The Bubble (3/3)
Part 2
On the 27th, her parents drive them back to the airfield, to the plane waiting to take them home to New York. There are lots of hugs and handshakes and demands to get more regular phonecalls, from both of them, her dad says with a significant look at Steve, who shuffles behind Darcy, she thinks, jokingly.
She throws herself onto one of the couches once they're in the plane. Man, she could totally live there, if it weren't for, like, the environmental damage that would cause and stuff.
“So, did you enjoy yourself?”
Steve's looking at her, biting his lip, and she stretches out more, pointing her toes towards him. “I did, yeah,” he says, “it was the best Christmas I've had in a long while.”
“Good.”
He smiles at her. “I especially liked my present. Can I... test it out on you?”
“You want to draw me again?”
“Yeah. Don't make a Titanic joke.”
She pouts. “I wasn't going to.” She was totally going to. “Sure, go on then.”
He gets the sketchbook and a box of pencils out of his bag and sits on the floor in front of her, trying to arrange his limbs sensibly. Because they're so long, Steve can never manage to look prim when on the floor, and instead just looks all messy and sprawled out. It's a sight that Darcy enjoys to the extreme.
“Do I need to stay still?”
“No.”
“Can I have a magazine?”
He digs around in his bag and pulls out a book to give her. “Here you go.”
“Catcher in the Rye? Seriously, Steve? They made us read this in high school; didn't really get what all the fuss was about.” She flips it open to the first couple of pages, and frowns at the faded pencilled in notes. “Hey... this is my copy!”
He glances up over the edge of the sketchbook. “I sort of... stole it from your bookcase? I started reading it last night when I couldn't sleep, I'm sorry.”
“Ah, you're just a phony like everyone else,” she says, and he laughs softly, bowing his head over the sketchbook again.
Steve doesn't say much while he's sketching, although he does look up every time she shifts around. She tries to stay still, but inevitably something itches or her clothes tug or her back starts hurting, and she has to move again. After close to an hour, she's reached the peak of her boredom threshold and laces her fingers together, stretching her arms over her head, arching her back.
“How much longer?” she whines.
“Mm, not much longer,” he mumbles, eyes fixed somewhere around her torso. He's looking a little squirrelly.
“Hey, are you drawing nudie pictures of me?”
His eyebrows jump up. “What? No! Of course not, I'd never do that without asking you first.”
“But you're thinking about it, right?”
He twists his mouth. “Well, yeah.”
She rolls over onto her side, resting her cheek in her hand. “If you were going to draw me naked, what would you focus on? My breasts? It's okay, you can say my breasts, I won't think you're too much of a perv.”
“No. I mean, yeah, but-” He points his pencil at her legs. “Your legs, especially your calf muscles. Is that weird?”
She sticks her leg out and considers it. “I have very nice calf muscles.”
“You do,” he says softly. He's looking at her in a way that makes her want to shift around for a completely different reason.
“So, tell me about this naked picture of me, then.”
“Life drawing,” he corrects and clears his throat. “It'd be... your hair would be down, and it'd be--” His eyes flicker over her, his pencil held loosely in his hand. “it'd be all around you, your shoulders and arms, but not your breasts. You'd be on your back, one of your arms hanging off the couch, and one of your legs bent, your toes pressed in between the couch cushions...” He trails off, staring at her with unfocused eyes.
“Steve,” she says.
His gaze jumps to her face. “Yeah?”
“Get over here.”
“Yeah,” he says, the sketchbook sliding off his lap as he scrambles across the floor to her. She tugs her hair from its ponytail, and he digs his fingers into it, pressing their mouths together. He has this way of kissing, pouring everything into it until he's pretty much unaware of whatever else is going on. She has his t-shirt halfway up his chest before he notices and breaks the kiss long enough to tug it over his head, before returning to trail kisses along her jaw, his hand sliding down her side to run his fingers along her hip bone.
“Darcy,” he groans.
“Yeah?” she says, dropping her hand to his crotch, palming his erection through his jeans. He grunts and pushes against her, nosing against her cheek.
“I don't think... I don't think we should do this out, ahh, out here,” he stammers out.
“Didn't we just go over this?” she says into his ear, and he shivers. “You like almost getting caught.”
“I don't want to--” He breaks off to kiss her neck. “To actually get caught, not by, by a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent,” he says, and forces himself back to look at her.
She could talk him into it, she's pretty sure, with the way his eyes are half-lidded and his mouth is half open, but he's kind of right about how getting caught in the act by one of her superiors would be a little bit soul-destroying. And anyway, she trying to keep her bullying of him to a minimum.
“I guess it's not really the mile high club if it's not the bathroom.”
He rubs his face. “Mile high club?”
“Think about the context clues, Steve.”
His eyebrows pull together for a moment before it clicks into place and he sweeps her up into her arms and heads for the bathroom as she squeals with laughter.
It's disappointingly large in the QuinJet bathroom; there's enough room to turn around and stretch and everything. Steve has her up against a sink, her bra straps falling loose to her elbows, his hands almost totally covering her breasts as he kneads them with his fingers.
“Why would you want it to be smaller?” he asks against her stomach, seemingly trying to feel out each one of her ribs with his tongue. She doesn't mind at all.
“Because, mm, bathroom sex is meant to be all cramped and sweaty and stuck together.” She runs her fingers around his shoulder blades and up into his hair, to his appreciative hums.
“That does sound nice,” he agrees.
She sinks her other hand in his hair and tugs his head up. “Enough foreplay, you tease, come on up here.”
It's not as cramped as she would like, but QuinJet bathroom sex turns out to still be pretty awkward and uncomfortable. Steve does most of the work, alternately pushing her against the sink and holding her up against himself. The rhythm's kind of uneven, but it's a good uneven, all jerky and making Steve groan with every thrust that in turn brings her closer and closer to the edge until she's clinging to him as he presses his fingers against her, rubbing at her clit, his breath coming out in short gasps.
“Fuck,” she groans, tightening her legs around his waist and clenching around him as she comes. He shudders and puts both of his hands on her hips, trapping her against the edge of the sink and slamming into her. She knows he's about to come when he tucks his face into her shoulder; she hasn't quite broken him of that habit yet, but it is pretty adorable.
“Come on,” she says, stroking his back for a minute before she scratches her nails across the short hair on his neck. His fingers dig into her skin at that, his movements turning even more jerky. “Come on, Steve,” she encourages, scratching her nails higher and kissing his hair. He gasps, pushing her harder into the cold edge of the sink, shaking through his orgasm.
“Good?” she asks, carding her fingers through his hair. He mumbles something into her neck before lifting his head.
“Yeah,” he says, and leans in to kiss her. “I wish we didn't have to go home.”
She gives him another peck on the lips. “Why?”
He lifts her up higher on the sink so that she's sitting on top, then presses a kiss to her jaw and sighs. “There's just always someone who... wants a piece of me; S.H.I.E.L.D. or the media or... Tony. It's nice to just spend time with you, without all that stress.” His eyes flick over her face, slightly nervously, she thinks.
She pats his side. “I know how you feel.”
His eyelids drop a little as he smiles, and he wraps his arms around her in a hug. It's strange; she's pretty sure in the past she would have found all this sincerity cloying, but God, she's feeling especially mushy and sappy about Steve right now.
“Please return to your seats, we are about to descend into New York,” comes a voice over the speaker. Steve groans and drops his forehead to her shoulder.
“They're doing this on purpose,” he mutters.
“It's all a big conspiracy against you,” she agrees.
“It is,” he insists.
When they land at the private airfield, there are a hell of a lot more agents on the ground than there had been when they left. Shit, she thinks, and casts a look at Steve. He looks pretty pissed.
“Captain!” someone calls as they come down the steps. Darcy looks toward the sound, and shit, that's Black Widow.
“That's Black Widow,” Darcy says. Damn, but she is hot.
“Yeah,” Steve mutters. “Agent Romanoff,” he calls back as he gets back onto the ground. “What's wrong?”
“Stark's got himself into trouble. Fury wants us suited up and out there by this evening.” She nods at Darcy. “Sorry to ruin your Christmas holiday.”
Darcy shrugs. “It's cool. Now I can cross 'meet Black Widow' off my bucket list.”
“Where're we going?” Steve asks.
The smile that Darcy put on Widow's face (another strike for the bucket list) fades away at the question. “It's classified, I'm afraid. We should be going.”
Steve sighs. “Okay. C'mon,” he says with a glance to Darcy. It almost looks like he wants to roll his eyes.
“Captain, I'm sorry,” Widow says, and she actually does look kind of sorry. “Agent Lewis doesn't have a high enough clearance level for where we're going.”
“She knows about the helicarrier,” he says.
“Well, I'll pretend I didn't hear that,” Widow replies. She makes a hand gesture at the rather less attractive agents and they fan out towards the two cars. “She'll get a ride home.”
“Agent Romanoff,” he begins, with his 'I can politely argue about this all day' face on. Darcy pats him on the arm.
“Hey, it's okay. I've gotta get home and unpack and drink my own coffee and sleep in my own bed. It's okay.”
Steve sighs again. “If you're sure...”
“Sure, I'm sure. Just bring me back a souvenir.”
“I'll pick up a smouldering piece of wreckage for you,” he promises.
“I'm holding you to that,” she says, and pushes herself up on her tiptoes to kiss him. His hand comes down on the small of her back, holding her steady. It's a fairly chaste kiss, with minimal tongue action, but it's still very relationshippy in front of all these work colleagues of theirs.
“Captain,” Widow says, her tone amused. “We really have to go.”
Steve breaks away from Darcy and quickly tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, before looking over his shoulder at Widow. “Okay. I'm going to give Tony hell for this.”
“I hope so,” Widow says.
-
She does pretty well until it's time for bed. She has to be up early the next morning for work, but she still delays going to bed for an extra hour, sort of thinking Steve might come home in time. But he doesn't, and eventually she gets into her surprisingly large bed at midnight. It feels weird not to have him tucked in next to her, keeping her warm. She even has to turn the heat on and wrap herself up in her blankets just to keep warm.
The next day, he's still not back, and there's nothing on TV about daring Avengers escapades, which means she can't obsess over about what's happening in real time, but also means she's completely in the fucking dark, and no one's talking in the office, either because they know jackshit, or because they're constitutionally more discreet than she will ever be.
Probably a mixture of the two, she decides.
Jane calls her just as she getting back home in the evening (and she'd almost forgotten how awful the commute is without a human shield that all the assholes of New York bounce off of), chirping happily down the phone.
“So, how was Christmas?” Jane asks after a long monologue that Darcy labels in her head as 'science' and tunes out.
“Oh, you know,” Darcy says. She flicks through Steve's new sketchbook, through couple of pages of dumb cartoons, most of which seem to be parodies of war propaganda and Captain America, and then the sketch of her on the couch. Man, she looks beautiful. “My parents loved him, he was adorable, then Black Widow swooped in and spirited him away on some secret mission. Haven't heard from him in over twenty four hours.”
After a pause, Jane says, “I'm coming over.”
“No, it's... Okay, sure, come over.”
Jane brings with her a truly staggering amount of alcohol, and a cake that Darcy immediately decides she will eat in its entirety.
“Tell me about Christmas,” Jane directs, cracking open the first beer and handing it to Darcy.
“We had sex in my childhood bed,” she says, then takes a sip. Jane has terrible taste in beer. “But he probably wouldn't want me discussing our sex life - which is extremely healthy, by the way - so we also, like, went to church and stuff.”
“You didn't burst into flames?”
“I felt a little warm. He gave me this.” She holds the locket up and Jane shuffles in to look at it.
“This is really nice,” she says.
“It was his mother's. It has a...” She fumbles to thumb it open for a moment. “It has pictures of him and his father in it.”
Jane cups it in her hand, bringing it up to her face to scrutinise. “Wow,” she says after a long moment. “He really loves you.”
“Yeah, apparently he does.” She flips the locket shut again. “Fuck knows why.”
Jane tips her head to one side and shrugs.
“That is not the appropriate response,” she says, and Jane just smiles at her. She sighs. “Ugh, gimme that cake.”
-
One hangover and a couple of days later, she gets a phone call on her cell. The number's withheld and for a moment she wonders if it's Steve, or news of Steve, at least. Four days and zip. Jane tried to find out where they'd gone, in her 'professional capacity', making something up about needing to consult with Tony, but Agent Hill just told her they'd get back to her.
She grabs her still ringing cell from her desk and goes out into the hallway to answer it, away from her fellow junior agents, who are all looking very disapproving about taking personal calls in work hours.
“Hello?” she says, crossing her fingers behind her back.
“Darcy, it's Pepper.”
“Oh.” She uncrosses her fingers. “Uh, hi, Pepper.”
“Hoping for someone else?” she says gently.
Darcy sighs. “Yeah, sorry. Hey, isn't my number unlisted?”
“It is,” Pepper says breezily. “I was just thinking: we're both short a boyfriend right now, and Stark Industries is having a New Year's Eve party tonight. Would you like to be my date?”
“Oh.” She'd kind of forgot that Pepper was missing someone too, someone who Steve went out to rescue five days ago. “Well, can I bring a friend?”
“I don't see why not.”
“Okay, then I'm a lesbian for the night.”
“Excellent,” Pepper replies.
-
Stark Tower looks pretty different when it's been all glitzed up for a party. For one thing, there are black-suited, jack-booted security guards everywhere, and photographers everywhere else. Darcy and Jane are ushered in around the back to save all the headlines about Captain America's girlfriend doing something without him. They spend a good forty minutes huddled together, watching all the famous people and whispering to each other about who's as good-looking as they seem on TV, who isn't, who's acting like a dick, and who's shorter in real life, before Pepper sweeps over in a floor length green dress.
“Jesus,” Jane mutters, glancing down at what Darcy knows are her nicest pair of black jeans and a white button down shirt. Darcy isn't much better, in a grey skirt and boobtacular tight sweater.
“Yeah,” she agrees as Pepper reaches them.
“Darcy, Dr Foster,” she says,
“Ms. Potts,” Jane says. “We were just discussing how under dressed we are.”
“Oh, this old thing?” Pepper sweeps a hand down her dress and smiles mischievously. “It's terrible how I invited you here then left you all on your own. Come on, let's go somewhere quieter.”
She takes them into one of the many, many living rooms, and crosses over to the bar. “Drink?”
“Lots of them,” Darcy says.
They settle on the couch with extremely expensive wine, and Pepper toes her shoes off with a sigh. “Everyone keeps asking me where Tony is,” she confides. “I'm bracing myself for all the articles about how he's cheating on me bright and early in the morning.”
“It must suck, having a relationship out in the open like that,” Jane says.
“It's not great,” Pepper says, “but living out in the open is a prerequisite for life with Tony.”
Jane nods. “It must be crazy living with him. Er, no offence.”
“None taken, it is. Although, surprisingly less crazy since he became a superhero. You know, he has quite the crush on you.”
It's fascinating how Jane almost immediately goes bright red. “Oh, I-- We've never met...”
Pepper laughs and pats her on the shoulder. “Don't worry, Dr Foster, Tony develops crushes on everyone he respects; they're mostly harmless. Surprisingly, he does know how to keep it in his pants.”
“Oh, well...” Jane stammers. Totally tomato red, and Darcy can't help the cackle the escapes her mouth. Jane glares at her. “Well, in that case, call me Jane.”
-
Pepper takes them up to a private balcony to wait for midnight and watch the fireworks. One of the floor to ceiling window converts to a giant television to watch the ball drop in Times Square, which in the scheme of things is one of the least impressive things Darcy has seen in this place, but she's fascinated with it nonetheless. Possibly being a little drunk helps with that.
“I've always enjoyed the phallic imagery of this thing,” she says, sitting on a lounger. “You know: 'ball drop'.”
“That's nice,” Jane says vaguely and pats her on the head.
“Oh, it's starting!” Darcy cries as they start to count down on the screen, and almost gets tangled in all her limbs as she jumps up. “Who's going to kiss me?”
Happy, the only other person granted the honour of this balcony (and yeah, Darcy did ask him if he's friends with Grumpy; he said that Grumpy normally goes by the name 'Colonel Rhodes') shakes his head. “I don't need that sort of trouble.”
Darcy shrugs. “Are we going to be able to see the fireworks from here?”
“Just look up,” Pepper says, pointing at the top of the building “You'll see something.”
“But who's going to kiss me?” she wails. Ryan Seacrest is at four, for God's sake! “This is important, someone has to kiss me!”
“Oh, shut up,” Jane says and tugs her in for a quick peck on the lips as the countdown reaches 'one'.
“Well, I never,” Darcy begins, but gets startled by what sounds like several high-pitched bombs going off. She looks up at the top of the tower, above which the sky is almost completely lit up by fireworks.
“Holy fuck!” she yells over the noise.
Pepper glances back at her and smiles. “Tony's been planning this for months!” she shouts back, and Darcy's pretty sure she's not imagining the sad look that crosses Pepper's face.
“Well, it's really great!” she shouts, and Jane nods enthusiastically.
-
There's no point going home once the party starts to wind down, since she has to be at work at seven, and she's glad for it, because her apartment loses its cramped charm without Steve and goes back to just being depressing. Pepper gives both her and Jane rooms to crash in, and the beds are the softest fuckers she's ever slept on. It makes it doubly hard to get up and drag herself to work, although Pepper's ultra-super-strength-probably-illegal-in-North-America painkillers certainly give her a little boost.
She makes it through the day with only one emergency trip to the restroom to be sick, which she's pretty sure marks an extreme upturn in her maturity levels, although it's clear from the looks she gets that she's a party of one in that regard.
She's halfway home on the subway when her phone rings. She's pretty sure that she shouldn't be getting any reception down here, but when she sees that it's another withheld number, she guesses that StarkPhones respect no rules of cell reception.
“Hey,” she answers.
“Darcy, you should get to the S.H.I.E.L.D. hospital as soon as possible,” Pepper says, no preamble. Darcy's stomach drops a little.
“What's happened, is everyone okay?” she asks as she elbows her way through the crush of people to get off the train.
“I'm not sure yet, I just got the call to get over there myself, but it occurred to me that they might not rush to call you.”
“Yeah, yeah...” Darcy mutters, getting caught up in the rush of people at the station. She looks around in a vague panic, trying to find her way to the other platform. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Call me if you need anything,” Pepper says. How the hell does she sound so fucking calm? Darcy's having images of Steve's mangled corpse right now - which might have something to do with all the violent movies she's watched, because the image is really detailed - but she's still pretty sure that there's a panic discrepancy between the two of them.
“It'll be okay,” Pepper adds softly.
-
The infirmary is in chaos when she makes it in. She had to pull the 'do you know who I am?' card a couple of times to get through security, and now she's pushing through a sea of medics and agents. She sees Tony first, sitting on a bed in dented armour. He raises his hand in a wave, then points across the room, to where Steve is being treated. There's a medic mostly obscuring him, but she'd recognise those boots anywhere.
She takes a deep breath, quelling her panic; he's alive, Tony doesn't look worried, everything's okay. “Have fun?” she asks as she gets closer to him, but the rest of her sarcasm dies when she catches sight of his face. He's leaning against the wall, butterfly stitches being applied to a cut that stretches from his temple to his jaw.
“Jesus fucking Christ, did Hulk use you as a chew toy?”
He smiles wanly, and squeezes his eyes shut for a second.
“Wait, did he?” she says, coming up beside the medic. Along with the gash that would be awesome if it wasn't currently marring Steve's pretty face, there are fading bruises reaching into his hairline. Her heart clenches a little.
He manages a faint laugh and shakes his head. “Would you mind...?” he says to the medic, gesturing at Darcy, and the woman nods, shuffling to one side.
“What the hell happened?” she asks, drawing him into a hug. He flinches and gasps, and she jumps back; she's heard a lot of his sounds, but not that one, and she doesn't care to hear it again.
“No, no,” he mumbles, gripping her arm and reeling her back in. “It's good.” He rests his forehead against her shoulder and breathes for a moment. She pats his hair gently, noting how in places it's hardened into clumps with blood.
“Okay,” he says, sitting back. He rubs one hand over the less messed up part of his face and smiles a little more brightly. “Let's go home.”
“Home?” She takes hold of his chin and narrows her eyes. “You look like you were just fed through a meat grinder.”
“Good thing I'm built for that kind of thing.” He tucks his head down and kisses her palm. It's such an un-Steve-like thing to do, with all these people around, she doesn't know what to say.
“The doctor would prefer that you stay here for the night, Captain Rogers,” the medic says.
Steve rolls his head to one side. “And I'd prefer not to,” he says, not unkindly, but there's a snap to it.
Darcy drops her hand to his neck, curving her palm there, and turns to the medic. “Am I going to get him home and he'll seem fine, and then drop dead of a brain aneurysm? Because that happens a lot on TV.”
“No,” the medic says, frowning at her like she's an idiot. Well, fuck you too, lady. “He didn't sustain any serious injuries, but he's going to be in a lot of pain and the doctor would like--”
“Pretty obvious that he doesn't give a fuck what the doctor likes.” She looks back at Steve and he just looks happy that someone other than him is dealing with it. “No offence or anything,” she adds, glancing back at the medic, then sets about helping Steve get up, and isn't that just weird as fuck.
Tony waves at her again on the way out, now joined by Pepper, embroiled in an argument which seems to alternate between bickering and kissing.
It occurs to her as they get down to the lobby of the S.H.I.E.L.D. hospital that she has no idea how to get him home. She doesn't think the subway would be a good idea for anyone, not with him covered in blood and looking like he's about to keel over. She pulls her cellphone out of her pocket, debating whether to ring for a taxi, when someone clears their throat.
“Agent Lewis,” Happy says, “Mr Stark called down for you.”
By the time they're home, the cut on Steve's face has healed, and he starts picking off the butterfly stitches while she freaks out slightly about what to do with him.
“What do you want? Pills? Food? Your coat and slippers?”
“Wouldn't mind a shower,” he says, and makes his limping way to the bathroom. She follows him in and watches him pull uselessly at his skin tight clothes for a couple of minutes before he drops his hands to his sides and sighs.
“Hey, come here,” she says, pulling him over to the toilet. She puts the seat down and climbs on top, giving herself a good five or six inches on him, and starts working on getting the blue undershirt over his head. As she rolls it up, this long purple bruise peeks out and she can't help the 'fuck' that slips out of her mouth.
Steve glances down, then up at her. “It's not that bad.”
“It is that bad,” she says, running her fingers down it lightly. “I've been looking for jeans this exact shade of purple for weeks. Come on, seriously, Steve.”
“Yeah,” he mutters.
The bruise is all along his left arm, too, she discovers when she gets the undershirt off. “And what am I going to find when I get these off?” she asks, plucking at the material of his pants.
It takes a couple of seconds for him to reply softly, “I'm trying to think of something funny to say.”
“Ha ha,” she says, steps down from the toilet, and starts on all the hidden zips and buttons of the pants. She literally has to peel them off him, they're so tight, and sure enough, there's that bruise all down his left leg. “How do you even get these things on?”
“With a lot of difficulty,” he says.
When she gets the pants down to his boots, he tries to bend his leg with a hiss of pain. “Don't,” she says, and does her best to twist his boot off without jostling his leg too much, before pulling the other one off and then rolling his pants down to his ankles and tugging them off his feet.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “I'm so sorry you have to do this.”
She stands back up and kisses him on the cheek. “Girlfriend's prerogative. Okay, in the shower.”
Normally, helping Steve wash is the best part of her day, miles of skin and muscles that shift and flex underneath her fingers. She can poke and slap and bite, and it all stays perfect while he moans and gasps and rolls his head back against the tiled wall. But tonight, it's probably the worst thing she's had to do in a while, watching the water turn rust coloured as she runs the sponge over his bruised side as gently as she can, so she's barely touching him at all.
“So, what happened?”
“It's...” For a moment she can almost see him thinking 'classified', and then he sighs, licking water from his lips. “General Ross got to Bruce first. It was, um... there was this soldier. Former soldier. He was a monster. I mean, Hulk is Hulk, but this was a monster. He did this,” he says waving at his side. “Apparently a couple of years ago they tried to revive Project Rebirth again, and they made this... thing out of some godforsaken mixture of my blood and God knows what else.”
She reaches up and sponges off soap from between his shoulder blades, totally lost on what to say. This is all a little above her pay grade - literally, even - but then Steve doesn't like being comforted, not really, so it works out most of the time.
“Everyone except me who was given the serum turned into... to something else,” he says, turning his head to her as she wipes the sponge over his jaw.
“Well, that just makes you extra special then, doesn't it?” she says, and he almost manages a smile. “Hey, if the monsters in my closet had been like you, then I wouldn't have slept at the end of my parents' bed till I was seven.”
He breathes out heavily, almost a laugh. “I just wonder what it did to me, sometimes.”
“Well, sure.” She shuts the shower off, grabs a towel off the rail, and climbs back onto the toilet to dry his hair. “That was some scary ass shit that happened to you, and you were nuts to ever say yes to it.”
He makes a soft noise of agreement.
“But...” She smooths his hair down, then rakes her fingers through it so that it all stands up in tufts. Better. “I think it's like false equivalency, right? Banner got Hulkified because they mixed a dusty old vial of your blood with radioactive material, and it sounds like they did it even worse with this monster soldier guy, and General Ross is a butt, everyone says so. And Schmidt was a fucking Nazi, so yeah, he went a little crazy. But you aren't a Nazi, and your project was led by a nice old man, not a butt, so you turned out like this.”
“Never looked at it quite like that,” he murmurs, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she gets down and starts drying the rest of him off.
“Of course you didn't. Would you prefer me to go on about how inner beauty leads to outer beauty? Because that's gonna get kind of awkward for both of us, dude.”
He full on laughs this time, and shakes his head. “That's okay.”
She gets him dressed in his most comfortable clothes, a shirt and the drawstring pants he wears to work out, and leads him back into the living room.
“You should probably get some sleep.”
“'m too keyed up to sleep,” he says, lifting his good arm to scratch at the back of his head. He frowns as he feels how his hair is sticking up all over the place, then glares at her as he combs it back down with his fingers.
“How about some food, then?” She goes to check the kitchen; there's a box of Hamburger Helper and an old loaf of bread. She really is reliant on Steve to buy food these days.
“Don't think my stomach could handle anything right now,” he replies. Steve not hungry? That's surely the first sign of the apocalypse.
“Well, what do you want?” she asks, turning around in time to see him collapse sideways onto the couch.
“Glass of water?” he says in a strained voice.
Glass of water. Jesus, if he got his arm cut off, he'd ask for a fucking band aid.
“Okay, here you go,” she says, bringing it over to him. He's lying on the couch, his legs hooked over one armrest, and when he shifts onto one shoulder to take the glass, he winces.
“Thank you,” he says.
“So, you won't go to bed, but you'll veg out on the couch?”
He grimaces around the glass, his eyebrows drawing together, staring at her like he hasn't got the energy to have this conversation. She sighs, runs her fingers through his hair, and says, “I'll get you a pillow.”
She gets him settled as well as she can; she thinks of the few stories that he's told her about growing up - he doesn't really like talking about back then, doesn't like thinking about being weak, or maybe doesn't like remembering all the people he loved - and how Bucky tended to him when he was laid up on the couch, with the flu or a fever or really bad heart palpitations. He hates being looked after.
She sits down on the coffee table and looks at him. He smiles, then frowns, then smiles again.
“Darcy,” he says, and grabs her hand, tugging her towards him.
“What-- wait, you want me to lie down with you?”
“Yeah.”
“You're like one giant bruise, and you want me to sit on you?”
“Half a giant bruise,” he mumbles, and keeps tugging. “It's just... it's just really difficult not to focus on the pain. Please.”
Well, shit, who could say no to such a polite request? She braces her hands on the edge of the couch and lifts herself over him, trying to settle as gently as she can between his good side and the back of the couch. It still gets a groan out of him, but she's pretty sure that there's some pleasure mixed in with the pain.
She switches the TV on as he breathes, too slow and controlled to be normal, his face tight. She presses the pad of her finger to the fine lines around his eyes - it's so weird to see, she's so used to his face being almost inhumanly smooth - and massages it a little. His eyelids flutter shut for a second before he looks up at her.
“Like that?” she asks, running a finger along his nose.
“It's nice,” he says.
“You're nice,” she counters, grinning at her own stupid joke, and kisses him lightly. “Watch the shitty movie.” Christmas may be over, but Christmas movies aren't. Steve wrinkles his nose at The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation.
She keeps rubbing every line and tense muscle, running her fingers over his eyebrows and into his hair, as he dozes, eyelids drooping, then opening every ten minutes or so. It's weird - what isn't tonight - because Steve never falls asleep on the couch. She wonders if he's slept at all since she last saw him. Too keyed up, her ass.
Every now and then, when he's dozing off, his legs twitch, kicking the wall. They're so cramped on the couch, he's practically spilling off it.
She drums her fingers on his cheek as his eyes open again. “You know,” she says, “we should move into your apartment.”
“Mm... what?” His bottom lip catches between his teeth for a moment, before he looks up at her. “What?”
“You own an apartment, like mortgage free, and we're living in this shoe box. I mean, I'm paying eight hundred dollars a month to live in a cold, mouldy shithole for no reason, and there's not even enough space in here for me, let alone you, and...” She forces her mouth to close. She shouldn't have to justify why they should live together, especially when they already do.
“That'd be nice,” he says, leaning into her hand. “But we'll need your bed, 'cause mine's barely wider than I am.”
“Captain,” she says, tucking her head against his shoulder, “you have a one track mind.”
-
They don't waste any time getting her moved out. The next morning, all Steve's injuries have healed, and once they get back from eating breakfast at a local diner because food doesn't magically appear in the kitchen when Steve's incapacitated, she calls and arranges to pick up a U-Haul moving van at midday, then calls her slum/landlord and gives her thirty days' notice. When she gets off the phone, Steve's staring at her with a weird smile on his face. She's pretty sure she has a correspondingly weird smile on her face; he's riding on the 'almost got killed' wave and she's got a contact high.
“It's like we're real adults,” she says.
“Yeah,” he says, staring at her with big eyes.
“I've got to pick up the van in two hours,” she says. “That's enough time for at least a couple of rounds of 'farewell crappy apartment' sex.
Steve grins and darts into the bedroom.
The hardest part of moving is getting the mattress out. Carrying it isn't a problem for Steve, but manoeuvring it blind is, so it's up to Darcy to guide him and she just has the worst hand/eye coordination, so Steve gets squashed under it a couple of times, with indignant yelps as he topples over. It's like the funniest thing ever. Steve doesn't agree.
He gets his own back when she admits that she's a little worried about driving on New York roads. He teases her very, very gently about it as they load up the back; he's still not quite got the hang of teasing girls, he doesn't think it proper.
“Well, they only had a manual left,” she says, pulling herself up to sit on the back as Steve slides another box in.
“You can't drive stick?” he asks, glancing up at her.
“I can, I just choose not to,” she says, turning her nose up. “I got it here, didn't I?”
She got it there, barely, but he doesn't need to know that.
“I'll drive us then,” he says.
“Can you drive?”
“Yes, I can drive! I was driving before you were even a twinkle in your grandfather's eye!” he says as he tackles her to the floor of the van, circling her wrists lightly with his fingers.
“I don't know, man, I don't mean horse and carriage.”
“Horse and--!” he says, cutting himself off as he kisses her, pushing her arms up until they're over her head.
“Out in public like this?” she mutters against the corner of his mouth.
“We're almost inside,” he says, pressing his open mouth against her cheek.
She strokes the back of his head. His hair is so ridiculously soft, how does he even do that? He uses freaking bar soap unless she stops him.
“Hey, how many rooms has your apartment got?”
“Mm?” he mumbles, nuzzling her neck. “...five?”
“Five rooms to christen, then,” she says.
He lifts his head and frowns at her.
“With sex,” she clarifies, and his eyes go round. He scrambles up and pulls her out of the van.
“Let's get this packing done!” he says, dragging her back inside.
She'd thought that Steve would drive like her grandma, minus needing a cushion to see over the steering wheel and bottle end glasses to make out the road in front, but she probably should have realised that a self-confessed 'adrenaline junkie' isn't going to crawl along at the minimum speed limit.
“Idiot,” he mutters as someone swerves in front of the van. Darcy smiles behind her hand as Steve mutters something else that she doesn't catch.
A couple of minutes later someone makes an illegal turn, merging with the oncoming traffic. Steve narrows his eyes and honks the horn, and the offending driver makes a very offensive hand gesture as he passes.
“Well, fuck you too, buddy,” Steve says under his breath.
“Steve!” she cries.
He looks at her as she dissolves into laughter, his cheeks a little pink. “People can't drive any more! What the hell happened?”
“Dude, whatever, you've got total road rage!”
His nose wrinkles up as he chuckles in embarrassment. “I am from Brooklyn...”
“It's kind of hot,” she confides.
He steps on the gas.
-
She forgot how crappy his apartment is. The paint's peeling in the bathroom, the walls are crumbling at the bottom, and someone's smoked up a storm in the bedroom, judging by the yellowing ceiling. Plus Steve doesn't own anything. At least there's lots of room in the closet.
“We can redecorate,” he says, “I was thinking about repainting the kitchen.”
“Let's do the ceilings black,” she says, pushing herself up onto an elbow to look at him. They've christened one and a half rooms so far (starting the living room and ending up in the bedroom at point of orgasm). He 'hmms', arms loosely crossed over his chest. His old bed, a single cot with a hunk of foam mattress, is turned on its side against a wall to make enough room for Darcy's. “I'm joking,” she adds. “But we should go to Ikea, maybe go crazy and buy you an improbably named lamp.”
“Buy us,” Steve corrects, turning his cheek into the pillow to look at her.
“Yeah,” she says, smoothing her hand out across his bare shoulders, curving her palm around the top of his arm. He has that dopey look on his face, the one he gets when he's thinking lots of romantic shit. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Being so dopey.”
He pouts. “I'm not dopey.”
“You're a little bit dopey. You've got that golden retriever hair and those big blue eyes like a baby. It gives off a certain dopey quality, but don't worry, you can be totally Chuck Norris badass, too.”
“You know, sometimes you just stop making sense altogether. For really long stretches of time.”
She runs her fingers through his hair, and he hums happily, eyelids drooping for a moment, “So you're a dope and I don't make any sense. Match made in heaven.”
“Mm,” he says, as she scratches her fingernails over his scalp, “could you... yeah,” he murmurs as she gives his hair a light tug.
“You aren't exactly disproving my golden retriever hair theory, considering how much you clearly enjoy being petted.”
“Uh huh,” he says, blinking slowly. God, he's just getting dopier by the minute, and her chest is starting to feel a little tight. Seriously, her last boyfriend played video games in his underwear and had his mom come by every two days to collect his laundry, wash it, fold it, and bring it back in time to judge Darcy's fitness as a future daughter in law when she got home from university or work. He also acted like having sex was a chore, unless it was pixelated cyber sex with a pink-haired troll in Argentina. Last she heard, the troll had left him for an elf; she didn't even feel a little bad for laughing at his angry Facebook update on the matter - she even as far as to 'like' it. She was swiftly defriended.
Steve, on the other hand, never acts like sex is a chore. Sex is a reward and workout and fun as hell judging by how much he smiles and laughs. There's a little bit of tension, sometimes, because Steve prefers her to be on top, and she really just wants him to fuck her into the mattress, but these are problems that she likes having. She's still not entirely clear on how she managed to stumble into an adultish relationship with America's golden boy, and defile him so thoroughly, without a word of protest from him.
Just when she thinks that he's about to fall asleep (and Jesus, his face is even prettier when it's relaxing into sleep), he sucks in a deep breath. “Hey,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“I'm... I'm really glad that we did this,” he says softly. “Maybe this place will finally feel like a home.”
She kisses him on the forehead. “I think it already is one.”
Steve pinks just a little, smiling sleepily. “Good.”
On the 27th, her parents drive them back to the airfield, to the plane waiting to take them home to New York. There are lots of hugs and handshakes and demands to get more regular phonecalls, from both of them, her dad says with a significant look at Steve, who shuffles behind Darcy, she thinks, jokingly.
She throws herself onto one of the couches once they're in the plane. Man, she could totally live there, if it weren't for, like, the environmental damage that would cause and stuff.
“So, did you enjoy yourself?”
Steve's looking at her, biting his lip, and she stretches out more, pointing her toes towards him. “I did, yeah,” he says, “it was the best Christmas I've had in a long while.”
“Good.”
He smiles at her. “I especially liked my present. Can I... test it out on you?”
“You want to draw me again?”
“Yeah. Don't make a Titanic joke.”
She pouts. “I wasn't going to.” She was totally going to. “Sure, go on then.”
He gets the sketchbook and a box of pencils out of his bag and sits on the floor in front of her, trying to arrange his limbs sensibly. Because they're so long, Steve can never manage to look prim when on the floor, and instead just looks all messy and sprawled out. It's a sight that Darcy enjoys to the extreme.
“Do I need to stay still?”
“No.”
“Can I have a magazine?”
He digs around in his bag and pulls out a book to give her. “Here you go.”
“Catcher in the Rye? Seriously, Steve? They made us read this in high school; didn't really get what all the fuss was about.” She flips it open to the first couple of pages, and frowns at the faded pencilled in notes. “Hey... this is my copy!”
He glances up over the edge of the sketchbook. “I sort of... stole it from your bookcase? I started reading it last night when I couldn't sleep, I'm sorry.”
“Ah, you're just a phony like everyone else,” she says, and he laughs softly, bowing his head over the sketchbook again.
Steve doesn't say much while he's sketching, although he does look up every time she shifts around. She tries to stay still, but inevitably something itches or her clothes tug or her back starts hurting, and she has to move again. After close to an hour, she's reached the peak of her boredom threshold and laces her fingers together, stretching her arms over her head, arching her back.
“How much longer?” she whines.
“Mm, not much longer,” he mumbles, eyes fixed somewhere around her torso. He's looking a little squirrelly.
“Hey, are you drawing nudie pictures of me?”
His eyebrows jump up. “What? No! Of course not, I'd never do that without asking you first.”
“But you're thinking about it, right?”
He twists his mouth. “Well, yeah.”
She rolls over onto her side, resting her cheek in her hand. “If you were going to draw me naked, what would you focus on? My breasts? It's okay, you can say my breasts, I won't think you're too much of a perv.”
“No. I mean, yeah, but-” He points his pencil at her legs. “Your legs, especially your calf muscles. Is that weird?”
She sticks her leg out and considers it. “I have very nice calf muscles.”
“You do,” he says softly. He's looking at her in a way that makes her want to shift around for a completely different reason.
“So, tell me about this naked picture of me, then.”
“Life drawing,” he corrects and clears his throat. “It'd be... your hair would be down, and it'd be--” His eyes flicker over her, his pencil held loosely in his hand. “it'd be all around you, your shoulders and arms, but not your breasts. You'd be on your back, one of your arms hanging off the couch, and one of your legs bent, your toes pressed in between the couch cushions...” He trails off, staring at her with unfocused eyes.
“Steve,” she says.
His gaze jumps to her face. “Yeah?”
“Get over here.”
“Yeah,” he says, the sketchbook sliding off his lap as he scrambles across the floor to her. She tugs her hair from its ponytail, and he digs his fingers into it, pressing their mouths together. He has this way of kissing, pouring everything into it until he's pretty much unaware of whatever else is going on. She has his t-shirt halfway up his chest before he notices and breaks the kiss long enough to tug it over his head, before returning to trail kisses along her jaw, his hand sliding down her side to run his fingers along her hip bone.
“Darcy,” he groans.
“Yeah?” she says, dropping her hand to his crotch, palming his erection through his jeans. He grunts and pushes against her, nosing against her cheek.
“I don't think... I don't think we should do this out, ahh, out here,” he stammers out.
“Didn't we just go over this?” she says into his ear, and he shivers. “You like almost getting caught.”
“I don't want to--” He breaks off to kiss her neck. “To actually get caught, not by, by a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent,” he says, and forces himself back to look at her.
She could talk him into it, she's pretty sure, with the way his eyes are half-lidded and his mouth is half open, but he's kind of right about how getting caught in the act by one of her superiors would be a little bit soul-destroying. And anyway, she trying to keep her bullying of him to a minimum.
“I guess it's not really the mile high club if it's not the bathroom.”
He rubs his face. “Mile high club?”
“Think about the context clues, Steve.”
His eyebrows pull together for a moment before it clicks into place and he sweeps her up into her arms and heads for the bathroom as she squeals with laughter.
It's disappointingly large in the QuinJet bathroom; there's enough room to turn around and stretch and everything. Steve has her up against a sink, her bra straps falling loose to her elbows, his hands almost totally covering her breasts as he kneads them with his fingers.
“Why would you want it to be smaller?” he asks against her stomach, seemingly trying to feel out each one of her ribs with his tongue. She doesn't mind at all.
“Because, mm, bathroom sex is meant to be all cramped and sweaty and stuck together.” She runs her fingers around his shoulder blades and up into his hair, to his appreciative hums.
“That does sound nice,” he agrees.
She sinks her other hand in his hair and tugs his head up. “Enough foreplay, you tease, come on up here.”
It's not as cramped as she would like, but QuinJet bathroom sex turns out to still be pretty awkward and uncomfortable. Steve does most of the work, alternately pushing her against the sink and holding her up against himself. The rhythm's kind of uneven, but it's a good uneven, all jerky and making Steve groan with every thrust that in turn brings her closer and closer to the edge until she's clinging to him as he presses his fingers against her, rubbing at her clit, his breath coming out in short gasps.
“Fuck,” she groans, tightening her legs around his waist and clenching around him as she comes. He shudders and puts both of his hands on her hips, trapping her against the edge of the sink and slamming into her. She knows he's about to come when he tucks his face into her shoulder; she hasn't quite broken him of that habit yet, but it is pretty adorable.
“Come on,” she says, stroking his back for a minute before she scratches her nails across the short hair on his neck. His fingers dig into her skin at that, his movements turning even more jerky. “Come on, Steve,” she encourages, scratching her nails higher and kissing his hair. He gasps, pushing her harder into the cold edge of the sink, shaking through his orgasm.
“Good?” she asks, carding her fingers through his hair. He mumbles something into her neck before lifting his head.
“Yeah,” he says, and leans in to kiss her. “I wish we didn't have to go home.”
She gives him another peck on the lips. “Why?”
He lifts her up higher on the sink so that she's sitting on top, then presses a kiss to her jaw and sighs. “There's just always someone who... wants a piece of me; S.H.I.E.L.D. or the media or... Tony. It's nice to just spend time with you, without all that stress.” His eyes flick over her face, slightly nervously, she thinks.
She pats his side. “I know how you feel.”
His eyelids drop a little as he smiles, and he wraps his arms around her in a hug. It's strange; she's pretty sure in the past she would have found all this sincerity cloying, but God, she's feeling especially mushy and sappy about Steve right now.
“Please return to your seats, we are about to descend into New York,” comes a voice over the speaker. Steve groans and drops his forehead to her shoulder.
“They're doing this on purpose,” he mutters.
“It's all a big conspiracy against you,” she agrees.
“It is,” he insists.
When they land at the private airfield, there are a hell of a lot more agents on the ground than there had been when they left. Shit, she thinks, and casts a look at Steve. He looks pretty pissed.
“Captain!” someone calls as they come down the steps. Darcy looks toward the sound, and shit, that's Black Widow.
“That's Black Widow,” Darcy says. Damn, but she is hot.
“Yeah,” Steve mutters. “Agent Romanoff,” he calls back as he gets back onto the ground. “What's wrong?”
“Stark's got himself into trouble. Fury wants us suited up and out there by this evening.” She nods at Darcy. “Sorry to ruin your Christmas holiday.”
Darcy shrugs. “It's cool. Now I can cross 'meet Black Widow' off my bucket list.”
“Where're we going?” Steve asks.
The smile that Darcy put on Widow's face (another strike for the bucket list) fades away at the question. “It's classified, I'm afraid. We should be going.”
Steve sighs. “Okay. C'mon,” he says with a glance to Darcy. It almost looks like he wants to roll his eyes.
“Captain, I'm sorry,” Widow says, and she actually does look kind of sorry. “Agent Lewis doesn't have a high enough clearance level for where we're going.”
“She knows about the helicarrier,” he says.
“Well, I'll pretend I didn't hear that,” Widow replies. She makes a hand gesture at the rather less attractive agents and they fan out towards the two cars. “She'll get a ride home.”
“Agent Romanoff,” he begins, with his 'I can politely argue about this all day' face on. Darcy pats him on the arm.
“Hey, it's okay. I've gotta get home and unpack and drink my own coffee and sleep in my own bed. It's okay.”
Steve sighs again. “If you're sure...”
“Sure, I'm sure. Just bring me back a souvenir.”
“I'll pick up a smouldering piece of wreckage for you,” he promises.
“I'm holding you to that,” she says, and pushes herself up on her tiptoes to kiss him. His hand comes down on the small of her back, holding her steady. It's a fairly chaste kiss, with minimal tongue action, but it's still very relationshippy in front of all these work colleagues of theirs.
“Captain,” Widow says, her tone amused. “We really have to go.”
Steve breaks away from Darcy and quickly tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, before looking over his shoulder at Widow. “Okay. I'm going to give Tony hell for this.”
“I hope so,” Widow says.
-
She does pretty well until it's time for bed. She has to be up early the next morning for work, but she still delays going to bed for an extra hour, sort of thinking Steve might come home in time. But he doesn't, and eventually she gets into her surprisingly large bed at midnight. It feels weird not to have him tucked in next to her, keeping her warm. She even has to turn the heat on and wrap herself up in her blankets just to keep warm.
The next day, he's still not back, and there's nothing on TV about daring Avengers escapades, which means she can't obsess over about what's happening in real time, but also means she's completely in the fucking dark, and no one's talking in the office, either because they know jackshit, or because they're constitutionally more discreet than she will ever be.
Probably a mixture of the two, she decides.
Jane calls her just as she getting back home in the evening (and she'd almost forgotten how awful the commute is without a human shield that all the assholes of New York bounce off of), chirping happily down the phone.
“So, how was Christmas?” Jane asks after a long monologue that Darcy labels in her head as 'science' and tunes out.
“Oh, you know,” Darcy says. She flicks through Steve's new sketchbook, through couple of pages of dumb cartoons, most of which seem to be parodies of war propaganda and Captain America, and then the sketch of her on the couch. Man, she looks beautiful. “My parents loved him, he was adorable, then Black Widow swooped in and spirited him away on some secret mission. Haven't heard from him in over twenty four hours.”
After a pause, Jane says, “I'm coming over.”
“No, it's... Okay, sure, come over.”
Jane brings with her a truly staggering amount of alcohol, and a cake that Darcy immediately decides she will eat in its entirety.
“Tell me about Christmas,” Jane directs, cracking open the first beer and handing it to Darcy.
“We had sex in my childhood bed,” she says, then takes a sip. Jane has terrible taste in beer. “But he probably wouldn't want me discussing our sex life - which is extremely healthy, by the way - so we also, like, went to church and stuff.”
“You didn't burst into flames?”
“I felt a little warm. He gave me this.” She holds the locket up and Jane shuffles in to look at it.
“This is really nice,” she says.
“It was his mother's. It has a...” She fumbles to thumb it open for a moment. “It has pictures of him and his father in it.”
Jane cups it in her hand, bringing it up to her face to scrutinise. “Wow,” she says after a long moment. “He really loves you.”
“Yeah, apparently he does.” She flips the locket shut again. “Fuck knows why.”
Jane tips her head to one side and shrugs.
“That is not the appropriate response,” she says, and Jane just smiles at her. She sighs. “Ugh, gimme that cake.”
-
One hangover and a couple of days later, she gets a phone call on her cell. The number's withheld and for a moment she wonders if it's Steve, or news of Steve, at least. Four days and zip. Jane tried to find out where they'd gone, in her 'professional capacity', making something up about needing to consult with Tony, but Agent Hill just told her they'd get back to her.
She grabs her still ringing cell from her desk and goes out into the hallway to answer it, away from her fellow junior agents, who are all looking very disapproving about taking personal calls in work hours.
“Hello?” she says, crossing her fingers behind her back.
“Darcy, it's Pepper.”
“Oh.” She uncrosses her fingers. “Uh, hi, Pepper.”
“Hoping for someone else?” she says gently.
Darcy sighs. “Yeah, sorry. Hey, isn't my number unlisted?”
“It is,” Pepper says breezily. “I was just thinking: we're both short a boyfriend right now, and Stark Industries is having a New Year's Eve party tonight. Would you like to be my date?”
“Oh.” She'd kind of forgot that Pepper was missing someone too, someone who Steve went out to rescue five days ago. “Well, can I bring a friend?”
“I don't see why not.”
“Okay, then I'm a lesbian for the night.”
“Excellent,” Pepper replies.
-
Stark Tower looks pretty different when it's been all glitzed up for a party. For one thing, there are black-suited, jack-booted security guards everywhere, and photographers everywhere else. Darcy and Jane are ushered in around the back to save all the headlines about Captain America's girlfriend doing something without him. They spend a good forty minutes huddled together, watching all the famous people and whispering to each other about who's as good-looking as they seem on TV, who isn't, who's acting like a dick, and who's shorter in real life, before Pepper sweeps over in a floor length green dress.
“Jesus,” Jane mutters, glancing down at what Darcy knows are her nicest pair of black jeans and a white button down shirt. Darcy isn't much better, in a grey skirt and boobtacular tight sweater.
“Yeah,” she agrees as Pepper reaches them.
“Darcy, Dr Foster,” she says,
“Ms. Potts,” Jane says. “We were just discussing how under dressed we are.”
“Oh, this old thing?” Pepper sweeps a hand down her dress and smiles mischievously. “It's terrible how I invited you here then left you all on your own. Come on, let's go somewhere quieter.”
She takes them into one of the many, many living rooms, and crosses over to the bar. “Drink?”
“Lots of them,” Darcy says.
They settle on the couch with extremely expensive wine, and Pepper toes her shoes off with a sigh. “Everyone keeps asking me where Tony is,” she confides. “I'm bracing myself for all the articles about how he's cheating on me bright and early in the morning.”
“It must suck, having a relationship out in the open like that,” Jane says.
“It's not great,” Pepper says, “but living out in the open is a prerequisite for life with Tony.”
Jane nods. “It must be crazy living with him. Er, no offence.”
“None taken, it is. Although, surprisingly less crazy since he became a superhero. You know, he has quite the crush on you.”
It's fascinating how Jane almost immediately goes bright red. “Oh, I-- We've never met...”
Pepper laughs and pats her on the shoulder. “Don't worry, Dr Foster, Tony develops crushes on everyone he respects; they're mostly harmless. Surprisingly, he does know how to keep it in his pants.”
“Oh, well...” Jane stammers. Totally tomato red, and Darcy can't help the cackle the escapes her mouth. Jane glares at her. “Well, in that case, call me Jane.”
-
Pepper takes them up to a private balcony to wait for midnight and watch the fireworks. One of the floor to ceiling window converts to a giant television to watch the ball drop in Times Square, which in the scheme of things is one of the least impressive things Darcy has seen in this place, but she's fascinated with it nonetheless. Possibly being a little drunk helps with that.
“I've always enjoyed the phallic imagery of this thing,” she says, sitting on a lounger. “You know: 'ball drop'.”
“That's nice,” Jane says vaguely and pats her on the head.
“Oh, it's starting!” Darcy cries as they start to count down on the screen, and almost gets tangled in all her limbs as she jumps up. “Who's going to kiss me?”
Happy, the only other person granted the honour of this balcony (and yeah, Darcy did ask him if he's friends with Grumpy; he said that Grumpy normally goes by the name 'Colonel Rhodes') shakes his head. “I don't need that sort of trouble.”
Darcy shrugs. “Are we going to be able to see the fireworks from here?”
“Just look up,” Pepper says, pointing at the top of the building “You'll see something.”
“But who's going to kiss me?” she wails. Ryan Seacrest is at four, for God's sake! “This is important, someone has to kiss me!”
“Oh, shut up,” Jane says and tugs her in for a quick peck on the lips as the countdown reaches 'one'.
“Well, I never,” Darcy begins, but gets startled by what sounds like several high-pitched bombs going off. She looks up at the top of the tower, above which the sky is almost completely lit up by fireworks.
“Holy fuck!” she yells over the noise.
Pepper glances back at her and smiles. “Tony's been planning this for months!” she shouts back, and Darcy's pretty sure she's not imagining the sad look that crosses Pepper's face.
“Well, it's really great!” she shouts, and Jane nods enthusiastically.
-
There's no point going home once the party starts to wind down, since she has to be at work at seven, and she's glad for it, because her apartment loses its cramped charm without Steve and goes back to just being depressing. Pepper gives both her and Jane rooms to crash in, and the beds are the softest fuckers she's ever slept on. It makes it doubly hard to get up and drag herself to work, although Pepper's ultra-super-strength-probably-illegal-in-North-America painkillers certainly give her a little boost.
She makes it through the day with only one emergency trip to the restroom to be sick, which she's pretty sure marks an extreme upturn in her maturity levels, although it's clear from the looks she gets that she's a party of one in that regard.
She's halfway home on the subway when her phone rings. She's pretty sure that she shouldn't be getting any reception down here, but when she sees that it's another withheld number, she guesses that StarkPhones respect no rules of cell reception.
“Hey,” she answers.
“Darcy, you should get to the S.H.I.E.L.D. hospital as soon as possible,” Pepper says, no preamble. Darcy's stomach drops a little.
“What's happened, is everyone okay?” she asks as she elbows her way through the crush of people to get off the train.
“I'm not sure yet, I just got the call to get over there myself, but it occurred to me that they might not rush to call you.”
“Yeah, yeah...” Darcy mutters, getting caught up in the rush of people at the station. She looks around in a vague panic, trying to find her way to the other platform. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Call me if you need anything,” Pepper says. How the hell does she sound so fucking calm? Darcy's having images of Steve's mangled corpse right now - which might have something to do with all the violent movies she's watched, because the image is really detailed - but she's still pretty sure that there's a panic discrepancy between the two of them.
“It'll be okay,” Pepper adds softly.
-
The infirmary is in chaos when she makes it in. She had to pull the 'do you know who I am?' card a couple of times to get through security, and now she's pushing through a sea of medics and agents. She sees Tony first, sitting on a bed in dented armour. He raises his hand in a wave, then points across the room, to where Steve is being treated. There's a medic mostly obscuring him, but she'd recognise those boots anywhere.
She takes a deep breath, quelling her panic; he's alive, Tony doesn't look worried, everything's okay. “Have fun?” she asks as she gets closer to him, but the rest of her sarcasm dies when she catches sight of his face. He's leaning against the wall, butterfly stitches being applied to a cut that stretches from his temple to his jaw.
“Jesus fucking Christ, did Hulk use you as a chew toy?”
He smiles wanly, and squeezes his eyes shut for a second.
“Wait, did he?” she says, coming up beside the medic. Along with the gash that would be awesome if it wasn't currently marring Steve's pretty face, there are fading bruises reaching into his hairline. Her heart clenches a little.
He manages a faint laugh and shakes his head. “Would you mind...?” he says to the medic, gesturing at Darcy, and the woman nods, shuffling to one side.
“What the hell happened?” she asks, drawing him into a hug. He flinches and gasps, and she jumps back; she's heard a lot of his sounds, but not that one, and she doesn't care to hear it again.
“No, no,” he mumbles, gripping her arm and reeling her back in. “It's good.” He rests his forehead against her shoulder and breathes for a moment. She pats his hair gently, noting how in places it's hardened into clumps with blood.
“Okay,” he says, sitting back. He rubs one hand over the less messed up part of his face and smiles a little more brightly. “Let's go home.”
“Home?” She takes hold of his chin and narrows her eyes. “You look like you were just fed through a meat grinder.”
“Good thing I'm built for that kind of thing.” He tucks his head down and kisses her palm. It's such an un-Steve-like thing to do, with all these people around, she doesn't know what to say.
“The doctor would prefer that you stay here for the night, Captain Rogers,” the medic says.
Steve rolls his head to one side. “And I'd prefer not to,” he says, not unkindly, but there's a snap to it.
Darcy drops her hand to his neck, curving her palm there, and turns to the medic. “Am I going to get him home and he'll seem fine, and then drop dead of a brain aneurysm? Because that happens a lot on TV.”
“No,” the medic says, frowning at her like she's an idiot. Well, fuck you too, lady. “He didn't sustain any serious injuries, but he's going to be in a lot of pain and the doctor would like--”
“Pretty obvious that he doesn't give a fuck what the doctor likes.” She looks back at Steve and he just looks happy that someone other than him is dealing with it. “No offence or anything,” she adds, glancing back at the medic, then sets about helping Steve get up, and isn't that just weird as fuck.
Tony waves at her again on the way out, now joined by Pepper, embroiled in an argument which seems to alternate between bickering and kissing.
It occurs to her as they get down to the lobby of the S.H.I.E.L.D. hospital that she has no idea how to get him home. She doesn't think the subway would be a good idea for anyone, not with him covered in blood and looking like he's about to keel over. She pulls her cellphone out of her pocket, debating whether to ring for a taxi, when someone clears their throat.
“Agent Lewis,” Happy says, “Mr Stark called down for you.”
By the time they're home, the cut on Steve's face has healed, and he starts picking off the butterfly stitches while she freaks out slightly about what to do with him.
“What do you want? Pills? Food? Your coat and slippers?”
“Wouldn't mind a shower,” he says, and makes his limping way to the bathroom. She follows him in and watches him pull uselessly at his skin tight clothes for a couple of minutes before he drops his hands to his sides and sighs.
“Hey, come here,” she says, pulling him over to the toilet. She puts the seat down and climbs on top, giving herself a good five or six inches on him, and starts working on getting the blue undershirt over his head. As she rolls it up, this long purple bruise peeks out and she can't help the 'fuck' that slips out of her mouth.
Steve glances down, then up at her. “It's not that bad.”
“It is that bad,” she says, running her fingers down it lightly. “I've been looking for jeans this exact shade of purple for weeks. Come on, seriously, Steve.”
“Yeah,” he mutters.
The bruise is all along his left arm, too, she discovers when she gets the undershirt off. “And what am I going to find when I get these off?” she asks, plucking at the material of his pants.
It takes a couple of seconds for him to reply softly, “I'm trying to think of something funny to say.”
“Ha ha,” she says, steps down from the toilet, and starts on all the hidden zips and buttons of the pants. She literally has to peel them off him, they're so tight, and sure enough, there's that bruise all down his left leg. “How do you even get these things on?”
“With a lot of difficulty,” he says.
When she gets the pants down to his boots, he tries to bend his leg with a hiss of pain. “Don't,” she says, and does her best to twist his boot off without jostling his leg too much, before pulling the other one off and then rolling his pants down to his ankles and tugging them off his feet.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “I'm so sorry you have to do this.”
She stands back up and kisses him on the cheek. “Girlfriend's prerogative. Okay, in the shower.”
Normally, helping Steve wash is the best part of her day, miles of skin and muscles that shift and flex underneath her fingers. She can poke and slap and bite, and it all stays perfect while he moans and gasps and rolls his head back against the tiled wall. But tonight, it's probably the worst thing she's had to do in a while, watching the water turn rust coloured as she runs the sponge over his bruised side as gently as she can, so she's barely touching him at all.
“So, what happened?”
“It's...” For a moment she can almost see him thinking 'classified', and then he sighs, licking water from his lips. “General Ross got to Bruce first. It was, um... there was this soldier. Former soldier. He was a monster. I mean, Hulk is Hulk, but this was a monster. He did this,” he says waving at his side. “Apparently a couple of years ago they tried to revive Project Rebirth again, and they made this... thing out of some godforsaken mixture of my blood and God knows what else.”
She reaches up and sponges off soap from between his shoulder blades, totally lost on what to say. This is all a little above her pay grade - literally, even - but then Steve doesn't like being comforted, not really, so it works out most of the time.
“Everyone except me who was given the serum turned into... to something else,” he says, turning his head to her as she wipes the sponge over his jaw.
“Well, that just makes you extra special then, doesn't it?” she says, and he almost manages a smile. “Hey, if the monsters in my closet had been like you, then I wouldn't have slept at the end of my parents' bed till I was seven.”
He breathes out heavily, almost a laugh. “I just wonder what it did to me, sometimes.”
“Well, sure.” She shuts the shower off, grabs a towel off the rail, and climbs back onto the toilet to dry his hair. “That was some scary ass shit that happened to you, and you were nuts to ever say yes to it.”
He makes a soft noise of agreement.
“But...” She smooths his hair down, then rakes her fingers through it so that it all stands up in tufts. Better. “I think it's like false equivalency, right? Banner got Hulkified because they mixed a dusty old vial of your blood with radioactive material, and it sounds like they did it even worse with this monster soldier guy, and General Ross is a butt, everyone says so. And Schmidt was a fucking Nazi, so yeah, he went a little crazy. But you aren't a Nazi, and your project was led by a nice old man, not a butt, so you turned out like this.”
“Never looked at it quite like that,” he murmurs, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she gets down and starts drying the rest of him off.
“Of course you didn't. Would you prefer me to go on about how inner beauty leads to outer beauty? Because that's gonna get kind of awkward for both of us, dude.”
He full on laughs this time, and shakes his head. “That's okay.”
She gets him dressed in his most comfortable clothes, a shirt and the drawstring pants he wears to work out, and leads him back into the living room.
“You should probably get some sleep.”
“'m too keyed up to sleep,” he says, lifting his good arm to scratch at the back of his head. He frowns as he feels how his hair is sticking up all over the place, then glares at her as he combs it back down with his fingers.
“How about some food, then?” She goes to check the kitchen; there's a box of Hamburger Helper and an old loaf of bread. She really is reliant on Steve to buy food these days.
“Don't think my stomach could handle anything right now,” he replies. Steve not hungry? That's surely the first sign of the apocalypse.
“Well, what do you want?” she asks, turning around in time to see him collapse sideways onto the couch.
“Glass of water?” he says in a strained voice.
Glass of water. Jesus, if he got his arm cut off, he'd ask for a fucking band aid.
“Okay, here you go,” she says, bringing it over to him. He's lying on the couch, his legs hooked over one armrest, and when he shifts onto one shoulder to take the glass, he winces.
“Thank you,” he says.
“So, you won't go to bed, but you'll veg out on the couch?”
He grimaces around the glass, his eyebrows drawing together, staring at her like he hasn't got the energy to have this conversation. She sighs, runs her fingers through his hair, and says, “I'll get you a pillow.”
She gets him settled as well as she can; she thinks of the few stories that he's told her about growing up - he doesn't really like talking about back then, doesn't like thinking about being weak, or maybe doesn't like remembering all the people he loved - and how Bucky tended to him when he was laid up on the couch, with the flu or a fever or really bad heart palpitations. He hates being looked after.
She sits down on the coffee table and looks at him. He smiles, then frowns, then smiles again.
“Darcy,” he says, and grabs her hand, tugging her towards him.
“What-- wait, you want me to lie down with you?”
“Yeah.”
“You're like one giant bruise, and you want me to sit on you?”
“Half a giant bruise,” he mumbles, and keeps tugging. “It's just... it's just really difficult not to focus on the pain. Please.”
Well, shit, who could say no to such a polite request? She braces her hands on the edge of the couch and lifts herself over him, trying to settle as gently as she can between his good side and the back of the couch. It still gets a groan out of him, but she's pretty sure that there's some pleasure mixed in with the pain.
She switches the TV on as he breathes, too slow and controlled to be normal, his face tight. She presses the pad of her finger to the fine lines around his eyes - it's so weird to see, she's so used to his face being almost inhumanly smooth - and massages it a little. His eyelids flutter shut for a second before he looks up at her.
“Like that?” she asks, running a finger along his nose.
“It's nice,” he says.
“You're nice,” she counters, grinning at her own stupid joke, and kisses him lightly. “Watch the shitty movie.” Christmas may be over, but Christmas movies aren't. Steve wrinkles his nose at The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation.
She keeps rubbing every line and tense muscle, running her fingers over his eyebrows and into his hair, as he dozes, eyelids drooping, then opening every ten minutes or so. It's weird - what isn't tonight - because Steve never falls asleep on the couch. She wonders if he's slept at all since she last saw him. Too keyed up, her ass.
Every now and then, when he's dozing off, his legs twitch, kicking the wall. They're so cramped on the couch, he's practically spilling off it.
She drums her fingers on his cheek as his eyes open again. “You know,” she says, “we should move into your apartment.”
“Mm... what?” His bottom lip catches between his teeth for a moment, before he looks up at her. “What?”
“You own an apartment, like mortgage free, and we're living in this shoe box. I mean, I'm paying eight hundred dollars a month to live in a cold, mouldy shithole for no reason, and there's not even enough space in here for me, let alone you, and...” She forces her mouth to close. She shouldn't have to justify why they should live together, especially when they already do.
“That'd be nice,” he says, leaning into her hand. “But we'll need your bed, 'cause mine's barely wider than I am.”
“Captain,” she says, tucking her head against his shoulder, “you have a one track mind.”
-
They don't waste any time getting her moved out. The next morning, all Steve's injuries have healed, and once they get back from eating breakfast at a local diner because food doesn't magically appear in the kitchen when Steve's incapacitated, she calls and arranges to pick up a U-Haul moving van at midday, then calls her slum/landlord and gives her thirty days' notice. When she gets off the phone, Steve's staring at her with a weird smile on his face. She's pretty sure she has a correspondingly weird smile on her face; he's riding on the 'almost got killed' wave and she's got a contact high.
“It's like we're real adults,” she says.
“Yeah,” he says, staring at her with big eyes.
“I've got to pick up the van in two hours,” she says. “That's enough time for at least a couple of rounds of 'farewell crappy apartment' sex.
Steve grins and darts into the bedroom.
The hardest part of moving is getting the mattress out. Carrying it isn't a problem for Steve, but manoeuvring it blind is, so it's up to Darcy to guide him and she just has the worst hand/eye coordination, so Steve gets squashed under it a couple of times, with indignant yelps as he topples over. It's like the funniest thing ever. Steve doesn't agree.
He gets his own back when she admits that she's a little worried about driving on New York roads. He teases her very, very gently about it as they load up the back; he's still not quite got the hang of teasing girls, he doesn't think it proper.
“Well, they only had a manual left,” she says, pulling herself up to sit on the back as Steve slides another box in.
“You can't drive stick?” he asks, glancing up at her.
“I can, I just choose not to,” she says, turning her nose up. “I got it here, didn't I?”
She got it there, barely, but he doesn't need to know that.
“I'll drive us then,” he says.
“Can you drive?”
“Yes, I can drive! I was driving before you were even a twinkle in your grandfather's eye!” he says as he tackles her to the floor of the van, circling her wrists lightly with his fingers.
“I don't know, man, I don't mean horse and carriage.”
“Horse and--!” he says, cutting himself off as he kisses her, pushing her arms up until they're over her head.
“Out in public like this?” she mutters against the corner of his mouth.
“We're almost inside,” he says, pressing his open mouth against her cheek.
She strokes the back of his head. His hair is so ridiculously soft, how does he even do that? He uses freaking bar soap unless she stops him.
“Hey, how many rooms has your apartment got?”
“Mm?” he mumbles, nuzzling her neck. “...five?”
“Five rooms to christen, then,” she says.
He lifts his head and frowns at her.
“With sex,” she clarifies, and his eyes go round. He scrambles up and pulls her out of the van.
“Let's get this packing done!” he says, dragging her back inside.
She'd thought that Steve would drive like her grandma, minus needing a cushion to see over the steering wheel and bottle end glasses to make out the road in front, but she probably should have realised that a self-confessed 'adrenaline junkie' isn't going to crawl along at the minimum speed limit.
“Idiot,” he mutters as someone swerves in front of the van. Darcy smiles behind her hand as Steve mutters something else that she doesn't catch.
A couple of minutes later someone makes an illegal turn, merging with the oncoming traffic. Steve narrows his eyes and honks the horn, and the offending driver makes a very offensive hand gesture as he passes.
“Well, fuck you too, buddy,” Steve says under his breath.
“Steve!” she cries.
He looks at her as she dissolves into laughter, his cheeks a little pink. “People can't drive any more! What the hell happened?”
“Dude, whatever, you've got total road rage!”
His nose wrinkles up as he chuckles in embarrassment. “I am from Brooklyn...”
“It's kind of hot,” she confides.
He steps on the gas.
-
She forgot how crappy his apartment is. The paint's peeling in the bathroom, the walls are crumbling at the bottom, and someone's smoked up a storm in the bedroom, judging by the yellowing ceiling. Plus Steve doesn't own anything. At least there's lots of room in the closet.
“We can redecorate,” he says, “I was thinking about repainting the kitchen.”
“Let's do the ceilings black,” she says, pushing herself up onto an elbow to look at him. They've christened one and a half rooms so far (starting the living room and ending up in the bedroom at point of orgasm). He 'hmms', arms loosely crossed over his chest. His old bed, a single cot with a hunk of foam mattress, is turned on its side against a wall to make enough room for Darcy's. “I'm joking,” she adds. “But we should go to Ikea, maybe go crazy and buy you an improbably named lamp.”
“Buy us,” Steve corrects, turning his cheek into the pillow to look at her.
“Yeah,” she says, smoothing her hand out across his bare shoulders, curving her palm around the top of his arm. He has that dopey look on his face, the one he gets when he's thinking lots of romantic shit. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Being so dopey.”
He pouts. “I'm not dopey.”
“You're a little bit dopey. You've got that golden retriever hair and those big blue eyes like a baby. It gives off a certain dopey quality, but don't worry, you can be totally Chuck Norris badass, too.”
“You know, sometimes you just stop making sense altogether. For really long stretches of time.”
She runs her fingers through his hair, and he hums happily, eyelids drooping for a moment, “So you're a dope and I don't make any sense. Match made in heaven.”
“Mm,” he says, as she scratches her fingernails over his scalp, “could you... yeah,” he murmurs as she gives his hair a light tug.
“You aren't exactly disproving my golden retriever hair theory, considering how much you clearly enjoy being petted.”
“Uh huh,” he says, blinking slowly. God, he's just getting dopier by the minute, and her chest is starting to feel a little tight. Seriously, her last boyfriend played video games in his underwear and had his mom come by every two days to collect his laundry, wash it, fold it, and bring it back in time to judge Darcy's fitness as a future daughter in law when she got home from university or work. He also acted like having sex was a chore, unless it was pixelated cyber sex with a pink-haired troll in Argentina. Last she heard, the troll had left him for an elf; she didn't even feel a little bad for laughing at his angry Facebook update on the matter - she even as far as to 'like' it. She was swiftly defriended.
Steve, on the other hand, never acts like sex is a chore. Sex is a reward and workout and fun as hell judging by how much he smiles and laughs. There's a little bit of tension, sometimes, because Steve prefers her to be on top, and she really just wants him to fuck her into the mattress, but these are problems that she likes having. She's still not entirely clear on how she managed to stumble into an adultish relationship with America's golden boy, and defile him so thoroughly, without a word of protest from him.
Just when she thinks that he's about to fall asleep (and Jesus, his face is even prettier when it's relaxing into sleep), he sucks in a deep breath. “Hey,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“I'm... I'm really glad that we did this,” he says softly. “Maybe this place will finally feel like a home.”
She kisses him on the forehead. “I think it already is one.”
Steve pinks just a little, smiling sleepily. “Good.”