Hello, all!

Ten years ago, I posted the first chapter of my very first published fanfic (not counting a few trashy crossovers I wrote in a notebook that will never see the light of day) on . It was a 'Di-Gata Defenders' fic called 'Father and Son'. So, today, I'm celebrating by posting for a new fandom, as well as getting an early start on Whumptober (which is also something new for me).

These whump ficlets will all focus on Bucky and Darcy, although it won't always be both of them. Some will be angsty (pretty much a given, since this is Bucky we're talking about) and some will be funny. They will all be considered standalone ficlets unless stated otherwise (22 and 23 are both connected). If you want to participate as well, you can check out Whumptober on Tumblr for the full list.

I'm surprised at how much I've fallen in love with the WinterShock ship, despite the fact that Bucky and Darcy never ever interact in the MCU – they don't even appear in the same movies!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or any of the characters contained therein.

WORD COUNT: 1728

The Asset was accustomed to pain. It knew to check the source to ensure whether the damage was severe enough to cause problems for the mission, and to ignore it if that was not the case. Bullets, knives, blunt force… Unless it caused the Asset to become physically compromised in a way that could compromise the mission, it was irrelevant. So when a target's bullet slammed into its right shoulder on a mission in Kiev, it didn't even flinch. It just shot back and eliminated the target. Then it was a trip to the nearest facility, where it was repaired, wiped, and stored until its next assignment.

Darcy Lewis was ten year old the first time she felt her Soulmate's pain. She was in the middle of dozing off in science class when a sharp burst of agony pierced her right shoulder. The school nurse quickly confirmed that it was a Soul Pain, and sent her home with a numbing medicine. Her parents were concerned when her uncle, an Army vet, identified the bruise as matching a gunshot wound. They wondered what kind of life their daughter's Soulmate lived. Possibilities ranged from him (or her) being a criminal or a soldier or just an innocent person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even worse, the next day, she suffered an attack of some sorts, of blinding pain in her head that left her screaming and thrashing in her bed. It was only her mother's intervention that kept her from launching herself right off the bed. And then she was overcome by a terrible chill, which eventually faded but never went away completely.

Throughout the years, Darcy would have brief, scattered incidents where she was wracked with those headaches, some preceded by a Soul Pain and followed by a cold spell. All of the Pains were violent in nature: gunshot wounds, knife wounds, and one time a huge bruise that covered her entire back. And she was always cold; it just spiked right after an attack. Every doctor she went to couldn't find anything wrong with her bond, so all the trouble must have been on her Soulmate's end.

It was a week before she and Jane were scheduled to move shop from London to New York – home of superheroes and shiny labs and science grants and Darcy actually getting paid – that the situation happened in reverse. They were packing things up for the move, and Darcy went out on a coffee run, not just for Jane, but for the handful of Stark Industries and Avengers Initiative personnel who'd been sent over to help with the heavy lifting, as well as (Former) S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Barton, AKA the Avenger Hawkeye, who was there to help Thor with security. (There was, ostensibly, another guy there helping keep them secure from the shadows, but Darcy had yet to see him, or even learn his name.)

Of all the things Darcy was expecting to threaten her life in the near future, the list included (but was not limited to): aliens, HYDRA, A.I.M., anti-superhero extremists, anti-alien extremists, et cetera, et cetera. A random mugger with a knife had completely slipped her mind when making that list. Yet here she was, pressed up against a cold-as-fuck brick wall with the flat of a knife pushing against her throat and some asshole breathing garlicy pizza breath in her face. "Hand over your wallet, Luv," Asshole growled, "And your mobile, and your jewellery. Nice and easy, and then we can both be on our way."

Ugh, this was unbelievable! Instead of a sane emotional response, such as pants-wetting terror or just general fear, she felt a rush of embarrassment. All her friends these days were bona-fide superheroes, and here she was at the mercy of your garden-variety street criminal!

She had her Taser in her purse, but she needed to get Asshole's knife away from her neck, first. The best way to do that, she figured, would be to lure him into a false sense of security by playing the spineless doormat (more commonly known as a sane person with no real combat training) and giving him what he wanted. So she reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone and her wallet. Then she pointed to her earrings. "Uh, d-do you want these, too? I- I mean, they're just cheap costume jewellery-"

"Do you think I'm daft?!" Asshole snapped, "Hand them over!" Darcy did so, dropping the zirconia studs into his hands. "Good. Now, there's just one more thing."

The knife moved away from her neck, only to be replaced by something far more abhorrent: Asshole's tongue trying to reach down her throat. She squawked, bit down on his tongue, and pushed him away, kicking him in the shin while she was at it.

"Slag!" Asshole swore and grabbed her again, slamming her against the wall even harder than before.

Darcy struggled, adrenaline giving her a strength she wouldn't have known she had if she hadn't lived through the Destroyer or the Dark Elves, but Asshole was much bigger than her, and it was all she could do to keep him from gutting her.

Then, suddenly, Asshole wasn't there anymore. Instead, he was picking himself out of a pile of trash bags on the opposite end of the alley, and someone was standing in between her and him.

Darcy, sliding to the ground in relief, could only see that someone from behind, but it was definitely a man, with shoulder-length dark hair and an impressive build. He was wearing grungy jeans, combat books, and a black windbreaker. "It's been a while," he growled, "But I'm pretty sure that's still not how you treat a dame."

Asshole swore and got to his feet, but a pair of knives spontaneously materialised in Tall, Dark and Muscly's hands, and Asshole clearly thought better of it, because he turned tail and ran, dropping Darcy's stuff on the ground.

"You alright there, Lewis?" her hero suddenly asked.

"Wha-" she gasped, "How do you know my name?"

"Barton." That one clipped response was all she needed, really. This must be the extra agent or whatever who'd come to help out.

"Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for the save, but I totally had him on the ropes."

White Knight snorted. "Sure you did." He turned around, and any retort Darcy was going to make died out in her throat when she recognised the face surrounded by curtains of dark brown hair that certainly weren't there in the pictures she daydreamed over in history class.

"Holy shit, you're Bucky Barnes."

Yeah, she'd heard the stories about him. How he miraculously didn't die falling off a train going like a hundred miles an hour into a Swiss ravine, got re-captured by HYDRA instead, and from there got brainwashed into being their top attack dog and put on ice like a Rocket Pop when he wasn't needed, until those fuckers stupidly thought setting him on his best friend was a genius idea, and he wound up saving said best friend from them instead and then going on the run.

Exactly how he went from that to saving her from a mugger in London was yet to be seen.

Barnes looked at her assessingly, and that was when she realised that she was still sitting on the cold and dirty ground, her legs tucked up to her chest in something close to the fetal position. Not the kind of first impression she would ever have wanted to make on him. He stepped forward and reached out with his right hand (she was pretty sure that was the non-metal one, but currently couldn't tell for sure, since he was wearing gloves) to help her up, but then he winced and frowned down at himself, looking confused.

Without saying a word, he unzipped the windbreaker, revealing a plain grey T-shirt, which he then lifted up by the bottom hem. Yum, those abs, and ooh, that looked like it hurt! Right under his ribcage on his left side was a dark bruise, stretching about an inch wide almost horizontally but very thin vertically. Darcy had gotten more than enough Soul Pains to recognise, and she told him so. "Shit," she hissed, "That looks like a stab wound!"

He stared at it, looking even more confused. "It's not bleeding," he noted, "And he didn't even get his knife close enough to do this."

Darcy shuddered. Adrenaline crashes were a bitch, almost as much as the shit that caused the rush in the first place. "You're not the one who got stabbed," she explained, "It's a Soul Pain. Do you remember what those are?"

"…Yes. Does that mean…?" Now he looked worried, swallowing hard as he stared at the mark on his body that shows where his other half has been wounded. "It- It's not in a vital area. A flesh wound."

Darcy figured he, of all people, would know whether an injury was in a lethal spot. And they should probably get back to Jane and the others. When she said so, Barnes nodded in agreement and reluctantly put his shirt down, then once more reached down to help her out.

This time, Darcy took it, but as she started to rise to her feet, a sharp pain in her side brought her back down again. "Agh!"

Looking down at herself for the first time, Darcy was shocked to find a red stain on her white T-shirt. Before she could even blink, Barnes was kneeling next to her, peeling away her shirt much like he'd done with his own a minute earlier.

Right under her ribcage on her left side was a bleeding stab wound, stretching about an inch wide.

"Oh my God," she gasped, "Holy shit! When-"

"Adrenaline can sometimes mask the pain," Barnes told her, "He didn't get in too deep, though. It's just a flesh wound." Then he stopped and realised what he just said. Their eyes met in shock.

"Holy shit," they both breathed.