Round 4

[norse_kink]

Round 4 is now closed.

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Re: Fill: "saved until last" Part IV

[mira_jade_fics]

Part IV

“Actually, my name is kind of her fault,” Darcy continued to ramble. “My dad named me Darcy because my mom was so very British - just like Grandmother, and his exposure to British culture went only as far as Pride and Prejudice. My mom was too busy laughing at his reasoning to not agree.”

And finally Steve spoke, his voice falling from his mouth on an exhale. “I believe that I have made it through three novels in my life - and Miss Austen's book is one of them.” The tips of his ears flushed a pale shade of pink. “I read Pride and Prejudice because Peggy mentioned that it was one of her favorites.”

She did not mention that there was a copy of that same book in the bottom of the box - the binding warped and the pages peeling from exposure from the elements. She had thought of mud and combat fire the first time she had seen it - a soldier's link to sanity on the front lines.

“She had good taste,” Darcy approved, her tone soft.

He nodded, looking down to further investigate the box. The pictures he set aside - minus a smiling one of Peggy and him, obviously taken when neither were aware, laughing and smiling something that only his memory recalled. He placed that picture in the pocket of his shirt, and set the rest aside. Peggy's journal he thumbed through, a smile touching his lips at a phrase here and there, and then that too he set aside, no doubt to more carefully pour over later. The letters he lingered over longer.

“These are dated past when I . . . when I died,” he said softly.

Darcy nodded, her throat tight. “Yeah, she continued to write you . . . your memory anyway, until right before she married my grandfather.” She pointed to one in the middle of the stack, the normally elegant handwriting looping and graceless. “I think that the one she wrote on V-Day is going to be your favorite, though.”

He touched that one, amused, before looking at the very last letter. Read the date. Saw the years. And then he said, “I am glad she moved on.”

Human emotion, Darcy thought painfully. What was years for them was still so fresh to him, and even the most self sacrificing of souls couldn't help the hurt that followed.

He reached the novel on the bottom of the box, and a real smile touched his face. He fingered the binding for a moment, entranced as the old and weary pages bent to him - welcoming him after so many years away. And then, carefully, he started to repack the box.

“Thank-you,” he finally said, his voice a bubble in his throat. “You have . . . you have no idea how much these mean to me.”

She didn't, it was true. But she nodded anyway.

When he busied himself with placed the last item back into the box, Darcy turned to dig in her bag for her iPod and its speakers. He watched her curiously, still fascinated by any and every modern gadget. She had made Jane's Thunderer multiple playlists on the iPod she had gotten for him, and in that moment she decided to do the same for Steve - no doubt he would appreciate having the music from his time, and then a careful introduction to all of the years of brilliance he had missed. She smirked as she thought of everything he had yet to hear - Elvis, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin! She considered throwing in some Lady Gaga, just to really scare him, and the thought made her smirk. Thor's reaction to that had been priceless - she could only imagine Steve's.

“What's that?” he asked as a low strain of music started to fill the air. Gentle and ebbing, low and old notes made for dancing, from a gentler, easier time.

“Music,” she said wryly.

He blushed. “So I hear,” he said.

“This,” she pointed to her little set-up. “Is an iPod, whose brilliance I will further aquatint you with later. For now . . . I believe that you owed my grandmother a dance, soldier.”

Stark and Barton had always teased Steve for how he wore every thought and feeling upon his face. Darcy appreciated it in that moment - as if by her seeing how his face flushed and shadowed, then her grandmother was as well. He swallowed low in his throat, fighting down feeling and memory as he inclined his head. “I believe I did,” the words were a consolation, torn from his tongue.