alien invasions,” she shoots Barton a distracted grin over her shoulder. Like she suspected, that her attention isn’t entirely on him seems to help him relax a little and his impressive shoulders drop a little. “Lay it on me.”

“Right,” Clint waits until she’s facing the cabinets. “So I know someone who knows someone. . .who knew your grandmother, Penelope Lewis. . .They had terminal cancer.” Darcy shuts the cabinet with a bit more force than she intended (but still after all these years, hearing about her Gran makes her heart clench so very painfully inside her chest it’s like she can’t breathe) and turns back to look at Barton. “She healed them.”

He falls silent then. His blue eyes stare intently at her and his whole posture’s screaming ‘ready and bracing myself’ but Darcy can’t tell whether he’s preparing for a positive or negative answer.

“We never called it healing in our family,” she says instead. “We just tried to help people who needed help.”

“End result’s still the same,” he retorts. “Their cancer vanished.”

Darcy nods and can’t quite hold back her smile. “My Gran helped a lot of people,” she says. “This person, how are they doing?”

“Uh, last I heard they were doing great.” There’s more curiosity than wariness in his eyes now. He looks like he’s evaluating her too and Darcy tries very hard not to think about how an Avenger is no doubt reading her like an open book thanks to his superspy training. It would only serve to turn her into a nervous mess.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she says instead. “So I take it you know someone who needs help?”

He’s a man who’s gone through some tough shit in the past, Darcy knows the signs and he displays them all. But he also radiates strength and self-assurance. There’s a peace and happiness to him that seem to hint that he got the help he needed when he needed it, and that his hurts were healed—maybe not completely, but he’s content either way. And that more importantly he has the support he needs still to this day.

Darcy doesn’t need him to say it to know that he didn’t come to see her for his own sake.

“Can you do that?” he asks back, deadly serious. “Can you help people like your Gran did?”

“My Gran taught me everything she knew,” Darcy explains. She usually doesn’t like giving so much information about herself but this is an Avenger, and an Avenger whose approval she has to earn. Trying to remain evasive to preserve her privacy won’t help her get there. “I started helping her when I was eleven. When she passed away I could technically have continued on back at the farm, but I wanted to go to university so I did.” She shrugs.

“So you don’t do helping anymore?”

He’s difficult to read, but to Darcy it almost looks like he’s disappointed. (Could it be that he actually believes what her family can do?) “Now I do,” she says bluntly.

She doesn’t go into specifics, of course, how her Gran taught her that things always happen for a reason: she went to university, took the time she needed to grow as a person and see the world, she made a wonderful lifelong friends and found a job she loves—that Clint Barton is here means the time has come to go back to what she was always meant to do.

Thankfully he doesn’t question it. “Alright,” he finally says. He grabs a chair from a nearby desk and rolls it closer, inviting Darcy to do the same. Once they’re both settled, he leans his forearms (damn, that’s a good sight; Darcy’s no brainless fangirl but very objectively, he’s really something to look at) on his knees and gets started. “Alright, so here’s the deal. I know someone who’s. . .well, let’s just say he’s gone through a whole bunch of shit. He’s doing. . .well, he’s not okay. Because of what happened to him he’s going to have lifelong sequels and the doctors can’t do a thing about it. We used all our contacts, got the best specialists on the planet, but they all told us the same thing: there’s nothing they can do to help.”

It’s all Darcy can do not to wonder who’s that someone that he knows. Considering he hasn’t mentioned the man’s name at any point, obviously in an attempt to preserve his friend’s identity, Darcy doesn’t linger on that detail for overly long. No doubt it’s some sort of agent or superspy of some kind—God knows SHIELD agents like Barton, no matter that most of them turned out to be HYDRA later on, saw some messed-up stuff on the regular.

“And I have a contact in Iowa,” Clint goes on as she ponders his words. “They’re friends with someone your grandmother. . .well, helped since healing is apparently not something that you guys do. Her name’s Marsha, I don’t know if you-” He cuts himself off when he sees the way Darcy’s face lights up at the name. “You remember her.”

“Of course I remember her!” Darcy exclaims. There’s a wide grin on her face (that she knows most likely makes her look like a lunatic but she can’t find it in herself to care) and sincere joy bubbling in her chest. All these years she kept her Gran’s notebooks with her while she travelled around with Jane. All these years she kept looking after the people her Gran helped. But taking care of someone from afar and hearing about them from an outside source is completely different—she suddenly remembers how good it felt to help people. “And you said she’s doing okay?”

“Y-yeah,” the archer says. He appears to be a little surprised by her outburst but Darcy can’t bring herself to care. “My contact told me she’s a sports nuts now: goes dancing, hiking, mountain climbing. . .Doctors still don’t get it.”

“I’m so glad!” Darcy sighs and forces herself to calm down. “Right, sorry. It’s just, the first time my Gran showed me how to help, it was when Marsha came to our farm. She called us two weeks after that to tell us all of her exams had come back clean, but I always wondered how she was doing after that. I’m really happy to hear she’s doing so well.”

There’s the slightest hint of a smile on his handsome face, but Barton appears to be doing his best to remain serious. “Happy I could help with that,” he says diplomatically. “Right, so I heard about your grandmother from my contact and I might have. . .used my credentials to track down any living relatives. Still can’t believe the only one still alive works right here in the tower. . .”

Far from offended that he went through her family records to stalk her (he’s a professional superspy after all which basically amounts to professional stalker), Darcy merely smiles wryly. “Life has a funny way of tying things up.”

The blonde actually lets out a small chuckle at that. “Yeah, apparently it does.” He takes a second to think about that before shaking his head and looking back at her. For some reason, Darcy feels a little accomplished when the last of his distance seems to melt away: he looks downright approachable now that his shoulders aren’t so tight with tension and his face closed off defensively. “So that guy I think might need your help, I haven’t told him about you yet. I used my contacts first to find if there was anyone left first. When I saw your information, I decided to talk to you, see if you thought you’d be able to help him somehow. I don’t want him or his family to get any false hopes, you know?”

“Of course,” Darcy nods. Inwardly, she takes note: he never calls ‘that guy’ a friend, but the lengths he’s gone to find a way to help, track Darcy down and still make sure to protect him by speaking to her first, speaks of the importance of that mysterious man. She respects that. “Well, I suppose now it all depends whether you believe what I can do or not, and whether than guy you know will believe what I can do or not.”

“I’ve seen Marsha with my own two eyes and I’ve spoken to her a couple times,” he says. He straightens back against his chair, bringing a hand to rest over his knees and drumming his fingers leisurely. “If my contact hadn’t told me about the cancer from fifteen years ago, I never would have guessed. So I don’t know. . .” He hesitates, looks down and away from her for a second, before he shrugs. “I never really thought about that stuff. I don’t know if I believe it. But Marsha believes in it and so does my contact.”

“And it’s also the last resort that you have,” Darcy guesses. At Clint’s surprised look, she smiles gently. “The only people who come to my family for help are always doing so because we’re their last hope. And that’s the way it should go: we’re not doctors, and I know most people who know about us don’t see it that way, but we’re not healers either. Modern science and medicine is, and should always be, a priority.”

Clint frowns a little. “Isn’t it bad for your business to tell me that, considering your grandmother was making her living with this?” he says, not trying to hide his perplexity.

“We never made a living from helping,” Darcy retorts. “My grandmother had an immense garden she worked in for hours at a time everyday. She sold candles, soaps and confectionaries in markets all around the county—it wasn’t a lot of money and it was barely enough to pay for bills.”

“So you never got paid for healing all those people? Never asked for any money?”

Darcy snorted. “Some people tried to give my Gran money but she always refused it. The only things she accepted were food or little things that’d be useful for everyday life, but it wasn’t about payment, it was about people being thankful and helping us back. A farmer made a comforter stuffed with the wool from his sheep. A woman gave a bunch of pots for the kitchen. We had a whole cupboard filled with patchwork blankets all the colors of the rainbow. A mechanic completely tuned up my Gran’s truck. A family gave us their old TV. So on, so forth. . .”

There was a moment of stunned silence as Barton took that in. “So. . .If you help the guy I told you about, you won’t let us pay you?”

“There’s basically no need. I work here and I’m paid a fortune for it already: I don’t need a thing.”

Clint raked his fingers through his hair. “Right, talking about this now is pointless anyway. So, I’ll let the guy I told you about know that you’re here. He’ll decide if he wants to try to do this and I’ll get back to you.”

Darcy nods back. “Jane’s so in love with her new SI lab that we won’t be going anywhere abroad for a few more months I think. Your friend can take all the time he needs to decide.” Clint appears relieved and, his decision apparently made, gets up from his chair. “Just make sure that he understands one thing—it’s very important.”

“Sure, what is it?”

“I can’t always help.” Statistically speaking, she’s helped a lot more people than not. Chances are she’ll be able to do something for Barton’s mysterious friend, but she wants it clear nonetheless. “There’s no rhyme or reason to it: in the past I’ve seen people who were affected by illnesses that were basically identical and for some reason, one I could help and the other I couldn’t. He should be aware of it and until I see him and talk to him in person I can’t tell anything more.”

“Fifty-fifty, I get it,” Clint agrees. “I’ll be sure to let him know.”

The percentage is wrong (it’s more of a seventy-thirty) but so long as he passes on the message, Darcy doesn’t see a reason to nitpick. “Also I’ll be needing a picture of him once I’m done.”

The archer blinks, incomprehension written all over his face. “A. . .picture?”

“Just the little photo booth ID pictures are fine,” Darcy nods. “As long as he’s clearly recognizable on it, that’s all I need.”

“Erm.” Clint clears his throat. “Why do you need a picture?”

“It’s tradition. My Gran kept entire notebooks with pictures of the people she met throughout her life.” Her explanation obviously doesn’t do much to enlighten the older man. “She kept on looking after all of them her whole life, and after she died, I kept the pictures to look after them too.”

No need to be a genius of Jane’s caliber to see that he’s more than a little skeptical. To his credit, he doesn’t make a single comment. “That sounds like one hell of a commitment,” he finally says, tone carefully blank.

“It’s part of what we do,” Darcy replies with a smile. “Of course, it’s not mandatory or anything. If your friend feels really uncomfortable leaving me with a picture of him, then I’ll find another way. It’s no big deal.” Anonymity is supposed to be pretty important for secret-agent-spies, isn’t it? She can see how leaving a picture in the possession of a person they don’t know might make them wary—but never let it be said she doesn’t know how to adapt.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Obviously, he doesn’t believe for a second his guy will agree to it, but he seems willing to humor her, which is considerate enough.

And with a last promise to get back in touch with her soon, Clint Barton (and that will compute later, for sure: she just met Hawkeye! For real!) walks out of the lab. His whole posture screams that he’s a man on a mission, and Darcy imagines that nameless friend of his will be informed of their conversation’s exact content before the day is over.

She honestly doesn’t expect anything before at least a week.

Logically speaking, the man Clint was hoping she could help has to be some sort of agent. All the SHIELD agents Darcy has met in the past (thank you Puente Antiguo and thank you London) were very closed-off, very in-control-at-all-times kind of people. Going from her past experiences with them, she imagines Clint and his mysterious buddy will be running all the background checks about her they possibly can.

It’s a little creepy, but since Thor and the first session of signing a dozen NDAs under Agent-iPod-thief’s supervision, Darcy has grown a decent tolerance for creepy.

In any case, she isn’t the least bit prepared for Clint walking into the lab three days later at two in the afternoon.

“Hey, Darcy,” he greets her, a small but genuine enough smile on his face.

Since their last (and first) meeting, he’s apparently decided that they’re on a first-name basis, which is completely fine with Darcy. She decides to take it as a sign that whatever he wants to talk about now should go over well (as opposed to an in-depth interrogation of her methods or outright accusations of madness). “Hello, agent Barton?” She doesn’t mean it that way, but it ends up coming out as a question and a little more insecure than she’d like. In her defense, she only knows one Avenger well—that’s Thor, obviously, and she’s known him since before he became an Avenger so she can call him Thor and not feel rude or disrespectful—and she has no idea if she should call him Hawkeye or Barton or agent.

The grin he gives her then is wide enough to flash a hint of white teeth, and genuine enough that Darcy instinctively returns it. “Just Clint’s fine,” he tells her.

“Right, Clint. What brings you here today?” There’s a loud clanking sound from the other side of the lab where Jane is tinkering on one of her machines, shortly followed by a loud series of insults. Hearing those, Clint’s eyebrows shoot up to flirt with his hairline (Darcy knows the feeling, she perfectly remembers the first time she heard the kind of language such a tiny woman could come up with). “If you’re actually here for Jane this time, I’d recommend coming back in an hour or so. She’s having it out with the wrench at the moment and it could get messy.”

“No, actually.” It takes a few seconds before he manages to tear his eyes away from the overall direction in which Jane can be found—still swearing—and fixes sharp blue eyes back on her. “I was looking for you. The guy I told you about? He’s ready to meet you.”

“Oh.” And it’s really all that Darcy can find to say for a while. “Well, that was fast.”

There goes that grin again. “He’s not the kind of guy to waste time dithering about,” the archer admits with a shrug. “I told him you might not be able to do anything so he knows that’s a definite possibility. He talked about it with his best buddy, talked about it with a bunch of us too and then he thought about it for a while. . .and he’d like to meet you. You still cool with that?”

“Of course.”

“Great.” And with that being cleared up, he turns back toward the clanking sound (now accompanied by a steady stream of grumbling) and shouts loudly enough Darcy’s sure Tony and Bruce in their own labs can hear. “Hey, Doctor Foster! I need to borrow your assistant for a while!”

A head of messy brown hair emerges from under a machine that’s about as tall as Darcy and over five times her weight (she knows because preparing to move that one from one continent to the other and finding the appropriate insurance for that gave her one hell of a headache). “Oh, hi, Clint!” Jane greets him distractedly. “You take my Darcy you have to bring her back in perfect condition or I’m sikking Thor on you.”

“Noted,” the archer replies while Darcy squawks indignantly. Judging from his wide grin, he’s not the least bit worried by the threat. He then grabs Darcy’s arm and starts leading her out of the lab and toward the elevator. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, the meeting’s happening now?”

Darcy starts suspecting something fishy once they’re inside the elevator, and, instead of going down (and after that somewhere outside the tower like she’d imagined they would) Clint asks for the seventy-fourth floor. There’s a moment of awkwardness when FRIDAY reminds Clint Darcy doesn’t have access to the private floors of the tower, but Hawkeye uses his override code and so up they go.

Confused, but still naively oblivious, Darcy guesses he must have asked his friend to come to the tower to meet her. It makes sense: Fort Knox security has nothing on Avengers Tower which makes it a great neutral place for a first meeting.

But then they exit the elevator and from the looks of the hallway, Darcy realizes they’re on the residential floors. In other words, the floors where the Avengers live.

It immediately makes Darcy intensely uncomfortable and self-aware. Sure, she’s Thor’s friend, but realistically speaking, she’s just an assistant so, for obvious security reasons, she doesn’t have access to the Avengers floors. She likes it better that way: it means she gets to have a place of her own away from the giant metal and glass beacon for supercriminals. She’s friends with one Avengers (on friendly terms with two more) and that’s more than enough excitement in her life, thank you very much.

But being in their home, on their private floor, when she doesn’t know most of the Avengers doesn’t feel right. Like she’s intruding.

“Uh, what are we doing here?” she asks.

“Don’t get scared on me now, Lewis. Come on.” And when he tugs her toward one of the nondescript dark gray doors, she has no choice but to follow.

Way too fast for Darcy to prepare herself (she’s starting to guess where this is going and she’s not sure she likes it very much) he knocks on the door and opens it without waiting for an answer.

The sight that greets the young woman inside is both stunning and terrifying: apart from the Scarlet Witch and the Vision, all the Avengers are here. She knows she hasn’t done anything illegal or criminal, that she’s not in any danger, but still feels like the proverbial mouse who’s just unwittingly stepped inside a dark little street filled with alley cats.

One of them immediately stands from where he was sitting on the sofa and walks up to them. He’s tall, he’s massive, he’s blonde and he has that unmistakable patriotic jaw.

She’s about to meet Captain friggin’ America.

“Miss Lewis,” he says with a polite smile. “My name is Steve Rogers. Thank you for accepting to come here so quickly.”

“You’re. . .welcome. . .”

“Are you alright, Darcy?” Bruce asks considerately. Because of course he’d notice immediately how uncomfortable she looks and worry about it, he’s one of the sweetest, most considerate men she’s ever had the pleasure to meet.

“Yeah, absolutely,” she tries to smile, though she’s not sure the end result is as convincing as she intended it. She sucks it up and straightens her back anyway, if only because she’s here to help someone and her reservations about being in the same room as all the Avengers put together are irrelevant. “Barton just conveniently forgot to mention this is Avengers business, so I’m a little. . .well, I suppose surprised is one way of putting it.” Her pointed look to the archer doesn’t seem to bother him all that much though and he winks back cheekily.

“It’s not Avengers business,” Captain America (or maybe she should start calling him Steve Rogers since he asked her) reassures her.

“This is about you supposedly being able to magically heal people,” Tony pipes up and crosses his arms over his chest. The expression on his face leaves no doubt as to what he thinks about her supposed ‘magic’. “What the hell, Lewis? You’re supposed to be a devoted minion of science, not some kind of delusional, mystical country bumpkin!”

Clint snorts next to her while Capt- Steve frowns darkly at the billionaire. The Black Widow (daintily perched on the arm of the sofa next to the one and only Winter Soldier) rolls her eyes ostensibly, the Falcon shoots an exasperated look out the window, and Bruce sighs deeply.

“I have told you before, Stark,” Thor says with a frown. “Have a care how you speak of my shield sister.”

“Yeah, yeah, honor and respect, we get it,” Tony waves a hand dismissively. “Seriously, Double D, are we really supposed to take your word for it that you can snap your fingers and make terminal stage tumors vanish?”

“Tony, we already talked about this,” the curly-haired physicist says, sounding so tired Darcy can easily imagine them having had this argument a hundred times before.

“And I still can’t get over the fact that you believe in this crap!” Tony retorts and takes a long gulp from his drink—a green milkshake that looks completely unappetizing. “You’re supposed to be my science twin, Banner. Science 5ever.”

“And you forget I lived in third-world countries for years, Tony,” Bruce replies evenly. “Just because we hold the best technology and the most money doesn’t mean we have all the answers. There are things science can’t explain and I’ve seen it more times than I can count.”

“And the keyword here, Brucie, is third world countries. But you’re back in the States now, where we believe in rational, scientific things that can be rationally, scientifically explained.”

“Technically, a lot of western European countries still have healers,” the Black Widow pipes up. “Spain, France, Germany. . .” Darcy doesn’t trust for a second the innocent look on her face, all the more that it’s directed right at Tony who immediately opens his mouth for an acerbic response.

“Alright, we’ve been over this a dozen times already, let’s not start again!” Sam Wilson, apparently the voice of reason, interrupts them all. “Tony, I’m sorry you feel so strongly about this, man, but it’s not your call to make.” It seems to be the right thing to say because the goateed man raises his hands in a gesture of surrender and mimes zipping his mouth shut. With a relieved but strained sigh, the Falcon turns to Darcy. “Sorry about that. Clint told us about what you can do a couple days ago and we’re still trying to wrap our heads around this.”

In other words, they don’t believe it—not that she’s surprised by the news. “Completely natural,” she says honestly.

“We haven’t met before, by the way,” the former airman grins handsomely. “I’m Sam Wilson.”

“Good to meet you,” Darcy smiles back.

“And this is Natasha Romanov and James Barnes—you’ve heard about them too, I’m sure.”

Darcy gives the redhead a smile (she’s way too impressed by the woman to articulate any word whatsoever) and then turns to the other former soviet assassin sitting next to her. As soon as their eyes meet she knows he’s the one Clint was hoping she’d be able to help.

The hints of traumatic past experiences the archer dropped during their first conversation suddenly make complete sense.

She’s never seen someone like him before. The pain he radiates isn’t life-threatening but the sheer amount of it, most likely accumulated over the decades the KGB then HYDRA kept him as their asset, is magnitudes beyond what Darcy always thought any one person could handle. It’s crippling. There’s no deathly shroud perceptible and hovering over him, but somehow he feels as hollowed out as the most desperate terminal patients who used to come to the farm. And yet, despite it all, his physical presence is almost on par with Thor’s, which immediately instills Darcy with a healthy dose of admiration and respect.

She loves the big guy like a brother for sure and thinks the world of him, but James Buchanan Barnes is a fighter the likes of which are rarely seen.

Needless to say she’s absolutely delighted to feel that tenuous and undefinable connection that means she can do something for him: a man who’s managed to survive seventy years of torture deserves all the help he can get.

“Our brother-in-arms James Barnes is the one in need of your help, my friend,” Thor tells her. He gets up to his feet and offers her his chair that was obviously dragged over from the dining table.

Darcy takes the unspoken invitation and sits down, noting how Thor remains standing at her side like an extraterrestrial bodyguard (judging from the slight frown he shoots Tony’s way, she deduces the posturing is completely calculated). “So, you believe I can do what I say I can do?” she asks the Asgardian prince, making not the slightest effort to hide her surprise.

He smiles back serenely. “I’ve known since we first met, Darcy.”

That’s entirely news to her and she fully intends to go back to that. Now’s not the time, though. “Okay,” she drawls. “I understand why you’re actually giving this a try now.” She has a demi-god’s approval, as well as the recommendation from Clint’s contact’s friend. Still, they must be pretty desperate to call her in instead of trying out more world-renowned doctors.

“So, Clint told us he kept his explanations as vague as he could when he asked if you’d be able to help,” Steve Rogers starts, and takes a seat next to Barnes on the enormous sofa. The mentioned archer brings an additional chair from the dining area and sits down on it, straddling it and resting his arms on the back of it. “We thought you might need some more information?”

“It all falls under the NDA you signed along with your employment contract, by the way,” Tony adds.

“Come on, man,” Clint groans.

“Hey, this is Avengers Initiative, Avengers-only, way beyond top secret information,” the billionaire retorts steadily. “It’s nothing to do with the teacup here, all the people who work in the tower sign those.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Darcy intervenes before another argument breaks out. If anything, she rather agrees with Tony’s precautions to protect the Avengers’ personal life in the tower. She’s heard of an accountant who took a picture of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson, while they were making good use of the employees’ gym, and then sold it to gossip rags. The accountant’s career came to an abrupt and rather terrifying end when Pepper Potts herself got involved. “To tell me anything, I mean.”

“You don’t need us to explain what happened?” Steve Rogers looks at her (a man that big should not look that adorable when confused). “Or what we’d like you to try to heal?”

Darcy shrugs and turns to James Barnes because it’s way past time to get him involved in this. “Well, it’s up to you, really,” she tells him. “If you want to explain anything, or feel like I should know something, that’s fine. If you don’t want to tell me anything, that’s also fine.”

Tony snorts and Bruce elbows him. “You don’t need a single bit of explanation to know what needs healing?” the latter asks her curiously.

“I’m not healing anything,” Darcy shrugs. “I know it’s an easy way to describe what my family does, but what we do isn’t healing. Healing means repairing what went wrong, make it better.”

“Then what do you do?” Sam Wilson asks in turn. He’s not as open-minded about this as Bruce (which makes sense, considering Darcy heard he used to work as a therapist and most likely has a solid background in sciences) but not nearly as skeptical as Tony.

“I just help where I can.”

There’s a moment of silence as the Avengers take in that statement. Darcy can tell she’s only made them more confused, but it doesn’t bother her much—what she cares about is making Barnes more comfortable because so far he’s doing a very good impression of a marble statue.

“So, usually, this kind of thing starts off with tea, or lemonade in the summer,” she tells him. “My Gran was always very particular about how to properly receive guests, so there were also biscuits involved. Since Clint kind of snatched me up from work, I didn’t have time to prepare anything but the basic principle remains the same: first things first, I want you comfortable. Alright?”

She waits for a few seconds, never taking her eyes off him, and after a beat of hesitation, he nods. It’s a response, a first contact, and her smile turns more genuine.

“Good!” she exclaims. “So to start us off, we’re going to talk about attendance: who do you want here?”

James Barnes and Steve Rogers exchange a small glance. “I don’t understand,” James finally says. His voice is deep, quiet and a little husky like he doesn’t use it much. (Darcy refuses to acknowledge how much she likes hearing it.)

“Well, all the Avengers are here, which means seven people not counting you and me. If you want them all here, for whatever reason, then they all stay here. But if you want them to leave, then they leave.” His brows furrow in consideration and Darcy shrugs. “You basically pick and choose whoever you want here with you so that you feel safe and comfortable. The number to achieve that is entirely up to you.” She’s laying it on a bit thick with the ‘comfortable’ part, but she has a feeling he wasn’t given the chance to make himself at ease a lot in the past decades.

“Steve, Natasha and Wilson,” he says, much more quickly than she’d expected. “Would you stay?”

Captain America, suddenly looking a little teary-eyed, pats his friend’s shoulder roughly. “I’m right here, buddy.”

“Oh, come on!” Tony exclaims (Darcy wouldn’t say ‘whines’ because he’s a fully grown adult, but it’s close enough). “If there’s magicky stuff happening, I want to see it too!”

“Come on, Tony,” Bruce grins and claps his shoulder before pulling him up. “We’ll go back to the labs. We’ve got several projects on the back-burner.”

“Bucky, are you sure you don’t want Bruce to stay?” Steve asks his best friend quietly. “If something happens. . .”

He doesn’t need to finish his sentence for Darcy to pick up on the extent of his worrying. “For what it’s worth,” Darcy assures both men, “I promise it doesn’t hurt at all.”

“With all due respect, Miss Lewis, if you haven’t done this in a long time, I’d rather not take any chances.”

The ‘with all due respect’ sounds empty compared to the rest of his sentence and his obvious mistrust in her capacities. Darcy knows better than to take it personally—he’s really worried for the friend, the almost-brother he lost once already—but it still stings a little. She doesn’t argue though, looking back at Barnes to find him looking at her attentively. She gives him a small shrug. (Arguing with Captain America sounds a little too unpatriotic for her to attempt it.)

There’s the smallest twitch at the corners of Barnes’ mouth at her gesture, so evanescent she almost misses it. It’s as if he was about to smile but repressed the expression at the last second.

Feeling like she’s about to melt, fighting the urge to enfold the dark-haired man in a hug and never let him go, Darcy looks away and finds Thor observing her carefully.

“Thank you, my friend,” he tells her quietly and one of his large hands squeezes her shoulder briefly. “I know James Barnes is in good hands.”

For a second, Darcy’s throat is so tight she can’t answer, but Thor doesn’t need her to say anything. He leaves with Clint, followed a second later by a reluctant Tony. Bruce assures Rogers and Barnes that he’ll be on standby and ready to come back as soon as they notify him through FRIDAY that they need him; he shoots a very small, but very definite smile at Darcy before he exits the apartment.

A heavy silence falls over the large room (it’s even bigger than her small apartment back in Brooklyn, Darcy notes at last).

“So. . .” Sam Wilson says hesitantly when no one utters a word.

“Right.” With a bit less of a crowd, now comes the second part. “Would you like me to explain how this is going to go?” Barnes nods wordlessly. “It’s pretty simple. You lie down on the couch, I’ll put my hands on you and do my thing. You might feel something or nothing at all—it’s different depending on people, but I have no idea what makes someone sensitive to the process or not. And I also can’t estimate how long it might take. I swear to you it’s not painful though.” The most uncomfortable part is the one during which she throws up, but that has no incidence on James Barnes so she keeps quiet about it.

“I understand,” the dark-haired man tells her.

“Good,” Darcy smiles. “Unless you want to ask or tell me something, we can start whenever you’re ready.”

His eyes remain intently fixed on her for a second after she falls silent, before he glances back at Rogers and seems to make his decision. “We do this now,” he declares, and although he keeps his voice quiet, there’s no mistaking the determination in his tone.

It feels oddly final to hear the words. Darcy’s not only about to help a former HYDRA assassin, but she’s also seconds away from closing a whole act of her life—the seven years she devoted to university, to Jane, to travelling, and pushed the helping to the side.

(It’s also the first time she’s going to be doing this without her Gran, but that detail is too painful for Darcy to acknowledge it at the moment.)

Without needing to be asked, Captain America and the Black Widow rise from the couch. The redhead takes the chair Tony abandoned next to Sam Wilson, while Rogers stands (too nervous to sit still) on the other side of the former pararescue. Showing no sign of hesitation, Barnes lies down on the couch and then remains perfectly still.

Seeing his compliance reminds Darcy that he’s been trained to follow orders and she feels shivers running up and down her spine.

As still as he is, his eyes don’t stray from her for a second as she comes closer and kneels next to him. She keeps her movements slow, telegraphing each motion so that he has time to see them coming, but despite her best efforts she can see the tension in his body and the slightly hunted edge in his eyes. She knows he won’t be moving, but she still wishes she could do something to make this easier for him.

“It’s going to be alright,” she tells him in a whisper. “I promise.”

Only when he nods does she finally lift her hands.

Darcy is unsure whether the memories have faded away more than she’d realized, or whether her seven years of ‘abstinence’ have heightened her perception of the whole thing. It might also have something to do with the overwhelming pain and suffering and God-knows-what-else she’d had to lift away from Barnes.

In any case, she spends too much time for her liking curled over the toilet bowl emptying the contents of her stomach, and even once that’s done, the dizziness is still so bad she decides not to get up just yet.

She’s never been affected by someone to that extent before and it’s a little scary.

Despite the anxious questions flitting through her mind, she keeps her calm and decides to stay in the bathroom for however long it takes so she can stand without feeling like she’s about to pass out (and no doubt looking like it too). She can’t tell how many minutes have passed since she locked herself in Captain America’s bathroom before there’s a knock on the door.

“Darcy?” And, surprise, it’s the Black Widow calling. “Are you alright?”

The fact that Natasha Romanov herself is there to check up on her is a non-negligible sign that she might have taken too much time already. So, gathering the last of her strength, Darcy painstakingly gets up to her feet and makes her way to the door (curse Tony Stark for designing such ridiculously big bathrooms by the way).

“Are you alright?” the former spy asks again once Darcy has come out.

“Just tired,” the young woman answers honestly. “Nothing twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep won’t fix.”

“Would you like us to call someone?”

“Not just yet.” Darcy isn’t all that sure who to call anyway. Getting back to her place when she’s this drained is going to be a pain, but pulling Jane out of her lab to help would actually take more effort than getting home on her own. She might ask Thor, but she has a feeling the Avengers are going to be discussing what just happened and keep him too busy to spare over an hour in the subway for her sake. “I need to tell Sergeant Barnes one last thing before I leave.”

They make their way back to the living room together, Natasha keeping pace with her, but the scene they walk in on is so personal and private that Darcy almost turns back.

Barnes and Rogers, sitting together on the couch and speaking in low tones, and not only the good captain, but his dark-haired friend is smiling too—downright grinning even, and that’s a welcome sight, not only because it makes him look so very handsome. The scene isn’t significant solely for Darcy, because from the look on Wilson’s face and the way Natasha Romanov falters ever so slightly in her steps, they both are just as affected as Darcy.

The supersoldiers have clearly heard them come because no sooner has she caught a glimpse of James Barnes’ smile that he and Rogers both get to their feet.

“Are you alright, Miss Lewis?” Steve Rogers asks her.

“All in a day’s work,” Darcy retorts. Joking in the face of such genuine concern is a little clumsy, but she isn’t working on full capacity at the moment so she decides to cut herself some slack. She looks then to Barnes and it’s almost like being faced with a different man—a tired one, but appearing considerable better nonetheless. “Looking good, Sarge,” she tells him and means every word. She’d definitely forgotten how gratifying it felt to see someone she’d just helped showing signs of feeling better only minutes after they were done.

He returns her smile, a little hesitant but so much more obvious than the barely-there-twitch from earlier. “Thanks, doll,” he says (if the nickname makes Darcy’s heart stutter, well, it’s neither the time, nor the place). “I don’t know what you did, or how you did it, but. . .” He’s at a loss for words and when his voice falls quiet, he ends up shrugging.

“I’m not sure I know how to explain it either,” Darcy shrugs back, dismissing the point. “But I do know you should sleep. A lot. I don’t know how much sleep is a lot for a supersoldier, so sleep until you wake up naturally and then sleep some more.” She pauses for a second to make sure he gets the point and he nods dutifully. If there’s amusement dancing in his eyes, Darcy decides not to point it out. “From what I could tell you also have an awful lot locked up in there-” she taps her temple with the tips of her fingers, “-it’ll come back in time. Just don’t force it. Overwhelming yourself wouldn’t help a single bit.”

He looks surprised that she’s able to tell, but he takes it in stride and nods. Rogers is unsurprisingly more vocal.

“How do you do that? How do you know?” the captain asks, eyes lit up with curiosity.

Darcy’s way too tired to try and begin to explain. “I just do,” she deadpans. “And now I’m going to get started with the trek back to my place. There’s a bed and a mountain of pillows calling my name.” And they’re calling all the louder that she has no patience left whatsoever, so when Barnes opens his mouth, she points her finger imperiously at him. “Sleep! If you have questions I’ll answer them tomorrow. Or maybe the day after. But now it’s sleep. For both of us.”

She looks at Rogers, who seems more amused than anything and content to let the questions rest for now. Then at Wilson, who’s staring very intently as if he’s re-evaluating some pretty important things at the moment. And finally at Natasha Romanov—there’s nothing notable about her posture or the bland expression on her face, but for some reason Darcy can’t rid herself of the image of a cat who’s just seen something intriguing.

She’s not sure it’s a good thing.

“Right, so I’ll see you all around,” she concludes and bids them farewell.

Romanov sees her to the door and Darcy has no doubt as to the subject of the conversation the four Avengers are going to have as soon as the front door is shut. She tries not to overthink it, summoning all her memories of people coming to her Gran in the past—it’s the same pattern every time of paths crossing then separating again—and taking comfort in them.

It certainly helps that when the doors of the elevator open, she finds Thor there waiting for her.

“You’re weary, little sister,” he tells her and winds an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his side. He’s warm, he radiates strength, he feels safe: the doors are barely even closed that her eyelids are drooping. “I’ve spoken with my Jane and she has prepared a room in our quarters. We would both feel better for knowing you’re resting there.”

“I can take the subway,” Darcy mumbles. Her tone just lacks the proper conviction. “It’s only a couple of changes to get home.”

“You are too tired.” His hand rubbing her back feels pretty comforting too. “Sleep, Darcy. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

She’s long suspected Thor knows more about Asgardian science-magic than he lets on. She also suspects he’s using it on her at that moment, because no matter how hard she tries, she can’t resist the call of slumber, something she doesn’t usually have so much trouble doing.

Later on she’ll come up with the appropriate bit of blackmail so Thor never tells anybody she fell asleep standing up.

Jane is a bit hurt that Darcy never told her about what she can do. Thanks to a very long conversation that lasts all afternoon long, the astrophysicist understands better though.

After all, how do you explain to your best friend, whose very life is ruled by logic and science, that you can help people with things doctors have given up on, without any proof to show for it?

The Lewis family have ever let the word of mouth do its job, let the people who were willing to give them a chance come to the old farmhouse while the sceptics simply stayed away. There has never been any attempt made to advertise or convince anybody of what they’re able to do: those around them either know, or they don’t.

And not only does Darcy intend to upkeep that tradition of discreteness, but she remembers the headaches she got at school from arguing with classmates she wasn’t even friends with. A particularly heated round with Danny Trotsky in eighth grade during which she’d tried to defend her Gran’s reputation had taught her that some battles were simply not worth the effort. Her Gran had laughed that night when a teary-eyed Darcy had repeated the boy’s awful words and explained people believed what they wanted to believe, and that there was nothing Darcy could do about it.

Jane softens rapidly though when Darcy admits how relieved she is her scientist friend isn’t outright calling her crazy.

And so they stay in Thor and Jane’s kitchen and talk for well over four hours, first over a very late breakfast for Darcy and an early lunch for Jane. Once that’s done they start sipping tea (having her own place in New York with her own kitchen has allowed Darcy to take back up a number of activities she hasn’t had the chance to do in years, including preparing familiar homemade tea blends). All the while, Jane asks questions about Darcy’s childhood and family and Darcy answers with as many details as she can manage.

Chances are they would have gone on for a couple more hours if not for the fact that Bruce and Tony ask them to come down to the labs. Or they ask for Darcy to join them, but Jane isn’t about to let her go anywhere on her own just yet.

Turns out Darcy is thankful for Jane’s presence and support because the two Avengers are in Bruce’s lab pouring over what look like brain scans. Remembering how she had to leave her hands over Barnes’ head for so long, Darcy can take an educated guess what they want to talk about.

“So, Lewis, you have to tell us what the trick is here,” Tony declares as soon as she and Jane take a step inside.

“Hey, Tony.” Deciding to start off with the more reasonable of the two, Darcy turns to the physicist. “Hey, Bruce, I take it you have questions?”

The curly-haired man smiles, looking a lot more amused than Tony. “Hi, Darcy. And no, not questions exactly, but we thought you might like to see this too.” He motions to the three scans displayed on the 3D monitor. “Sergeant Barnes came in this morning for a check-up we’d planned beforehand. He told us he felt perfectly healthy, but Doctor Cho and I wanted a new scan of his brain so we could see if anything had changed. . .” He tilts his head pointedly to the 3D holographic images hovering over the worktable (SI technology truly is a thing of beauty). “As it turns out, a lot more has changed than we thought.”

“Are these James Barnes’ scans?” Jane asks, scientific mind instantly tickled by the sight.

Tony points to the three images successively. “From three months ago, just before he consulted a neurologist from Sydney. That one’s from a routine exam two weeks ago. And the last one was taken right this morning, about six hours ago.”

“Yeah, that sounds like very personal information,” Darcy points out—she wishes sometimes that scientists had a little more common sense and a little less passion for what they do. “Should we really be looking at these?”

“Robocop gave us the authorization to discuss it all with you,” Tony assures her calmly. “And we really, really want to discuss it with you.”

“Honestly, we do,” Bruce agrees, a little sheepishly but no less intrigued than his teammate and friend. “Take a look at these.” And knowing there’s no way she’s getting out of that conversation, Darcy walks closer to the table and watches the two scans Bruce points out. “Three months ago and two weeks ago—absolutely no difference. The serum Sergeant Barnes was injected with healed the damages done by shock therapy, but the formula was less elaborate than Erskine’s serum—the one Steve was injected with—and so. . .” Bruce taps a couple of times on his tablet and bright white spots appear all over the two holographic images of brains. It takes Darcy a second to realize that the highlighted areas are perfectly identical, down to the very last one. “We have scans from six months and eight months ago as well and the lesions are the same. In other words-”

“The serum isn’t powerful enough to prevent scarring,” Jane finishes the sentence. It’s not only her tone, but her eyes as well reflect that she’s completely entranced with the images in front of her. “Is that why he had difficulties accessing his memories?”

Tony nods somberly. “It kind of gives you an idea of the kind of voltage they had to use to leave a supersoldier with such extended lesions.”

“They completely disrupted about forty percent of his synapses,” Bruce agrees. “It made him physically incapable of remembering a number of things. That he managed to recognize Steve that first time is nothing short of a miracle.”

Seeing with her own two eyes the proof of the kind of torture James Barnes was put through makes something ache in Darcy’s chest. Of course, anybody with a functional heart and the smallest slither of a capacity for empathy, hearing Bucky Barnes’ tale of woe on the news when the official story was released, had felt bad (veteran associations had issued statements of support by the dozen). It just feels a lot more personal to Darcy now that she’s met the man and helped him.

Bruce has apparently picked up on her thoughts because one of his hands comes up to squeeze her forearm comfortingly.

“I think you’ll be glad to see the scan from this morning-” Two quick swipes of his hand over the table and the two older scans are swept aside to leave only the one he mentioned. “-because the lesions, as you can see, are all gone.”

“Congratulations, Double D!” Tony exclaims, spreading his arms grandly. Although his tone is as sarcastic as ever, there’s a genuinely warm look in his eyes. “You managed to make decades-old trauma scars vanish without a trace and I have no idea how you did it.”

Darcy can’t help but chuckle. “Sorry, Tony, it’s a family trade secret, you’ll have to find a way to live with not knowing.” She turns then and gives Bruce a thankful look. “And thanks, Bruce. You were right, I’m glad you let me see those.”

It’s the first time she can see it for herself—that the help she tries to provide to those who need it counts for something. Because, of course, the people who used to come to her Gran felt better and called back to thank them and sent a little something later on. But despite what Darcy can do, she still trusts science and modern medicine at least as much as Jane and Bruce: seeing scans concretely showing James Barnes is going to be okay brings her a sense of relief she hadn’t realized she needed.

“He’s going to be okay,” Bruce confirms. “We made a few tests and his cognitive reasoning has never been better.”

“Yeah, and I took a look at his robot arm, too,” Tony adds, fingers tapping over his left shoulder to demonstrate. “You did something there too, didn’t you?”

Darcy nods. “It felt like I could help a little with that too.”

The billionaire groans and shoots her an openly fond and exasperated look (it’s an odd mix but Darcy kind of likes it). “Lewis, if you start working your miracles on mechanics and engineering you’re gonna put me out of a job before I can say ‘voodoo’.”

“No worries there,” she assures him steadily. “Your family’s got its trademark and my family has its own. I wouldn’t dream of overstepping.”

The engineer huffs and affects a snooty expression while raising his nose way higher than necessary. “Yeah, you better.”

“Wait, if you have pictures of his arm I want to see them too!” Jane, who’s apparently finally pulled herself out of her intensive reading of James Barnes’ medical file, exclaims.

“Yeah, I’m glad I saw these and got to make sure Sergeant Barnes is okay, but I don’t feel comfortable discussing scans of his left arm without him being here,” Darcy raises. It feels like overstepping some sort of line that she shouldn’t unless the man himself gives her permission.

“Darcy, scientifically speaking this is groundbreaking data!” Jane tells her, the urgency in his tone betraying the excitement she feels at being faced with such a mystery. “If we manage to put in place the adequate protocols, this could revolutionize modern medicine!”

“Yep,” Bruce nods, calmer than Jane but no less interested. “You have no idea how excited Helen Cho was when she saw those. She couldn’t make it this afternoon, but she’d really like to meet you by the way.”

The conversation is starting to head in a direction that is making Darcy a little uncomfortable. It’s a good thing she’s been working with scientists for so many years and know they mean well. “Sure, I could meet her,” she agrees slowly and hopes she’s not going to be eating her words later on. “I’m not so sure the protocols idea is all that wise, to be honest.”

Jane is crestfallen, Tony appears perplexed, but Bruce makes a conscious effort to try and understand her objection. “We wouldn’t poke you with needles,” he assures her.

“It’s as much for me as for the people I’m supposed to be helping,” Darcy shrugs. “Sure, I feel a little creeped out at the idea of you scrutinizing everything that my body’s doing even though I know you. And if that’s how I feel, imagine how someone who’s come to me for help will feel.”

The argument she raises seems to give a moment’s pause to the three scientists and Darcy decides to use it to drive in her point.

“I mean, imagine it for a minute. The people who have come to see my family have always been the same: most of them are a few weeks or months away from their death, and the rest are affected by conditions doctors tell them there’s no cure for. They’re all desperate, and they have to go out on a limb and trust a perfect stranger—me—to make it better, maybe. It’s a really hard thing to do. I don’t exactly see myself asking them on top of that if they’d be okay if a bunch of scientists took some readings while they put their life on the line.”

Surprisingly it’s Tony who agrees first. “Yeah, I can kind of see your point.” Bruce immediately nods after that in a silent agreement while Jane sighs.

“Fine,” the astrophysicist says. “I can’t say I’m not disappointed we’re not getting more data on this, but I understand what you mean.”

“Come on,” Darcy elbows her teasingly. “You have more than enough mysteries to solve with your space obsession without trying to take on the field of medicine on top of it!”

Despite the wry look Jane shoots her, she nods and elbows her younger friend back.

Predictably enough, the three scientists go on to ask Darcy about her family and their unusual vocation to help people. Of course, Jane stays mostly silent because at this point she’s already spent four hours quizzing her best friend about every aspect of her Gran’s education. Either way, it means a lot to Darcy that Jane stays and listens to everything she’s already heard before while Darcy answers all of the two men’s questions.

From past experiences, Darcy doesn’t expect to see James Barnes (or Steve Rogers, or Sam Wilson, or Clint Barton, or Natasha Romanov) again.

If she remembers the way he smiled that one time and called her doll, showing a smidge of that famed charm her ninth grade history textbooks had felt the need to mention, well, she tries her best to ignore the implications. And if she thinks about him altogether a lot more than she should, it’s not like anyone will ever know. Not even Jane. Not even Thor, who keeps shooting her knowing looks like he can see precisely what’s going on inside her head.

Darcy knows there’s no use acknowledging the impression Sergeant Barnes made on her. Every person she met throughout the years has left an impression (he just happens to wildly outclass them all).

And anyway she doesn’t see the people she helps once she’s done helping them. It’s the way things are—like she said, paths crossing and separating again. She accepts it, even if this time it makes her feel a little bit sad: she explains it to herself by the fact that he’s the first person she ever helped on her own, the first person she helped after her Gran died. . .Firsts are always significant like that.

So no one can blame her for being startled and going bright red when she looks up from her computer screen and finds Sergeant Barnes himself standing near her desk with two Styrofoam cups in his hands.

She hurries to take her earbuds out (Jane doesn’t like music in the lab but Darcy needs a playlist to keep her going when transcribing astrophysics notes starts getting tedious after a few hours) and smiles up at him.

“Sergeant Barnes, hi!”

He tilts his head to her (all he needs is a hat to make that picture complete) and smiles. “Miss Lewis,” he greets. “I see you’re working. Maybe I should come back later?”

“No, it’s fine, I’m just transcribing some notes for Jane,” she assures him. Getting to her feet, she grabs the pile of folders on the nearest available desk chair and slides them carefully over a corner of a desk that’s not entirely buried under machinery parts and papers. “Here you go—if you want to sit down, I mean. I’ve been working on these all morning, so I could definitely use a break.”

“Thank you,” he sits down in the chair and extends one of the Styrofoam cups towards her. “Stevie told me coffee’s a pretty good offering to make up for droppin’ by uninvited.”

The Brooklyn accent is charming. Darcy knows she’s acting like one of those fangirls she usually rolls her eyes at. But the Brooklyn accent is decidedly charming. “Thanks, sergeant! If your visits mean I get to have coffee, feel free to drop by anytime!”

“Noted.” His smile deepens a little until his eyes crinkle at the corners. It’s definitely a very good look on him (and Darcy really needs to stop noticing these things). “And please call me Bucky.”

“Then you must call me Darcy.”

“Darcy,” he nods, smile turning into a grin for a flash before he seems to sober up. “I brought coffee for Doctor Foster too, but. . .”

Turning to the last place she’d seen Jane before she started transcribing the notes, Darcy finds her in exactly the same place: at a desk, top of her soft brown hair barely visible behind the enormous screens of her computers, and completely oblivious to the rest of the world.

“Yeah, I think she’s too deep in the zone,” she grimaces a little. “Better not interrupt her, she’s been stuck on those equations all day and she gets all kinds of snappy when the math doesn’t cooperate.” When she looks back at Bucky, she finds him looking at what little is visible of scientist curiously. “You might as well drink it before it gets cold. She’s not going to emerge before a couple of hours at the very least.”

He snorts softly. “Guess I finally get to try that famous coffee from the shop downstairs everyone’s been telling to.”

“Dude, you get the fancy coffee beans on the private floors, don’t you?” Darcy shook her head, a little horrified. “Forget the shop downstairs and keep drinking Stark’s stuff. I stole some from his lab once and I’m telling you, they don’t compare.”

His grin lasts for a good second this time. “I’ll take your word for it, doll.” He takes a sip from the coffee and makes a face down at it. “They put caramel in it. I don’t get it.”

Vaguely reminded of an old man trying Starbucks for the first time, Darcy chuckles and takes a few long gulps from hers. It’s no Stark coffee but it’s already a lot better than that instant crap they used to drink in New Mexico. “To be fair, if you ever want real coffee you shouldn’t go to places like Starbucks,” she shrugs. “They’re good for the times you get a craving for a drink with too much sugar, but if you actually need caffeine, I’d really recommend that special roast Tony has imported from that Fair Trade farm down in Bolivia.” And now feels like the time to stop talking about coffee. “So, Bucky, is there anything I can do for you?”

He shoots her a surprisingly serious look. “I should think you’ve already helped me more than enough, doll,” he says after a beat. “And I actually haven’t thanked you for it yet, so. . .thank you.”

Her heart is definitely beating faster and harder, and her face feels uncomfortably warm. She refuses to acknowledge any of it and looks back at him as if nothing is amiss, but when she sees how serious and intent he is, she finds herself unable to pretend to be flippant about this, even if it’s supposed to hide how flustered she is. She cannot possibly respond with any less sincerity than that which he put in those two simple words.

“I should be thanking you as well,” she replies. “My Gran was my only family and when she died, I kind of. . .locked up everything she ever taught me and kept it in a box, like it was going to help me keep her with me somehow. I haven’t even been back to the farm since I left to go to Culver. . .” She sighs, suddenly feeling uncharacteristically somber, and clears her throat in an attempt to stop it from tightening anymore. “Sorry, I just mean that, if not for you, I don’t know if I would ever have had the courage to actually open that box and start helping anyone again.”

Mercifully, Bucky doesn’t comment on it if her voice is a little thicker and there’s nothing but compassion in his eyes (which are very, very blue—Darcy really needs to stop noticing these things about him before it gets out of hand). “Somehow, I can’t imagine it goin’ on for much longer,” he shakes his head slightly. “Whatever you did, I’ve never heard of anyone being able to do something like it. If you ask me, I’d say it takes one hell of a person to. . .take away what weighs down people and free them from it.”

Darcy blinks, wishing her blush would go away already (or that he’d stop making her blush incessantly) and finds a way to subtly deflect the conversation so she isn’t the main subject anymore. “Is that how you feel? Lighter?”

He nods. “And clearheaded,” he adds. “It’s like. . .I was seein’ everything through a fog. Or like I was tryin’ to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing. Stevie would tell me about the time we went to Coney Island and I’d only get flashes, without bein’ able to make sure that really was what he was talkin’ about.”

“Can you tell now?”

“Yeah,” he smiles, eyes looking down but obviously reminiscing. “Every time we talk with Steve, there’s more and more things that start comin’ back.” He sobers up quickly and looks at her seriously. “There’s also everything that happened after the war, but I’ve been talkin’ to Sam and he’s going to see if his contacts can recommend a specialist to help me work through all that.”

Darcy can’t exactly say she’s surprised, but she admits she didn’t think about how all those memories coming back were going to affect him—a really stupid mistake on her part. It’s a good thing he has friends who can help him for that part in any case.

“I mean, it’s hard,” he goes on after taking a long sip from his coffee. “The memories are really hard to deal with, but it’s not like before. I don’t feel like I’m about to fall apart every time something reminds me of HYDRA. I think. . .I can’t tell for sure, but I think you might have also wiped all of that programming they did inside my head.”

That’s complete news to Darcy—the programming was only mentioned in passing inside the official information package about the Winter Soldier the Avengers Initiative released. She would never have imagined she could possibly help with that.

“And that’s good, right?” she asks, just to make sure. Because what if she took it all away too fast? What if it were better to help him in small increments so he could get used to it all?

“I’d say that’s pretty damn good, doll,” Bucky grinned, dismissing her worries.

Darcy can only smile back. “I’m really glad.”

He stares at her for a second with an expression on his face Darcy isn’t all that sure how to define, before he abruptly snaps out of it. “Right, I also came by to give you this.” He shifts his coffee cup from his right hand to his left hand and uses the newly freed right to root around his pocket looking for something. He comes back out with a picture that he holds out for her.

Surprised into silence, Darcy wordlessly takes it and looks at it for several long seconds. It’s a portrait of him in his military uniform. It’s all in varying shades of sepia, a color that only serves to highlight how handsome he looks on the picture, but the paper itself is glossy and the back of the portrait is immaculate—a copy from an older picture, Darcy realizes. His face is unlined, his posture straight and his shoulders unburdened; even his eyes sparkle in a way that enhances his youth at the moment that picture was taken.

“Clint said you needed a picture?” Bucky asks after a while when she doesn’t say anything. “With everything that happened, we forgot to give it to you when you came by two days ago.”

“Thanks, I just assumed you’d decided you’d rather not give me any,” Darcy answers after a second.

“Well, I wasn’t sure at first, but then, considering what you did. . .” He shrugs ever so slightly, a motion that, despite his massive shoulders, somehow manages to remain graceful. “Can I ask what it’s for, though?”

Darcy can’t help but grin a little mischievously. “Nothing nefarious, I promise. Despite what Tony might have told you, there’s absolutely no voodoo involved in what I do.” Her joke serves its purpose well and he relaxes a little. “I’ll show you. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

Almost jumping to her feet in her hurry, she quickly walks to the corner of the lab where she keeps her coat and purse on a hanger next to Jane’s things. Out of her bag she fishes out a simple and nondescript black notebook, bulging with the added thickness of all the pictures crammed into it throughout the years. As soon as she’s back within reaching distance from Bucky, she gives it to him.

He looks at her curiously at first, before he stares down intently at the notebooks in his hands. His flesh fingers graze the worn cover, trace the frayed corners and follow the one tear that was taped over at the top.

She can almost taste his surprise when he first opens it.

The oldest pictures date back to the twenties—children and newborns her great-grandmother helped and who are still alive to this day. And as he flips through the pages, progresses through the years, there are more and more faces, more and more colors, better quality paper.

“All these people. . .” he breathes. His face is lowered, his hair hanging around his face and Darcy can’t see the expression clearly, but she can hear how moved he is. “Your family helped them. Like you helped me.”

She nods, somehow feeling like speaking up would disturb whatever revelation he seems to be having. He doesn’t look up at her though and keeps flipping through the pages, lingering on some pictures that catch his attention.

“You keep these for. . .remembering?”

“It’s a little bit of that,” she confirms, making sure to keep her voice quiet and her tone respectful. “But it’s mostly because I keep looking after them. My great-grandmother and my Gran looked after these people—I mean, most people my great-grandmother helped have passed away, there are only a few left, but almost all the people my Gran helped are in there.”

He slowly looks back up at her, as if it takes some measure of effort. “What do you mean, you keep looking after them?”

“Exactly just that,” Darcy tells him simply. “When we decide to help someone, we take a commitment—a long-term commitment. I take my notebook with me wherever I go and I. . .” It’s a really difficult concept to explain, all the more that it’s only the second time she has to (she only talked about this the first time the day before, when she showed the notebook to Tony, Jane and Bruce). “Well, I’m not really sure how to explain it any other way. I just keep them with me.”

“So. . .” Bucky swallows thickly. “My picture. . .”

Darcy grins. “You get the same treatment as everybody else,” she tells him. The atmosphere has suddenly grown heavier and she doesn’t want him overthinking the significance of this when he already has so much on his plate. “I’ll keep looking after you for as long as I can.”

He lets out a very long breath.

There’s nothing on his face to hint at what is going on in his head in that moment, but when she sees his shoulders drop, as if some sort of tension suddenly left him, Darcy decides to take it as a good sign. She can’t even begin to guess what he’s thinking but she doesn’t need to know (even if she would really like to know absolutely everything about him, even if it’s realistically none of her business). There’s relief and hope around him, barely perceptible but most definitely there, so even if his feelings look to be quite complicated at the moment, she decides to concentrate on that.

Unfortunately, at the very moment he opens his mouth to speak up, a new voice irrupts into the conversation.

“Hey, Buck, there you are.” It’s Steve Rogers, hovering a little hesitantly at the door of the lab and looking quizzically between Darcy and his friend. “Hello, Miss Lewis.”

“Hello, Captain,” Darcy replies, a little amused to see such a large man looking so awkward as he hesitates in the doorway.

“What are you doin’ here, punk?” Bucky retorts good-naturedly. “I thought you were at the gym traumatizin’ sandbags.”

Rogers snorts and shoots him a wry look. “Yeah, I think I’ve seen enough sandbags for the day. I thought we could go grab Sam and find something nice for dinner. There’s an Italian place in Brooklyn that was there back in the day—I’ve gone a couple times, it’s nice, I think you’ll like it.”

Bucky shrugs. “Well, I ain’t gonna say no to Italian food,” he drawls before looking back at Darcy and handing back her notebook. “What d’ya say, doll? You comin’ with us?”

The Brooklyn accent is killing her, dammit! She never paid attention to accents before unless they were foreign, and thanks to London she’s grown pretty immune to Brits, but this is downright unfair. “No, I wouldn’t want to intrude,” she says politely and smiles for good measure.

“I promise you won’t be,” Rogers assures her and finally leaves his post by the door.

He stops only a few feet away from them and Darcy finds herself with a very impressive view of a sweaty Captain America in a ridiculously tight white shirt that leaves very little to the imagination. If she hadn’t heard so many things about the first Avenger being such a paragon of virtue, she’d swear he’s trying to dazzle her with his sheer muscle mass.

She looks back at Bucky, hoping to get find some kind of reprieve there, and instead finds him looking at her so hopefully she folds like origami paper.

“Well, I haven’t had much a chance to try a lot of restaurants in Brooklyn just yet,” she says. “So if you’re sure you don’t mind. . .”

“We’d be delighted,” Steve Rogers grins widely.

“Atta girl,” Barnes approves with a smile of his own.

(It only takes her about half an hour in the company of Steve Rogers, James Barnes and Sam Wilson to realize that Captain America, far from a model of perfection and goodness, is in fact a devious little shit and a complete troll. Bucky’s delighted guffaws when she calls the good captain out on his crap more than makes up for swearing in front of an American icon.)