#loop continues being the hottest bitch on the block

[old-desert]

doodle-badoodle

[freudensteins-monster]

Full Metal Bitch

Whilst not directly inspired by it, if you’re interested in reading an Avengers x Edge of Tomorrow fic (set in the Avengers universe, featuring Mimics and time loops, starring Steve and featuring multiple ships) then I recommend When You Wake by sevenfoxes. It’s pretty devastating at times but I couldn’t put it down. I read it ages ago and this idea just popped into my head out of nowhere this morning [edit. the morning I started writing this… back in November], something about Barnes being a ‘full metal badass’ and then *click*

My fic has Avengers/MCU characters in an EoT-type universe, except I gave them Chitauri  to fight instead of Mimics  (no alphas, omegas, or time loops here) to go for a whole alternative version of the Battle of New York. And I gave them a pretty stupid weakness because I couldn’t help but put in a reference to Darcy and her taser.

Title from the nickname of Emily Blunt’s character in “Edge of Tomorrow”. Check out this link to see her / to get a mental picture of the exo-suits.

Darcy would be straight up lying if she said that the recruiting posters hadn’t influenced her decision to sign up with S.H.I.E.L.D., but she was far from the only one. She had yet to meet a single new recruit who didn’t say “I wanna be like the Avengers.”

The leader of the Avengers was Captain Steve Rogers. He started out as an actual poster boy, and with his all-American good looks and genial personality (even when battling hordes of Chitauri) he’d had been dubbed ‘Captain America’ by the world’s media. He was just some ridiculously handsome artist the PR department had discovered trying to sign up with S.H.I.E.L.D. after the Invasion. They convinced him he’d be doing more good helping to boost recruiting numbers, and if he did he’d be given his own squad to lead if he did his part, and he believed them, for a time. But as the war dragged on, and too many recruits came home in body bags, Rogers decided to put his up-til-then ornamental Captain’s rank to good use and snuck onto a transport to kick ass alongside his fellow soldiers. Rumour had it he had been forbidden from damaging that pretty face of his and when Rogers made it back from his first battle he had told the PR department where to stick their latest recruitment campaign. The powers that be weren’t going to let it go, and were ready to court martial Rogers for his insolence, until the story of the corporate pretty boy turned war hero started making news. He used the publicity to finally gain command over his own unit and hadn’t stopped flashing those pearly whites since.

His first official recruit had been the Iron Patriot, the most advanced exo-suit around (the damn thing flew!) originally piloted by a decorated army colonel, James Rhodes. He got the choicest tech because of his friendship with the creator of the exo-suits, Tony Stark, and he used the famed exo-suit on dozens of missions until a severe injury forced him to retire from the field. The PR guys wanted to keep the symbol alive so Colonel Rhodes selected the most promising candidate, Sam Wilson, a paratrooper who went by the call sign ‘Falcon,’ to take up the mantle.

The Black Widow and Hawkeye had managed to keep out of the public eye, even if soldiers had been telling stories about their amazing exploits around the barracks since the war started, until they took out a whole squadron of Chitauri in front of some quivering mess of a war correspondent.

The Black Widow had apparently gotten her moniker well before she even set foot on a battlefield - the Russian recruit utterly destroyed every sparring partner she ever stepped in the ring with – but the way she effortlessly dropped from a transport ship on a wire like a spider cemented it. Her suit was terrifyingly minimalist (the harness painted blood red) and lacking in protection, which allowed for smoother, faster movement. Watching her slaughter alien hordes was akin to watching a prima ballerina on centre stage.

Hawkeye, a rambling former carnie from Iowa, disliked guns and had jerry-rigged his exo-suit to shoot more vicious projectiles instead, and never missed a shot. When news of Hawkeye’s customisation reached Tony Stark he had been appalled at the craftsmanship but intrigued by the idea and had soon designed a new suit to accommodate the marksman’s more paleolithic interests.

The last member of the Avengers was Darcy’s favourite; Sergeant James Barnes. He was just a soldier drafted into doing his duty, but he was Steve Rogers’ best friend and one of the main reasons the poster boy had been so desperate to join the fray. They made an impressive pair, their fighting styles well synchronised after a lifetime together, until the Sergeant lost an arm during a skirmish somewhere in Europe. After an injury like that most soldiers would have accepted their pensions and retired, far away from the battlefield. But not Sergeant Barnes. He had Tony Stark design him a metal arm and then rebuild his exo-suit to accommodate it. If that wasn’t the hottest thing ever, Darcy didn’t know what was.

So, yes, it was because of her ridiculous crush on the legendary Sergeant Barnes that Darcy had enlisted and tried to be the best soldier she could be. She wanted to impress him and had imagined a thousand scenarios wherein the Sergeant saw her kicking ass and became instantly enamoured with her. It was stupid – she knew it was stupid – but she couldn’t help herself; she wanted him to notice her.

She’d once had the privilege of watching the Avengers walk out to their transport ship together – she swore everything moved in slow-motion - and her best friend had to hold her back lest she lick the shiny appendage attached to the dark and broody Sergeant Barnes. But it was the death of this same best friend that made Darcy finally see the war for the brutal battle for survival that it was, rather than a ‘bloody eye candy parade’ as she’d often joked.

They’d met in basic training and everyone in their squad agreed that Jane Foster was too smart to be crawling around in the mud with the rest of them. They made her their squad’s medic and tried to keep her out of the fighting as much as possible, but Jane was nothing if not determined, even if she freely admitted she’d rather be studying the alien invaders than killing them.

She’d thrown herself in harm’s way to protect their newest recruit, a barely legal kid named Peter without sense enough to take cover. Darcy hadn’t noticed until it was too late. She’d been too busy trying to catch a glimpse of the Avengers in action a few blocks over and would never forgive herself for letting her best friend die alone.

** *** **

Darcy woke with a start, the image of Jane’s blood as it left her body filling her dreams. She threw off her itchy standard-issue blanket, laced up her standard-issue boots, and wandered around the base until she found herself nearing the Avengers’ personal – and off limits – training area. It was barely 2am but there were noises coming from inside drawing her in. There, twisted into some ridiculous yoga pose in the middle of a room, surrounded by metal claws programmed to dart around violently to mimic Chitauri movements, was the Black Widow. Darcy watched on silently until the Avenger pressed a button on a remote strapped to her wrist to stop the training claws. She effortlessly unfurled from her complicated pose and levelled a cold stare at the interloper.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded in her lightly accented English.

“Would you spar with me?” Darcy looked as surprised as the Black Widow to hear the request. “I mean, I’m not really good, pretty terrible actually, but I want to get better.”

The Black Widow took in Darcy’s haunted expression and nodded just once, beckoning the green soldier closer. Darcy was on her back in three seconds flat, but she got back up and did it again, and came back every night for more punishment. By the end of the month it took the Black Widow a full ten seconds to get her opponent on her back.

** *** **

Darcy stepped into her exo-suit and went through the standard system checks, ignoring the furtive glances sent her way. It was going to be her sixth battle without Jane by her side, and each time it just got harder and harder to get strapped in as her squad was filled with new faces to replace her ever-growing list of dead friends.

Word of her midnight sparring sessions with the Black Widow had spread like wildfire through the base and her fellow cannon fodder now regarded her with a mix of respect and fear, so much so that they made her the unofficial leader of their squadron. Officially the title went to a Swede by the name of Thor, as he was the only one in their squad to serve before the war (and looked like the Scandinavian god of lumberjacks to boot), but he had been quietly nursing a crush on Jane since their first meeting and her death had hit him particularly hard.  

“A-Squad! The transport ship leaves in five minutes and you better be on it, or so help me you’ll all be on latrine duty for the rest of your lives.”

Darcy bit back a growl as an obnoxious Major by the name of Sitwell, who had never suffered more than a papercut in the name of his country, strode into their barracks demanding they march themselves to their deaths in an orderly fashion. Darcy stepped down off her prep station, the threatening whir of her exo-suit doing the talking for her.

“Lock and load,” Sitwell bellowed, breaking eye contact with Darcy first and hustling out of the room to go bother another squad.

“You heard the douche canoe,” Darcy called out with more confidence than she felt. “Lock and load!”

** *** **

They were dropped in the middle of a battlefield and Darcy got to work, her exo-suit spewing forth a hail of bullets as she pressed forward, trying to find some cover for her squad. They were doing well, all things considered, and had taken the high ground as they continued to push the Chitauri back, when Darcy did a quick head count and realised Thor was unaccounted for. She spied him half a city block away doing battle against a horde by himself. She ordered her squad to hold their positions and raced to Thor’s aid, cursing his stupid and inappropriately timed berserker rage. Darcy screamed out as Thor took a hit and the last standing Chitauri went in for the kill. Darcy riddled it with bullets but the damn thing kept coming back for more. In an act of desperation she reached down for a mostly empty exo-suit, hurling the sparking and bloodied tangled mess of metal at the alien. She continued shooting at the shrieking creature as she raced to Thor’s side, unable to process what she was seeing until well after the battle. In the moment she had been more concerned with dragging Thor back to their squad by his beard than checking out the fried corpse of one Chitauri.

** *** **

The Black Widow (“Call me Natasha”) was waiting for Darcy in her usual sparring room. As the minutes and yoga poses ticked by the Avenger started to worry that her new acquaintance wasn’t coming back, but then she heard the tell-tale shuffle of Darcy’s boots on the concrete flooring and let go of the breath she’d been holding. Darcy stood in the doorway, lost in thought.

“What is it, sestra?”

“You know Tony Stark, right?”

** *** **

Darcy strode through the weapons warehouse, forcibly ignoring the sight of mechanics hosing down bloodied exo-suits and welding the brokens pieces back together. She followed Natasha’s instructions and took a poorly marked freight elevator to a basement level.

The sounds of utter chaos coming from behind the bunker door would have scared off a less battle weary soldier, but if Darcy could face down swarms of Chitauri she could damn well talk to one eccentric scientist. She pushed opened the door and was felled first by a wall of sound (“Shoot to Thrill” – AC/DC) and then by a cloud of smoke.

“Did something explode?” Darcy coughed as she stepped inside the junkyard masquerading as a well-funded workshop.

A shock of black hair popped up like a meerkat from behind a huge exo-suit prototype, startling Darcy. She took in his hair, his singed clothes, and the fact that he was still carrying around a fire extinguisher, and declared the mystery solved.

“Dr Stark?” she called, trying in vain to be heard over the music. Oblivious to her presence he pulled down his industrial safety goggles and disappeared into the cavity of the suspended exo-suit. Darcy moved to where he had been standing and wondered how she was going to get his attention without scaring the life out of him. The music suddenly dropped in volume but before Darcy could say anything a hand shot out from within the mass of metal.

“Wrench – quarter inch. Now,” he added when the required tool didn’t appear instantaneously.

Darcy scrambled, located the required wrench, and passed it too him.

“Mallet.”

Darcy passed that over too, wincing as he put it to work.

“Donut.”

“There’s no donuts,” Darcy replied, looking around the lab frantically.

The inventor froze at the unfamiliar voice and backed out of the suit. He pulled his goggles off, leaving rings of soot around his eyes, and stared curiously at Darcy.

“You’re not Pepper.”

“Pepper quit last week, Tony.”

Stark turned to the new voice, a man with glasses, fluffy hair, and pristine white lab coat who greeted Darcy with a nervous smile as he stepped into the workshop.

“Huh… She’ll be back,” Stark shrugged. “Hey! Dum-E! No!” he shouted at a mechanical arm in the corner of the lab. “What did I tell you about playing with fire?” he grumbled, wrenching a blowtorch out of its grip. “Fire bad. You keep malfunctioning and I’m going to turn you into an exo-suit, I swear to God. Do you want that?” The machine whirled sarcastically, if such a thing was possible, and waved its arm in a way that suggested being an exo-suit was probably more desirable than the abuse Stark inflicted upon it daily. “Yeah, yeah, keep whining. And stay away from fire,” he ordered.

“Tony,” the scientist sighed, directing Tony’s attention back to Darcy.

“Oh, right. And you are?” he asked before promptly turning his attention to something more interesting.

“This is Private First Class Lewis. Romanoff sent her. Apparently she has a theory about the Chitauri.”

“Oh, a theory,” Stark cooed. “Banner and I love a good theory. Hit me.”

“I…” Darcy stammered, completely flabbergasted by the inventor. Chitauri were definitely easier. Right… Chitauri. “I got into a firefight with a particularly stubborn Chitauri yesterday. Bullets weren’t stopping it, and it was about to kill a friend of mine, so I picked up a short-circuiting exo-suit …”

“Hey! My suits do not short-circuit, alright? They are works of technological genius. And what do you mean you ‘picked up’ an exo-suit? What kind of idiot would disengage his suit in the middle of a warzone?”

“He didn’t disengage it exactly,” Darcy replied, biting back a sigh. “He was still inside it but missing most of his extremities. And his middle. The cause of which probably also caused the exo-suit to short-circuit.”

“…Continue,” Stark nodded, appearing as sheepish as a narcissist such as himself was capable of.

“Anyway, I threw the exo-suit at the Chitauri and it just sort of… freaked out,” Darcy said for lack of a better word. “Then the exo-suit started sparking even more – I might have helped it along by emptying the rest of my clip into it – and I think… I think it got electrocuted.”

The two men shared a look.

“Are you sure?” Banner asked over the rims of his glasses.

“Well, by the time it stopped twitching it looked like a piece of burnt calamari, and smelt half as appetising, so I’m pretty sure.”

“You didn’t happen to bring us back a sample of this burnt calamari, did you?”

“Sorry, I was busy making sure my squad got back in once piece.”

“Right, right… warzone…” Tony mused as his mind wandered.

“I know it’s not concrete evidence, and I don’t expect you act on half-assed intel, but I was wondering… I was hoping you might be able to make me something to test my theory.”

“Like?” Tony prodded.

“Some sort of flash grenade?” Darcy shrugged. “Or maybe, like, a military grade taser? Honestly, I don’t know. You’re supposed to be the genius. Do you have any ideas?”

“Of course. I’ve got a million of ‘em. I can even spare you a few,” Stark teased.

“Okay, then. My squad’s got to have boots on the ground at 0600 Thursday. Do you think you could put together something for me to test out by then?”

“Absolutely,” the inventor replied distractedly, already pulling up a holoscreen to start on a new blueprint.

“I’m in Building 12, across the compound.”

“Uhuh…”

Darcy rolled her eyes and turned to the more responsible looking scientist who gave her a sympathetic smile.

“Private First Class Lewis. Building 12. 0600 Thursday.”

“Thanks,” she muttered as the music returned to ear-splitting levels.  

She left the lab, leaving the two geniuses to argue over the specs, passing a familiar face as she stepped into the elevator. She tried not to react as her arm brushed against his metal one. She had more important things to do, like get her ass handed to her by Natasha.

** *** **

Sergeant Barnes meandered down to Stark’s lab to get his arm checked out, accidently brushing said appendage against a stony-faced female recruit when he stepped out of the elevator. He turned to watch her leave, almost stumbling into the lab.

“Who was that?” he asked in the silence that fell between two songs.

“Who was who?” Stark asked obliviously.

Barnes turned to Banner as he pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

“That was Private First Class Lewis. A friend of Romanoff’s.”

“Romanoff has friends?”

** *** **

Darcy paced in front of her exo-suit, watching the minutes tick by. It would take her ten minutes at least to get suited up so if Stark, or the more reliable Banner, didn’t show up soon she was going to have to suited up in her old gear. A wave of hushed voices rolled through the building and Darcy stopped panicking.

“Private First Class Lewis!” Tony Stark called, strutting in like a damn peacock, revelling in the attention his appearance garnered. Behind him Dr Banner and a few mechanics were pushing two new exo-suit stations towards them. “I come bearing gifts,” he smirked.

Darcy walked over and examined the first exo-suit and couldn’t help feeling a little bit disappointed. It looked pretty much like her current one, at least like her exo-suit did when it first came off the production line.

“What changes did you make?” Darcy enquired, trying to keep from sounding unimpressed.

“Hop in, I’ll give you a tour.” Darcy did as requested, ignoring the dozens of eyes watching the scene unfold. “Okay, it’s pretty much your standard Mach 5 exo-suit,” he explained, strapping Darcy in and taking over her wrist mounted control panel. “But I shed some unnecessary weight and powered it with arc reactor tech, so no more lugging around extra battery packs. Now to your toys. For every standard weapon you’ve got an electrified version. Ten Nebula grenades, patent pending. They’ll light up everything in a five yard radius. And ten clips of Nebula bullets, patent also pending. Do not waste those by firing on automatic. Shoot one, give it a second for the charge to detonate, shoot another if you need to. Got it?”

“Got it,” Darcy nodded, testing the movement of her new suit. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” the inventor replied dismissively. “Now, where’s your Norse god?”

“Huh?” Darcy blinked.

“Sergeant Odinson!” Tony called out, reeling back when Thor stepped out of the line-up. “Sheesh, Romanoff wasn’t kidding. You’re a friggin’ giant. How do you even fit into the Mach 5?”

“With difficulty,” Thor replied, glancing at Darcy for answers.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about squeezing into that exo-suit anymore. I got you a new one. Step on in. Pretty much standard, but obviously it should fit you better,” Tony rambled as Thor tested the suit out, smiling to himself when he discovered he didn’t have to hunch over quite so much. “You’ve got your standard weapon on the left arm but on the right,” Tony drawled, pressing a few buttons and revelling in the surprised gasps from his captive audience as the enlarged right fist of the exo-suit shot out and landed with a loud thunk five feet in front of them. He pressed a few more buttons and the fist, connected to the suit by a several chains and wires, retracted quickly.

“Oh, I like this,” Thor beamed, raising his hammer shaped fist up to inspect it.

“You can also use it to electrocute the bastards. Hit your target then press this button right here to light ‘em up. But, and I can’t stress this enough, make sure you’re gripping these handles when you do. They act like grounding wires and stop the exo-suit from roasting you like a turkey. Got it?”

“I understand. Thank you, Dr Stark.”

“No big deal. A little spider said you were having some anger management issues. This should help you work through them.”

“Thank you,” Darcy repeated.

“Uhuh, just bring them back in once piece – I’m gonna want to retrieve all their hard drive data.”

“Sure thing, Stark.”

“And now that I’ve made my monthly public appearance, I’m going back to my lab to work on the Hulk.”

“The Hulk?” Darcy enquired, her mind flicking back to the oversized exo-suit the genius had been working on when she met him.

“Tony, the PR guys said you can’t call it that,” Bruce sighed wearily.

“It’s my baby, I can call it whatever I want,” he argued as they wandered back to the weapons warehouse.

The mechanics left but the silence remained as they were replaced by the Avengers themselves, all geared up and ready to go.

“Alright, A-hole-Squad!” Hawkeye shouted out, making Darcy roll her eyes. If she ever got her hands on Quill, the leader of L(oser)-Squad and coiner of her squad’s irritating moniker, he was going to end up in the infirmary. “You’re riding out with us today. Lock and load, we leave in five. Last one on does my laundry for a month.”

Darcy didn’t bother waiting for the Avenger to be out of earshot before she addressed her squad.

“You heard the douche canoe. Lock and load!” She ignored Hawkeye’s amused expression and fell in step with Natasha. “Not that I’m complaining, but what’s with the royal treatment?”

“We’re friends. The others seemed to think it was appropriate.”

“We’re friends?”

“Everyone says so.”

“So it must be true,” Darcy finished for her, flashing her a smile. “Stark pimp your ride too?” she asked, eyeing the new additions to the arms of the other woman’s exo-suit that seemed to glow blue at full charge.

Natasha pressed a button on her control panel and two short metal prongs appeared at the end of her fists, sparks flying between the two points.

“Stark dubbed them ‘Widow’s Bites.’ Patent pending,” she smirked.

Darcy just shook her head, “I’ll never understand why you’d wanna get up close and personal with these bastards.”

“What can I say?” Natasha purred as they got locked into the transport. “I’m a hugger.”

** *** **

The transport ships had barely crossed the Hudson before the proximity alerts went off and the bravado her squad had shown in the Avengers’ company started to falter.

“A-Squad!” Darcy shouted over the alarms. “You land clean, you stay together, and you work your way downtown. We’re gonna push those extra-terrestrial fuckers into the Bay, do you hear me?!”

“Sir! Yes, sir!” her squad shouted back.

** *** **

Sergeant Barnes couldn’t take his eyes off the avenging angel across the row, even as the bottom dropped out of the transport ship, wind and the sounds of battle whipping around them.

“What are you smiling about, jerk?” Rogers asked, shouting to be heard, glancing knowingly at Natasha’s friend.

“It’s just good to be home, punk,” Barnes shouted back, grinning from ear to ear. “Hey!” he pointed down at the familiar cityscape passing them by. “You always said you couldn’t wait to get back and for a run around the park,” he laughed.

“Yeah,” Rogers grumbled as the call to drop sounded. “This is exactly what I meant,” he said, pressing the release switch.

** *** **

The battle was already well underway when A-Squad landed. Darcy raised an arm to lay down some cover fire when bullets began to rain down from above. She risked a glance up to see Natasha swinging from her wire in a wide arc, not disconnecting until the immediate perimeter around her team was clear.

She landed gracefully next to Barton, smiling as she began emptying a clip into the next wave of Chitauri.

“Why do you gotta make us all look bad, Tasha?” Barton whined, before shooting a projectile behind him, smirking as it exploded on impact, taking five of the initial targets buddies with him.

“Avengers! Assemble!” their captain shouted over the noise of the battlefield. “Falcon! Clear a path to down towards Columbus Circle. Hawkeye, take to the rooftops and keep an eye on the park. Xavier and Lensher’s teams should be clearing it and I wanna know if any survivors come our way. We don’t want any surprises. The rest of you, follow me!” he called back, more to A-Squad than Natasha or Barnes. He pressed a few buttons on his wrist display and metal plates shifted on the left arm of his exo-suit to form a shield. He marched forward, protecting his now iconic American flag helmet from damage with his left arm and taking out Chitauri with his right. Barnes watched his back and Natasha kept an eye on both of them. Overhead Falcon made runs up and down the street, firing down on the Chitauri, never giving them a chance to regroup. They continued downtown for several minutes without too much trouble but then Falcon’s panicked voice came in over their comms.

“We’ve got skiffs incoming!”

“Shit,” Barnes spat, his eyes shifting to the skies.

“They are on my ass! I could really use a little help here!”

“Yeah, yeah… I got you covered,” Barton drawled, aiming his arm in Falcon’s direction. A projectile shot out of his customised barrel, right between Falcon’s wings, taking out the skiff behind him in a fiery explosion.

Free of his tail, Falcon landed in from of his team, his metal wings folding back.

“I’m a sitting duck up there, and I can’t get high enough to get the drop on them,” he advised as he caught his breath.

“You just need some back up,” Natasha smirked, eying an incoming skiff. “Cap?”

Rogers looked between Natasha and the skiff and sighed. “You sure about this?”

“It’ll be fun,” she assured him, getting a run up as Rogers planted his feet and held his shielded arm out. The rest of the Avengers covered them as Natasha used Rogers’ shield to launch herself at the skiff as it passed over them, swinging herself up and taking out the pilot with her Widow’s Bites.

“Remind me to thank Stark,” she said to no one in particular as she got a handle on the alien craft and turned it around. “Falcon, you coming or what?”

“How the hell do you make this look so easy?” Falcon grumbled as he took to the skies again, flying under Natasha like a Remora fish. Together, with Barton watching their six, they kept the skiffs occupied and away from the ground troops.

The Avengers were a finely tuned machine and any soldier would have felt honoured to watch them work, but Darcy had more pressing matters to worry about, namely not letting her squad get killed.

Upon landing and taking up the rear behind the Avengers her squad was joined by L-Squad. For all Quill annoyed the shit out of her, he was a decent soldier and cared about his squad as much as she cared about hers. Thor and Drax from L-Squad teamed up, going at groups of Chitauri like a goddamn battering ram. Crude but effective. Parker had miraculously survived their last few battles, and though he had become a better soldier since Jane’s sacrifice Darcy kept him close. He’d been making eyes as L-Squad’s Private Watson and Darcy wasn’t about to let Parker run off and make the ultimate sacrifice for some girl he���d never spoken too.

A pack of Chitauri were fleeing the park and making right for her squad so Darcy took the opportunity to test out one of Stark’s grenades. She lobbed the blue-glowing cylinder towards them and waited. Time slowed. Darcy could swear she could hear the soft tick-tick-tick of the timer over the battle. She watched anxiously as the Chitauri made to scatter, but then they were enveloped in blinding flash of blue light.

“That was amazing!” a dozen voices chimed as their eyes adjusted and the first thing they saw was the charred remains of the Chitauri.

“Use them sparingly!” Darcy shouted as she passed all of her remaining grenades but one off to the nearest soldiers.

A guy from L-Squad that Darcy only knew as Rocket (named for the homemade rocket launcher he took into every battle) made grabby hands for the last available one, a manic grin spreading across his face as he discovered it fit snuggly in the tube of his DIY weapon.

“Oh… Yeah…” he growled excitedly, running down the street and climbing up the customised exo-suit of L-Squad’s tallest recruit (a guy from parts unknown whose grasp of English was extremely limited). Rocket hauled his rocket launcher onto his shoulder, barking at his teammate to hold still as he took aim at group of Chitauri that were charging towards them from Columbus Avenue, cackling wildly as they writhed in the blue light.

Darcy ordered Parker and Maximoff, a new guy from Europe (his twin sister worked out of Medical and the kid did everything he could to avoid meeting her there), to her side, covering her as she tested out the Nebula bullets. It was a hell of a lot harder for her, shooting one bullet at a time. She had to make each shot count, had to hit her target, and accuracy wasn’t something her superiors worried about when their regular weapons can unload 625 rounds/min. And whist they were just as effective as the grenades it was frustrating and slow going using the bullets, so Darcy decided to take up the rear, picking off stragglers, trusting Thor and Quill to keep leading their teams forward.

And just when everything seemed to be going so well it all went to shit. A skiff got past Natasha and Falcon and distracted the ground troops from the horde spilling out of the park on their left. Rocket stole a Nebula grenade from one of his own squad and fired it towards the park. It took out a handful of them but the rest kept coming. Darcy switched back to regular bullets and practically cut them in half. Rocket loaded his bazooka with its standard projectiles but just as he was ready to fire his human tower took a bullet to the knee and they both fell backwards. Rocket’s finger hit the trigger as he hit the ground, sending the projectile straight into a burnout car on Darcy’s right.

Before she could even think to move someone was screaming her name, a blur of black and shining metal racing towards her. He made to tackle her to the ground but the ensuing blast sent the car sailing towards them, knocking the pair of them into the park. Voices called out them, Darcy could hear them as the ringing in her head subsided, but they were all too busy not dying to come to their aid. She staggered to her feet and almost fell on her ass again when she saw that her wannabe saviour was none other than Sergeant Barnes. As he came to and struggled to get to his feet Darcy moved to cover him as several Chitauri that had escaped X and M-Squad’s near surgical purge of the park made their way towards them.

“Shit,” she hissed, thumping one metal encased arm on the other, trying in vain to unjam her weapon. “Get up, Barnes!” she shouted. “My weapon’s jammed! Get up!” she ordered, practically dragging him to his feet by the scruff of his exo-suit.

She practically pointed him in the direction of the oncoming Chitauri and screamed at him to shoot until the fog in his head cleared and he was able to fight under his own power again.

“Quit yelling at me, Lewis. You ain’t my CO,” he growled as he mowed down the first wave.

Darcy’s retorted died on her tongue as the familiar, skin-crawlingly creepy sound of the Chitauri screeching was heard behind her.

“Shit! Barnes, we’ve got company,” she all but wailed, failing to keep her rising panic in check.

Barnes glanced over Darcy’s shoulder, swearing under his breath and he relieved her of a couple of clips, reloading before dragging her away.

“Come on, we gotta catch up with the rest of our squad. Barton!” he called, tapping on his ear. “Barton! Get your ass back here and watch our six. We’re coming in hot. ‘m fine, Steve. I’m fine,” he repeated aggressively. “You’re about two blocks ahead of us. We should be caught up in ten, if Barton can keep these assholes off our backs.” He jabbed at his ear, silencing his worried team leader, before turning back to Darcy. “Come on, we gotta get moving. It’s getting too hot, we’ve got meet up with everyone at the extraction point.”

Darcy stuck to Barnes’ back whilst he took out any threats from the park side, Barton and Falcon had them covered from the street side. Their squad was in sight and the incoming transport ships could be heard overhead when Darcy saw her life flash before her eyes. A lone Chitauri, injured and feral with rage, dropped out of tree right on top of her. She screamed and batted at it with her weaponless arms, and then it was gone, ripped off her exo-suit by Sergeant Barnes. He tried to throw it into the park but it latched on to his own exo-suit and tried to pry Barnes out of it. With the added weight riding him like a damn bronco he stumbled, falling into a pool of water caused by last week’s grenades and last night’s rain. He caught hold of the Chitauri, his metal hand wrapped around its throat, and threw it as far away as he could manage.

Darcy watched as it flailed in the knee-deep water before righting itself. Her hand straying to her last Nebula grenade as it made to charge at Barnes who was struggling to walk out of the muddy swamp. She raced forward into the water, transferring her all available power to her to arm joints before reaching for Barnes’s metal arm, throwing him over her shoulder like a rag doll before tossing the grenade at the advancing Chitauri. Darcy tried to get to get clear of the water and out of the blast radius before the grenade went off… she didn’t make it.

** *** **

It was dark. Darcy’s chest hurt. Then she felt lips on hers and air being pushed into her lungs and she came back to life with a cough.

She woke up in the mud, feeling naked and vulnerable without her exo-suit, with Sergeant Barnes leaning over her almost crying with relief.

“Thank Christ…” he murmured, pressing a hasty kiss on her forehead. “Almost lost you for a second there, doll.”

“Who you calling ‘doll’? You’re the pretty one,” she mumbled hazily.

“Is that so?” he chuckled, helping her to her feet. She made for her exo-suit, which looked like it had been pried apart by a metal arm, only for Barnes to stop her. “Your suit’s shot to shit, Lewis,” Barnes advised her, trying to pull her back towards the street. “Come on, we gotta get you back to the transport ship.”

“Can’t leave my suit,” she argued. “Stark’ll kill me if I don’t bring back his data.”

Barnes sighed and moved past her, ignoring Darcy’s protests as he ripped off the control panel with his metal hand.

“Here,” he said, pushing it into her arms. “You’ve got Stark’s data. Now let’s get you to safety.”

“Alright, Mr Bossy,” Darcy grumbled, following Barnes back to the transport ship as their teams cleared the area of the alien scourge.

** *** **

The war ended overnight, not with a bang, but with a tired sigh. One minute the Chitauri were attacking, the next they were retreating as fast as they could as one by one, literally dropping dead like someone had cut their strings. Nobody could say for sure what happened, none of the soldiers believed the nonsense the media was spouting, but they didn’t take their sudden good fortune for granted, burning all but a few corpses which were sent to Banner’s lab for dissection.

Stark regarded the remnants of Darcy’s exo-suit like it was a drool covered tennis ball his pet dog had laid at his feet.

“So, good news – my Nebula grenades work. Bad news – the war’s over.”

“I’m sure the world’s governments will be back at each others’ throats in no time, Tony,” Bruce offered helpfully.

“You’re right. There’ll always be a new war,” Tony sighed.

“But?”

“But they’re gonna want to take the exo-suits and give them to soldiers, who are going to fight other soldiers. I designed them to fight alien invaders, not to put kids in body bags,” he grumbled, slumping onto a stool.

“What are you thinking, Tony?” Bruce asked warily. It didn’t do to let Tony’s ideas wander around unsupervised.

“I was thinking of maybe channelling my energies into less violent areas. I was thinking about my arc reactor tech, and Sergeant Barnes’ arm,” he admitted.

“Clean energy and prosthetics?” Bruce clarified.

“I realise there’s miles between the two, but just think; I’d be helping build a better world, not just blowing up the old one,” he said, punctuating his sentence by hefting a screwdriver at the now defunct Hulk exo-suit. “You should come with me,” he blurted, avoiding Banner’s eyes. “If high tech, neural interfacing prosthetics doesn’t get your motor running, my tower’s got like, ten R and D floors. I’m sure I can find a place for you.”

“That sounds amazing, Tony,” Bruce beamed. “And you should give Dr Helen Cho out of Seoul a call. She was doing amazing things with cell regeneration before the war.”

“Will do, but first,” he said, pulling up a holoscreen. “I’ve got to delete all my files from multiple government servers, and then I’ve got to call Pepper. You might not want to be here for the treason… or the tearful begging.”

“I’ll go get us some coffee,” Bruce laughed.

** *** **

Darcy, fresh from the showers, was tidying up her bunk when a hush fell over the room.

“Holy shit! It’s the Full Metal Badass!” Private Wilson, the unluckiest/luckiest recruit ever (the guy had more holes in him than a block of Swiss cheese), shrieked excitedly.

“Can it, Wade,” Darcy ordered, throwing one of his obnoxious stuffed animals across the room to distract him. “Sergeant Barnes. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I just wanted to make sure you were okay, and that Medical gave you the all clear. And you know, war’s over. You could call me James,” he said, offering her a nervous smile.

“Oooh, James!”

Sergeant Barnes whipped around to glare at Captain Rogers and Senior Airman Wilson, who were batting their eyelashes and making kissey faces at each other.

“Quit it, assholes,” Sergeant Barnes hissed, turning a bright shade of red.

“Aw, come on Barnes. Don’t be like that,” the less crazy Wilson objected.

“We’re just teasin’, Buck,” Rogers continued to tease. “Lord knows you would have done worse to me if I’d been mooning over a girl the way you have.”

“I wasn’t mooning,” Barnes griped quietly, the blush in his cheeks deepening as Darcy watched on with amusement.

“’Buck’?” she asked with a quirk of her brow.

Barnes threw his head back and sighed as Rogers and Wilson laughed at his expense some more.

“Bucky,” he admitted with a huff. “Childhood nickname that the punk delights in sharin’ with everyone.”

“Cute,” Darcy replied doing her utmost not to contribute to the laughter.

“Well, if you like nickname you should get to know the rest of me,” Barnes smirked, watching carefully to gauge Darcy’s reaction. “Over drinks?”

Rogers howled with laughter, drowning out any response Darcy may have had. “Bucky, that was godawful. I can’t believe I ever thought you were smooth with women!”

Barnes turned to rip Roger’s throat out but Darcy’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“I, um, I could really use a drink actually.”

“Yeah?” Barnes beamed back.

“Yeah,” Darcy nodded before turning her attention to her squad who had been watching the entire exchange with interest. “A-Squad! Get dressed, double time. First round’s on Captain America!” she announced, smirking as her squadron cheered.

“What?!” Rogers squawked indignantly, moving to punch Wilson as he doubled over with laughter.

“You know,” Wilson chuckled, wiping away a tear. “I thought I was going to have to worry about the poor girl that fell for your so-called charms, but that girl is going to run circles around the both of you,” he laughed, slapping Rogers on the shoulder as he led the expedition to the nearest bar.

“You know, I could write you up for this Private Lewis,” Rogers grumbled as he counted heads and tried calculate the damage they’d do to this wallet.

“Whatever,” Darcy snorted. “I’m out of here tomorrow. I’m going back to college, getting my last six damn credits, and finally graduating. And then it will be Lieutenant Lewis, thank you very much.”

“Lieutenant Lewis?” Barnes smirked at the alliteration. “I like it. I think I’m gonna call you LuLu.”

“You most certainly are not!”

“Are too!” he teased.

“Fine. Then I’m calling you ‘Bucky’, since you like it so much.”

“Bucky and Lulu…” he mused, offering Darcy his flesh arm. “Sounds like a couple of cartoon characters.”

“Children’s cartoon characters,” Darcy snorted.

“Nah, they’d be badass superheros. Cutesy names to contradict their grim exteriors, tragic backstories, and their kickass skill sets.”

“Oh yeah? What would our superpowers be?” Darcy asked as he led her out of the barracks, paying no attention to the squadron trailing behind them.

“Well, I’d have my amazing strength - and my incredible good looks,” he smirked as Darcy snorted. “And you… you’d put men under your spell,” he said, gazing at her adoringly until she began to blush. “And then light the bastards up with your lightning powers,” he chuckled.

“Nice,” Darcy grinned. “Maybe we should retire from the military and go to Hollywood with our great idea.”

“Nah, you gotta build the groundwork with a comic book first. Stevie here was an artist before he joined up. He can draw the pictures for us.”

“I’m already buying half the barracks a drink, jerk,” Steve shouted over his shoulder. “I’m not doing another goddamn thing to help you get laid.”

“Oh please, Rogers. Like he needs the help,” Darcy shot back, pulling her favourite Avenger in for a kiss.