Chapter Text
There have been far better plane rides. Ones that didn’t involve Darcy frantically trolling website after website figuring out what is already known about the Avengers recently unmasked members and what isn’t. She hits up all the reputable sites and then anywhere that Oh No They Didn’t could possibly get links from, because journalists have nothing on women with celebrity crushes.
Bruce is more or less screwed, and of course, the person she least wanted to be known is the one that gets uncovered in the most spectacular way, clear above the city in line of news choppers. There’s no trying to hide who the Hulk is anymore, not when he’s naked on every website.
“That was way more than I needed to see,” Clint says, “Please don’t blow it up on the display screen. I already bring him clothes afterwards.”
“You spoil all my fun, babe.” Darcy replies. Banner is screwed over. Media identified him, because missing genius scientist actually had been a news story once upon a time, and bam, interviews with former classmates and students have already started despite the incident happening like, three hours ago.
God bless bloggers. Bless them right in their fucking faces.
She asks Clint to help her sort out what’s going on with Natasha though. Curiously, despite the absolutely striking shots going around the internet, everyone’s having a harder time getting a real identification on her.
“I’m pretty sure they’ve only connected her as far as Natalie Rushman, employee of Stark Industries.” He says after looking through everything Darcy already has, “Can you work with that?”
“Can I work with an elaborate cover that has already been given, maintained and that Natasha knows how to work with? No, of course not, because I want to do everything from scratch. She’s been going nuts in her quiet little way, I can tell by your damn face.” Clint nods in exasperation, and Darcy knows she’s already on a roll, and her phone rings for the seventh time this plane ride, “Uh, mom again.” She sends it to voicemail.
Clint makes a tally mark in the air, “Five calls in forty five minutes, I think this might be a record.”
“Considering it takes fifteen minutes to get somewhere where she has signal? That’s really impressive.” She sighs, her breath catching hair that’s fallen in front of her face, “I was actually looking forward to an entire weekend off.” She feels unbearably tired all of a sudden, like she didn’t spend last night stealing her uncle’s car and today having a heart to heart with her mother.
He’s hesitant to get close to Darcy whenever they are in SHIELD-owned anything, she knows, because that’s work and he likes to keep a clear head. But the line is so muddy now that he’s wrapped an arm around her, taking the tablet from her hands. She rests against him, closing her eyes.
“It’s not like we didn’t know this would happen at some point. We’re only mostly human, and we’re messy. We make mistakes, even we can’t help that.” He says lowly, and she realizes that this really is only the beginning for him, that he’s processing being in the open.
Clint grew up in the limelight, and then escaped that to live in shadow. He doesn’t really like either, but he’s known nothing else. Darcy desperately wants to give him benign existence, just so he can see what it’s like. But it’s something that will never happen. And he’s comforting her.
“I do kind of wish that we could have more control over it though,” he adds.
“Says the guy that’s going to be the only one coming out of nowhere on this one.” She rolls her eyes, “We got any intel on just what caused Banner to de-Hulk?”
“Not yet, sciences has it, but something like that is going to take time. Banner is apparently beside himself. He loves the idea of something that can pull him back front, but not that other people have it.” Clint says, “When he’s not trying to apologize for being the problem.”
“Lord, save me from men with self-esteem issues.”
*
It goes like this: helicopter to jet to car, where she and Clint are separated, and she’s handed her stack of file folders, a garment bag and her makeup kit. Pepper is her absolute favorite person at this moment because the bottom of the bag has power shoes and a jewelry roll. Pepper knows how to make everything better.
To think, she’s going from her family reunion to addressing pretty much what’s going to be the entire world in just a couple of hours, because somehow she got wrangled into be the pleasant face of the Avengers. Better her than Stark. Or Thor. Thor would have the benefit of being amusing and not intentionally insulting. Just naively insulting.
And now she’s picturing Natasha giving a press conference and staring down the press until they crack and start revealing their sources. It’s infinitely rewarding.
She knows the car ride is going to be short, so she just reviews her file folder of notes and plans for just this sort of breech of security, and they ranged from Tony Stark has had a mental breakdown (again) and gone rogue to hey, at least we weren’t the ones that blew up the world. Cover stories were her bag, and so is the fallout from them.
The contingency plans for this were pretty much standard, control the rate of disclosure until they controlled what had been disclosed. Put the power back into her hands, SHIELD’s hands.
There’s cameras everywhere around Stark Tower, even in the back, once secret car entrance, and she knows she’s photographed the entire walk to the inside of the building. She even hears a news crew announcing her arrival and she doesn’t hide her face. She’s still dressed from the reunion, but fuck it. Confidence is what carries you and it doesn’t matter what you wear as long as you can project that you belong. Inhabit that space. Someone kind of important said that to her and she believes it now.
Hill meets her at the door, “Need a hand?”
Darcy hands her the garment bag. Maria would be doing this if it weren’t for the decision long ago to minimize SHIELD involvement. The less this looks like a secret government institution, the better. Agent Hill screams military-industrial complex to the very core of her being. They’ll bring in SHIELD gradually, but for now, friendly faces of the Avengers Initiative.
“Wait, do I still have my accent on?” Darcy says with a straight face, and Hill lifts one side of her mouth as she says no. “Everyone upstairs?” Darcy asks.
“We’ve got them contained.” Agent Hill answers. Contained sounds like she needs them to be babysat at all times. And there’s the other reason that Darcy gets to be the public face instead of Maria. Maria can’t dial back the thinly veiled contempt and annoyance she has for the Avengers. She’ll defend them until her dying day (and very likely will) but there is a world of difference between respect and admiration. “I’ve got press materials made up based on your recommendations.”
“Including Natasha’s….”
“Including Natalie Rushman, good call there. It’s a lot less to try to explain an American spy, much less her colorful background.”
“It’ll buy us time, no way someone isn’t going to dig up the pieces and string them together.” Darcy retorts, “I’m not looking forward to that.” She stops in front of the doorway, “Thank you Maria, this is my stop.”
Hill gives her a curt nod, hands back the garment bag. Executive bathroom. She doesn’t waste time. Hair pulled up and back, makeup enough for pictures, but kept to the basics. Pepper found an awesome girl power suit for her, and Darcy has never been happier for their shoe relationship.
She looks herself over in one of the mirrors and pulls herself up to her full height. Tuck the pelvis, pull in the gut and then feel the space between the vertebrae elongate, expand, as she lifts her chest to take up all the room she can.
This is the space she inhabits, the line between her friends, her personal heroes and those who might be well meaning but wants to eat them up for lunch and bylines. She doesn’t have superpowers, but she has her words, her smarts and her personality and she will keep that line nice and clear.
She carries that confidence down the hall and into the hall used for press conferences. Benefit of having Stark Tower for Avengers use, the commute cannot be beat.
She opens the door and the flashes start as she walks to the podium and she opens her file folder.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, sorry to keep you waiting. I’ll be taking a limited amount of questions at the end, so please, sit on your hands. At approximately 3:15 pm Eastern time, the Initiative was notified of an attack within Midtown. The attacker was identified as a non-human occupied robot. Known details of the attack will be provided in press packets in the morning. There were no casualties, only minor injuries reported and little property damage. SHIELD has taken ownership of the robot for study and the investigation of the attack and to determine the culprit, as of this time, no one has claimed responsibility. Local and other governmental law enforcement will be utilized per standard operating procedures.” This part was pretty rote, the standard track used whenever the Avengers were utilized in a public way.
“As has been widely reported, during the course of the attack two members of the Avengers were public identified. As a result, the decision has been made to declassify the remainder. So let’s do a little headcount, why don’t we?” Darcy raises her eyebrows and smiles, letting them think she’s lowering her guard, “As we all know, Iron Man is piloted by Anthony Edward Stark, and lest he get a bigger head, the less said the better. Captain America is Captain Steve Rogers, and yes, I will confirm that he the original Captain America.” She takes a breath, because the next semi-known entity may just be the hardest one to swallow, “Thor Odinnson is indeed, an alien being that has been in contact with Earth for quite some time. Information on our diplomatic ties with his home will be outlined at a later date. As has been reported extensively today, Dr Bruce Banner is also the entity known as the Hulk. Dr Banner is a respected member of the scientific community. The details about how he became and becomes the Hulk are undergoing review, and at this time will not be released.”
And oh boy, right now, she wishes she could be split into multiple places to see the reactions of so many people, “The final two members of the Avengers are SHIELD agents Natalie Rushman and Clinton Barton, under the codenames Black Widow and Hawkeye. Agent Rushman has been serving as a liaison between SHIELD and Stark Industries. Agent Barton…” she pauses, because she’s so close to saying ‘is a circus freak’ its not even funny. A dozen other lines come to her head, ‘has a love affair with the color purple’ being a clear laugh winner, but she falters, and blandly remarks, “is from Waverly, Iowa, and learned marksmanship as a member of a traveling circus. That is a fact that cannot be made up. Both Agents have been removed from covert operations.”
“Press packets with biographical details are being handed out at this time. Requests for interviews and photography will be handled through the same channels as they have for Captain Rogers. And for the last time, it’s L-E-W-I-S, Lewis, not Lois. The explorer, not Superman’s girlfriend.”
And then the floor erupts. She already knows who she’ll answer questions from, reliable people with solid questions. Points.
“You keep a person who turns into a monster in the middle of New York City?” the reporter asks. Ohh, blunt, Darcy likes that. She hasn’t gotten all the names and faces memorized yet, but she’s from NBC or CNN, like an actual place.
“No, Dr Banner chooses to live in New York City at this time. We don’t keep him anywhere. He does, however, have a frightful tendency to fall asleep in his lab and can be a little grumpy when someone wakes him up because they got bored. I’m pretty sure we all know who is to blame for that.” She responds, quick-mouthed. The press packets explain a little about the mechanism by which Bruce transforms, enough to say that it’s controllable, not enough so that everyone knows how to trigger a rapid green response.
“Just how close is the relationship between Stark Industries and SHIELD?” That’s the reporter from the New York Times.
“Have you been holding on to that for awhile, Peter?” Darcy questions back, and the room titters a little bit, “It’s not really a relationship between SHIELD and Stark Industries, as it is a relationship between the Avengers and Stark Industries. As you can tell by the fact that we do our press conferences in their hall, the two function rather well together. SHIELD administration that is related to the Avengers have been given space within Stark Tower to work, and the biggest open secret is true, there are living spaces for the team and selected others within the tower.”
“Then, I’ll stop dancing; Does Stark Industries still maintain weapons production for the Avengers?”
“No. Let’s draw a line between Stark Industries and Tony Stark. Tony maintains his suits and some of the other Avenger’s equipment, his company does not.”
“Wouldn’t that be hypocritical of his anti-weapons stance?” The reporter insists on asking.
“I’m pretty sure that Tony Stark can speak for himself, if you’d like to ask him. In fact, please ask him. As much as Tony doesn’t believe me, I am not a mind reader and cannot tell you what he thinks.” She shuts down the reports, and answers questions about Thor, gives the sanitized version of how he even got to Earth in the first place. There’s a post-it in her file from Hill that cajoles her to under no circumstances mention Jane hitting him with a car or her taser, and that really puts a damper on the story. That’s the best part.
She plays fast and loose explaining “Ms Rushman’s” role as liaison, dodging any questions about what is meant by covert operations and why any Avenger would be doing them with a simple, “They were SHIELD Agents prior to being Avengers. When you have a job, you do it.”
The last reporter she calls on has the most exasperated expression, and really, Darcy doesn’t blame him, because instigating the media is her favorite sport ever, “Why these people? Why do these people make up the Avengers?”
Darcy lowers her head, a little breathless in thought as her mind starts running words just fractions of a second before she starts talking, “The directive of the Avengers Initiative was to bring together people with highly specific skill sets. Beyond the obvious skill set of someone like Captain America, with his strength and agility, each of them is highly intelligent and resourceful. But there are many in the world who could come close to what they do, and indeed, we have been seeing them come out into the world and not in pleasant ways.”
“So why these people? Because each of them possess a moral center that seeks to protect, to stand for the people, to create and conserve where others destroy. They all come to it differently and from different backgrounds, some early in life, others much later. When you have skill, drive and a reason? It takes an awful lot to stand in your way. And that, is why they are the Avengers.” And fuck it, she’s done monologuing, she knows how to end these things, “That’s it, everyone. Go write your stories, good night.” She walks off the podium and out the door, where she lets herself collapse in on herself and feel the exhaustion she’s felt since the plane.