Taserbones Idea Inspired by Midnight at the Pera Palace
Okay. So. Time Travel.
It started with a lab accident. Of course it started with a lab accident. One minute Darcy is working on calculations for another wormhole experiment with Jane, the next the world is shaking and rumbling, the lights are going haywire, the wires are sparking. It all stops just as suddenly as it started but Darcy is definitely not in hers and Jane's Sicily Lab anymore. It looks vaguely like their lab, she guesses, but like their lab way back before it was renovated. All the equipment is gone, the walls and floor are stone instead of dry wall and tile, and the lights are off but she can see they are definitely not LEDs.
Darcy carefully makes her way through the building that is clearly being used as storage until she finds a door to the outside. She steps out onto a brightly lit cobblestone street only to be almost run over by--okay, that is definitely not a modern car. That's a 30s/40's looking car. Where the hell is she?
Turns out, that fun little lab accident sent Darcy back in time to 1940 Italy just before Mussolini declares war on Great Britain and France. What's a girl from the 21st century to do?
Well, that question gets answered for her when she runs into a morally gray, definitely some sort of crime/mafia boss named Brock who will not stop staring at her and talking to her. He's not flirting with her but he's not not-flirting with her. What's his deal?
Because Darcy has never been one to sit idly by, she somehow gets wrapped up in the shenanigans of the Italian Resistance of World War II. And every time it appears that things are about to go south, she's about to get caught, there's Brock creating a distraction for her to escape or pulling her up from almost falling out a window.
Through these very close calls Brock proves that he's more than the morally gray mafioso Darcy first thought him to be. She trusts him, he's earned that. Still, she can't figure him out. He acts like he knows her, talks like she's his equal, like they're partners, like whatever is going on they're in it together. He's been like that with her from the moment he saw her, even before he knew her name.
Then, she feels that weird shivery feeling again, just like when she first arrived in 1940. This isn't the first time, she's felt it before and she resisted it before just to see if she can. This time, however, she is about to be shot and Brock is too far away to save her. Darcy lets the pull take her.
She time skips back to 1937 just in time to see a younger Brock running from the carabinieri. Well, he's saved her life so many times she has to return the favor.
It's the work of seconds to hot wire a nearby car. She barrels through the city streets until she catches up with Brock and orders him to hop in. He obeys, bewildered but so, so grateful. Seeing her, this stranger, this amazing woman who hot wired a car to save him from arrest, he knows she is his One and Only.
They spend One Day together. It's the best day of his life. It's easy, simple. He takes her to his favorite small restaurant, they walk through the park, they smile, and dance to the music of the street musicians. It's midnight when Darcy feels that shivering pull again. It's so sudden she doesn't have time to fight it. All she can do is kiss Brock before disappearing.
She blinks and she's back in 1940, standing in the middle of the park at midnight desperately trying not to cry.
But then Brock is suddenly there, his arms wrapping around her, holding her close, whispering love and devotion so sincerely she can do nothing but believe him. The next two months are spent in hazy bliss even as Brock reveals he is more than just a mafia boss but an agent for the Italian Resistance, even as the violence of resisting Mussolini's fascist government permeates every aspect of their lives.
It's New Years Eve, less than a minute before midnight, when Darcy feels another time travel shiver but this one is different. It's stronger. The pull feels forward instead of backward. Darcy knows what this means. She knows it in her bones.
She sobs as she tells Brock goodbye. She has to go. This isn't her time. She doesn't belong here. Darcy loves him but she can't stay.
Brock begs her not to go. Promises he will find her, that he will not stop searching until she is in his arms again.
Darcy shakes her head no. She says that he will forget her, eventually. That he will go on to live his life and be happy. That it's okay. She wants him to be happy.
He insists that he will never forget her. Swears that his life will stop if he loses her.
But Darcy lets the time travel skip take her just as 1940 turns to 1941. Jane, hysterical with relief and apologies, catches her as Darcy crumples, inconsolable, to the ground in their Sicily Lab.
Soon after Darcy's return, Jane decides a bit more stability and being surrounded by familiar faces will help Darcy who is grief-stricken. Jane moves their lab to the Avenger's upstate facility.
It's their Welcome to the Madhouse Party. Darcy slips in late. She didn't want to come, didn't really feel like socializing but Jane asked. After everything Jane has done for her, how patient she's been, how understanding, Darcy would feel too guilty if she said no. So, she put on a nice pair of jeans, a flattering but comfortable sweater and went to the party.
The party is in full swing. Everyone who works at the upstate facility is here, milling around, chatting, laughing, drinking. The space was clearly designed to host large parties and currently made up to look like an especially large bar.
Darcy beelines for the bar and orders a whiskey. She almost asked for limoncello but her eyes began to burn with unshed tears at the very thought. She doesn't want to cry from the memories. As she waits for her drink she half turns to look at the crowd.
She's not really registering what she's seeing, her gaze sliding over familiar and unfamiliar faces alike. Later, she will be embarrassed to admit that her eyes slid right over him. But, just as quickly, her attention snaps back, pulled as if he were a magnet.
She stands there, rooted to the spot. He's here. Right over there. He's a littler older, maybe, but that's Brock. Her Brock. It's impossible. Later, Darcy will learn he has a Wolverine-style healing mutation which honestly explains a lot of the schemes he managed to survive as both a mafioso and Resistance fighter. But right now Darcy can barely breathe.
Brock isn't looking at her, he's talking to someone else, but he must feel her eyes on him because he turns his head. He finds her though the crowd and the whole world fades away. Darcy doesn't know how he's here. She doesn't really care. He's walking towards her, his attention as fixed on her as hers is on him. That's all that matters.
He reaches her in seconds but it feels like eons. Carefully, gently, as if afraid she will disappear or the illusion will shatter, Brock touches her cheeks with just the tips of his fingers. Darcy hadn't realized she was holding her breath but the moment he touches her she sucks in air. It feels like she's breathing for the first time.
When Darcy doesn't disappear, when she doesn't run away, when she instead wraps one set of fingers around his wrist and tangles the other in his shirt, a slow grin spreads across Brock's face as tears brighten his whiskey brown eyes.
"Found you," he whispers.
Darcy laughs, bright and happy, for the first time since 1940.
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ON A SIDE NOTE
I need people to watch Midnight at the Pera Palace. It's on Netflix. It's a Turkish Time Travel Period Drama Spy Thriller Romance. It is literally EVERY BOOK GIRLIE'S 🎶he's morally gray but what can i say gray's my favorite color🎶 he'd-burn-the-world-to-keep-her-warm vibe
I seriously need more people to watch it. Just LOOK at these babies