Chapter Text
“Darcy Elaine Lewis, you are in so much trouble!”
Darcy sighed and gripped her phone tighter as she dropped her head forward, thunking her forehead on the table in front of her.
“I’m always in trouble with you, Mom.”
“No, you don’t get to go playing the victim card. I don’t care what your soulmark says.”
Darcy rolled her eyes as she sat back up. If her Mom was already bringing her words up, this was going to be a long conversation. The imprinted evidence on the inside of her right thigh proving that trouble was going to find her had never been a good excuse when trying to talk her mom down once she was on that horse.
“What is it this time?”
“What is it? What is it?! Oh, it’s nothing . Nothing at all. Just my daughter somehow forgot to mention that she worked with Tony Stark and is an ‘immeasurably vital’ contributor to his research on astrophysics!”
“It’s not really his research; Jane’s just using him for his money and he’s using her for the good press.”
“Darcy.”
There was the tone. There was no getting out of it. And sure, maybe Darcy could have actually told her mom she worked with the one-and-only Tony Stark on the regular. But she’d figured it would be better to go slowly when breaking the news that most of her new social crowd’s day job involved saving the world, one way or another. It had taken a full hour-long phone conversation of stuttered sentences from her mother and repeated explanations from Darcy just to cover the details about Thor. She wasn’t ready to start introducing topics like how she was in a constant battle with Captain America’s metabolism to keep the kitchen properly stocked in sugary breakfast cereals or how she regularly had her toes painted by Hawkeye.
Her mom just wasn’t ready to handle that.
So damn Tony and his big fat mouth for mentioning her in an interview. She was putting that in the column of sins she owed him retribution for. And revenge would be sweet.
In the meantime, she had other fires to put out.
“Tony was just being an ass; a very sarcastic one.”
“Tony? You call him by his first name?!”
“Yes, Mom. He happens to be called Tony by quite a few people.”
“Not by me!!”
“Mom—”
“And last I knew, not you either! Is there anything else you forgot to mention? Are you even living in New York?!”
“Yes, Mom. I live in New York. I live with Jane.”
“Uh huh, and who else? Last time you said it was Jane, and oh wait, Thor lives there too.”
Darcy sighed. It was probably best to just take the band-aid approach.
“Yeah, Thor and the rest of the Avengers.”
“The rest of the—”
“Avengers. Yep. I live in Stark Tower and have prank wars with Tony ‘Big Mouth’ Stark on the regular, which is the only reason why we are having this conversation.”
“Prank wars?”
Her mother’s voice was faint and Darcy resisted the urge to sigh loudly.
“Prank wars. That interview was just Tony was getting back at me for bedazzling his lab equipment.”
“The Avengers—”
“Earth’s mightiest heroes.”
“Darcy.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re grounded.”
Darcy snorted and turned as she heard Jane walk into the room.
“Sure thing. Look, I’ve actually got to get back to work. I promise I’ll call you—probably next week when you’ve finally processed all this.”
It was a sign of how surprised her mother actually was when she easily agreed and got off the phone with only a couple more quietly mumbled “Avengers” and “Tony Stark” exclamations.
With a final sigh Darcy put her phone back into her pocket and turned to face her boss.
“Your Mom?”
“Yeah.”
“You finally tell her about knowing Tony?”
“Kinda had to. And I kinda also told her about knowing the Avengers.”
“All of them?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d she take it?”
“Pretty well, actually. I’m sure when she’s come to grips with it I’ll have a novel-length email from her with questions, including, and not limited to whether or not Natasha’s hair really looks as fantastic after a battle as it does on TV.”
“One of the mysteries of the universe, Lewis,” Stark joked as he strolled into the lab.
“Ugh, how long have you been there?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. I don’t want to talk to you right now.”
Darcy turned to her computer and began typing meaningless words to look busy.
“Exactly. You’re a sore loser.”
She paused and glared over her shoulder.
“Sarcastically telling the world I contribute to your research does not qualify as a counter-prank for Dum-E’s new glam look.”
“She’s right Stark and it actually works in my favor.”
Tony looked at Jane in confusion.
“What?”
Darcy had been beaming until she realized her boss hadn’t actually defended her blindly. She whirled to face Jane.
“Yeah! What ‘chu talkin’ bout Willis?”
Jane calmly began arranging tools on her table.
“You know how there’s that award I’m supposed to be accepting this weekend?”
“For the nearly-dead white-guy big wigs, right?”
“Exactly.”
“What about it?”
The scientist paused and glanced at Darcy.
“Well, I just got invited to speak at a conference with a couple of other astrophysicists who I actually wanted to talk to, so I’m thinking I’ll go to that and you can go accept my award for me.”
Darcy jumped to her feet, her chair skittering across the floor behind her.
“But I’m just an assistant.”
Tony interjected.
“No you’re not. You’re a vital component to our science team and our recent research could never have succeeded without you.”
Darcy angrily pointed a finger at him, and held it there, but her eyes focused back on Jane.
“This wouldn’t happen to have anything to those douches refusing to publish your work a couple years ago, now would it?”
“Of course not.” Jane’s smile grew sharp. “And me passing their ‘recognition’ on for you to accept while I’m elsewhere will in no way offend them.”
Darcy dropped her raised hand to let her shoulders drop and throw her head back.
“I don’t wanna.”
“Come on, Darce. For me?”
With a sigh, Darcy turned to fetch her chair, dragging it back and slouching into it.
“It’s a bunch of boring scientists . You know how much I hate going to these things with you, but on my own?”
“Please!”
“And what if they want to talk Science!?”
“You know all the important stuff. And anything you don’t I totally give you permission to BS and confuse the hell out of them.”
“Ugh, Jane…”
“It’s in New Orleans! You’ve always wanted to go there!”
“It’ll be like a vacation,” Tony chimed in.
Darcy pointed at him again.
“You are not allowed to contribute to this discussion.”
“No fair! How else am I to encourage to fully participate in the Mardis Gras spirit and send me photographic proof?”
“Simple. You’re not.”
“Darcy, please! It will be like a vacation! Perfect for you to forget that you’re going to have to explain to your mom that you do yoga with Bruce Banner.”
Darcy leaned forward and dropped her head down to the desk again.
“Ugh. Fine .”
“And that was how I closed my first billion-dollar deal.”
Darcy didn’t even bother hiding her sigh.
The chatty drunk had been talking down to her, the flight attendants, and everyone else from the moment he’d sat down next to Darcy. And she hadn’t paid much attention past the first five minutes. She had to give him points for persistence and sheer self-obsessed lack of observation, though.
Flying in first class would normally have helped balance out some of that negative but then their plane had been delayed on the tarmac for two hours before they were even able to take off. So Darcy had heard about his car, his condo, his job. All about James Sonstegard III.
Apparently he really, really loved working in sales. And he had somehow got the notion he’d be able to sell her on what would, no-doubt, be a very short and very disappointing night with him.
Surprisingly, she thought she could pass up that prime opportunity.
The fasten seat-belts sign went off and Darcy practically leapt to her feet. Other first-class passengers shot her dirty looks, but she didn’t care. She only had three hours to check into the hotel and get ready for the stupid awards thingy and if she spent one more minute by Mr. Sonstegard over there, she was going to get in trouble.
And Darcy just didn’t have time for that.
She hustled off the plane, through the terminal, and to the baggage carousel.
But there was no custom-made Avenger-themed (Tony-funded) luggage on it. Darcy stood there for a solid three-rotations after the luggage had stopped coming up the chute before she let herself lose hope that hers would be there any minute.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Lewis. It looks like your luggage was misrouted from New York. If you’ll leave us with your forwarding address in New Orleans we’ll be sure to get that to you as quickly as possible.”
Darcy slowly and purposefully set her hands down one by one on the formica counter, staring down the airline employee.
“Misrouted? What do you mean misrouted?”
“Please accept these travel vouchers for any future flights and know that we appreciate your business.”
“Where the hell is my luggage?”
“I understand your frustration, ma’am. As I said it was misrouted—“
“And as I said,” Darcy leaned forward to make a point of reading the guy’s name tag, “ Jake . Where the hell is it?”
Jake winced.
“Minneapolis.”
She took a deep breath with her eyes closed and then looked back at him.
“You’re telling me I need to go in front of some the science world’s greatest minds wearing this?!”
She violently gestured at her outfit.
Normally Darcy would have felt guilty for being such a bitch. The poor guy was only doing his job.
But this was not what she needed right then.
Her “suck it; you hard science losers never looked this good” dress was in freaking Minnesota and she’d wasted so much time waiting to argue with a desk worker that there was no way she’d even be able to make it to the hotel before the stupid, boring party anyway.
Jake nervously pushed a couple pieces of papers towards her.
“I understand, Ms. Lewis. Please accept these vouchers with our apologies. If you’ll fill out this form, we’ll send your luggage to you as quickly as possible.”
With a grunt, Darcy bent to fill out the paperwork, putting her New York address down. There wouldn’t be enough time for her bag to reach her in New Orleans, and at least this way she could try to sweet talk Stark into funding a replacement travel wardrobe. Correction: sweet talk Pepper because she would totally go for that.
Darcy grabbed the vouchers (she wasn’t one to spur free things, especially when she couldn’t always travel on Stark’s dime) and headed to grab a taxi, planning in her head. Her outfit wasn’t actually horrible: a royal blue jersey dress that hit her mid-thigh that she’d paired with her favorite cardigan, leggings, and ballet flats. A significant improvement to some of her travel outfits from undergrad (Pepper, Natasha, and surprisingly Bruce had been exceptionally helpful for her wardrobe development). And if she remembered right, she still had a pair of tights in her purse that she’d taken off when they got too tight for her drunk self during girl’s night karaoke the week before. Plus, her mama had taught her to always bring an extra pair of underwear, so she at least didn’t need to buy anything until the next day.
She could make it work.
But Jane so owed her.
“Now tell me, Miss Lewis; when Dr. Foster made this discovery last year--”
“It wasn't last year.”
The guy who was around seventy, but was probably immortal considering his perfected tone of condescension and self-importance, stopped staring into the distance, and actually focused on her face.
“Pardon?”
“Jane’s discovery. It was six years ago and the reason why I joined her five years ago. She just didn't publish her findings until last year.”
“Ah. Yes. And what exactly is your expertise that is so crucial to Dr. Foster’s research?”
“Physical, mental, spatial and poli-environmental maintenance.”
“I'm sorry, I don't understand exactly what that is.”
Channeling Natasha at a senate hearing, Darcy smiled.
“Ah, yes. Jane didn't think others would either.”
She excused herself before he could do more than look affronted and stepped away to scope out more canapes.
The waiters there were trained in the art of skimping and were personally handing out one pre-portioned appetizer at a time before walking away. Short of standing by the door and eating something off every tray that passed on the way to and from the caterers, she wasn’t going to be able to get anywhere near enough food needed to counteract how much cheap champagne she’d need to choke down to drown out these buffoons. At least, not without thoroughly regretting the choice afterwards.
As her luck would have it the bi-weekly lab explosion had taken place that morning, so her planned lunch and snacks had been replaced with contamination showers and a frantic dash to the airport. Then the plane had only had dubious chicken and fish and no vegetarian option worth trying.
Thoroughly disappointing for first class.
Tony was totally flying her in his plane after this. At least there she could get a decent meal. Plus it was his fault she was here at all with hands starting to shake from low blood sugar and a headache building.
“Excuse me, Ms. Lewis.”
Darcy looked away from the closest platter she’d been eyeing to see a man maybe half an inch taller and twenty pounds lighter than her shifting from foot to foot in front of her. He wore a hideous purple bowtie and tweed combination that, paired with his faintly eastern European accent, made her think he must be a grad student. Or maybe a fellow.
“Can I help you?”
“Oh, I just hoped to discuss Dr Foster’s work with you.”
Bullshitting him just wasn’t worth the effort at that point. Darcy sagged against the wall behind her, giving up any pretense of professionalism.
“Yeah, I’m not your best option for that.”
He tilted his head and kind of reminded her of a confused puppy.
“I don't understand.”
“I'm just her assistant. No genius conversations that involve me are going to take place tonight.”
His brows furrowed.
“Oh. It was a very sudden change in plans for you to attend wasn’t it?”
“You could say that. Jane had another conference to go to, so here I am.”
“No other reason?”
“Other than to piss off these old bogies?” she pointed a thumb over to an ugly-suited congregation of old men in question. “Nah.”
He followed her gesture and turned back to her, awkwardly holding his hands behind his back, not even registering her insult to the science community.
“Ah. How are you enjoying it so far?”
She scoffed.
“If I could get a decent meal and drink something other than the cheap stuff I only bought when I was an undergrad, I might.”
His eyes lit up and she thought he might be considering asking her out for dinner. Considering how bored she was, that this guy was pretty cute, and Ian had been entertaining enough, she was willing to give another nerdy academic type a try.
“You’re hungry?”
“Starving.”
“There’s uh, there’s a good restaurant a few blocks from here.”
“When you say good do you mean yuppy type tourist food or more traditional food that’s cheap and delicious.”
“Um, the second?”
“Perfect.” She straightened and stepped closer. “Where is this Mecca and how do I find it?”
“Here, I’ll show you.”
She thought he was going to be surprisingly smooth and start leading her out of the building. Instead, he pulled out his cellphone and quickly pulled up a map, pointing at some spot easily within walking distance. But it seemed odd.
“That looks kinda industrial.”
“It is. The restaurant is in a formerly industrial building.”
Oh. One of those.
“You sure this isn’t some ridiculous hipster place? Not that I wouldn’t go, I’m desperate at this point, but I need to know what level of pretentiousness I’ll be in for.”
“Not hipster.”
His tone was somewhat questioning, but at that moment she didn’t care. She could deal with hipsters if it meant food.
“Okay. Sweet. I think my required hour is up pretty soon so dinner is calling my name.”
“Required hour?”
“Yeah, Jane and I made a deal when coming to these things. If no one talks to you, you only have to stay for half an hour. If people do talk to you, you have to stay an hour.”
“Why is that a requirement?”
Darcy was beginning to have worries that this guy was either not-too-sharp for a grad student or one of the sycophants that loved rubbing shoulders with the ‘high and mighty’ of the academic world.
“You clearly have not spent enough time with crotchety scientists if you’re asking that question.”
“Oh.” He nodded before continuing without preamble. “I should get going. Yes.”
He made to turn, but she grabbed his elbow and gave him a friendly smile. Maybe he just needed a little extra encouragement.
“Wait, I like to know the name of my food saviors.”
“Excuse me?”
Maybe not-so-bright it was.
“What’s your name?”
“Oh, it’s, uh, Matthew.”
“Okay, well, see you around?”
“Sure. Bye.”
He pulled his elbow out from her hand awkwardly and scuttled away. Darcy stood for a moment and considered how the entire interaction was a bit of a shame. But incompetent scientists with no social graces were just too much for her that night.
With a shrug she set down her empty champagne flute and headed for the door.
She needed sustenance
“Darcy, go to New Orleans and accept this award for me. Darcy it’ll be like a vacation. Darcy it’ll be tons of fun.”
Darcy groused to herself as she stared at the map on her phone trying to locate the restaurant recommended by dumb-as-a-stump Matthew. The headache from earlier was now full-blown and not helping her focus as she squinted at her phone.
“Go try out a local restaurant it’s delicious and cheap.”
Her mumbled rant was interrupted as she got another message notification from Tony. She quickly read the text and growled in annoyance.
You earned those Mardis Gras beads yet?
Darcy pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath before consulting the map again, not bothering to respond.
But without warning, someone grabbed her from behind and pulled her back into a nearby alley. It was too fast for her to register she should struggle and pretty impossible to scream with a hand firmly over her mouth.
Natasha was definitely going to make her go through situational awareness training again.
Awesome.
“Listen up,” growled the guy holding her. He had one arm wrapped firmly around her waist and the other lifted to cover her mouth with his monstrous hand. He also had no problem holding her off the ground with just one arm, so the dude had to be huge and somewhere in the ballpark of Captain America strong.
What a great day for her taser to be tucked away in her suitcase in the stupid Midwest.
“We only want what’s in your bag, so as long as you’re quiet there shouldn’t be any problem. Got it?”
She’d heard a mugging would be over faster if you gave the attacker what he wanted. There was no way she could fight him off at that moment, so Darcy nodded and he lowered his hand from her mouth to firmly pin her arms to her sides with both of his enormous arms.
Stark and Jane both owed her for this.
Wait, the guy said ‘we’. We ?
Just then a smaller goon started coming down the alley towards them. When he was a couple feet away when Darcy caught sight of a horrible tie and coat.
“Matthew?”
He ignored her and instead pulled out a pretty impressive knife to cut the strap of her bag and start rummaging through it.
“Hey! What’re you doing?”
Faux Matthew didn’t take any notice as he continued to dig through her purse more aggressively.
So much for being a nice, awkward, if stupid, scientist looking out for her nourishment needs; douchebag criminal it was.
“I should’ve known this is what would happen. Never trust directions that require you to walk under an overpass.”
Neither attacker acknowledged her grumbling, so Darcy tried to actually start using the situational awareness Natasha had been able to instill in her.
Why would a mugger take the time to blend in at a science conference to set up a mark? Why suggest a fake restaurant and not try and seduce her or something? Okay, maybe that was a little too James Bond, but things just seemed off.
‘Matthew’ continued to ignore her as he began to throw things out of her purse, cursing under his breath while she and Silent Bob looked on. Silently. The dude was quiet, for sure, but she wasn’t about to forget him when her feet were still a good foot off the ground.
“You know, if you told me what you were looking for I could probably help.”
The criminal formerly known as Matthew threw her bag, and thankfully the knife as well, on the ground and finally looked at her.
“Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“The data!”
If she’d been standing, she would have backed away. The guy had the manic look in his eye that she’d learned long ago to run from when hanging out with people who had access to weapons and explosive Science!. Since this manic look was coming from a baddie and not a sleep-deprived Jane, the expression definitely didn’t lead her to expect puppies and rainbows in her near future.
And Darcy didn’t have any data with her to appease him with.
Who travelled to New Orleans with scientific data anyway?
But Darcy suddenly remembered that she did have a flash drive of funny cat gifs she’d been saving up to send to Hill instead of lab reports. It was thankfully all stashed on a legit Stark flash drive, full insignia and branding. If she could convince them it was actually something important maybe they’d let her go.
But she didn’t have a chance to even try and distract them with her genius plan before her luck decided to take a full nose dive.
“Mais, what have we here?”
Yet another guy walked into the alley and Darcy wondered if the whole situation was karmic payback for something. But her bedazzling of Dum-E definitely hadn’t warranted this.
Or was there some alleyway party memo she'd missed?
The boa constrictor holding Darcy shifted, tightening his grip; breathing became a tad more difficult after that.
Darcy did, however, want a pat on the back in the future for noticing that the Crazy-Man-Formerly-Known-As-Matthew straightened and paused. The fact that she’d seen his shift was probably the only thing that kept her from making some undignified sound when he pulled a gun out of seemingly nowhere.
So, the newcomer wasn’t one of their Science! assistant assailing numbers.
That had to be good, right?
“This isn’t your fight, LeBeau,” growled the overenthusiastic bear-hugger.
Lo and behold, he spoke.
But that wasn’t what she would have expected, nor was it comforting.
Darcy examined the recent arrival to their illicit alley party more closely.
The man didn’t seem fazed at all to find two men mugging a woman. Nor very upset that there was now a gun pointed at him. In fact, he seemed downright casual as he sauntered closer and stopped a few feet away.
“Perhaps; but this is my town and I don’t find it very hospitable of you to welcome our visitors in such a way." His eyes moved over Darcy for a moment before shifting back to the man with the gun. "Especially ones as pretty as this.”
He shared a stare-down with the now-twitchy and gun-wielding ‘Matthew’. But he’d happened to stop right in a spot of light, so Darcy got a much better view of him. So she’d chalk it up to taking stock of her surroundings that she looked him over, trying to distract herself from the fraught interaction. Darcy was all about avoidance.
The guy stood leaning back with thumbs casually tucked into the pockets of his vest; what must have been a silk, ruby-red shirt catching the light. He was tall, for sure, since she was at his eye-level with her goon-enabled height at that moment. But there was something else that Darcy struggled to put her finger on.
There must have been a reason for why he gave off an impression of serious... something .
His accent gave him away as a Cajun, but that didn’t account for much. As he’d walked, there was a catlike grace that reminded her of Natasha’s lethal elegance. On top of that, Darcy had spent enough time with Stark to recognize a man who had ridiculously nice clothes that didn’t conspicuously scream money; and this guy's outfit definitely qualified him for that club. But that wasn’t what made her want to keep looking and figure out what caught her attention.
Nor was it the fact that mystery man he was ridiculously attractive. She'd never thought of a man as sultry before, but damned if this one didn't fit the bill with perfect model scruff and shaggy hair that was pushed back and emphasizing those cheekbones. All in all, he was a very attractive man. The type she would enjoy ogling thoroughly if she wasn’t being assaulted by two randos in an alley.
Which she was.
With a sigh she focused on his eyes and caught him watching her now, instead of the lunatic with a gun.
He chuckled at her perusal and the sound seemed to reverberate deep in her chest, making her gut clench and her heart race.
“Looks like you found yourself some trouble, cher.”
She was sure she was going to have heart attack as her thudding heartbeat abruptly halted.
He was her soulmate. He found her at a time like this and was acting like it was completely normal. And she didn't know if he was referring to himself or the baddies as 'trouble'.
Awesome.
Darcy let out a mildly hysterical peal of laughter, startling her attackers; one again silent and the other continuing to point his gun at the newcomer, though glancing back and forth between him and the cry-laughing Darcy.
A bemused smile lit up her soulmate's face, white teeth gleaming against his tan skin.
“Care to share what is amusing you so?” he drawled still smiling.
A shuffled step distracted her.
Darcy sobered and hesitated as she glanced over at ‘Matthew’.
The fake-scientist/genuine asshat hurriedly moved behind his cohort to whisper sweet illicit plans in the taller man’s ear. What surprised her was that the dumbasses started arguing with each other in some foreign language.
A quick look showed Remy was waiting for her answer. Despite tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum not paying attention, she still figured it was probably best to keep the most current development under wraps.
Feeling the tears from her earlier laughter drying at the corners of her eyes, Darcy took a moment to lament to herself.
“With the way my day has been going, I totally should have known this would happen; and during a mugging no less. And all I wanted was dinner.”
Mentally pulling up her bootstraps, she focused back on LeBeau and noted his smirk.
Ignoring the harsh whispered argument still taking place behind her, she took as deep a breath as she could with the fleshy hired-muscle bands around her ribs, and looked intently at the one man who was certainly going to prove difficult if her current luck was anything to go by.
She just hoped he’d cooperate in that moment.
“I wasn’t exactly expecting to meet you when I woke up this morning.”
Darcy swore she saw a red glow coming from his eyes and felt something tingle along her skin as he pulled his thumbs out of his pockets and stood straighter. But the expression on his face made it obvious that the man was delighted.
That made one of them.
“That so, ma belle ?” he purred.
A man like that should not make sounds like that.
Definitely not when she was still being squished by convict Bigfoot and there was still a gun being pointed at Mr. Sultry Pants himself.
Darcy huffed.
“Apparently it is so.”
He hummed to himself.
“Is that good or bad?”
She screwed her lips up to one side as she squinted at him.
“Not sure yet. Are you going to help me, or do I have to figure out how to take care of these douchebags on my own?”
Walking Seduction LeBeau put his hands in his pants pockets now, and leaned his shoulders back to look her over with a smirk.
“That was not the most polite way to ask, non?”
“Seriously?”
She would have thrown her hands up in exasperation, but they were still being held by her overgrown assailant as he continued to argue with his partner. It was probably for the best as her usual over-the-top gesturing would be sure to aggravate her still-growing headache. She genuinely wondered what these tools could be arguing over so much that she was able to have this entire conversation. A very important conversation with her soulmate who she still wasn’t sure she should trust and happened to be way intense and way too much to handle right then?
With nothing else to do, Darcy closed her eyes.
“I’m so not up for this today.”
“Mais, it is a shame your day has been so unfortunate,” he crooned.
But when she glanced back his face was anything but sincere.
Darcy knew that look.
Steve had a remarkably similar one whenever he was being a little shit and wasn’t going to stop until he got what he wanted. And fate had gifted her with a soulmate just as helpful. Great. She wondered if she could argue for a return on this one if he didn’t get to saving her, and quickly.
“Fine," she sighed. "Will you please help me, Mr. LeBeau.”
He looked pleased as punch with her acquiescence until she got to his name; then his face became earnest and the only word her brain could come up with to categorize his expression was roguish.
“Remy, ma belle. You will call me Remy.”
So his name was Remy.
Remy LeBeau.
That sounded familiar, but with the lingering headache and lack of proper oxygen intake, Darcy wasn’t able to place it. She shook her head to focus and tried to not wince at the movement.
It looked like she was just going to have to accept defeat.
“Remy,” she breathed as she met his eyes again. “Please.”
The whispering behind her became more heated and her now-declared rescuer straightened. He began to look as tense as Darcy though he should have been with a gun aimed at him.
“I’m afraid your day’s about to get worse; this isn’t a mugging.”
Darcy stared at him and was about to ask him to explain, but his attention had focused on her attackers.
“Isn’t that right, boys?” he taunted.
The whispering stopped and Darcy prayed Remy would make this easy and get her out of this.
But he just kept on as before.
“Who sent you? Couldn’t have been Maurius, his employees are much more, capable .”
‘Matthew,’ who might not have been a scientist but was clearly the brains of this ‘operation’, stepped to the side to face off with Remy.
“I told you, this has nothing to do with you, LeBeau.”
The goon restraining Darcy once again tightened his grip, and this time she couldn't hold back a wheeze. Remy heard her and pulled his hands out of his pockets; there most definitely was a red glow coming from his eyes now.
She didn’t have time to freak out about that particular fact before any hope she’d had of Remy making this easy went right out the window.
Well, alley.
“My soulmate has everything to do with me, fils de putain.”
Darcy wasn’t fluent in any foreign language, but she certainly knew how to swear in a few. And from Remy’s tone, shit was about to go down.
The thug holding Darcy gasped. And then squeaked. Literally.
“I didn’t sign up for this.”
He suddenly dropped her to turn and sprint the opposite way down the alley. Darcy wasn’t prepared and as she hadn’t been able to catch a full breath with the continual increase of squeezing earlier; her knees buckled, she toppled, and her head connected with the brick building next to her.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Remy lunge forward but the persistent, gun-toting toolbag was closer and shoved his gun against her temple.
“If you had just left, LeBeau, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt. We only wanted the data." Insert drama llama villain pause here. "But now, I think she’s much more valuable to us.”
Darcy whimpered as the gun was pushed forcefully against her sore head and she swallowed back on the bile that rose in her throat.
“That was unwise," Remy growled.
Psycho ‘Matthew’ thankfully took a step back and Darcy shifted to lean her back against the brick wall and watch what was happening. Or try to as she squinted through the now-blistering headache and blood from what must have been quite the gash on her forehead.
She could tell, however, that Remy had stalked closer and was now holding something in his hand. After a second she registered what she saw.
One very pissed off soulmate gripping a playing card, fingers glowing, eyes blazing.
Oh. He was that Remy LeBeau.
Otherwise known as Gambit.
Huh.
The card flew and her erstwhile mugger/stereotypical villain was thrown ten feet to crash into a dumpster with enough force to dent the metal.
It seemed like slow motion, but Darcy had turned her head quickly to follow his trajectory.
A poor choice.
Nausea kicked in like a bitch and she sank to the dirty ground, clutching at her knees, and trying not to lose what little hors d’oeuvres she still had in her. She closed her eyes and breathed to deal with the adrenaline surge squeezing everything in around her and making her skin feel tight.
When she opened her eyes, Remy’s concerned face filled her vision.
He murmured a steady stream of French but Darcy had no idea what he said. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had understood as her fight-or-flight instinct decided hearing was no longer necessary in that moment.
Remy ran his hands along her limbs checking for any major injury before cradling her face to look at the wound on her forehead. Darcy knew he was being gentle but the touch was too much sensation with her adrenaline levels plummeting. She tried to jerk her head away and swayed, breathing deeply and far too quickly.
Sound came back and it became impossible to focus her eyes on Remy.
She groaned.
“I’m about to puke or pass out. Maybe both. Sorry.”
“Merde,” she heard him mutter as everything went fuzzy.