FIC: Rule Number Nine (Avengers) Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers (Explicit) 1/3
Title: Rule Number Nine
Summary: "Darcy was right, Steve admits to himself later that day. He never has a date for anything."
Fandom: Avengers Movieverse
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Darcy Lewis
Rating: Explicit
Words: ~24,000
Spoilers: For solo movies only, as this was mostly written pre-Avengers.
Warnings: None that I can think of!
Availability: LiveJournal || Dreamwidth || AO3
Thanks: To musesfool and artemis2050 for betas and encouragement. <3 <3
Notes: This is for my fangirl BFF musesfool, because she wanted to read stories about ladies de-virginizing Steve, and I am accommodating like that. I wrote 99% of this story before the release of the Avengers movie, so it does not match up with canon in some respects.
Transformative Works Policy: Can be found here.
Posted: November 9th, 2012
Part One || Part Two || Part Three
Rule Number Nine
Steve notices Jane's friend Darcy right away, because he's always had a weakness for brunettes, and Darcy is smart and confident and sassy, which are all things that appeal to him. From the beginning she treats him-and all the other Avengers-like they're no big deal, but Steve supposes if the first Avenger she met was Thor, the rest of them really aren't any big deal at all. He likes her immediately, in the way he's always been drawn to pretty girls, feeling almost shy about it, and careful not to stare so she doesn't misinterpret his interest.
They see each other now and then, usually when there's some kind of group social thing, but eventually the Avengers all move into Tony's big fancy house, and Darcy is there sometimes. She even spends the night or the weekend once in a while, in the red bedroom at the back of the house, the one Tony calls the "small bedroom" and Darcy swears is bigger than her entire apartment. Steve comes across her in the kitchen making mugs of tea with Jane, in the den watching movies with Bruce and Natasha, in the garden jumping on the trampoline with Clint; she's around enough that it's not a surprise to see her, and they talk sometimes about nothing much in particular. She's part of life at Avengers Mansion, which is never going to be dull, Steve knows that for certain.
Then Tony's latest assistant quits. As long as Steve has known Tony, that job has been filled by a rotating cast of flustered people, both men and women, none of whom Steve ever sees more than twice. Which doesn't surprise Steve, exactly, knowing Tony. After the last one leaves in a fiery huff, Pepper and Jane get together and convince Tony to give Darcy, who is newly graduated from college and unemployed, the job.
Steve is surprised by this. He thought they liked Darcy.
~*~
Darcy is actually great at being Tony's assistant, as far as Steve can tell. He isn't completely sure what the job entails, though he does know that she spends some of her time updating Tony's official Facebook and Twitter accounts. Surprisingly, she lasts longer than a week, and she doesn't look like she wants to murder Tony every time Steve sees her, which may be a low standard for success, but that's Tony Stark for you. She's at the house a lot more, usually ambling along behind Tony or sitting at the huge wooden desk in Howard's old office, with pens sticking out of her hair where it's haphazardly pinned on top of her head, her cute little glasses sliding down her nose.
Tony talks really fast and says a lot of things that don't make any sense at all to Steve, but Darcy must be able to translate his rambles into instructions, because Tony seems happy with her. After a few weeks, Steve notices there's been a visible shift of power, and more often it's actually Darcy telling Tony what to do, rather than the reverse.
One Monday morning during Bruce's weekly pancake breakfast, Tony tries to wiggle out of giving a presentation that's been booked for months. Darcy doesn't look up from her pancakes-she barely even appears to be listening to Tony's transparent excuses, actually-and says, "Happy will be waiting with the car at 6pm tonight, Pepper will have you in the navy pinstripe suit, and the only choice you get to make is if you willingly get in the car or I send Thor to put you in it. You have three seconds to give me your answer."
Tony turns to Pepper, who is smearing raspberry jam on a pancake that nearly covers her entire plate, and says, "You were right. She's perfect."
~*~
Steve's room is next to Thor's, which Steve doesn't really mind, except, well. Thor and Jane have sex a lot. Thor is kind of loud, and seems to enjoy narrating the proceedings, so even though the house is expensively built and the walls are thick, sometimes Steve hears them anyway. Sometimes they even wake him up out of a sound sleep.
Steve is just about to while away a few hours reading by his window when the thumping sounds start next door, and it's not long before Thor begins describing what's going on, and good Lord, it's the middle of the day. Steve decides to take his book down to the sunroom, his second favorite reading spot, but when he gets there Darcy is sitting cross-legged in one of the chairs, flipping through what looks like Tony's mail. She smiles at him when she sees him hesitate in the doorway, and drops a big manila envelope on top of the one of the piles on the floor next to her chair. She's wearing her cute glasses and a T-shirt with a piece of cartoon sushi on it.
"Hey!" she says brightly, which always makes him feel good, like she's happy to see him, but she's usually happy to see everybody. Except Agent Coulson, who obviously did something in the past to get on her bad side. Steve's not sure what it was.
"Hi, Darcy," he says, unsure what to do. If he sits down and reads where she's working, will it seem rude? But if he walks away, obviously changing his mind about sitting in the sunroom after seeing her there, will that seem rude? He's always been so hopeless around women. Skull-faced Nazis are so much easier to deal with.
"Are you coming in?" she asks, raising an eyebrow at him. He waited too long to decide, and now she's noticed.
"I was going to read in here, but if you're working…" he trails off, hoping she'll give him a clue what to do.
"No, no, it's fine. Sit," she says, waving him in. Then she gives him a knowing look. "Jane just got back from Toronto," she says. "A little noisy in your room?"
"Yes," Steve manages to say. He'd rather not discuss it. Thankfully, Darcy doesn't continue with that uncomfortable line of conversation, because her phone makes a little noise, like a rooster squawking. She picks it up, frowns at it, and then types something, so fast her thumbs are almost a blur, and puts it back down. Steve grabs a spot on the chaise while she's doing that.
He doesn't get much reading done. While he doesn't mean to watch her work, she's more interesting than his book, and he can't seem to forget she's there. She talks to herself a lot, mutters scoldingly at people who aren't even there--mainly Tony--and chews on her lip and blows wisps of hair out of her eyes. Her phone keeps making the rooster noise every couple minutes, often enough that Steve guesses it's the ringtone she's assigned to Tony.
"So," she says, after a while. "Are you going to the Gotham Hall thing?" She doesn't look at him, just keeps sorting through a sheaf of papers in her hands, but Steve gets the feeling it's false casualness.
"I have to, I guess," he says. The Avengers are getting some kind of award, with a big fancy dinner and little glasses of champagne. And probably many embarrassing speeches. Steve really dislikes the speeches.
"Oh, good," Darcy says, looking relieved. "So am I, and since I don't have a date and you don't have a date, we can hang out together. Everyone else will be paired up."
"How do you know I don't have a date?" Steve asks, feeling a little stung by the assumption.
Darcy has the decency to look embarrassed, and he immediately feels bad for doing that to her. "Well-I thought-you usually don't-um, sorry? Do you?"
"No," he admits, and then laughs when she glares at him. "You, I guess," he adds, unable to stop himself from smiling at her.
"It's not a date!" Darcy says immediately, pointing at him with the papers. "We're just going to be in the same place together."
Steve holds his hands up in surrender. "Okay, not a date, got it," he says, still grinning, but he feels pretty good about it just the same. It'll be nice to have someone there he's supposed to sit with and talk to, rather than feeling like he's lost in a sea of strangers, or hovering around his friends.
"I'm sending an email right now," Darcy says, grabbing one of Tony's computer tablets off the floor, "so we get seated at the same table. We'll be with Thor and Jane and Clint and Natasha."
"All right," Steve says. He doesn't much care where they sit. "Are Clint and Natasha…together?" he asks once the email is sent, because he's been wondering that for a while. It's rude to gossip, but he honestly can't figure it out, and since they're all friends, he figures it's okay to ask Darcy.
"Well, you know," Darcy says, shrugging, which doesn't help at all. She's already absorbed in Tony's papers again.
"Not really," he says. That's why he asked.
"Oh!" She does a finger snap that ends with her pointing at him. "That's right! You probably don't know about fuckbuddies."
It feels like Steve's eyes bug out of his head when she says that word, and it must look a little like it, too, because Darcy winces apologetically. Steve still hasn't gotten used to the prevalence of casual profanity in modern culture. He can swear with the best of them-he was in the army, after all-but he usually needs a pretty good reason to drop the f-bomb. These days, it seems to be more of an adjective.
"No, I don't know about…that," he admits, feeling a little reluctant to hear more.
"It's when you're friends with someone and you have sex with them, but you're not a couple," Darcy says breezily. "I think that's what Clint and Natasha do when they aren't dating other people." She peers at him. "Are you shocked?"
"Not too much," he says honestly, and it really is true. It's not like sex didn't exist back in his day, and people were certainly having their share of it, whether married or dating or whatever. Steve used to say that Bucky was getting his share and Steve's. But being so casual and open about it is certainly not what he's accustomed to, though he'd probably be less put off by it if it were called something a little less crass.
"You'll get used to it," she says, and goes back to Tony's mail.
Steve's not quite sure about that, but he's willing to keep an open mind.
~*~
Darcy was right, Steve admits to himself later that day, once he's back in his own now-blessedly quiet room. He never has a date for anything. He's self-aware enough to realize it's becoming an issue.
It's not like he has any shortage of options-people, both male and female, are not shy about letting him know they're interested-but for a long time after he woke up he was still in mourning. What he had with Peggy wasn't in the distant past for him the way it was for everyone around him; it was yesterday, last week, two months ago. At the time, it was hard not to feel trapped between two different time periods, the past he desperately wanted to get back, and the future he was struggling to join, and sometimes it still seems like he's made a mess of both.
He's ninety-five years old, a war hero, an Avenger, and he's never done anything more than kiss a woman. The idea of admitting that to anyone is embarrassing, and so he's been avoiding it, and then the longer he avoids it, the more time passes and the more embarrassing it gets. He's going to die a virgin if he doesn't figure out a way to face it.
Which is a whole lot of leaps to take from going on a Not Date with Darcy, so he decides to think about something else.
~*~
What he doesn't anticipate, though, is that once they agree to go on their Not Date, it changes things a little. They talk a lot more, and sit next to each other on pancake day, and he notices all over again how pretty she is. He tries not to think about it too much, or focus on her more than he ought to, but now they have a thing that's just between the two of them, whereas before they simply shared a circle of friends, and he's enjoying it too much to try too hard.
The talking is nice, though, because one thing Steve values now more than ever is being able to have a conversation like a regular person. A lot of the people he meets now treat him like a celebrity or a curiosity, or want to flirt with him. Steve is bad at flirty banter, and he knows it.
Tony makes it look so easy, and he does it with everyone-with all the other Avengers, with waiters, with random people on the street, even with his robots-and it seems like every other word that comes out of his mouth has some kind of hidden sexual connotation. If Steve had to do that all day the pressure would drive him crazy. He appreciates that Darcy is enjoyable to be around and interested in what he has to say without making him feel like he has to come up with witty replies or watch out for double meanings all the time. It's the closest thing he's had to his friendship with Bucky since he came out of the ice.
Steve shares his black licorice with her when they watch movies, because she's the only other person in the house who likes it, and spots her on the trampoline when she practices doing mid-air somersaults. When the Avengers get offered-through a convoluted set of events involving a train derailment, a clown college, and ten thousand bees-the chance to tour an elephant sanctuary, he makes sure Darcy gets invited, too. As neat as the elephants are, Steve thinks watching her have the time of her life is nearly as fun.
Darcy gives him-with Tony's permission-a yellowed scrapbook she finds in the office, filled with fragile newspaper clippings about Captain America's WWII adventures, and grainy black and white photos of Steve and the Howling Commandos, everyone still young and strong and alive. She leaves him alone in the sunroom to page through it, hands shaking, heart lodged in his throat, and then comes back later with two bowls of mint chip ice cream, and shows him a video of otters holding hands, and doesn't say anything at all about his eyes being red.
~*~
There's a knock at his door one afternoon a few days before the Gotham Hall event, and Steve immediately puts down his book and goes to open it. He once made the mistake of simply calling out to whomever was knocking to come in, and ended up with Hulk and Volstagg in his room; he's never doing that again.
This time it's Tony. He's dressed in a suit, but his tie is missing and he's wearing sunglasses, even though he's in the house.
"Hey, you free?" Tony asks, not looking up from his phone. "We need to go jewelry shopping."
Steve thinks maybe Tony knocked on the wrong door. "We do?"
Tony finishes whatever he's doing and shoves his phone in his pocket, then finally looks up at him. "Yep. For Pepper and Darcy." When Steve stares at him blankly he adds, "For the Gotham Hall thing?"
Steve suspects he does a bad job of hiding his surprise that Tony knows about Darcy and the Gotham Hall thing. There's no reason it should be a secret, really-especially since everyone will see them there together eventually-but they've never discussed it in front of the others, and Steve's been careful about taking his cues from Darcy. "I…" he says, and then has no idea what else he intended to say.
"You are going with Darcy, right?" Tony asks, really slowly, as if Steve were three years old.
"Yes," Steve says. "Or, well. No. We're not going together. We're just going to be in the same place together." It's a distinction that seems important to Darcy, so he wants to make sure Tony knows about it.
"Uh huh," Tony says. He pulls his sunglasses down enough to look at Steve over the top of them, then pushes them back up. "Well, I have it on good authority she's wearing a black dress and red shoes, and has no expensive jewelry, so let's go. Bring your wallet."
The people at the jewelry store are thrilled to see Tony; it's Steve's experience that people in stores of any kind usually are. A balding man with a little round belly comes out of the back and makes a big fuss over Tony, clapping him on the shoulder while he shakes his hand, which Steve happens to know Tony hates. Several other employees immediately begin pulling out special pieces from the little cabinets under the display case, fluttering around Tony like excited birds while Steve hangs back, reluctant to be the focus of that much fawning.
Steve, who has never bought a piece of jewelry for a woman before in his life, has no idea what he's supposed to buy, so he wanders around and looks at everything, feeling increasingly confused. He notices nothing has a price tag on it. That can't be good.
Tony seems to be deep in the process of happily buying out the place within minutes, but Steve doesn't see anything that looks like Darcy would like it. All the necklaces-Tony said a necklace would be his best bet-seem too big or too small or too fancy or too boring. And he doesn't really know Darcy all that well, not like Tony knows Pepper. Tony may need Jarvis to remind him of Pepper's birthday, but the man can pick out jewelry for her like nobody's business. Steve knows this because Jane and Pepper both say so.
Another employee, this one a tall, graceful woman with the tiniest eyebrows Steve has ever seen, walks over to him, smiling and friendly. After introducing herself as Margot, she asks him what he's looking for, which doesn't really help, because he has no idea. Tony's got three necklaces, several pairs of earrings, and a pair of cufflinks on the counter already.
Steve says, "I need to buy something for my-"
"Date!" Tony yells.
"-for my friend," Steve corrects him.
Margot gives him a little smile, the kind that might be holding back a laugh. People make that face a lot when Tony and Steve go out in public together. "What is your friend like?" she asks.
Steve thinks about that for a second and then says, "Quirky."
"I would have gone with 'busty,'" Tony says from where he's trying on watches. Steve shoots him a disapproving look, which Tony either doesn't notice or plain ignores.
Margot still manages to not laugh. Steve gives her a lot of credit for this. She looks up at the ceiling for a second, tapping her finger on her chin, and then motions for him to follow her along the counter, which he obediently does until she stops and takes out a velvet tray of necklaces.
He knows exactly what he's going to get Darcy the minute he sees it: a silver chain with a sparkling red ladybug pendant hanging from it. Darcy has a scarf that has ladybugs on it, Steve's seen her wear it during the winter. And the necklace is red, which will match her shoes, which he assumes he's supposed to keep in mind.
After he points to it, Margot explains it to him in detail, something about diamonds and rubies and white gold and whatnot, but he just nods and says, "I'll take it." It's the only thing in the store he can picture on her. He hands over his credit card, because it's doubtful he has enough cash in his wallet to pay for it that way.
Tony wanders over and gestures at Margot as she's putting the necklace in a fancy box, and she obligingly hands it over for him to look at. Steve thinks he's going to scoff, or make fun of his choice, but Tony just says, "Good call." It's the least flippant Steve's heard him sound all day.
Tony isn't done yet, so Steve waits around while he decides to get some extra rings, two more watches and a money clip, even though Steve's never seen him carry actual money. The man behind the counter doesn't bother to tell him the total, and Tony doesn't bother to ask, just hands over his card. Steve didn't get his total either, so when he gets out to the car and looks at the receipt, he feels a little faint.
~*~
The night of the Gotham Hall event, Steve puts on his dress uniform with a little more anticipation than he usually feels when getting ready for an award ceremony, taking even more time than usual with the buttons and the medals and the way his shirt is tucked. He combs his hair and checks his shoes for the slightest speck of dust, and then carefully retrieves the necklace from his desk drawer. More nervous than the situation probably warrants, he combs his hair one more time and then tells himself to stop being ridiculous and leave already.
Darcy is spending the night at the house, so Steve waits patiently outside the red bedroom, leaning against the wall, trying not to fidget with the necklace box too much, until the door opens and there's Darcy in her dress, holding a really sparkly, really tiny red purse. She obviously didn't expect him to be waiting there, but smiles and says, "Oh, hey!"
Tony was well-informed about what Darcy was going to wear. Her dress is black and tight and seems very…well-constructed toward the top. A big portion of the back is entirely sheer, and the whole thing covers quite a bit of her while still managing to be more revealing than anything else he's ever seen her wear. It isn't exactly low-cut in the front, but, well. Steve makes himself look somewhere else before he gets caught staring.
Her shiny red shoes are a style he recognizes from his time, with little peep toes and dainty straps around her ankles. She's got her hair twisted into a pile on top of her head, but much more tidily than it usually is when she's just hanging around the house telling Tony what to do. Her lipstick is also red-another thing he likes, and will probably always like-and she's wearing delicate silver earrings, but no necklace, he's pleased to see. She looks beautiful.
"You look beautiful," he says, without really meaning to. Darcy actually seems a little embarrassed by the compliment, if the uncharacteristically shy smile is anything to go by; Darcy rarely looks shy. Steve belatedly wonders if compliments are allowed on Not Dates. He may have already committed a faux pas.
"Thanks. You look pretty nice yourself," she says, and thumbs the captain's bars on his jacket, which pleases him. He's proud of the bars, even if he doesn't always agree with the policies they represent nowadays.
"I got you this," he says, and holds the box the way Tony showed him, opening it so she can see what's inside.
Her eyes widen when she sees the necklace. "Oh, it's adorable!" she says, and when she looks up at him, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, their gazes lock for a second, and Steve feels his breath catch. For a moment he suddenly sees her like he's never seen her before, not as fun Darcy who's always around the house, but as someone else, someone both strange and familiar he'd like to know a lot better. He looks back down at the necklace in its box and hopes none of that shows.
She loves the necklace, and Steve is pretty proud of the job he did choosing it. When she turns around so he can put it on her, he's momentarily distracted by the back of her dress, and just how far down the sheer part of it goes. He tells himself again to keep his eyes up, but that turns out to be just as distracting.
The nape of her neck is pale and soft, and feathery wisps of hair tickle his fingers as he tackles the unexpectedly complicated job of getting the necklace in place. She smells really nice, too, of something slightly flowery. He manages to get the necklace on her, only fumbling the clasp a little-it's so tiny-and when he finally settles the chain against her neck, smoothing it lightly with one fingertip, he has an almost overwhelming urge to kiss her there, press his mouth to her silky skin and breathe her in for a moment. He takes a step back and clears his throat. "All done."
Darcy turns, two fingers touching the ladybug where it rests above her cleavage, and practically throws herself into his arms. He manages to keep them both on their feet as she hugs him around his neck and pecks him on the cheek. Once she lets him go, she supervises while he wipes the lipstick away with his handkerchief, both of them laughing.
When that's all done, he gives her his arm. She slips hers through it and says, "Off we go, Captain Rogers."
It's been a long time--nearly a century, even--since Steve's looked forward to an evening as much as he does this one.
~*~
The whole group rides over to Gotham Hall in several different cars, then congregates in a special room set aside for them, where they all tug at their nice clothes and adjust each other's ties. Thor is dressed in some kind of Asgardian ceremonial thing with an extra-long cape, though he appears to have left his helmet at home this time. Pepper is wearing a shimmery green dress, and an emerald necklace Steve recognizes from the day at the jewelry store. Tony gives Darcy and Steve an appraising look, checks out the ladybug, and gives Steve a thumbs up. The only two people who seem surprised to see Darcy with Steve are Clint and Bruce.
It's probably the least painful award ceremony Steve's been to since, well. Ever. There's a cocktail reception first, where he has to mingle and talk to people he doesn't know and doesn't particularly care to know, but Darcy sticks with him the whole time. She probably doesn't realize this is his least favorite part, and that having her at his side makes it a million times more tolerable, but that doesn't make him any less grateful for it.
He introduces her to everyone as Darcy Lewis, without any kind of qualifier like "friend" or "date," because that seems easiest; more than once, he sees other men give her an admiring glance. Jane and Pepper and Natasha-and probably Darcy herself-would give him a lecture to end all lectures if they knew he was succumbing to old-fashioned masculine pride, but he feels a bit smug all the same that Darcy is there with him.
They circulate as is expected of them, and talk to all the right people. Darcy knocks it out of the park, in Steve's opinion. He knows she's young, and that she hasn't been to many functions of this sort, but her naturally outgoing nature and her indifference to titles and positions that intimidate a lot of other people turn what's normally excruciating small talk into a source of entertainment. Steve finds himself unexpectedly charmed by her all over again.
He keeps his hand on the small of her back, gets her as many tiny glasses of champagne as she wants, and enjoys the feel of her arm bumping against his ribs as they talk to politicians and business people and military bigwigs. The reception part is over before he knows it.
Steve and Darcy are, as promised, at a table with Clint and Natasha and Thor and Jane. The food is the usual beautifully crafted stingy portions always served at these events, but the conversation at their table is lively, because anything that includes Thor is lively by default. Every once in a while Steve can't help but glance at Darcy, sitting next to him in her figure-hugging dress, wearing the necklace he bought for her, laughing and threatening to shove Thor's face into his wasabi mashed potatoes if he doesn't quit making bad jokes about his "hammer." At one point, Clint catches Steve staring down at the too-tempting swell of her cleavage, and winks at him.
The main course might have been nothing to get excited about, but dessert is cupcakes decorated in Avengers colors, and they are delicious. The server tries to give Steve a Captain America version, but he politely declines and takes a Hulk one, which is purple and green. Darcy's is Iron Man red and yellow, and Jane teases her about not being able to get away from her boss. Steve notices that Clint gives Natasha the cake part of his, and she gives Clint her frosting, without even discussing it. For a moment he's envious of the years they've had together, and all the things they know about each other, but that feels a little ungracious when he's had such a lovely time so far with Darcy, so he puts it out of his mind.
Finally, there's the award part, which includes the standard montage of Avengers news footage set to soaring music, and several tedious speeches that are mainly used to score points with the public in an election year. At least this time the award is just one very pointy crystal trophy rather than individual medals, so they all don't have to get up on stage. Tony accepts the pointy award on behalf of the Avengers and gives the thank you speech, which means he mostly just talks about himself in his usual hilariously arrogant way.
At one point during the speeches, Steve realizes he's got his arm across the back of Darcy's chair. She doesn't seem to care, so he leaves it there until Tony struts off the stage, high-fiving all the dignitaries clustered on the stage as he goes, and it's finally time to head home.
For what is surely the first time ever, Steve thinks a mandatory social function has ended too soon.
~*~
They're barely through the front door of the mansion before Tony announces he isn't nearly drunk enough yet, so they all go out to the back patio in their dressy clothes, where Tony makes huge drinks with sinister sounding names like "Kamikaze" and "Liquid Death." Everyone but Steve gets noticeably tipsy, there's the usual off-key singing of Asgardian drinking songs, and Steve kisses Darcy.
The kiss doesn't actually happen out on the patio in front of everyone, of course, or even right away. At first, Steve makes a concerted effort to stay away from Darcy-the award ceremony is over, which must mean their Not Date is over, too-but once everyone has a drink in their hand, she sits down next to him on the bench rocker and offers him a taste of hers. It's fairly awful.
She must like it fine, because she keeps drinking it as she takes off her shoes and tucks her feet under her on the rocker as best she can in her tight dress. Bruce and Pepper walk over and they all discuss the "Fury had a tonsillectomy yesterday" rumor that was going around the Gotham Hall thing, until Tony feels like he isn't getting enough attention and barges into the conversation.
The topic changes to something called Hungry Hungry Hippos, which Steve doesn't know anything about. Based on what they're saying, it might be one of those games people play on their phones, like the one with the angry birds, which is something Steve has very little interest in, so he pretends to follow the conversation while actually thinking about the way Darcy's bent knee is pressing against the side of his thigh, and the way her arm brushes against his every time she lifts her glass. It's not an unpleasant way to pass the time.
Tony's deadly drinks start to do their magic in earnest, and jackets and ties start coming off, and eventually Clint's in the pool, possibly naked. Natasha, Betty, and Pepper are bouncing on the trampoline in their expensive dresses while Bruce and Tony argue about some incomprehensible science stuff. Jane is sitting on Thor's lap, and his hand is starting to creep up her leg. It's likely Steve will be sleeping on the couch in the den again tonight.
Darcy sets down her empty glass and starts plucking at her hair, and once Steve realizes she's trying to take out the bobby pins that are still holding her hair up, he goes to work on them himself. There are a lot of them, and her hair-do is a lot more complicated than he realized, so it takes a while.
He drops the little pins into her hand one by one, and her hair slowly comes loose, falling down over her neck and shoulders in heavy waves. It's really soft and smells really good. When he's done, she rolls her head on her neck, and sighs dramatically. "Thanks. I was starting to feel like my skull was going to crack in half."
"You have a headache?" he asks. He hadn't realized wearing her hair like that could be uncomfortable. On impulse, he slides his fingers up along the tempting skin of her neck, skipping lightly over the necklace chain, and gently rubs the back of her head.
She leans into his touch and makes a purring sound that makes his belly do a little flip inside. "Oh, that feels good," she breathes. "Keep doing that." It's no hardship, so that's what he does for a while, working his way up to the top of her head and back down, then over to each temple, pausing at any particularly tender spots, until she finally settles against his side. "You better stop or I'm going to fall asleep," she says, half laughing and half yawning. His hand slides out of her hair and down around her shoulder, and he tugs her a little closer.
Darcy nearly falls asleep anyway, head tipped onto Steve's shoulder as he pushes his toes against the ground to keep the rocker moving just enough. Neither of them says anything much, but it doesn't feel awkward at all. It might be Steve's favorite part of the night so far.
Eventually the impromptu party starts to wind down, and it doesn't escape Steve's notice that everyone's breaking off into their original pairs again. Betty drags Bruce over to a chaise where they sit together and laugh at the photos Darcy's been posting to Tony's Facebook page all evening. Tony sits on the ground in front of Pepper's chair, heedless of his expensive tuxedo, and leans his head back so she can run her fingers through his hair. There's some laughing and splashing over by the pool, and a few seconds later Natasha chases Clint into the gazebo. Clint's still naked.
"I think that's our cue to leave," Steve says. Bruce and Betty must agree, because the words are barely out of Steve's mouth before they're up and gone.
"I think that's our cue to bust out the night vision goggles," Tony says, and then, "Kidding! I was kidding!" when Pepper pretends to grab him by the earlobe and haul him to his feet.
As Darcy sits up, yawning against the back of her hand, Steve reluctantly admits to himself that the evening really is over this time. The thought of going back to his room alone is a little depressing, but Darcy puts her shoes back on and looks at him expectantly, so he finds his tie and threads her arm through his. He'll walk her back to her room, at least.
When they get to her door, she hugs him again, for a long time. "Thank you," she says against his chest. She's a lot shorter than he is, even in her nice red shoes. He thinks he's probably hugging her a little too hard, and his hands are maybe a little too interested in exploring the silky back of her dress. It's like all the lines of their friendship are blurring and he can't tell if he's crossing them or not anymore.
He doesn't plan to kiss her, and definitely doesn't mean to, but he's been feeling a pull toward her all night, a pull he kept telling himself meant he was getting too invested in their date that isn't really a date, but with little success. He's maybe not very good at going on Not Dates.
She takes a step back and he reluctantly lets go, but then she looks up at him, and it's suddenly like he's on auto-pilot. He's not even sure how his arms get around her again, but they do. She leans in, lifting her pretty face up to his, and it just…happens. He bends his head and touches his mouth to hers, a kiss that's barely a kiss, and his brain tells him that's it, that's enough, let go of her, but he doesn't, because her mouth opens under his, teasingly slow, and now there's no denying that he's been wanting to do this all night, so he does.
He tentatively touches his tongue to hers and she responds instantly, the insistent heat of her mouth sending a tingle down his spine. He pulls her flush against him, nearly groaning when he feels the soft press of her breasts against his chest and the delicate edge of her shoulder blade under his fingers. One of her hands slides up the back of his neck, leaving goose bumps in its wake, and her fingers gently tug his hair, which feels surprisingly nice.
All of Steve's prior experiences with kisses have been rushed and too far in between, so with Darcy he takes his time and makes it count, holding her tightly against him and coaxing her mouth open a little wider. The kiss gets deeper and hungrier, and he feels like his whole body is lighting up, ready for more.
She breaks the kiss first, slowing it down, and turning it back into something light and teasing. Even though he'd like to do this longer-much, much longer-he follows her lead. When he opens his eyes, she's smiling up at him, a smaller, softer smile than he's used to seeing.
"I guess I wasn't supposed to do that," he says, after he clears his throat, but he doesn't feel very sorry, and he doesn't let her go.
"No?" She bumps her nose against his. "Why not? It was nice."
He's thrilled she thought it was nice. "Well, this isn't-we're not really on a date." Though he may as well admit at this point, at least to himself, that he wishes they were.
"No, we aren't," she says quietly, and even though he's known that all along, hearing her say it leaves him feeling inexplicably disappointed. "But, you know, we're both attractive people, and we're both single, so there's no reason why we can't…you know." She kisses him again, touching his upper lip lightly with her tongue, but just as he's about to say, yes, he'd love to, she tucks her face against his neck and says, "Be fuckbuddies."
It's probably a good thing she can't see his face, because it gives him a second to recover and figure out how he feels, which is a confusing mixture of thrilled and disappointed. For a second, he'd thought she was going to say she wanted to go on a real date with him, and he wants that. Oh, does he want that. That she doesn't is a letdown, there's no denying that. But she does want something with him, something he thinks he wants, too, like lots of kissing and…other things. Things she's offering.
"Okay," he says, impulsively, before he can talk himself out of it. He has one condition, though: "But only if we call it something else."
She huffs a laugh against his throat, which makes him laugh a little, too. He knows she probably thinks he's hilariously uptight, and he guesses he kind of is, but he doesn't really feel that way at the moment. Her fingers are still twisting in his hair, sending hot little sparks of sensation down the back of his neck. He'd probably say yes to a lot of things right now.
She pulls back a little and looks up at him, making a funny thinking face. "Hmmm. How about…fuddies? How's that?"
He thinks that isn't the greatest word either, but it's better than the alternative. "That's a little better," he concedes.
"All right. Let's shake on it," she says, and he sees the glint in her eye. He's not stupid, so he kisses her again; now that he's started he can't seem to stop. This time there's a lot more heat in it, maybe because now they both know this is going to go somewhere.
"Best handshake ever," she says fuzzily when they finally come up for air again. Her eyelashes flutter a little as she sways in his arms. Steve thinks he might be a pretty good kisser for a guy who's only done this a handful of times.
"So, uh, now what?" he asks. He's not sure if this means they're going to have sex right now or not.
"Come over to my place tomorrow," she says, nipping playfully at his chin, rubbing against him just enough for him to know it's on purpose. "We'll cut the ribbon on this thing. Sound good?"
"Sounds good," he says, relieved they'll be somewhere a little more private, even if it means waiting. He doubts he'll be as loud as Thor, but he's not sure he'd be completely comfortable knowing all their friends are nearby, and will probably realize what they're doing.
Her phone starts crowing at her from inside her little purse, and Steve reluctantly lets go of her again as she scowls and mutters, "Tony, I'm off duty, what are you doing?" She kisses him on the cheek before she goes into her room, then turns and takes a step back toward him and grabs him by the collar and pulls him in for another, less innocent kiss that leaves him dazed and blinking when she finally lets go of him. As she turns away, she takes her phone out of her purse and glares at it.
Steve had planned, back before the kisses, to tell her how much fun their evening together had been, and thank her for suggesting it in the first place, but all he can do now is grin at her like a fool as she winks at him and shuts the door behind her.
He stands there for a few seconds, waiting for the fog to clear from his brain, and then leans his forehead against the expensive wood of the door and wonders what the hell he just did.
Continued here.
Summary: "Darcy was right, Steve admits to himself later that day. He never has a date for anything."
Fandom: Avengers Movieverse
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Darcy Lewis
Rating: Explicit
Words: ~24,000
Spoilers: For solo movies only, as this was mostly written pre-Avengers.
Warnings: None that I can think of!
Availability: LiveJournal || Dreamwidth || AO3
Thanks: To musesfool and artemis2050 for betas and encouragement. <3 <3
Notes: This is for my fangirl BFF musesfool, because she wanted to read stories about ladies de-virginizing Steve, and I am accommodating like that. I wrote 99% of this story before the release of the Avengers movie, so it does not match up with canon in some respects.
Transformative Works Policy: Can be found here.
Posted: November 9th, 2012
Part One || Part Two || Part Three
Rule Number Nine
Steve notices Jane's friend Darcy right away, because he's always had a weakness for brunettes, and Darcy is smart and confident and sassy, which are all things that appeal to him. From the beginning she treats him-and all the other Avengers-like they're no big deal, but Steve supposes if the first Avenger she met was Thor, the rest of them really aren't any big deal at all. He likes her immediately, in the way he's always been drawn to pretty girls, feeling almost shy about it, and careful not to stare so she doesn't misinterpret his interest.
They see each other now and then, usually when there's some kind of group social thing, but eventually the Avengers all move into Tony's big fancy house, and Darcy is there sometimes. She even spends the night or the weekend once in a while, in the red bedroom at the back of the house, the one Tony calls the "small bedroom" and Darcy swears is bigger than her entire apartment. Steve comes across her in the kitchen making mugs of tea with Jane, in the den watching movies with Bruce and Natasha, in the garden jumping on the trampoline with Clint; she's around enough that it's not a surprise to see her, and they talk sometimes about nothing much in particular. She's part of life at Avengers Mansion, which is never going to be dull, Steve knows that for certain.
Then Tony's latest assistant quits. As long as Steve has known Tony, that job has been filled by a rotating cast of flustered people, both men and women, none of whom Steve ever sees more than twice. Which doesn't surprise Steve, exactly, knowing Tony. After the last one leaves in a fiery huff, Pepper and Jane get together and convince Tony to give Darcy, who is newly graduated from college and unemployed, the job.
Steve is surprised by this. He thought they liked Darcy.
~*~
Darcy is actually great at being Tony's assistant, as far as Steve can tell. He isn't completely sure what the job entails, though he does know that she spends some of her time updating Tony's official Facebook and Twitter accounts. Surprisingly, she lasts longer than a week, and she doesn't look like she wants to murder Tony every time Steve sees her, which may be a low standard for success, but that's Tony Stark for you. She's at the house a lot more, usually ambling along behind Tony or sitting at the huge wooden desk in Howard's old office, with pens sticking out of her hair where it's haphazardly pinned on top of her head, her cute little glasses sliding down her nose.
Tony talks really fast and says a lot of things that don't make any sense at all to Steve, but Darcy must be able to translate his rambles into instructions, because Tony seems happy with her. After a few weeks, Steve notices there's been a visible shift of power, and more often it's actually Darcy telling Tony what to do, rather than the reverse.
One Monday morning during Bruce's weekly pancake breakfast, Tony tries to wiggle out of giving a presentation that's been booked for months. Darcy doesn't look up from her pancakes-she barely even appears to be listening to Tony's transparent excuses, actually-and says, "Happy will be waiting with the car at 6pm tonight, Pepper will have you in the navy pinstripe suit, and the only choice you get to make is if you willingly get in the car or I send Thor to put you in it. You have three seconds to give me your answer."
Tony turns to Pepper, who is smearing raspberry jam on a pancake that nearly covers her entire plate, and says, "You were right. She's perfect."
~*~
Steve's room is next to Thor's, which Steve doesn't really mind, except, well. Thor and Jane have sex a lot. Thor is kind of loud, and seems to enjoy narrating the proceedings, so even though the house is expensively built and the walls are thick, sometimes Steve hears them anyway. Sometimes they even wake him up out of a sound sleep.
Steve is just about to while away a few hours reading by his window when the thumping sounds start next door, and it's not long before Thor begins describing what's going on, and good Lord, it's the middle of the day. Steve decides to take his book down to the sunroom, his second favorite reading spot, but when he gets there Darcy is sitting cross-legged in one of the chairs, flipping through what looks like Tony's mail. She smiles at him when she sees him hesitate in the doorway, and drops a big manila envelope on top of the one of the piles on the floor next to her chair. She's wearing her cute glasses and a T-shirt with a piece of cartoon sushi on it.
"Hey!" she says brightly, which always makes him feel good, like she's happy to see him, but she's usually happy to see everybody. Except Agent Coulson, who obviously did something in the past to get on her bad side. Steve's not sure what it was.
"Hi, Darcy," he says, unsure what to do. If he sits down and reads where she's working, will it seem rude? But if he walks away, obviously changing his mind about sitting in the sunroom after seeing her there, will that seem rude? He's always been so hopeless around women. Skull-faced Nazis are so much easier to deal with.
"Are you coming in?" she asks, raising an eyebrow at him. He waited too long to decide, and now she's noticed.
"I was going to read in here, but if you're working…" he trails off, hoping she'll give him a clue what to do.
"No, no, it's fine. Sit," she says, waving him in. Then she gives him a knowing look. "Jane just got back from Toronto," she says. "A little noisy in your room?"
"Yes," Steve manages to say. He'd rather not discuss it. Thankfully, Darcy doesn't continue with that uncomfortable line of conversation, because her phone makes a little noise, like a rooster squawking. She picks it up, frowns at it, and then types something, so fast her thumbs are almost a blur, and puts it back down. Steve grabs a spot on the chaise while she's doing that.
He doesn't get much reading done. While he doesn't mean to watch her work, she's more interesting than his book, and he can't seem to forget she's there. She talks to herself a lot, mutters scoldingly at people who aren't even there--mainly Tony--and chews on her lip and blows wisps of hair out of her eyes. Her phone keeps making the rooster noise every couple minutes, often enough that Steve guesses it's the ringtone she's assigned to Tony.
"So," she says, after a while. "Are you going to the Gotham Hall thing?" She doesn't look at him, just keeps sorting through a sheaf of papers in her hands, but Steve gets the feeling it's false casualness.
"I have to, I guess," he says. The Avengers are getting some kind of award, with a big fancy dinner and little glasses of champagne. And probably many embarrassing speeches. Steve really dislikes the speeches.
"Oh, good," Darcy says, looking relieved. "So am I, and since I don't have a date and you don't have a date, we can hang out together. Everyone else will be paired up."
"How do you know I don't have a date?" Steve asks, feeling a little stung by the assumption.
Darcy has the decency to look embarrassed, and he immediately feels bad for doing that to her. "Well-I thought-you usually don't-um, sorry? Do you?"
"No," he admits, and then laughs when she glares at him. "You, I guess," he adds, unable to stop himself from smiling at her.
"It's not a date!" Darcy says immediately, pointing at him with the papers. "We're just going to be in the same place together."
Steve holds his hands up in surrender. "Okay, not a date, got it," he says, still grinning, but he feels pretty good about it just the same. It'll be nice to have someone there he's supposed to sit with and talk to, rather than feeling like he's lost in a sea of strangers, or hovering around his friends.
"I'm sending an email right now," Darcy says, grabbing one of Tony's computer tablets off the floor, "so we get seated at the same table. We'll be with Thor and Jane and Clint and Natasha."
"All right," Steve says. He doesn't much care where they sit. "Are Clint and Natasha…together?" he asks once the email is sent, because he's been wondering that for a while. It's rude to gossip, but he honestly can't figure it out, and since they're all friends, he figures it's okay to ask Darcy.
"Well, you know," Darcy says, shrugging, which doesn't help at all. She's already absorbed in Tony's papers again.
"Not really," he says. That's why he asked.
"Oh!" She does a finger snap that ends with her pointing at him. "That's right! You probably don't know about fuckbuddies."
It feels like Steve's eyes bug out of his head when she says that word, and it must look a little like it, too, because Darcy winces apologetically. Steve still hasn't gotten used to the prevalence of casual profanity in modern culture. He can swear with the best of them-he was in the army, after all-but he usually needs a pretty good reason to drop the f-bomb. These days, it seems to be more of an adjective.
"No, I don't know about…that," he admits, feeling a little reluctant to hear more.
"It's when you're friends with someone and you have sex with them, but you're not a couple," Darcy says breezily. "I think that's what Clint and Natasha do when they aren't dating other people." She peers at him. "Are you shocked?"
"Not too much," he says honestly, and it really is true. It's not like sex didn't exist back in his day, and people were certainly having their share of it, whether married or dating or whatever. Steve used to say that Bucky was getting his share and Steve's. But being so casual and open about it is certainly not what he's accustomed to, though he'd probably be less put off by it if it were called something a little less crass.
"You'll get used to it," she says, and goes back to Tony's mail.
Steve's not quite sure about that, but he's willing to keep an open mind.
~*~
Darcy was right, Steve admits to himself later that day, once he's back in his own now-blessedly quiet room. He never has a date for anything. He's self-aware enough to realize it's becoming an issue.
It's not like he has any shortage of options-people, both male and female, are not shy about letting him know they're interested-but for a long time after he woke up he was still in mourning. What he had with Peggy wasn't in the distant past for him the way it was for everyone around him; it was yesterday, last week, two months ago. At the time, it was hard not to feel trapped between two different time periods, the past he desperately wanted to get back, and the future he was struggling to join, and sometimes it still seems like he's made a mess of both.
He's ninety-five years old, a war hero, an Avenger, and he's never done anything more than kiss a woman. The idea of admitting that to anyone is embarrassing, and so he's been avoiding it, and then the longer he avoids it, the more time passes and the more embarrassing it gets. He's going to die a virgin if he doesn't figure out a way to face it.
Which is a whole lot of leaps to take from going on a Not Date with Darcy, so he decides to think about something else.
~*~
What he doesn't anticipate, though, is that once they agree to go on their Not Date, it changes things a little. They talk a lot more, and sit next to each other on pancake day, and he notices all over again how pretty she is. He tries not to think about it too much, or focus on her more than he ought to, but now they have a thing that's just between the two of them, whereas before they simply shared a circle of friends, and he's enjoying it too much to try too hard.
The talking is nice, though, because one thing Steve values now more than ever is being able to have a conversation like a regular person. A lot of the people he meets now treat him like a celebrity or a curiosity, or want to flirt with him. Steve is bad at flirty banter, and he knows it.
Tony makes it look so easy, and he does it with everyone-with all the other Avengers, with waiters, with random people on the street, even with his robots-and it seems like every other word that comes out of his mouth has some kind of hidden sexual connotation. If Steve had to do that all day the pressure would drive him crazy. He appreciates that Darcy is enjoyable to be around and interested in what he has to say without making him feel like he has to come up with witty replies or watch out for double meanings all the time. It's the closest thing he's had to his friendship with Bucky since he came out of the ice.
Steve shares his black licorice with her when they watch movies, because she's the only other person in the house who likes it, and spots her on the trampoline when she practices doing mid-air somersaults. When the Avengers get offered-through a convoluted set of events involving a train derailment, a clown college, and ten thousand bees-the chance to tour an elephant sanctuary, he makes sure Darcy gets invited, too. As neat as the elephants are, Steve thinks watching her have the time of her life is nearly as fun.
Darcy gives him-with Tony's permission-a yellowed scrapbook she finds in the office, filled with fragile newspaper clippings about Captain America's WWII adventures, and grainy black and white photos of Steve and the Howling Commandos, everyone still young and strong and alive. She leaves him alone in the sunroom to page through it, hands shaking, heart lodged in his throat, and then comes back later with two bowls of mint chip ice cream, and shows him a video of otters holding hands, and doesn't say anything at all about his eyes being red.
~*~
There's a knock at his door one afternoon a few days before the Gotham Hall event, and Steve immediately puts down his book and goes to open it. He once made the mistake of simply calling out to whomever was knocking to come in, and ended up with Hulk and Volstagg in his room; he's never doing that again.
This time it's Tony. He's dressed in a suit, but his tie is missing and he's wearing sunglasses, even though he's in the house.
"Hey, you free?" Tony asks, not looking up from his phone. "We need to go jewelry shopping."
Steve thinks maybe Tony knocked on the wrong door. "We do?"
Tony finishes whatever he's doing and shoves his phone in his pocket, then finally looks up at him. "Yep. For Pepper and Darcy." When Steve stares at him blankly he adds, "For the Gotham Hall thing?"
Steve suspects he does a bad job of hiding his surprise that Tony knows about Darcy and the Gotham Hall thing. There's no reason it should be a secret, really-especially since everyone will see them there together eventually-but they've never discussed it in front of the others, and Steve's been careful about taking his cues from Darcy. "I…" he says, and then has no idea what else he intended to say.
"You are going with Darcy, right?" Tony asks, really slowly, as if Steve were three years old.
"Yes," Steve says. "Or, well. No. We're not going together. We're just going to be in the same place together." It's a distinction that seems important to Darcy, so he wants to make sure Tony knows about it.
"Uh huh," Tony says. He pulls his sunglasses down enough to look at Steve over the top of them, then pushes them back up. "Well, I have it on good authority she's wearing a black dress and red shoes, and has no expensive jewelry, so let's go. Bring your wallet."
The people at the jewelry store are thrilled to see Tony; it's Steve's experience that people in stores of any kind usually are. A balding man with a little round belly comes out of the back and makes a big fuss over Tony, clapping him on the shoulder while he shakes his hand, which Steve happens to know Tony hates. Several other employees immediately begin pulling out special pieces from the little cabinets under the display case, fluttering around Tony like excited birds while Steve hangs back, reluctant to be the focus of that much fawning.
Steve, who has never bought a piece of jewelry for a woman before in his life, has no idea what he's supposed to buy, so he wanders around and looks at everything, feeling increasingly confused. He notices nothing has a price tag on it. That can't be good.
Tony seems to be deep in the process of happily buying out the place within minutes, but Steve doesn't see anything that looks like Darcy would like it. All the necklaces-Tony said a necklace would be his best bet-seem too big or too small or too fancy or too boring. And he doesn't really know Darcy all that well, not like Tony knows Pepper. Tony may need Jarvis to remind him of Pepper's birthday, but the man can pick out jewelry for her like nobody's business. Steve knows this because Jane and Pepper both say so.
Another employee, this one a tall, graceful woman with the tiniest eyebrows Steve has ever seen, walks over to him, smiling and friendly. After introducing herself as Margot, she asks him what he's looking for, which doesn't really help, because he has no idea. Tony's got three necklaces, several pairs of earrings, and a pair of cufflinks on the counter already.
Steve says, "I need to buy something for my-"
"Date!" Tony yells.
"-for my friend," Steve corrects him.
Margot gives him a little smile, the kind that might be holding back a laugh. People make that face a lot when Tony and Steve go out in public together. "What is your friend like?" she asks.
Steve thinks about that for a second and then says, "Quirky."
"I would have gone with 'busty,'" Tony says from where he's trying on watches. Steve shoots him a disapproving look, which Tony either doesn't notice or plain ignores.
Margot still manages to not laugh. Steve gives her a lot of credit for this. She looks up at the ceiling for a second, tapping her finger on her chin, and then motions for him to follow her along the counter, which he obediently does until she stops and takes out a velvet tray of necklaces.
He knows exactly what he's going to get Darcy the minute he sees it: a silver chain with a sparkling red ladybug pendant hanging from it. Darcy has a scarf that has ladybugs on it, Steve's seen her wear it during the winter. And the necklace is red, which will match her shoes, which he assumes he's supposed to keep in mind.
After he points to it, Margot explains it to him in detail, something about diamonds and rubies and white gold and whatnot, but he just nods and says, "I'll take it." It's the only thing in the store he can picture on her. He hands over his credit card, because it's doubtful he has enough cash in his wallet to pay for it that way.
Tony wanders over and gestures at Margot as she's putting the necklace in a fancy box, and she obligingly hands it over for him to look at. Steve thinks he's going to scoff, or make fun of his choice, but Tony just says, "Good call." It's the least flippant Steve's heard him sound all day.
Tony isn't done yet, so Steve waits around while he decides to get some extra rings, two more watches and a money clip, even though Steve's never seen him carry actual money. The man behind the counter doesn't bother to tell him the total, and Tony doesn't bother to ask, just hands over his card. Steve didn't get his total either, so when he gets out to the car and looks at the receipt, he feels a little faint.
~*~
The night of the Gotham Hall event, Steve puts on his dress uniform with a little more anticipation than he usually feels when getting ready for an award ceremony, taking even more time than usual with the buttons and the medals and the way his shirt is tucked. He combs his hair and checks his shoes for the slightest speck of dust, and then carefully retrieves the necklace from his desk drawer. More nervous than the situation probably warrants, he combs his hair one more time and then tells himself to stop being ridiculous and leave already.
Darcy is spending the night at the house, so Steve waits patiently outside the red bedroom, leaning against the wall, trying not to fidget with the necklace box too much, until the door opens and there's Darcy in her dress, holding a really sparkly, really tiny red purse. She obviously didn't expect him to be waiting there, but smiles and says, "Oh, hey!"
Tony was well-informed about what Darcy was going to wear. Her dress is black and tight and seems very…well-constructed toward the top. A big portion of the back is entirely sheer, and the whole thing covers quite a bit of her while still managing to be more revealing than anything else he's ever seen her wear. It isn't exactly low-cut in the front, but, well. Steve makes himself look somewhere else before he gets caught staring.
Her shiny red shoes are a style he recognizes from his time, with little peep toes and dainty straps around her ankles. She's got her hair twisted into a pile on top of her head, but much more tidily than it usually is when she's just hanging around the house telling Tony what to do. Her lipstick is also red-another thing he likes, and will probably always like-and she's wearing delicate silver earrings, but no necklace, he's pleased to see. She looks beautiful.
"You look beautiful," he says, without really meaning to. Darcy actually seems a little embarrassed by the compliment, if the uncharacteristically shy smile is anything to go by; Darcy rarely looks shy. Steve belatedly wonders if compliments are allowed on Not Dates. He may have already committed a faux pas.
"Thanks. You look pretty nice yourself," she says, and thumbs the captain's bars on his jacket, which pleases him. He's proud of the bars, even if he doesn't always agree with the policies they represent nowadays.
"I got you this," he says, and holds the box the way Tony showed him, opening it so she can see what's inside.
Her eyes widen when she sees the necklace. "Oh, it's adorable!" she says, and when she looks up at him, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, their gazes lock for a second, and Steve feels his breath catch. For a moment he suddenly sees her like he's never seen her before, not as fun Darcy who's always around the house, but as someone else, someone both strange and familiar he'd like to know a lot better. He looks back down at the necklace in its box and hopes none of that shows.
She loves the necklace, and Steve is pretty proud of the job he did choosing it. When she turns around so he can put it on her, he's momentarily distracted by the back of her dress, and just how far down the sheer part of it goes. He tells himself again to keep his eyes up, but that turns out to be just as distracting.
The nape of her neck is pale and soft, and feathery wisps of hair tickle his fingers as he tackles the unexpectedly complicated job of getting the necklace in place. She smells really nice, too, of something slightly flowery. He manages to get the necklace on her, only fumbling the clasp a little-it's so tiny-and when he finally settles the chain against her neck, smoothing it lightly with one fingertip, he has an almost overwhelming urge to kiss her there, press his mouth to her silky skin and breathe her in for a moment. He takes a step back and clears his throat. "All done."
Darcy turns, two fingers touching the ladybug where it rests above her cleavage, and practically throws herself into his arms. He manages to keep them both on their feet as she hugs him around his neck and pecks him on the cheek. Once she lets him go, she supervises while he wipes the lipstick away with his handkerchief, both of them laughing.
When that's all done, he gives her his arm. She slips hers through it and says, "Off we go, Captain Rogers."
It's been a long time--nearly a century, even--since Steve's looked forward to an evening as much as he does this one.
~*~
The whole group rides over to Gotham Hall in several different cars, then congregates in a special room set aside for them, where they all tug at their nice clothes and adjust each other's ties. Thor is dressed in some kind of Asgardian ceremonial thing with an extra-long cape, though he appears to have left his helmet at home this time. Pepper is wearing a shimmery green dress, and an emerald necklace Steve recognizes from the day at the jewelry store. Tony gives Darcy and Steve an appraising look, checks out the ladybug, and gives Steve a thumbs up. The only two people who seem surprised to see Darcy with Steve are Clint and Bruce.
It's probably the least painful award ceremony Steve's been to since, well. Ever. There's a cocktail reception first, where he has to mingle and talk to people he doesn't know and doesn't particularly care to know, but Darcy sticks with him the whole time. She probably doesn't realize this is his least favorite part, and that having her at his side makes it a million times more tolerable, but that doesn't make him any less grateful for it.
He introduces her to everyone as Darcy Lewis, without any kind of qualifier like "friend" or "date," because that seems easiest; more than once, he sees other men give her an admiring glance. Jane and Pepper and Natasha-and probably Darcy herself-would give him a lecture to end all lectures if they knew he was succumbing to old-fashioned masculine pride, but he feels a bit smug all the same that Darcy is there with him.
They circulate as is expected of them, and talk to all the right people. Darcy knocks it out of the park, in Steve's opinion. He knows she's young, and that she hasn't been to many functions of this sort, but her naturally outgoing nature and her indifference to titles and positions that intimidate a lot of other people turn what's normally excruciating small talk into a source of entertainment. Steve finds himself unexpectedly charmed by her all over again.
He keeps his hand on the small of her back, gets her as many tiny glasses of champagne as she wants, and enjoys the feel of her arm bumping against his ribs as they talk to politicians and business people and military bigwigs. The reception part is over before he knows it.
Steve and Darcy are, as promised, at a table with Clint and Natasha and Thor and Jane. The food is the usual beautifully crafted stingy portions always served at these events, but the conversation at their table is lively, because anything that includes Thor is lively by default. Every once in a while Steve can't help but glance at Darcy, sitting next to him in her figure-hugging dress, wearing the necklace he bought for her, laughing and threatening to shove Thor's face into his wasabi mashed potatoes if he doesn't quit making bad jokes about his "hammer." At one point, Clint catches Steve staring down at the too-tempting swell of her cleavage, and winks at him.
The main course might have been nothing to get excited about, but dessert is cupcakes decorated in Avengers colors, and they are delicious. The server tries to give Steve a Captain America version, but he politely declines and takes a Hulk one, which is purple and green. Darcy's is Iron Man red and yellow, and Jane teases her about not being able to get away from her boss. Steve notices that Clint gives Natasha the cake part of his, and she gives Clint her frosting, without even discussing it. For a moment he's envious of the years they've had together, and all the things they know about each other, but that feels a little ungracious when he's had such a lovely time so far with Darcy, so he puts it out of his mind.
Finally, there's the award part, which includes the standard montage of Avengers news footage set to soaring music, and several tedious speeches that are mainly used to score points with the public in an election year. At least this time the award is just one very pointy crystal trophy rather than individual medals, so they all don't have to get up on stage. Tony accepts the pointy award on behalf of the Avengers and gives the thank you speech, which means he mostly just talks about himself in his usual hilariously arrogant way.
At one point during the speeches, Steve realizes he's got his arm across the back of Darcy's chair. She doesn't seem to care, so he leaves it there until Tony struts off the stage, high-fiving all the dignitaries clustered on the stage as he goes, and it's finally time to head home.
For what is surely the first time ever, Steve thinks a mandatory social function has ended too soon.
~*~
They're barely through the front door of the mansion before Tony announces he isn't nearly drunk enough yet, so they all go out to the back patio in their dressy clothes, where Tony makes huge drinks with sinister sounding names like "Kamikaze" and "Liquid Death." Everyone but Steve gets noticeably tipsy, there's the usual off-key singing of Asgardian drinking songs, and Steve kisses Darcy.
The kiss doesn't actually happen out on the patio in front of everyone, of course, or even right away. At first, Steve makes a concerted effort to stay away from Darcy-the award ceremony is over, which must mean their Not Date is over, too-but once everyone has a drink in their hand, she sits down next to him on the bench rocker and offers him a taste of hers. It's fairly awful.
She must like it fine, because she keeps drinking it as she takes off her shoes and tucks her feet under her on the rocker as best she can in her tight dress. Bruce and Pepper walk over and they all discuss the "Fury had a tonsillectomy yesterday" rumor that was going around the Gotham Hall thing, until Tony feels like he isn't getting enough attention and barges into the conversation.
The topic changes to something called Hungry Hungry Hippos, which Steve doesn't know anything about. Based on what they're saying, it might be one of those games people play on their phones, like the one with the angry birds, which is something Steve has very little interest in, so he pretends to follow the conversation while actually thinking about the way Darcy's bent knee is pressing against the side of his thigh, and the way her arm brushes against his every time she lifts her glass. It's not an unpleasant way to pass the time.
Tony's deadly drinks start to do their magic in earnest, and jackets and ties start coming off, and eventually Clint's in the pool, possibly naked. Natasha, Betty, and Pepper are bouncing on the trampoline in their expensive dresses while Bruce and Tony argue about some incomprehensible science stuff. Jane is sitting on Thor's lap, and his hand is starting to creep up her leg. It's likely Steve will be sleeping on the couch in the den again tonight.
Darcy sets down her empty glass and starts plucking at her hair, and once Steve realizes she's trying to take out the bobby pins that are still holding her hair up, he goes to work on them himself. There are a lot of them, and her hair-do is a lot more complicated than he realized, so it takes a while.
He drops the little pins into her hand one by one, and her hair slowly comes loose, falling down over her neck and shoulders in heavy waves. It's really soft and smells really good. When he's done, she rolls her head on her neck, and sighs dramatically. "Thanks. I was starting to feel like my skull was going to crack in half."
"You have a headache?" he asks. He hadn't realized wearing her hair like that could be uncomfortable. On impulse, he slides his fingers up along the tempting skin of her neck, skipping lightly over the necklace chain, and gently rubs the back of her head.
She leans into his touch and makes a purring sound that makes his belly do a little flip inside. "Oh, that feels good," she breathes. "Keep doing that." It's no hardship, so that's what he does for a while, working his way up to the top of her head and back down, then over to each temple, pausing at any particularly tender spots, until she finally settles against his side. "You better stop or I'm going to fall asleep," she says, half laughing and half yawning. His hand slides out of her hair and down around her shoulder, and he tugs her a little closer.
Darcy nearly falls asleep anyway, head tipped onto Steve's shoulder as he pushes his toes against the ground to keep the rocker moving just enough. Neither of them says anything much, but it doesn't feel awkward at all. It might be Steve's favorite part of the night so far.
Eventually the impromptu party starts to wind down, and it doesn't escape Steve's notice that everyone's breaking off into their original pairs again. Betty drags Bruce over to a chaise where they sit together and laugh at the photos Darcy's been posting to Tony's Facebook page all evening. Tony sits on the ground in front of Pepper's chair, heedless of his expensive tuxedo, and leans his head back so she can run her fingers through his hair. There's some laughing and splashing over by the pool, and a few seconds later Natasha chases Clint into the gazebo. Clint's still naked.
"I think that's our cue to leave," Steve says. Bruce and Betty must agree, because the words are barely out of Steve's mouth before they're up and gone.
"I think that's our cue to bust out the night vision goggles," Tony says, and then, "Kidding! I was kidding!" when Pepper pretends to grab him by the earlobe and haul him to his feet.
As Darcy sits up, yawning against the back of her hand, Steve reluctantly admits to himself that the evening really is over this time. The thought of going back to his room alone is a little depressing, but Darcy puts her shoes back on and looks at him expectantly, so he finds his tie and threads her arm through his. He'll walk her back to her room, at least.
When they get to her door, she hugs him again, for a long time. "Thank you," she says against his chest. She's a lot shorter than he is, even in her nice red shoes. He thinks he's probably hugging her a little too hard, and his hands are maybe a little too interested in exploring the silky back of her dress. It's like all the lines of their friendship are blurring and he can't tell if he's crossing them or not anymore.
He doesn't plan to kiss her, and definitely doesn't mean to, but he's been feeling a pull toward her all night, a pull he kept telling himself meant he was getting too invested in their date that isn't really a date, but with little success. He's maybe not very good at going on Not Dates.
She takes a step back and he reluctantly lets go, but then she looks up at him, and it's suddenly like he's on auto-pilot. He's not even sure how his arms get around her again, but they do. She leans in, lifting her pretty face up to his, and it just…happens. He bends his head and touches his mouth to hers, a kiss that's barely a kiss, and his brain tells him that's it, that's enough, let go of her, but he doesn't, because her mouth opens under his, teasingly slow, and now there's no denying that he's been wanting to do this all night, so he does.
He tentatively touches his tongue to hers and she responds instantly, the insistent heat of her mouth sending a tingle down his spine. He pulls her flush against him, nearly groaning when he feels the soft press of her breasts against his chest and the delicate edge of her shoulder blade under his fingers. One of her hands slides up the back of his neck, leaving goose bumps in its wake, and her fingers gently tug his hair, which feels surprisingly nice.
All of Steve's prior experiences with kisses have been rushed and too far in between, so with Darcy he takes his time and makes it count, holding her tightly against him and coaxing her mouth open a little wider. The kiss gets deeper and hungrier, and he feels like his whole body is lighting up, ready for more.
She breaks the kiss first, slowing it down, and turning it back into something light and teasing. Even though he'd like to do this longer-much, much longer-he follows her lead. When he opens his eyes, she's smiling up at him, a smaller, softer smile than he's used to seeing.
"I guess I wasn't supposed to do that," he says, after he clears his throat, but he doesn't feel very sorry, and he doesn't let her go.
"No?" She bumps her nose against his. "Why not? It was nice."
He's thrilled she thought it was nice. "Well, this isn't-we're not really on a date." Though he may as well admit at this point, at least to himself, that he wishes they were.
"No, we aren't," she says quietly, and even though he's known that all along, hearing her say it leaves him feeling inexplicably disappointed. "But, you know, we're both attractive people, and we're both single, so there's no reason why we can't…you know." She kisses him again, touching his upper lip lightly with her tongue, but just as he's about to say, yes, he'd love to, she tucks her face against his neck and says, "Be fuckbuddies."
It's probably a good thing she can't see his face, because it gives him a second to recover and figure out how he feels, which is a confusing mixture of thrilled and disappointed. For a second, he'd thought she was going to say she wanted to go on a real date with him, and he wants that. Oh, does he want that. That she doesn't is a letdown, there's no denying that. But she does want something with him, something he thinks he wants, too, like lots of kissing and…other things. Things she's offering.
"Okay," he says, impulsively, before he can talk himself out of it. He has one condition, though: "But only if we call it something else."
She huffs a laugh against his throat, which makes him laugh a little, too. He knows she probably thinks he's hilariously uptight, and he guesses he kind of is, but he doesn't really feel that way at the moment. Her fingers are still twisting in his hair, sending hot little sparks of sensation down the back of his neck. He'd probably say yes to a lot of things right now.
She pulls back a little and looks up at him, making a funny thinking face. "Hmmm. How about…fuddies? How's that?"
He thinks that isn't the greatest word either, but it's better than the alternative. "That's a little better," he concedes.
"All right. Let's shake on it," she says, and he sees the glint in her eye. He's not stupid, so he kisses her again; now that he's started he can't seem to stop. This time there's a lot more heat in it, maybe because now they both know this is going to go somewhere.
"Best handshake ever," she says fuzzily when they finally come up for air again. Her eyelashes flutter a little as she sways in his arms. Steve thinks he might be a pretty good kisser for a guy who's only done this a handful of times.
"So, uh, now what?" he asks. He's not sure if this means they're going to have sex right now or not.
"Come over to my place tomorrow," she says, nipping playfully at his chin, rubbing against him just enough for him to know it's on purpose. "We'll cut the ribbon on this thing. Sound good?"
"Sounds good," he says, relieved they'll be somewhere a little more private, even if it means waiting. He doubts he'll be as loud as Thor, but he's not sure he'd be completely comfortable knowing all their friends are nearby, and will probably realize what they're doing.
Her phone starts crowing at her from inside her little purse, and Steve reluctantly lets go of her again as she scowls and mutters, "Tony, I'm off duty, what are you doing?" She kisses him on the cheek before she goes into her room, then turns and takes a step back toward him and grabs him by the collar and pulls him in for another, less innocent kiss that leaves him dazed and blinking when she finally lets go of him. As she turns away, she takes her phone out of her purse and glares at it.
Steve had planned, back before the kisses, to tell her how much fun their evening together had been, and thank her for suggesting it in the first place, but all he can do now is grin at her like a fool as she winks at him and shuts the door behind her.
He stands there for a few seconds, waiting for the fog to clear from his brain, and then leans his forehead against the expensive wood of the door and wonders what the hell he just did.
Continued here.