Chapter Text
Darcy felt the oddest brush of consciousness and then she was crashing onto the ground with a grunt of pain. She looked up and screamed as she stared at biker Satan punching at a tiny window.
Biker Satan turned to look at her, his disturbing skull and soulless eyes looking down at her. And then he turned and slammed his fist through the window.
Darcy scrambled backwards only to yelp, her arms coming up. Oh god they hurt so bad. Every fiber of her arms was pure agony. She was crying and god she was going to die. Her breaths were coming in sharp and quick, her vision turning fuzzy. She cringed away from hands on her shoulders.
“Daisy!” A man commanded.
She looked up, eyes focusing on the man’s face. He was looking at her. And she just tried to curl more inwards. The world was shaking? Why was the world shaking?
His eyes widened, his voice turning low. “You’re on soulswitch right?” He pressed one hand to her diaphragm and the other curled around the side of her neck holding her steady. “Breath in here. You’re ok. Just breathe.”
Darcy gulped, her breathing slowing as she held the man’s eyes. Soulswitch. But what was her soulmate doing here? Why were her arms in so much pain? And other parts of her. Christ was any part of her not in pain. She shuddered. “Why is she hurt!?”
“You’re ok, so is Daisy. It’s been a hard few months. Just keep breathing kid.” The guy chuckled looking at her so painfully fondly.
She blinked. “But that was...Satan?”
“Yeah things have been weird. And uh I think that might have been the actual Devil. You can tell Daisy all about how she has terrible taste in friends.” He dropped his hands off her, but stayed crouched in front of her. “My name’s Mack. Promise I’ll keep your girl here safe till she can come find you.”
Darcy sucked in a breath pushing the pain down. Just how Natasha told her to. Sure those lessons had been for possible hostage situations, not for her twenty minute switch with her soulmate. That was… well damn. She knew there were questions she needed the answers to. She didn’t get to ask those questions though.
A loud angry male voice yelled from outside the room she was in. “Mack! Get out of that containment cell. That is a traitor and a terrorist in there. I don’t care if you used to be friends. And why is the other prisoner out here?”
“Sorry kid.” Mack raised a damned syringe and then plunged it into her neck.
Darcy whined and then her eyes rolled up in her head and she slumped forward. The groggy feeling of something sending her spinning into unconsciousness. She sucked in a sharp breath. Darcy was...in the security room at SI? No pain, thank god. Reaching up she touched her face, then she looked down at her boobs. “Oh thank Thor I’m back.” Looking up she took in what was on the screens. That was not good… in fact that was very, very bad. She cleared her throat. “JARVIS buddy, I think I need some like Avenger level help dude.
Darcy sat curled up on the corner of the couch. Her arms wrapped around her legs. Tony and Natasha stood, the only two Avengers in the building at the moment. She wasn’t sure how to start, or even begin to explain how much she’d just fucked up everything for everyone.
“Come on shortstack, gotta know why you called us here.” Tony broke first, clearly not willing to wait any longer.
She swallowed. “It’s my twenty-first birthday. I had my soulswitch, whatever you wanna call it. Which I was totally responsible about. Like had a journal open and was in my room like you’re supposed to. But then...it wasn’t right.”
“What happened?” Natasha looked at her, all comforting strength and understanding. It was obviously an interrogation technique, it was devastatingly effective.
Darcy shook slightly. “I was in a box with Satan. Like dude with a flaming skull. He was just punching this window over and over. I screamed, and then he looked at me and it was… it was something not right. Then I think I had a panic attack, her body was in so much pain.”
“Pain?” Natasha asked.
She nodded. “Like sore, everything ached. And her left shoulder was bad. But my..her arms were agony. It was like every bone was broken or something. It hurt so bad. Like a migraine in my arms.” Darcy looked up. “A man, he said his name was Mack. He talked me down. He was like super duper big, deep voice, like sorta dude you’d have to climb like a tree. Had arms almost as impressive as Thor.”
“That’s very impressive.” Natasha encouraged, she sat down on the coffee table. Her posture non threatening.
Darcy hugged her legs tighter to herself. “I think my soulmate was working with the literal Devil, someone ordered Mack out of the containment cell. Something about her being a traitor and terrorist. And then they injected me, her, with something and I was out of it till I was here again. But that’s...that’s why you need to know. I was in the security room, and she was in the computer systems.”
“Fuck kid.” Tony turned. “JARVIS, bring up the security feeds. We need to know what short stack here’s soulmate was doing while in her body.”
-”Certainly Sir.”- JARVIS replied and then the tv turned on, camera footage coming up.
They all watched as the feed from in Darcy’s room came up. There sitting on the edge of her bed was Darcy. Her leg was bouncing as she checked the clock, and then all the nervous energy just vanished as Darcy stilled between one breath and the next. Then it wasn’t Darcy in Darcy’s body it was Daisy, her soulmatch.
Daisy turned her head slowly, taking in the bedroom. And then she stood, stepping over to the desk where there was a journal. She didn’t move to write in it. Instead she quickly moved to Darcy’s purse, opening it and flipped through it before pulling out Darcy’s driver’s licence. Then an amused look while pulling out the taser. Then she pulled out Darcy’s phone and started…
“Tony, how is she in my phone? I have a password.” Darcy’s bad feeling was increasing as they watched what was clearly Daisy flipping through her photos, contacts and personal information.
Tony whistled. “Damn kiddo, your match is hacker. I’m gonna have to hire her. Like that might be a record for getting into a Stark phone. Knew the loophole to get in already though, so less impressive than if you had the newest model.”
“She’s trained.” Natasha remarked as they watched the Darcy, that wasn’t her, set the phone down and leave Darcy’s room. “Look at her posture, it was loose and ready to react, now it’s purposefully casual. And that walking pace, that’s just fast enough to look busy, but not so fast as to cause alarm. She’s good.”
Darcy didn’t say anything as she watched her body go to a built in computer terminal. And then her fingers were flying as she brought information up. It was no more than a few minutes and then her soulmatch was moving on.
“Well shit. I’m going to have to change up security.” Tony ran a hand through his hair. “She just used your access to the systems to find the nearest security room. And she did it by looking for a new coffee pot order form.” He pulled up a tablet and flipped through information. “That wouldn’t have set off any alarms for JARVIS, or any security system really. Your match is a damn menace Double D.”
On screen they watched as Darcy’s body was piloted straight into the security room. She then immediately was pulling up the systems and swiping through them.
Natasha frowned. “We’ll have to change your firewalls. This kid just shredded them.”
“This is why I don’t let enemy hackers into my security system directly.” Tony frowned. “I know this coding. JARVIS does this coding match up with Skynet’s old hacks into the pentagon?”
JARVIS’s comforting british voice replied. -”Indeed Sir. The style and method are reminiscent of Skynet’s. It is an unusual form that led you to the conclusion the hacker known as Skynet was not formally trained in programming. Though this script work is more elegant than the examples I have of Skynet’s work.”-
“Huh, could have sworn the kid got vanished or something.” He started swiping like a madman. “You’ve got one of the top hackers from four years ago as a match, Lewis. That’s some hacking pedigree. Not as good as I am, probably, but good.”
Natasha raised a brow in interest. “Which files is she looking at?”
“Every file we have on Short Stack here, Jane, and Thor. Also tagging a lot of files.” Tony snorted. “She’s letting me know she could steal the information without actually doing it. Asshole. Your match is an asshole Lewis.” He groaned. “And she’s not reading all the files, just grabbing the highlights and moving on.”
Natasha reached out and touched Darcy’s knee. “She is not compromising our security dangerously, she’s ensuring that you are safe.”
They all paused as the twenty minute mark approached ever faster. There, right before the end Darcy’s face looked up at the camera. And they all heard the voice on the speakers. “See you soon Darcy Lewis.” And then there was a shiver and a very traumatized looking Darcy was standing in the place of the collected version.
Natasha pulled Darcy’s attention away from the screen. “You said your match was in a containment cell? What did it look like?”
“White.” Darcy closed her eyes trying to remember the walls. It’d all been so fast. “The walls were...textured like...it looked like the Hulk room only smaller, the size of a walk in closet.”
“That’s good.” Natasha squeezed her knee gently before getting up. “I’ll see if I can chase some leads down. But I believe someone accompanying a flaming skeleton shouldn’t be too difficult to find.”
Darcy bit at her lip. “What if...what if they’re not a good person?”
“Then they are not a good person.” Natasha’s voice was calm as she stood. “Until we know more you shouldn’t leave the tower without an escort.” The red head looked down at Darcy. “Your match did almost exactly what I would have done in her position. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or not. But they are certainly capable.”
Tony huffed. “You’re depressing. Ask Pepper kid, she’s better at this feelings stuff.” He looked back down at his screen. “JARVIS! We have firewalls to rebuild, bigger and better than before!”
Darcy let herself settle further into the cushions of the couch. She’d never expected this, it was… so much pain and fear. That wasn’t what she’d expected from her soulmatch. Jane was supposed to be the one with the crazy weird match. Darcy shivered, well, her soulmatch knew where to find her.
////
Natasha hadn’t said what she’d been able to gather from Darcy’s soulswitch. Not everything anyways. But she could put two and two together. Hexagonal containment facilities was SHIELD, and she’d seen the mobile command ones. Which meant the likely people who had Darcy’s soulmate captive were either SHIELD or Hydra. And Agent comforting Darcy skewed that to the remnants of SHIELD heavily.
She knocked on Hill’s office door before stepping inside and closing the door behind her with a soft click.
Maria looked up from her stacks of paperwork. “No.”
“I didn’t even say anything yet.” Natasha purred while sliding to the window.
Maria looked like she was considering banging her head on her desk. “Cut the crap, you knocked, you never knock. Which means what you want is going to be a nightmare. So no. Go ask someone else. I’m not getting dragged in, between Tony and Congress I’m done.”
“It’s about Darcy.” Natasha smirked as she saw the defeat in Maria. The woman’s shoulders slumped.
Maria set her pen down. “The science wrangler that prevented six lab fires yesterday?”
“That’s the one.” Natasha felt smug, Darcy was probably the most normal person on the payroll. She was on the payroll because as the most normal person on the payroll. She reminded them all about normal human things. Like breakfast, sleep schedules, and hygiene.
Maria groaned, but straightened in her seat, pushing the paperwork to the side. “What happened?”
“It’s her twenty first birthday, she had her soulswitch. Her soulmate is in a SHIELD mobile containment box, and is also a hacker good enough to get into the Tower’s security and find everything she wanted in just twenty minutes. Hacker handle ‘skynet’.” Natasha was delighted as she saw recognition on Maria’s face.
Maria picked up her coffee mug and then chugged the whole damn thing. She set it down with a doomed sort of thud. “Agent Skye, level 1 probationary agent when Hydra happened.”
“So SHIELD did nab the hacker.” Natasha took in the pained expression on Maria’s face. “She moved like a specialist, a good one in the security feed.”
Maria pinched the bridge of her nose. “Because Agent Skye is now Agent Daisy Johnson, code name Quake, cross country vigilante, walking natural disaster and Melinda May’s protege.”
“The Calvary?” Nat actually paused at that. Well it was a good thing Darcy was already involved in all the crazy. It made sense her soulmatch would be just as crazy as the rest of them. It would take someone naturally inclined for the bizarre to deal with their Avenger shit. But.. “Melinda May took a rookie?”
Maria groaned, actually groaned. “Melinda May and Coulson adopted that kid. She was lined up to be the new Director of SHIELD but then went off her rocker vigilante. Which...god. Mind control incident. Which, I only know this because Phil has been calling me like a Nervous Nancy since Daisy went off the reservation.”
“So Avenger class powers, already trained for combat and hacking skills to work back end. I’ll let the team know.” Natasha could foresee some ruffled feathers, but if Melinda and Phil liked the kid then that was enough in her book.
Maria opened her drawer and pulled out a flask. “It’s a PR nightmare. I’m taking a vacation, we are taking a vacation. This is almost as nightmarish as when we switched.”
“A good day.” Natasha winked as she turned and slipped out the door. She considered warning the rest of the team. But then… where was the fun in that?
Instead she pulled up her phone. Time to drag Steve out of his hunt for his soulmate and world class assassin for some beer and pool. Actually, she and Maria likely were the least dramatic of the team when it came to soul switches. That or Barton… Clint may have had to quit the mob business for Laura, but the mob was easier than the KBG.