Chapter Text
After the snap, and the battle against Thanos, Fury decided it would be better to keep his friends close. So they secured an entire apartment building in Hell’s Kitchen for SHIELD personnel. After the events in Westview he even managed to recruit Darcy, despite the events in Westview, was more like it. SHIELD still had some bad apples to be weeded out, not HYDRA bad, but power hungry in ways that did not align with the new mission, and Darcy had an amazing way with people.
It wasn’t a large building, not like Avengers tower, but so was his list of trusted agents. In fact there were only fifteen apartments in the red brick building. It wasn’t everyone, some people had families and homes already, but the single agents were all there. Darcy was particularly excited about this job perk. It had been a long time since she had a permanent address, she’d been pretty much living on the road since she started up with Jane, and she never counted college housing. Her own apartment would allow her to actually unpack her suitcase for a change, maybe get a few plants, or start her collection of cats. She was pretty sure she was going to end up an old cat lady spinster, might as well get started on that.
The building wasn’t fancy, but it was secure. You needed a keycard to get in the door, and to work the elevator. There were five floors and a basement level. Each floor had four apartments, except the first floor that only had three and a security office. In the basement there was the laundry room, and a small gym. There was also a small space for each tenant to have additional storage. They even had gated, off street parking in the back, which was a true luxury in the middle of the city.
She pulled her rental van into the small parking lot, parking right near the back door so she could start unloading her meager belongings. Meager might have been an understatement she realized as she stared at the packed van. It was mostly books, but books were heavy. She was suddenly not sure why she read so much, or if it wouldn’t be better just to torch the whole lot of them. Of course then she wouldn’t get the security deposit back on the van rental. She sighed and grabbed the first couple of boxes.
She carried them to the back door, fumbling for her key as she tried not to drop them. Before she had the chance to balance her load in one hand and put the key card to the lock panel the door opened. A man about her age was holding it open for her with a smile. He was cute in a nerdy kind of way, a mess of brown curly hair on top of his head. “You must be the new tenet, Hi, I’m Cameron,” he said to her as he let her pass through.
“I’m Darcy, nice to meet you. I’d shake your hand, but they’re kind of full at the moment,” she replied.
“Do you want some help? I was about to go down to the park for a walk, but caring boxes might make for a better workout,” he looked out at the van’s open back doors.
“I would really appreciate that, otherwise it might take me all day to get it all,” Darcy sighed and smiled.
“Sure, no problem. We can even get Rufus to open the door for us so we don’t need to fumble with keycards,” he told her as he jogged out to grab a couple of boxes. She could see the shock and slight struggle as he lifted them, he obviously wasn’t expecting them to weigh that much.
“Rufus?” Darcy asked just as a tall, olive skinned man came up beside her, his arm outstretched to hold the door.
“That would be me, your doorman slash security guard. You must be Miss Lewis , apartment three oh two. Mr. Fury told me to expect you today,” he gave her a tight smile and a nod.
“Oh, yeah, but it’s Doctor Lewis nowadays, but you can call me Darcy. Thanks for the help,” Darcy smiled just as Cameron made his way back into the building, moving a little slower than he had been before. Rufus let the door close and then walked over to the elevator ahead of them, pulling out a keycard to swipe them in. Before he could though the elevator doors opened.
Inside the elevator were three people, two men and a woman. Darcy recognized the woman straight away as Maria Hill. She didn’t recognize the men, but they did look vaguely familiar. Though that was to be expected after she had hacked into SHIELD servers more than once to do a deep dive in the files to make sure there weren't any more nasty surprises awaiting her. That had included going through the current personnel files quite extensively.
“Doctor Lewis, you made it,” Hill addressed her as she stepped into the lobby. The two men stepped up beside her, the taller one giving Darcy as warm an expression as his face seemed to be able to muster. He had an intimidating look to him, and a nasty scar on his chin, but it took a lot to scare Darcy these days and she just gave him a smile as she looked back at Maria.
The other man gave her a quick nod before focusing on Cameron, “You okay man, you look like you are about to pop a blood vessel. Let me take one of those,” he was older but well built, muscles clearing defined under his shirt. He lifted the top box with ease, even as Darcy could see the instant relief on Cameron’s face. “Geez, what’s in these, a load of bricks?”
“Probably just books. That’s what’s in most of my boxes,” Darcy explained as she nodded her head towards the back door. Her van was clearly visible through the glass.
“She’s got a lot to unload if you two want to lend a hand,” Cameron explained.
“Yeah, sure we could probably do that. Right Jack?” the man says to the taller man. “Unless you need us,” he looks at Maria questioningly.
“No Rumlow, I don’t have anything on the books for either of you today. Just keep your phone on you in case that changes,” She tells him as she scrolls through her tablet’s screen. “If you’ll excuse me, I do have work to do today. Welcome to SHIELD Doctor Lewis, and to the building”.
With that Maria walks out the back door towards the parking lot, the taller man following her to grab up a few boxes out of her van as the other man holds the door for him. Jack passes a couple boxes to Rumlow then goes back to grab three more boxes himself and the two men join Darcy and Cameron at the elevator. “I’m Brock, by the way, and this is Jack. Which apartment are you in?” He asks as he easily balances his three boxes in one arm and reaches out to press the floor button in the elevator.
“Three oh two,” Darcy tells him. “Thanks a lot for helping. I was sure I was going to be at this all day”.
“Many hands make light work,” Jack says.
“That they do,” Darcy smiles at him. Despite the scar he was a good looking guy.
“You’re just saving us a trip to the gym,” Brock smiles at her and she is struck by how darkly handsome he is. She could really see him as the not so nice, bad boy in one of her spicy romance novels. She blinked the thought away quickly though. “I’m in two oh three, and Jack here is in two of one in case you need any more heavy lifting after today”.
“I’ll keep that in mind for when I get my IKEA order in later this week,” Darcy says, telling herself that crushing over her new neighbor and coworker was a terrible idea, and he probably wasn’t interested anyways. Guys that look like him were never into girls that look like her. “Are you any good with an allen wrench?” A little harmless flirting couldn’t hurt though, right?
Jack chuckled, “I wouldn’t ask him to help you put anything together unless you want it to explode”.
The elevator doors opened onto the third floor then and the four of them stepped out into the hallway, “Fuck you man, I’m great with putting shit together,” Brock snapped back at Jack, but Darcy could tell it was just some friendly banter and there was no real anger behind his words.
“Tell that to my dresser,” Jack snarked back at Brock as Cameron just laughed.
“Are they always like this?” Darcy asked.
“Always,” Cameron assured her with a smile.
As they approached her apartment door Darcy pulled out her keycard and awkwardly waved it at the keypad. It beeped and a little green light flashed as Brock reached out to open the door for her.
With the help of the three men she was able to unload her van in just under an hour and she soon found herself alone in her new living space surrounded by boxes as the men went off to continue with their day. Darcy sighed with contentment as she started to devise a strategy for unpacking all her things. So far things were looking really good.