(mostly open) There's things I don't ask...

[sorryitasedyou]

Who: Darcy, Infected, and you!
Where: All over the mansion
When: Event!
Rating: R - definite death up in here
Summary: Darcy fights the good fight until the good fight goes really really bad. But up to that point, #yolo?

The Story:

Day 1-4 » Out and About/Attempting to lay low:

[ She'd seen the posts on the networks, how weird things were getting. She'd heard the warning from the twins as well. It was more than enough for her to pull her shit together and make a plan. A plan that involved her staying as close to the first floor as possible. Which was fine for the first day or so, enemies were pretty easy to kill and weren't all that smart. But, of course, they got smarter and slowly moved beyond Darcy's skill level despite her 1+ years in training. There were just some things that she knew about herself and these banana monkeys needed her to be quiet.

Although that worked to a point, at least until she needed to move out of where she was holed up to check on a few things. If she caught a stray, she'd do what she could to perform a silent take down, brown curls moving under the strap of the gas mask with a lighter bounce than should be called for in this situation. Darcy fights the temptation to run towards the outside, knowing the beach or anything that exposed would be a death sentence... Besides, she'd already died once on the beach - no need to repeat history.

Maybe there was an ulterior motive to hanging on the ground floor, not that she'd admit it. She does make her way up to the 7th floor to check in, even stops in where Bucky used to have his safe room before making her way back down. She takes down the infected zombie that tries to grab her on the stairs fairly quickly, not looking for a repeat of previous events before deciding to just stay on the first floor. Honestly, it was the safest bet - or so she thought. At least for the first four days. ]

(feel free to find her lurking about and taking out a few of the easier ones to kill before they move up to Clicker level.)

Day 5 » Closed to Steve:

[ Darcy tended to pride herself on how much she'd grown in the past two years while here. Yes, circumstances weren't exactly ideal... But she'd made lasting bonds, such as her one with Steve. If someone had told her two years ago that she'd have managed to befriend Captain America, she'd have laughed in their face. But here they all were.

The event was hitting it's high point it seemed and Darcy had tried to stay close to the first floor to avoid situations involving stairs. She'd learned that much from when the mansion had gone HYDRA. If there were things actively trying to kill her, she wanted to have the advantage. When there's a lull in the hallway, she makes her way down to the coffee shop having always made a point to check in on it during every event. And that plan had been fine and dandy until she'd actually gotten there. The room was trashed, tables flipped and books everywhere. She manages to make her way to the room in the back when she realizes she's not alone. There's distinct clicking and she shouldn't, but she knows she can't handle this on her own. Pulling out her device, she whispers a message to the one person she knows would be able to help her right now; the one person who's gonna get just how much the coffee shop means to her. ]

Steve - they've wrecked the coffee shop. I'm -- [ The tears streaming down her face under the gas mask are almost audible, shaky breaths as she tries to stay in control. She stills in the back of the coffee shop, clicking sounds starting to come through before those sounds give way to a roar. That's new and new right now is terrifying. Before she can even try to whisper anything else, there's a loud crash accompanied by another roar right before her feed goes silent. ]

Comments

[assembles]

[ As the days have gone on, the spores have only spread, making it so that there's hardly any part of Wonderland someone can safely spend time in without having to wear a gas mask. Steve's heard of a number of safe areas -- the bar, the diner, one of the tea rooms -- and he can only hope that they haven't been compromised.

More than that, supplies are running low. The closets have grown less and less cooperative as the days have passed, probably because Wonderland wants to demonstrate what it would really be like to live in a post-apocalyptic world. Steve doesn't know if the filter in his gas mask is even doing its job anymore, but his hope is that by this point it won't matter anyway. The event has to be over soon, right?

For that reason he's been trying to hold out until the day changes over, but the Infected have only grown nastier over time. He's up on one of the top floors when his phone goes off.

Darcy's panicked, near to tears, and Steve can't even get a word in before the call cuts off. He doesn't know what that clicking sound was, but he doesn't like it. At least Darcy managed to get out where she was. He has no idea why she's hanging out down on the first floor, where the spore levels are so heavy, but he can't think about that right now. He just needs to get to her.

So he speeds down the stairs, sometimes leaping down whole flights of them. He has to put down some Infected on the way there, but for the most part he can avoid or outrun them.

The coffee shop is a complete mess, and at first Steve doesn't know where Darcy is, at least not until he hears a muffled cry from the back room. He maneuvers around the mess, and as he gets closer he hears that same clicking sound. He's not sure where Darcy is, but as soon as Steve sees the Infected, its entire head one putrid mass of fungus, he takes the chance to sneak up on it.

He slams his shield into the side of its head, causing it to let out a clicking screech as it reels to the side. ]

Darcy! I've got it! Get the hell out of here! [ Not that the hallway will necessarily be safer, but -- ]

[sorryitasedyou]

[ Call it Darcy logic, but she didn't want to wait for the zombies to come into her room and destroy her one actual safe place. And considering the fact that no place really felt like a safe place? And that they were seemingly coming out of the woodwork everywhere? No.

Okay, she maybe shouldn't have called for help. She shouldn't have checked on the coffee shop. She shouldn't have done a lot of things. But there was just something awful about waiting like a sitting duck that she couldn't do.

She catches a glance of Steve and that thing before he's yelling and everything is more awful than before. ]

Come back through this way - there's a door!

[ She probably shouldn't have yelled back, but thinking straight isn't exactly the time. She's moving after giving one last look before heading through to the connected training room... And it's not much better. There are more things everywhere and it's just getting worse. But, she might be able to make a break for it if she can get away. If she can do it without tripping. Oh god, this was bad - so bad. With a breath through the mask, she makes her first step into the other room when there's a new sound - a more violent sound. There was no time to think about it - she needed to run and she needed to run fast. ]

[assembles]

[ Steve finds Darcy by her voice, his heart pounding as it sinks in that she's okay for now. It doesn't look like that thing managed to get its claws into her, but it's not like there's much time to check her over. Later, once they're in the clear.

The clicker isn't quite out for the count yet, so Steve smashes his shield into what's left of its face, forcing it to the ground where it writhes around.

There's another door back here? He had no idea, but Steve doesn't pause to ask questions, racing after Darcy through the connecting passage into the training room. How had he never know about this?

It doesn't matter. There's a mass of them in here too, and before Steve can chart a safe way across, there's a loud thumping sound that causes the whole floor to vibrate. Then another. Are those... footsteps?

Shit. ]

Darcy, I'm gonna take out as many of these as I can. When you see a clear path to the door, just make a break for it, all right?

[ Three runners catch wind of them and then start racing in their direction, spurring Steve to place himself between them and Darcy as he lets his shield fly. ]

/slowly continues to fill up your inbox while I play hiatus catch up

[sorryitasedyou]

[ She'll thank Natasha for having had her add a secret door from the first time she'd been here later. Assuming they made it out of this alive.

There was something comforting in a way about this aspect of Steve. She'd fought hard to not put him on an idealistic pedestal of invulnerability because she knew it wasn't true. Bullets didn't exactly bounce off of him and she was about 99.99% sure he could still go down like the rest of them... But it's not something she's ever seen. So why start doubting now?

She feels the vibrations and it's enough to make her hesitate at the idea of running - of seeing what was waiting in the hallway. ] Room 23, meet me there. [ It was a loose idea of a plan, but it was a plan. A rehash of what had happened during the HYDRA event - do some quick thinking and make an impenetrable room - strong enough to last out the rest of the day or until there was an all clear to get upstairs. It doesn't take long for her to nimbly get through the path he'd cleared and to make it to the doors - her time with Natasha and Bucky paying off.

However, the thumping resumes and there's the sound of glass shattering from the windows of the coffee shop. And suddenly Darcy's hopes of making it down the hall a little ways aren't looking so good. While nothing had been pretty so far, it hadn't been quite this ugly.

Ugly and coming right for her. Well, this wasn't gonna be fun. ]

[assembles]

[ His shield manages to hit two of the runners, but the third one ducks out of the way. Steve doesn't know if that's luck or some kind of survival instinct, but either way, he's braced for the zombie when it gets to him.

Steve pulls the runner into a grapple, and while he can feel its claws piercing his forearm, his uniform is made of sturdy enough material that it doesn't tear. Steve flings the runner around, swinging it against the wall where it crumples into a hissing pile.

When he looks back to Darcy, he finds her standing in the doorway that leads out into the hall. She should be booking it to the room she'd mentioned by now, but she's frozen in place, her back straight like she just got a bucket of ice dumped down it.

There's another crash, and more heavy footsteps. ]

What is it?! [ Steve breaks into a run, racing toward Darcy and ducking away from the reaching hands of the infected all the while. He's faster than them, stronger than them. Yet as he's nearing Darcy one of them manages to grab him from behind, momentarily stalling him as he flings an elbow into its neck. ] Darcy!

[sorryitasedyou]

[ There are moments when adrenaline seems to make everything slow down. Where every second felt like a lifetime and sound was drowned out by the rapid beating of her own heart. She hears him the second time he speaks, turning from her fixated spot as fingers dig into her shoulder. Her own movements are quick, breaking the grab before her skin is broken and blocking its next attempts in rapid succession - a perk of having had two very good teachers and taking the best of each style. She drops to sweep a leg out, take the runner to the ground, before solidly kicking it in the face.

Part of her doesn't want to tell him what's coming, already consumed with an overwhelming amount of guilt about the situation. She wants to tell him to get out of here and run, to turn back time and pretend she'd never cared as much as she did. Pretend she hadn't ventured down because Jane wasn't answering her and she'd been worried about everything and not wanting to ask someone else to do it for her because it felt burdensome. Pretend she hadn't stopped off to check on the coffee shop because it was that important to her. ]

I don't know! It's big, like twice the size of these.

[ She was barely back on her feet and moving towards him when a clicker moved behind her to grab her shirt. It didn't last long, though, the feeling of the pulling gone as quickly as it had come as the clicker was pulled out of the room by a large arm if you could even call it that. There's very clear growls and clicks coming from just outside the doorway, Darcy already trying to book it back towards Steve... But not fast enough. The arm is back, along with the grotesque body it's attached to - snaking out to grab her by the hair and drag her out.

There's a bloodcurdling scream before the sound of a resounding crack as she's flung across the hall. She tries to ignore the pain as she slides to the floor from the wall she'd connected with - the force of the collision enough to dislocate her shoulder. She was so close to a door... If she could just reach it, maybe they'd be okay. She ignores the glass digging into her as she moves, leaving a trail of blood behind her. Fingers paw towards the doorknob, trying to reach it so she can turn it - giving a broken cry of blind panic, trying to succeed before she's grabbed again. ]

[assembles]

[ If it had been another situation, Steve would have taken the time to be impressed by Darcy's skills, by how much she's improved since she first got here and probably hadn't even know how to properly throw a punch. It had been mainly Bucky and Natasha who had trained her, so it's really no surprise that she knows what she's doing.

Even with the two of them fighting for their lives, though, there are certain things that they couldn't have prepared for. Like that giant, fungus-encrusted arm that reaches through the doorway to grab one of its own and pull it out of the way. Steve can extrapolate just from seeing the arm to imagine how big it is, and he can already guess that their odds aren't good. It's not quite as big as the Hulk, but it's close enough that Steve knows this is a fight that's closer to Thor levels.

Well, Steve's the one who's here and he's going to do whatever it takes to bring the thing down and allow Darcy a chance to get to safety.

At least, that's the idea, but neither of them are fast enough. The arm snatches her up and tosses her out into the hallway, the resulting thud definitely loud enough that Steve knows she must have broken something.

No, they have to get through this. He didn't come down here just to fail.

With a distorted roar, the Infected lumbers through the door, taking chunks of the wall around it with it, as it's simply too large to fit through normally. Steve flings his shield right at its face to get it angry, then starts backing away toward the center of the room. The more he can lead it away from Darcy, the better. He just has to hope that she's still conscious and capable of getting away on her own... ]

[sorryitasedyou]

[ It was one thing to think you're strong enough to fight through the pain. A fleeting 'what if' thought that most people have, overestimating their skills because they're confident. Two years ago, she'd have given into that call to darkness - all of this a little too much to handle. Sure, she's had near-death experiences before coming here... But it hadn't been anything like this. She'd managed to stay mostly out of harm's way and help from a somewhat safe distance.

And then Wonderland happened.

She knew she could struggle through it, even if this level of pain was new. While Hydra!Steve had certainly banged her up, his ultimate goal wasn't to kill her. She believed there was still some restraint in his actions because of that. The infected, though? She wasn't so sure. With the bloater distracted, she tries for the knob again - biting back a frustrated sob when she still can't reach. She needs to get herself more upright, needs to this. She needs to manage this for both of them. There's one last push as she tugs, picturing an impenetrable room for them. The door opens and she can almost taste the sweet relief. They were gonna be okay, right? ]

Steve! I got it - I got the door! C'mon, Ste--

[ And that's when it happens. One of the infected grab her by the throat, pulling her up the wall. She gives a scream of pain, a new burst of adrenaline causing her to swing her good arm and kick to try and get it off. But, it's not enough. There's another loud crack as her head's slammed back into the wall. The screaming stops and teeth sink into her jugular. Her body jerks as the infected gnaws and rips at her throat, blood flowing freely over her already ruined clothes. By the time her body slides back down the wall, she's dead - empty eyes open and fixated. The door's still cracked next to her, fingers listlessly falling into the gap.

So close, and yet. ]

[assembles]

[ Even with the thunderous noise that the bloater makes simply by existing, Steve still hears Darcy's voice calling out for him, a hint of triumph in her tone. She'd made it, she was going to get to safety, and right now that was all that Steve cared about.

Except then she got cut off mid-sentence (on his name), followed by a horrified scream. Steve goes tense, and even though the bloater is pissed and coming right for him, he can't stop himself from listening for what comes next. There's a sickening crack, and then Steve's stomach drops out on him as he realizes that something else must have gotten to her.

While Steve's sense of self-preservation isn't completely broken, it also isn't as solid as it should be. He'd allowed himself to get distracted by literally hearing Darcy die, and after that the fight isn't quite left in him. It doesn't help that his shield seems to do nothing to stop the bloater, even as he slams it straight into the thing's face.

He continues to evade the bloater's attacks, but it also keeps charging at him until Steve finds himself cornered against the wall. With no easy way to duck out of its way after that point, there's nothing Steve can do as it grabs him by the throat and hauls him up into the air.

The bloater's other hand reaches out for his jaw and, once its putrid fingers are lodged into his mouth, it pulls. Steve remains aware long enough to both hear and feel an agonizing snap, and then -- ]