Darcy liked to believe that he’d been given a choice, but if that were the case, he’d have never agreed to it in the first place. Because when it came down to it, the only choice that Division had ever given him was death. For despite what Division preached about its absolution of its recruits’ and agents’ crimes and all the inherent guilt that went with them, it was no better at clearing Darcy’s conscience than his brief turn in prison had been. And though Division vowed to give its recruits a second chance, an opportunity to actually make something of their lives and become known for a life separated from the wake of destruction they’d previously left behind, death was the agency’s only given option. Death was its only legacy.
And that legacy, by choice, was to become Darcy’s. Because, after all, what other option did he have?
To be clear and to be fair, Darcy knew that Division’s ultimatum of death wasn’t as thoroughly specific as it could be. Regardless of it though, Darcy knew what it meant all the same. Because though death itself was an inevitability, whose death was where his decision truly laid. For one, he could be the cooperative little agent, the sycophantic parasite that tunneled through others’ lives and thrived on their misery, and do as Division told him to do. That, inescapably, always lead to some stranger’s - some target’s - death down the line. That was option A. And, of course, option B was his own death. Darcy had almost taken that option. In fact, he had. He’d been ready, prepared, to punch his own ticket, but it seemed that that had been a choice others took from him.
So, he was back to option A. His target, a certain Hank Shepherd, had been a protégé to none other than Edward Teller, the creator of the hydrogen bomb, before Teller’s death in 2003. In his last final years, it was speculated that Teller and Shepherd had been working on a new project that was not only capable of decimating an entire city in one fell swoop, but an entire country. Whether or not the weapon had been built yet or rather just the blueprints completed remained a mystery. But what was for certain was the fact that only Shepherd knew about the project and was the only one capable of finishing the blueprints and creating the weapon. Darcy’s job was to extract that information from him for the greater good of Division. And Chiron’s, his handler, idea of him doing so was by sleeping with him. Because nothing else quite brought men to a blubbering state of incoherency and sentimental storytelling than someone allowing them to cram themselves inside for just long enough to make them forget who they were.
Darcy knew this for a fact all too well. And the problem with that was that Darcy knew this for a fact all too well.
He’d been eleven the first time it had happened. Old enough to have his own room, walls decorated with sloppy paintings of dragonflies and frogs and bedspread his favorite shade of navy blue, but still young enough to leave his door cracked open a smidgen in case a monster under the bed necessitated a quick escape to his mother and stepfather’s bedroom. A creak at the foot of his bed and a sudden weight on his mattress in the middle of the night had his eyes snap open as he planned his quickest evacuation route. He had known the Boogeyman to be real. But a soft murmur in the dark told Darcy that it was only his stepdad, Joseph. Darcy felt more than saw his figure loom above him as the blankets were withdrawn. “We’re just going to play a little —”
Game. Shepherd thought this was a game. He was mistaking Darcy’s reluctance to undress himself, his inability to move and do anything other than tremble, as a display of coyness. Because wasn’t this what partners in bed did? Did they not “play hard to get”? Darcy was sure his target must have read about it before in some bullshite magazine as Shepherd impatiently ripped Darcy’s shirt from his chest. And his own pathetic whimpers of apprehension were only further egging the other man on, being taken as a sign of arousal instead of as a sign of a growing fear that sprouted in his stomach and crawled up his spine in an unforgiving paralysis.
Still, more than four years later, Joseph returned back to his room. Despite locked doors and broken pleas and attempted kicks, he always somehow managed to wind his way back into Darcy’s bed. Each time Darcy was crushed to the mattress, breath stolen from him, as sweaty palms groped and grabbed, leaving an assortment of grotesque purple and navy blue (his favorite color) splotches across his skin. Of course, it never just stopped with the fondling. Each time, it only ever got worse. But still, every single time, Joseph would always try to convince him of the contrary; “I’ll be gentle this time. It won’t — “
Hurt. It hurt. Shepherd was hurting him. He was past the point of trying to go slow, to ease Darcy into it, and was more than ready to just get to it. The only thing was that Darcy was not ready to just get to it. He needed time, he needed to think. He needed to do something other than feel his pulse in his throat and his lungs cave in as he scrambled to the head of the bed only to be dragged back down by his ankle. In fact, Darcy wasn’t sure he could do this. Oh, God. He didn’t think he could. How was he supposed to give himself to Shepherd when he couldn’t even breathe? No, he needed to slow down. Oh -
"No!" Darcy shouted. He’d given Joseph enough chances; he’d said the word enough times for the man to get it. To understand. To know that this wasn’t a game and that, no matter what he said, it still hurt and that he was finished. He was done. He felt the knife in Joseph’s neck pretty much proved that point as he watched his stepfather fall to the floor with an agonized and betrayed, "Oh - !"
"Fuck!" The word escaped Darcy before he could bite it back. But somehow, in just the two seconds it had taken Shepherd to rid him of his boxers, Darcy had managed to fumble blindly for the pen on the bedside table, click it open, and jam it into his target’s carotid. Darcy’s breath returned to him, his eyes widening, as he realized what he’d done. "No, no!" he begged, rising above the fallen Shepherd as the man yanked the pen from his neck. Already, Darcy could see that damn cliched light fading from Shepherd’s eyes as he clamped his own hands over the hole in the man’s neck. Despite his efforts, the blood kept coming. "Shepherd, no! Don’t die," he gasped. "Hank! Where are the plans?" He yelled in panicked desperation. With that, Shepherd understood. The man smiled softly, contentedly, as he died.
Darcy choked on his sob. If he didn’t find another way to get what he needed in less than six hours, it was back to option B.
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