wip amnesty: steve/darcy fake dating
I declare WIP Amnesty!
I've got one or two stories I want to finish before I start working on post-Cap 2 fic, but I'll also probably be posting a few of my wsip that will likely never be finished because they were started just pre- or post-Avengers and canon has long since passed me by.
So here is 3200 words of a Steve/Darcy fake dating story that'll never be complete.
***
There are days when working for Agent Coulson is awesome. This is not one of them. Darcy sits in his office while he paces and frets--a side of him only she and his cat get to see--waiting for Steve to arrive.
And here he is now, all bashful smiles and big muscles. Darcy never gets tired of looking at him.
"You wanted to see me?"
Coulson's smile looks more like a grimace, and he tosses a copy of the New York Post onto the conference table. There's a picture of Steve at dinner with Tony and Pepper. The headline screams, "Superhero Menage a Trois?"
"That's not--We're not--I have the utmost respect for Tony and Ms. Potts. You have to believe that I would never--"
"What I believe doesn't matter," Coulson says wearily, cutting off the stream of rapidly accelerating babble. "I don't care either way."
"That's a lie," Darcy murmurs and they both shoot her a glance, Coulson's irritated, Steve's confused.
Coulson takes a deep breath and his voice is softer when he says, "I don't care what you get up to behind closed doors, as long as it's between consenting adults. You could be a furry for all I care."
"A furry?"
"I'll explain later," Darcy says and Steve gives her a grateful half-smile.
Coulson ignores their byplay. "But after the beating the team has taken in the press lately, we can't have this. The public loves Stark's fairy tale romance, the bad boy superhero reformed by the love of a good woman. Having it turn into some kind of sex scandal does not work for us."
Steve is beet red by this point, so Darcy takes pity on him.
"This is easy to solve, boss. Set him up with a fake girlfriend and have them appear around town for a few weeks. It will throw the paps off the scent. Pitchers and catchers report next week, and by opening day, no one will care whether or not Captain America and Iron Man are boning."
"But we're not," Steve says in a small voice that Coulson ignores.
Coulson smiles again, and this time it's the one that always makes the hair on the back of Darcy's neck stand up. "Perfect plan, Ms. Lewis. Maybe one day you will get to sit in my chair." She preens, right up until he says, "Until then, though, thanks for volunteering. Captain Rogers, Ms. Lewis is your new girlfriend. You're both very happy and in the first flush of young love. You can use my name to get a reservation tonight. Somewhere you'll be seen, discreetly. Good day."
Somehow, they both find themselves standing outside the closed door to his office.
"One day, I'm gonna figure out how he does it," Darcy says. She shakes a fist at the door. "One day!" Then the full import of what Coulson's asking her to do hits and she puts a hand over her heart. "Oh my god. He wants me to be your beard."
Steve winces and gives her an apologetic smile. "Um, you know you don't have to do this."
"Sadly, when the boss gives me an order, I kind of do," she answers. "He makes life very uncomfortable otherwise. Look," she says, not unkindly, "it's okay to have a crush on Pepper. Most of us do. I think Coulson actually asked her out before she and Tony got together, and she shot him down. But you probably shouldn't gaze lovingly at her when there are paparazzi around. Of course, it's possible he's just upset because you're not gazing at him that way."
"I'm not--I don't--"
"Is it Tony?" She doesn't stop talking long enough for him to answer. Despite a reputation as the office gossip (totally earned and also totally part of Coulson's plan to control the flow of information that gets out to the rank and file), she doesn't really want to know. "Whatever, I don't care. Meet me at my desk at six. We're going to dinner. On the company's dime."
She pats his arm again, and mentally pats herself on the back for not squeezing, because sweet Jesus, he is rock solid, and then sends him off to a briefing with Director Fury. It's a real pleasure to watch him walk away.
*
Darcy spends her lunch hour at Macy's, buying a new dress on the corporate card. Coulson's left eye twitches a little when she hands him the receipt but he signs off on the purchase.
Steve shows up at her desk promptly at six. He's wearing a suit that probably cost more than she makes per paycheck (and makes the price of her new dress look downright reasonable), and the overall effect would be stunning if he didn't look so uncomfortable.
"Hey," she says, "look, it was a just a suggestion. If you've got someone who would make you feel less awkward--"
"No," he says, sharper than she's heard ever him while not on a mission. Her surprise must show on her face, because he says, "No," again, more gently this time, and the smile he gives her is kind of sad. "Not anymore."
Darcy bites her lip, feeling stupid, but then she shakes it off and squares her shoulders, which has the added effect of making him glance at her chest and then hurriedly back at her face. She smiles back.
"Tell me how much you like my new dress," she says, wrapping her arm around his. This time, she does give him a squeeze. He jumps a little in response, and then gives her a wider, brighter smile. She reminds herself not to get used to it, because the smile might be real, but everything else is just a show.
"You look lovely, Miss Lewis."
"Thank you, Captain Rogers." She waves her free hand at the door. "There's a car waiting." He nods but doesn't move. "I promise, it will be easier than fighting Hydra." He gives her a wry glance at that. "And at least fifty percent more fun." With that, she can feel him relax, and that eases some of the butterflies in her belly, too. She--they--can do this.
*
The maitre'd's eyes widen when he sees Steve, but then he smiles and leads them to a secluded table. The restaurant is crowded but not too loud and everything smells good. There's a little confusion when Steve and the maitre'd both try to pull out her chair, but the maitre'd doesn't fluster. He introduces them to their waiter, and then leaves them be.
"So what's good here?" Steve asks as they settle in.
"I have no idea." Darcy shrugs one shoulder and laughs nervously. "This is way out of my price range."
Steve reaches across the table and touches her wrist. "We don't have to stay."
Darcy takes a deep breath and grins when his gaze drops to her chest--it's only for a second, but it's nice to know even Captain America appreciates her rack. "It'll be fine. And we have Coulson's corporate card, so don't even worry about the check."
The waiter, giving Steve the same kind of wide-eyed look most people give him, says that the chef is preparing a special tasting menu for them, and the sommelier hovers, waiting for Steve to approve the wine. Steve nods and the sommelier beams and pours a glass for each of them.
Once the sommelier is gone, Steve leans in like he's sharing a secret. "I'm not really a wine drinker."
Darcy gives him a conspiratorial smile. "I'm a heathen who likes white Zinfandel and has never paid more than seven dollars a bottle." She raises her glass in a toast and he clinks his against it, returning her smile.
The food starts arriving on small plates. Darcy doesn't know what a lot of it is, but it tastes good. And there's more wine, too, enough to make her head spin if she's not careful. Red wine hangovers are the worst, and she still has to work in the morning.
"So," she says, as one set of plates is cleared away and another appears almost like magic; she's starting to feel like Belle in the Beast's castle, but she knows she's not the Disney princess in this scenario, "we should maybe figure out what we're going to do."
"Do you really think this is going to work?"
She's not but she tries not to let that show in her voice. "Yeah. Listen, you did PR back in the day, right?" He nods. "We're going to do something similar, only with a playbook that's been updated for the twenty-first century." She takes a sip of wine and licks a stray drop off her lip. She tells herself she's imagining him looking at her mouth when she does. She really should stop drinking. "I'm meeting with Pepper tomorrow to discuss some strategies to deflect and redirect the press. If you're free, you should come. I don't want you to feel left out." Another sip of wine. It's really good. She checks the label on the bottle but knows she couldn't afford it even if she remembered the name in the morning. "Unless your unrequited love for her is going to be a problem."
"I'm sure I'll manage," he says dryly. "What time are you meeting?"
"Eleven, at her office."
"Okay."
They concentrate on eating the next course for a few minutes, some kind of game hen with a lot of fiddly bones to avoid, and then he says, "So, you're a Yankees fan?"
She looks up, startled. "God, no. What makes you think that?"
"You mentioned pitchers and catchers."
"There are other baseball teams in the world."
He laughs. "I know that. But it seems like everyone else has forgotten it." He shakes his head and she feels bad.
"I'm a Phillies fan," she says. "It's not something that goes over real well here, but yeah. I mean, it's not as bad as being a Red Sox fan? But people don't like the Phillies."
"They were pretty terrible back in my day," he says. "We always did pretty well against them."
"We?" It takes Darcy a minute and then she says, "The Dodgers, right?"
"Yeah." He gives another soft laugh. "For a while after I woke up, I wondered if I was just having some horrible nightmare, if maybe Schmidt had done something to make me believe this was reality now, but when I heard about the Dodgers moving to California, I knew even he couldn't have come up with something so unbelievable."
This time, she reaches out and touches his hand where it lays across the base of his wineglass, running her thumb over his knuckles. "See, we already have one thing in common," she says. "We can hate the Yankees together." She's had entire real relationships built on less; it should be enough for a fake one.
*
Dessert is a plate of gorgeously composed sweets in different configurations--a sculpture of brittle sugar and caramel, pillowy soft beignets stuffed with dulce de leche and dusted with powdered sugar, a small dollop of honey lavender gelato, and an artful drizzle of chocolate ganache.
"Oh my god," Darcy says, trying not to actually moan. "I want to marry these beignets."
"I don't think that's legal," Steve says.
"Can't you make it legal? I bet the government would listen to you." She holds out a bite of beignet dipped in ganache and gelato. "Taste this." He hesitates before letting her stick the fork in his mouth. "Don't rush it," she says. "Savor it." She's probably being too forward--she's pretty sure that if there were a definition of "too forward" in the dictionary, her name would be next to it--but they are technically supposed to be on a date and this is the best dessert she's had in forever.
He swallows and then grins. "All right, I admit, that's amazing."
"Right?" She pushes the plate back into the center of the table even though normally she'd never share dessert. Technically, it was for both of them, even if she appropriated it as soon as the waiter set it down.
The chef comes out a few minutes later to ask them how the meal was; she lets Steve handle this part, since he's the one the chef is watching with an awestruck look.
Her phone buzzes then and she feels the warm glow from the beignets start to dissipate. She takes a deep breath and says, "That was the boss. Word has gotten out that we're here." She doesn't bother to say that word came from one of Coulson's contacts. "There are going to be some photographers outside."
Steve gulps down the rest of his coffee and nods. "Okay. What's the plan?"
"Just look like you're having a good time. I'll handle the rest."
"Well, I am having a good time," he answers as he helps her into her coat. "So that won't be so hard."
She's still smiling as they exit the restaurant with his hand on the small of her back; it's not that hard to make eyes at him for everyone else to see, and the cameras flash brightly until the black towncar slides to a stop in front of the restaurant. Steve helps her in and climbs in beside her, pulling the door shut with a decisive clunk that shuts out the rest of the world.
She has to blink away spots from the flashes, but otherwise, she feels good; she didn't eat or drink too much, and Steve said he was having a good time. She wishes the rest of her job was this easy.
"That went well," she says, buckling her seatbelt and giving him a wide smile.
"Yes," he says, and then looks away.
She touches his elbow and when he looks back at her she holds his gaze. "Hey. If you're not okay with this--if you're having second thoughts or have changed your mind--" She leaves it hanging. Coulson won't be pleased, but he'll accept the change in plans if it's Steve who makes the call.
Steve shakes his head. "No, it's fine. I just--I thought the press was bad in my day, but even Hedda Hopper had nothing on the internet."
"She'd have loved it, though, I bet."
He huffs softly. "Probably."
"Are you sure about this?" She cocks her head, makes sure her voice is steady and gentle. "We can find another girl, if it's not the plan but me that's the issue."
He looks up, startled. "You're not the problem," he says, enveloping her hand in his large, warm one. "I just don't want to mess up and make things harder for you."
"You're doing great," she says, squeezing back lightly and now it's her turn to glance away. "Just keep looking at me like that and we won't have any trouble making people believe this."
His mouth quirks up in a small half-smile. "I can do that."
Yeah, she thinks, he's definitely not the problem.
It's a quick drive back to the tower, the car sliding into the garage entrance without the small handful of photographers hanging out around front catching wind of them.
"Okay," she says when they get out of the car, "I'll see you at eleven tomorrow." She's only wearing kitten heels so she has to go up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. "I had a nice time," she says.
He gives her one of those bright grins that make her heart beat a little faster. "Me, too."
And even though she knows it wasn't a real date, Darcy smiles the whole ride home.
*
Darcy checks the morning papers (online, of course, she hasn't even had coffee yet, let alone a shower), and grins at the picture of herself and Steve on Page Six, with the caption, Cap and Cutie on a date?. There's a little blurb about how smitten he looks and a terrible pun about her tits, but it's the Post so she doesn't expect any better. The Bugle doesn't have a picture but notes that Captain America and his new sweetheart seemed as engrossed in dessert as they were in each other last night at Saint'Ange on 58th Street. She maybe does a little fist pump at that, but since she's almost a hundred percent sure there are no surveillance cameras in her bedroom, nobody can prove it. And dessert really was excellent.
The gossip sites are already speculating about her identity, which is one of the things she hadn't really thought about too much when she'd agreed to the plan, but she avoids the comments (she's pretty sure SHIELD has someone monitoring all the gossip and social media sites for mentions of the Avengers et al., but it's not her job) and shoots off an email to her mother instead. I'm helping out Captain America, she writes. Don't believe everything you read.
She isn't sure what she should (or even can) say to her friends, most of whom don't even know she works for SHIELD, so she just doesn't say anything at all. No doubt one of them will sell her out for cash soon enough. She probably should have thought of that, too. The only thing that comforts her is that Coulson probably already has.
*
Tony's with Pepper and Steve when Darcy arrives for their meeting. He's holding up the previous day's newspaper, the one that set this whole plan in motion. "If you wanted a threesome, you could have asked. It's what Bruce did."
Steve looks perplexed and Darcy wonders if she should intervene when he says, "That's not how I heard it."
"Wait, you and Dr. Banner--" Darcy starts but is interrupted by Tony.
"Admittedly, he seduced us with science, but you're not without your charms."
"Thanks, I think." Steve's voice is dry, and he gives Darcy an amused and long-suffering glance.
"Seriously," Tony says, "if you'd asked, maybe you wouldn't be wound so tight. Too late now, though. You snooze, you lose." Then he winces, as if he's just realized what he's said and who he's said it to. "Yeah, maybe I should have thought that one through a little more, but you know what I mean."
"Yeah," Steve says, curiously gentle. "If it's any consolation, I didn't want to sleep with your father, either."
Tony's mouth opens and closes, and it takes him a few seconds longer to come up with a reply. "Actually, that kind of is. But at least--"
"Go away from us now," Pepper says before Tony can say anything horrible. "Go be brilliant and make the post-docs love you so we can hire them away from Oscorp. We have a media strategy to plan."
"Fake girlfriend." Tony gives them two mocking thumbs up. "You can't go wrong with the classics. And Lewis here has a definite Forties pin-up thing going on. I approve."
"Nobody asked for your approval, Tony," Pepper says.
"Dr. Banner is waiting with the applicants in Lab 6," Jarvis says at the same moment.
"Go," Pepper says, shooing Tony out. This time he goes, and Darcy breathes a little sigh of relief.
***
I did have notes for completing this, but somehow it just never progressed beyond this point and other stories got bumped up the list ahead of it. Sigh.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/649477.html.
people have commented there.
I've got one or two stories I want to finish before I start working on post-Cap 2 fic, but I'll also probably be posting a few of my wsip that will likely never be finished because they were started just pre- or post-Avengers and canon has long since passed me by.
So here is 3200 words of a Steve/Darcy fake dating story that'll never be complete.
***
There are days when working for Agent Coulson is awesome. This is not one of them. Darcy sits in his office while he paces and frets--a side of him only she and his cat get to see--waiting for Steve to arrive.
And here he is now, all bashful smiles and big muscles. Darcy never gets tired of looking at him.
"You wanted to see me?"
Coulson's smile looks more like a grimace, and he tosses a copy of the New York Post onto the conference table. There's a picture of Steve at dinner with Tony and Pepper. The headline screams, "Superhero Menage a Trois?"
"That's not--We're not--I have the utmost respect for Tony and Ms. Potts. You have to believe that I would never--"
"What I believe doesn't matter," Coulson says wearily, cutting off the stream of rapidly accelerating babble. "I don't care either way."
"That's a lie," Darcy murmurs and they both shoot her a glance, Coulson's irritated, Steve's confused.
Coulson takes a deep breath and his voice is softer when he says, "I don't care what you get up to behind closed doors, as long as it's between consenting adults. You could be a furry for all I care."
"A furry?"
"I'll explain later," Darcy says and Steve gives her a grateful half-smile.
Coulson ignores their byplay. "But after the beating the team has taken in the press lately, we can't have this. The public loves Stark's fairy tale romance, the bad boy superhero reformed by the love of a good woman. Having it turn into some kind of sex scandal does not work for us."
Steve is beet red by this point, so Darcy takes pity on him.
"This is easy to solve, boss. Set him up with a fake girlfriend and have them appear around town for a few weeks. It will throw the paps off the scent. Pitchers and catchers report next week, and by opening day, no one will care whether or not Captain America and Iron Man are boning."
"But we're not," Steve says in a small voice that Coulson ignores.
Coulson smiles again, and this time it's the one that always makes the hair on the back of Darcy's neck stand up. "Perfect plan, Ms. Lewis. Maybe one day you will get to sit in my chair." She preens, right up until he says, "Until then, though, thanks for volunteering. Captain Rogers, Ms. Lewis is your new girlfriend. You're both very happy and in the first flush of young love. You can use my name to get a reservation tonight. Somewhere you'll be seen, discreetly. Good day."
Somehow, they both find themselves standing outside the closed door to his office.
"One day, I'm gonna figure out how he does it," Darcy says. She shakes a fist at the door. "One day!" Then the full import of what Coulson's asking her to do hits and she puts a hand over her heart. "Oh my god. He wants me to be your beard."
Steve winces and gives her an apologetic smile. "Um, you know you don't have to do this."
"Sadly, when the boss gives me an order, I kind of do," she answers. "He makes life very uncomfortable otherwise. Look," she says, not unkindly, "it's okay to have a crush on Pepper. Most of us do. I think Coulson actually asked her out before she and Tony got together, and she shot him down. But you probably shouldn't gaze lovingly at her when there are paparazzi around. Of course, it's possible he's just upset because you're not gazing at him that way."
"I'm not--I don't--"
"Is it Tony?" She doesn't stop talking long enough for him to answer. Despite a reputation as the office gossip (totally earned and also totally part of Coulson's plan to control the flow of information that gets out to the rank and file), she doesn't really want to know. "Whatever, I don't care. Meet me at my desk at six. We're going to dinner. On the company's dime."
She pats his arm again, and mentally pats herself on the back for not squeezing, because sweet Jesus, he is rock solid, and then sends him off to a briefing with Director Fury. It's a real pleasure to watch him walk away.
*
Darcy spends her lunch hour at Macy's, buying a new dress on the corporate card. Coulson's left eye twitches a little when she hands him the receipt but he signs off on the purchase.
Steve shows up at her desk promptly at six. He's wearing a suit that probably cost more than she makes per paycheck (and makes the price of her new dress look downright reasonable), and the overall effect would be stunning if he didn't look so uncomfortable.
"Hey," she says, "look, it was a just a suggestion. If you've got someone who would make you feel less awkward--"
"No," he says, sharper than she's heard ever him while not on a mission. Her surprise must show on her face, because he says, "No," again, more gently this time, and the smile he gives her is kind of sad. "Not anymore."
Darcy bites her lip, feeling stupid, but then she shakes it off and squares her shoulders, which has the added effect of making him glance at her chest and then hurriedly back at her face. She smiles back.
"Tell me how much you like my new dress," she says, wrapping her arm around his. This time, she does give him a squeeze. He jumps a little in response, and then gives her a wider, brighter smile. She reminds herself not to get used to it, because the smile might be real, but everything else is just a show.
"You look lovely, Miss Lewis."
"Thank you, Captain Rogers." She waves her free hand at the door. "There's a car waiting." He nods but doesn't move. "I promise, it will be easier than fighting Hydra." He gives her a wry glance at that. "And at least fifty percent more fun." With that, she can feel him relax, and that eases some of the butterflies in her belly, too. She--they--can do this.
*
The maitre'd's eyes widen when he sees Steve, but then he smiles and leads them to a secluded table. The restaurant is crowded but not too loud and everything smells good. There's a little confusion when Steve and the maitre'd both try to pull out her chair, but the maitre'd doesn't fluster. He introduces them to their waiter, and then leaves them be.
"So what's good here?" Steve asks as they settle in.
"I have no idea." Darcy shrugs one shoulder and laughs nervously. "This is way out of my price range."
Steve reaches across the table and touches her wrist. "We don't have to stay."
Darcy takes a deep breath and grins when his gaze drops to her chest--it's only for a second, but it's nice to know even Captain America appreciates her rack. "It'll be fine. And we have Coulson's corporate card, so don't even worry about the check."
The waiter, giving Steve the same kind of wide-eyed look most people give him, says that the chef is preparing a special tasting menu for them, and the sommelier hovers, waiting for Steve to approve the wine. Steve nods and the sommelier beams and pours a glass for each of them.
Once the sommelier is gone, Steve leans in like he's sharing a secret. "I'm not really a wine drinker."
Darcy gives him a conspiratorial smile. "I'm a heathen who likes white Zinfandel and has never paid more than seven dollars a bottle." She raises her glass in a toast and he clinks his against it, returning her smile.
The food starts arriving on small plates. Darcy doesn't know what a lot of it is, but it tastes good. And there's more wine, too, enough to make her head spin if she's not careful. Red wine hangovers are the worst, and she still has to work in the morning.
"So," she says, as one set of plates is cleared away and another appears almost like magic; she's starting to feel like Belle in the Beast's castle, but she knows she's not the Disney princess in this scenario, "we should maybe figure out what we're going to do."
"Do you really think this is going to work?"
She's not but she tries not to let that show in her voice. "Yeah. Listen, you did PR back in the day, right?" He nods. "We're going to do something similar, only with a playbook that's been updated for the twenty-first century." She takes a sip of wine and licks a stray drop off her lip. She tells herself she's imagining him looking at her mouth when she does. She really should stop drinking. "I'm meeting with Pepper tomorrow to discuss some strategies to deflect and redirect the press. If you're free, you should come. I don't want you to feel left out." Another sip of wine. It's really good. She checks the label on the bottle but knows she couldn't afford it even if she remembered the name in the morning. "Unless your unrequited love for her is going to be a problem."
"I'm sure I'll manage," he says dryly. "What time are you meeting?"
"Eleven, at her office."
"Okay."
They concentrate on eating the next course for a few minutes, some kind of game hen with a lot of fiddly bones to avoid, and then he says, "So, you're a Yankees fan?"
She looks up, startled. "God, no. What makes you think that?"
"You mentioned pitchers and catchers."
"There are other baseball teams in the world."
He laughs. "I know that. But it seems like everyone else has forgotten it." He shakes his head and she feels bad.
"I'm a Phillies fan," she says. "It's not something that goes over real well here, but yeah. I mean, it's not as bad as being a Red Sox fan? But people don't like the Phillies."
"They were pretty terrible back in my day," he says. "We always did pretty well against them."
"We?" It takes Darcy a minute and then she says, "The Dodgers, right?"
"Yeah." He gives another soft laugh. "For a while after I woke up, I wondered if I was just having some horrible nightmare, if maybe Schmidt had done something to make me believe this was reality now, but when I heard about the Dodgers moving to California, I knew even he couldn't have come up with something so unbelievable."
This time, she reaches out and touches his hand where it lays across the base of his wineglass, running her thumb over his knuckles. "See, we already have one thing in common," she says. "We can hate the Yankees together." She's had entire real relationships built on less; it should be enough for a fake one.
*
Dessert is a plate of gorgeously composed sweets in different configurations--a sculpture of brittle sugar and caramel, pillowy soft beignets stuffed with dulce de leche and dusted with powdered sugar, a small dollop of honey lavender gelato, and an artful drizzle of chocolate ganache.
"Oh my god," Darcy says, trying not to actually moan. "I want to marry these beignets."
"I don't think that's legal," Steve says.
"Can't you make it legal? I bet the government would listen to you." She holds out a bite of beignet dipped in ganache and gelato. "Taste this." He hesitates before letting her stick the fork in his mouth. "Don't rush it," she says. "Savor it." She's probably being too forward--she's pretty sure that if there were a definition of "too forward" in the dictionary, her name would be next to it--but they are technically supposed to be on a date and this is the best dessert she's had in forever.
He swallows and then grins. "All right, I admit, that's amazing."
"Right?" She pushes the plate back into the center of the table even though normally she'd never share dessert. Technically, it was for both of them, even if she appropriated it as soon as the waiter set it down.
The chef comes out a few minutes later to ask them how the meal was; she lets Steve handle this part, since he's the one the chef is watching with an awestruck look.
Her phone buzzes then and she feels the warm glow from the beignets start to dissipate. She takes a deep breath and says, "That was the boss. Word has gotten out that we're here." She doesn't bother to say that word came from one of Coulson's contacts. "There are going to be some photographers outside."
Steve gulps down the rest of his coffee and nods. "Okay. What's the plan?"
"Just look like you're having a good time. I'll handle the rest."
"Well, I am having a good time," he answers as he helps her into her coat. "So that won't be so hard."
She's still smiling as they exit the restaurant with his hand on the small of her back; it's not that hard to make eyes at him for everyone else to see, and the cameras flash brightly until the black towncar slides to a stop in front of the restaurant. Steve helps her in and climbs in beside her, pulling the door shut with a decisive clunk that shuts out the rest of the world.
She has to blink away spots from the flashes, but otherwise, she feels good; she didn't eat or drink too much, and Steve said he was having a good time. She wishes the rest of her job was this easy.
"That went well," she says, buckling her seatbelt and giving him a wide smile.
"Yes," he says, and then looks away.
She touches his elbow and when he looks back at her she holds his gaze. "Hey. If you're not okay with this--if you're having second thoughts or have changed your mind--" She leaves it hanging. Coulson won't be pleased, but he'll accept the change in plans if it's Steve who makes the call.
Steve shakes his head. "No, it's fine. I just--I thought the press was bad in my day, but even Hedda Hopper had nothing on the internet."
"She'd have loved it, though, I bet."
He huffs softly. "Probably."
"Are you sure about this?" She cocks her head, makes sure her voice is steady and gentle. "We can find another girl, if it's not the plan but me that's the issue."
He looks up, startled. "You're not the problem," he says, enveloping her hand in his large, warm one. "I just don't want to mess up and make things harder for you."
"You're doing great," she says, squeezing back lightly and now it's her turn to glance away. "Just keep looking at me like that and we won't have any trouble making people believe this."
His mouth quirks up in a small half-smile. "I can do that."
Yeah, she thinks, he's definitely not the problem.
It's a quick drive back to the tower, the car sliding into the garage entrance without the small handful of photographers hanging out around front catching wind of them.
"Okay," she says when they get out of the car, "I'll see you at eleven tomorrow." She's only wearing kitten heels so she has to go up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. "I had a nice time," she says.
He gives her one of those bright grins that make her heart beat a little faster. "Me, too."
And even though she knows it wasn't a real date, Darcy smiles the whole ride home.
*
Darcy checks the morning papers (online, of course, she hasn't even had coffee yet, let alone a shower), and grins at the picture of herself and Steve on Page Six, with the caption, Cap and Cutie on a date?. There's a little blurb about how smitten he looks and a terrible pun about her tits, but it's the Post so she doesn't expect any better. The Bugle doesn't have a picture but notes that Captain America and his new sweetheart seemed as engrossed in dessert as they were in each other last night at Saint'Ange on 58th Street. She maybe does a little fist pump at that, but since she's almost a hundred percent sure there are no surveillance cameras in her bedroom, nobody can prove it. And dessert really was excellent.
The gossip sites are already speculating about her identity, which is one of the things she hadn't really thought about too much when she'd agreed to the plan, but she avoids the comments (she's pretty sure SHIELD has someone monitoring all the gossip and social media sites for mentions of the Avengers et al., but it's not her job) and shoots off an email to her mother instead. I'm helping out Captain America, she writes. Don't believe everything you read.
She isn't sure what she should (or even can) say to her friends, most of whom don't even know she works for SHIELD, so she just doesn't say anything at all. No doubt one of them will sell her out for cash soon enough. She probably should have thought of that, too. The only thing that comforts her is that Coulson probably already has.
*
Tony's with Pepper and Steve when Darcy arrives for their meeting. He's holding up the previous day's newspaper, the one that set this whole plan in motion. "If you wanted a threesome, you could have asked. It's what Bruce did."
Steve looks perplexed and Darcy wonders if she should intervene when he says, "That's not how I heard it."
"Wait, you and Dr. Banner--" Darcy starts but is interrupted by Tony.
"Admittedly, he seduced us with science, but you're not without your charms."
"Thanks, I think." Steve's voice is dry, and he gives Darcy an amused and long-suffering glance.
"Seriously," Tony says, "if you'd asked, maybe you wouldn't be wound so tight. Too late now, though. You snooze, you lose." Then he winces, as if he's just realized what he's said and who he's said it to. "Yeah, maybe I should have thought that one through a little more, but you know what I mean."
"Yeah," Steve says, curiously gentle. "If it's any consolation, I didn't want to sleep with your father, either."
Tony's mouth opens and closes, and it takes him a few seconds longer to come up with a reply. "Actually, that kind of is. But at least--"
"Go away from us now," Pepper says before Tony can say anything horrible. "Go be brilliant and make the post-docs love you so we can hire them away from Oscorp. We have a media strategy to plan."
"Fake girlfriend." Tony gives them two mocking thumbs up. "You can't go wrong with the classics. And Lewis here has a definite Forties pin-up thing going on. I approve."
"Nobody asked for your approval, Tony," Pepper says.
"Dr. Banner is waiting with the applicants in Lab 6," Jarvis says at the same moment.
"Go," Pepper says, shooing Tony out. This time he goes, and Darcy breathes a little sigh of relief.
***
I did have notes for completing this, but somehow it just never progressed beyond this point and other stories got bumped up the list ahead of it. Sigh.
***
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