Darcy's back looks like a paint-by-numbers in bruises – both a reminder and a badge of pride that she might be cut out for this. That's the worst of the damage from her run in with the mutant and thankfully it looks a lot worse than it is. She's the kind of stiff that radiates out from within and for the first few days after her big mission, Darcy walks like she's ninety.

In the halls of her SHIELD dorm, other agents nod to her as she hobbles along about her business. A few stop and trade stories about their own they run in with the big baddies out there and for the first time, Darcy feels like she's come home.

There's a black bag on her bed in her room at the agency waiting for her.

It's her first night home after a day and night of observation and she stares at it dumbly for a minute. Wondering where it came from, what it could be and having hung around with her partner long enough that her thoughts take on an immediately paranoid edge. For a moment, she wonders if Mandrill found a way to send her a thank you gift from his prison cell.

There is a piece of notebook paper lying over the duffle straps like a welcome mat and even from the door, she can pick out her partner's clean hand writing.

Not a bomb then.

Maybe.

Some of his training exercises are extreme.

She's still cautious as she pulls back the thick zippers to reveal a black weapon's case. Inside is the most beautiful gun Darcy's ever seen. It's heavier than it looks and she has to cradle it in two hands. Tucked under it is a second note;

Hand to hand might not be your thing - C.

In the years to come in her work with SHIELD, Darcy becomes proficient in a several fire arms but she never goes anywhere without that Sig P239 in her hostler.

~.~

Once Darcy is back in the field officially, she and Coulson quickly fall in to a comfortable pattern. She rides with him in various POS's on often exciting new adventures and sometimes, if she pays extremely close attention or manages to catch him by surprise, Coulson opens the door a little wider in on what it means to be a secret agent.

Today – today is different.

"What do you mean?" He asks. His eyes are shielded by black glasses as they drive towards the setting sun on the city highway. The buildings catch the clouds overhead and everything is pink and red.

"You've been quiet. And not in that smugly superior way you have when you're about to drive me in to some horrible mission." Darcy clarifies, "I mean, like honestly quiet. Bad quiet. Worried quiet."

With a quick glance in her direction, Coulson seems to make up his mind about something. "The briefing is in the glove box. It's not officially our mission. Just something Fury has been passing out to the senior agents to get their read on."

"You keep important briefings in the glove box?"

Coulson smiles but doesn't answer.

Shrugging, Darcy clicks the dash open and grabbing the thick white binder within, tries to quickly scan through its contents. Little known fact that she gets violently ill if she reads in a car – and that's not something she wants her partner to know. He has an odd sense of humor and isn't above exploiting those kinds of things.

Most of it is classified gibberish, a codex she's starting to learn but hasn't quite picked up. There is one thing that draws her right away, that's easy to understand and she can stare at without tossing her cookies.

"What does this map mean?" Inside, center page, is a map of the US, littered with blue and black dots randomly freckled out over its face. More black than blue and mostly centered around the Midwest.

Coulson doesn't have to look - that map has been keeping him up sleepless nights, though Darcy doesn't know that.

"That's the problem." He swallows hard. "The blue are areas where there's been alien contact over the last four months and the black is Asgardean run-ins."

Darcy nearly drops the binder in her surprise. "Aliens? Like, not from Asgard, human-looking Thor run-ins? E.T is phoning home in Wyoming?"

Her partner raises an eyebrow. "Correct. These aliens seem to have more destructive intentions and most aren't from Asgard."

"And I'm guessing this is a fairly recent development?"

"Well, no. The volume is the troubling thing. Usually Earth isn't worth the gas mileage for most of the heavy hitters. We get the occasional command and conquer party from the lesser planets, which are promptly dealt with in a manner not to encourage copy cats. It's the sheer number of attacks. Seems like lately every backwater raiding pirate and intergalactic thug has decided we have something they want."

"Do we?" Darcy asks, eyes returning to scan the map.

Coulson's silence drags out this time and Darcy isn't sure if he'll answer. She knows SHIELD and she knows the silence isn't him trying to decide if she can be let in on the 'big secret'; more than likely, he's trying to decide which one of SHIELD's deadly secrets could be the point of interest for the invaders.

She saves him from answering because at the end of the day, she is his partner and trust goes both ways.

"Why the increase in Asgardean attacks?" She asks instead, "Or I mean, why do we think they are related?"

Coulson lets out the smallest breath of relief at the topic change. "In the past, we weren't aware that Asgard existed. Until Thor landed in our laps – or on the hood of your range rover as it were – we misclassified them as mutant attacks or magic users.

We started tracking the Asgard radiation that's signature to their magic and weapons since Thor showed up. The first six months after the Bridge closed, it was pretty quiet. Now it's shooting up in activity and someone's gone so far as to recruit humans – like our dear friend Henry Camp – to an unknown end."

"Big baddie wants to take over Earth?" Darcy suggested.

"Always." Coulson smirked, "But the number of recruits is small and the attacks are contained and precise."

"Like they're looking for something." She finished for him. "Which brings us back to, 'which one of SHIELD's toys are they playing hide-and-seek with'?" She shook her head, putting the contents of the binder back and shutting the compartment. "Partner mine, you better hope it's a SHIELD toy or you and upper management better start doing some looking of your own."

They finished the ride in silence.

~.~

"So explain to me again why we're in Canada?" Darcy asked, nursing a cup of coffee that was stale, cold and an all-out affront to her taste buds. Not surprising as it had been the forgotten cup that was left sitting in the backseat. Apparently, 'the middle of nowhere' wasn't the exaggeration she hoped it would be.

Coulson was watching her drink it with a mortified look on his face. "You were not kidding about your caffeine addiction."

She tipped the cup to him in a half-salute. "Next time warn a girl before you drag her three hundred miles from the closest 7-11."

"Noted." With a shudder, he turned from her and put the binoculars back up to his eyes, searching the woods for the yet unmentioned target of their drive.

Inpatient for an answer, Darcy tapped him on the shoulder with her free hand. "Canada. Explain."

Without lowering the binoculars, he answered, "Part of my job unofficial job title is cultivating relations with potential recruits."

"So that's what we're doing out here? Spying on a 'potential recruit'?"

"Checking in." He clarified, "I don't spy."

"If we're 'checking in' why are we hiding up in the woods looking down on some remote cabin? Why don't we just go down there and give 'em a friendly SHEILD 'hello!'?"

He lowered the binoculars from his eyes and if Darcy didn't know better she would say he looked like he was embarrassed. "That didn't go well. This is better, much better. Trust me."

Darcy watched her partner watching the cabin. "How in the world is this 'cultivating relations'?"

"He knows we're up here. I like to think dropping in on him once every five years has become a kind of enduring tradition, a reminder of the bigger picture." Under his breath, mostly to himself, he adds "At least he stopped shooting out my tires about ten years ago."

Darcy looks at him like he's crazy but can't say anything – after all, it was his constant visits every Friday that got her to rethink her own career. "Exactly how long have you been trying to recruit this guy?"

"Officially I'm not trying at all. This is my day off. What you need to understand," he answered, hedging the question, "is that SHIELD plays the long game. It isn't always about filling the rosters today or tomorrow or even fifty years from now. It's not even about SHIELD. It's about setting things in to motion with the hope that in the end, it makes a difference for the better. When the bad guys can live forever or melt your brain with a look, you get creative in your allies."

He offers her the binoculars.

The man below is going to town chopping fire wood and Darcy can't help herself, focusing in on the broad chiseled chest for a minute before moving up the binoculars to get a better look at his face. He doesn't seem like anything special. Though the sideburns he's sporting would get him noticed in any crowd. He continues to chop wood, one strong stroke cleaving the lumber cleanly in half. If he is aware of them, he's playing it off well or honestly doesn't care. Once the pile of wood has been decimated, he grabs his flannel shirt from the deck and wipes the sweat off his face with it.

Right before he goes inside, he looks up.

It doesn't matter that Darcy has the safety of distance on her side and a new firearm in her holster. The man looks right at her and gives her a wink that manages to be the most threatening action she has ever experienced.

She drops the binoculars and surprisingly Coulson manages to catch them before they hit the ground. "He looked at me." Darcy spit out, heart still pounding. "Like, I don't know but I'm pretty sure I'm traumatized."

"Trust me, improvement." With a hand motion he indicates they should get back in the car. "If we're both really lucky, we'll be around for the next drop in. I bet it only takes another ten years before I can try approaching the front door again."

~.~

Exactly three weeks later to the day, Darcy is waiting for Coulson by their shared black range rover. Oddly enough, they take the most secret-agent looking car for their adventures on Fridays instead of the POS vehicle they always seem to get assigned for their real missions.

She's busy playing on her phone and wondering what her partner has in store for her today when her other phone starts to ring. That never happens. She fumbles to get it out of her pocket, startled.

She's being assigned, officially, with her partner Agent Coulson. There isn't a location given, only that they are to report to hanger seven immediately for departure. No other details, just a name.

Before she can think, she's rushing to her room to grab her away bag – the bag every agent keeps packed but that she personally has left unused in the corner of her closet since her recruitment.

Only once she's sitting next to her grim faced partner waiting to depart does she fight down the rush of adrenaline enough to think to ask him; "What's 'Project Pegasus?"