She could feel the wind whipping against her face as it lightly swayed the metal swing she was sitting on back and forth. Her eyes darted to her shoes which she'd kicked off when she entered the park, the ache in her arches beating out any urges to keep her feet clean, and she would inhale deeply before blowing the air back out until it felt like she was completely empty.

"I don't have a family? Go fuck yourself," She finally spoke, her voice steady, "I have a family."

Did she…? The doubt crept up into her thoughts. Jane was great but was not around or even able to return her calls right now because of whatever dumb protection detail SHIELD had placed her under and Eric was just as busy. Thor was well… in space. And she'd really only knew the guy for a few days even if he'd left a huge impression on her life. That was all. She couldn't think of a single other person. The residents of the Baxter building didn't count as they were her mission and it wasn't like she could be honest to them about why she was really there.

"I have a family…" She insisted aloud although this time her voice would crack.

"Yes. You do."

Darcy would quickly be on her feet, taser in hand, before relaxing some. "Oh. It's you." All shields were up as she stood as tall as she could manage. Victor would take a seat on one of the other empty swings and looked at her calmly, "I only want to talk, I didn't mean to upset you earlier, I just figured… like a Band-Aid right?"

The brunette would cautiously sit back on the other swing, kicking her feet out in front of herself and then behind to propel herself slightly into motion, "Yeah well, public places are kind of shitty spots for talks like that," She'd continue to swing for a few moments before becoming frustrated with his silence and stopping herself abruptly by digging her feet into the sand, "Dude, if you're not going to say anything then leave me alone."

"I thought public places were shitty for this?" He said with an edge of snark, "…Look, I wasn't kidding before; I do think that you are my mother's child. I am sorry that you had to grow up in foster care, I'm sorry that I had to invade your privacy to find that out, and I'm even sorrier that we did not get to grow up together. Honestly what do you have to lose by exploring the fact that we could be siblings?"

"What if you're only out for my fantastic fortune?" She deadpanned, though a small smirk was forming on her lips.

"Damn you caught me." Victor responded, "Guess I'll have to go to plan B and try to seduce Tony Stark,"

"I hear he's pretty seducible."

They would sort of smile at each other. The air of tension that had been surrounding Darcy before seemed to dissolve since he'd shown up. It was cheesy but he had said exactly what she needed to hear at that moment and unfortunately Darcy Lewis was a human being who just wanted to belong or be wanted. Plus he was right, what did she have to lose?

"Okay, you can buy me dinner right now, since you and someone else ruined the last one," She declared, emptying the sand from her heels before pulling them back on. "I want lobster and carrot cake; make it snappy money bags,"

Victor rolled his eyes but would flip out his phone, "Your wish is my command," He'd say dryly as he made some phone calls.

"Johnny! What the hell were you doing?!" Sue was waiting for him by the time he'd come back to the Baxter building, her arms crossed and looking stern like the mother she always pretended to be.

"I'm suffocating here Sue!" He insisted, throwing his hands up, already having recovered from being electrocuted earlier. "This is ridiculous, we've got these powers, let's use them!"

"Doing what? Showing off at some stupid motor-crash party?"

"Motor-Cross." He corrected.

"Who cares! Johnny, you gave us superhero names? You called Ben "The Thing" do you know how hurtful that is? Or what about if you lost control and someone in the audience got hurt because you were showing off?" Her voice rose, "We are in quarantine not just for our safety, but for the safety of others!"

"GOD! What is this?! Yell at Johnny day? Forget it, I'm going to bed," He pushed past her just as Reed came out of the lab and looked around,

"Where's Darcy? I saw the news, she got you,"

"She quit." Johnny said quickly before slamming the door to his quarters. He assumed she would quit. As soon as he said the wrong thing to women they all disappeared.

"What? Darcy didn't really quit did she? She has all of the passwords to the research," Reed frowned; the brunette had locked him out of the computers during certain hours to ensure the man was sleeping. Sue gave him a look of disbelief, "Johnny causes that scene, possibly drove her away, and you're concerned about passwords? Unbelievable."

Reed Richards was deeply confused as the blonde glared at him before disappearing into thin air, the only indication of her leaving the room was the ghostly opening and slamming of the door.

"But…I'm close to fixing all of this…"

"So."

"So?"

"Does this make me royalty?"

"In a way, yes, you would be considered a member of the royal family,"

"Do I get a tiara?"

"I'll let you wear mine,"

"Right answer,"

Darcy would take another bite of carrot cake, perfectly content in the comfy large arm chair she was currently sitting in back at Victor's estate. They'd been talking about his…their mother, he'd shown her more pictures that were nearly identical to Darcy, and it had turned into talks about the Latvian history and what her "place" in all of it would be.

Her eyes would flicker to his forehead which he'd been lightly picking at, "You know, I've been noticing… that scar from the accident in space, isn't exactly healing well, is it?"

"Well, I do keep picking at it," He said, his hand slipping away from it as soon as she'd brought it up, "I've always had an issue leaving scabs alone,"

"It's looks kind of…metallic,"

"The metal stitching they used to seal my skull back up," He assured her, "it's a new technology we've been developing here…"

"Dude. Is it really? I mean," Darcy would reach towards it, "it looks almost like…metal skin…"

The lights would flicker and he'd flinch away from her touching it, "It's still sensitive, please," He'd take her hand, "avoid touching. Let me instead give you a proper tour of the estate." She'd give him a searching look like she wasn't buying it, but let it go for now, "Yeah, okay, show me around your castle Dracula."

The next morning she'd come into work at the Baxter building to find every member of the foursome in some sort of disarray. Ben was moodily breaking remote after remote on accident while trying to flip through the channels. (The TV kept getting stuck on the E! Network and poor Ben was losing his mind.) Sue was giving everyone the silent treatment except for Darcy to whom she granted a kind smile before icily ignoring Reed calling from the lab. Darcy responded though, walking in to find the man clearly having been awake all night with big bags under his eyes and frantically typing.

"Whoa. Okay Dr. Sleep-deprive, step away from the computer," She said, looking less than amused herself. "I thought we agreed no lab after midnight?"

"DARCY!" He looked surprised and would have been happier if he wasn't about to pass out. "Johnny said you quit… I was worried I wouldn't be able to get to my research without decrypting the passcodes…"

"I didn't quit. I did however taze Flameboy, which I will do to you too if you don't move your backside towards your bed and get a solid 8 hours." She put her hands on her hips and looked at him expectantly, "NOW."

Reed got up slowly and carefully made his way towards his room, "…I'm glad you didn't quit."

"…Thanks. Now sleep."

"…Really fast, how did the electricity affect him? Since electricity is a form of…"

"REED. BED."

Once that was handled Darcy would head back to the living room where she'd find that the blond wonder had taken up residency with a bowl of cereal on the couch after a flustered Ben could take no more of the torture that was "Extra!". She put herself in front of the TV and blocked his view with her arms crossed, "You and me need to talk now."

"I'm eating." He didn't meet her eyes and for once not because he was staring at her chest.

Darcy would yank his cereal away from him and put it on the counter with him exclaiming, "HEY!"

"There. Now you're listening. What you said to me last night was bullshit but whatever, you don't know me, and you do not know my life. But what is really unacceptable is you telling Reed I quit."

"I assumed after tasing your employer you would skedaddle."

"You are NOT my employer. If you are anything you are a patient, subject 3 to be exact and you do not have a say in when or how I leave this job, so buckle up sunshine, I'm sticking around."

"Gee, great speech, can I have my Fruity Pebbles back now?"

"Yes. You can." She stepped out of the way of the TV view and went to open the door to the lab. A hand would reach past her and stop it from opening.

Darcy made a noise of irritation, "Are you kidding me? What?"

"…I'm sorry by the way."

"What?" She turned and looked at him caught off guard both by his apology and by how tall she was now noticing he was standing right up next to her.

"You were right last night. I did something stupid and I didn't like having it pointed out so I said some terrible stuff to try and make you shut up. I'm the worst."

Johnny would downcast his blue eyes and awkwardly shuffled his feet, clearly not used to admitting fault in any situation. She took a moment to notice for the first time that when he wasn't obnoxiously hitting on her or running his mouth that he was actually very good looking in a classic sort of way that kind of made her chest tight for a moment before remembering who she was talking too.

"Yeah, you are," Darcy would pause before sighing, "Apology accepted. Let's just… move past it okay?"

His face would split into a shy sort of grin and she'd be taken aback by how genuine it looked in its mixture of joy and relief. Maybe Johnny Storm wasn't so bad after all…

"Kiss and make up?" He made some smoochie noises at her.

Never mind.

"Ugh, Apology no longer accepted." And she'd head into the lab to get some work done.

Author's Note:

Thanks everyone for your kind words and support. I finally had some time to sit down and write something out. I know it's small but hopefully this is a sign that I'm finally in the right headspace to begin writing again. Finger's crossed.