D is for Darcy (no, not me, Darcy, THAT Darcy) (Bucky/Darcy)
(Playing so fast and loose with timelines here, it's not even funny. Just go with it.)
The very second the calendar flipped from September to October—a night where the entire team was gathered in the penthouse for their semi-weekly dinner and video games binge—Darcy and Stark started shouting about waking Green Day up.
Though, why some punk-rock band needed waking, Bucky didn't know, and was definitely not about to ask.
Five minutes later, Halloween exploded into the common areas of the Tower.
Sometimes literally, though Bucky really shouldn't have been blamed for shooting at the cackling and dancing skeleton that dropped from the ceiling as he was waking into the living room sometime in the middle of the afternoon of the second day of the month.
Tony really should have known better.
But there were decorations just about everywhere, and Bucky was pretty sure they were multiplying.
Some were curated by Pepper's meticulous eye, and were actually very tasteful, while the rest came from the so-called man of the house who—among so many other things—insisted that each and every doorway just had to be framed with spider webs.
To add to the damn ambiance.
But these were not the cheap cotton kind of spider webs, Bucky was sure this shit—which got stuck in the narrow gaps of his arm's plating like nothing else—was dreamed up in the lab one night when Tony and Bruce were without supervision.
They should never ever be in the lab without supervision.
By this point, three weeks into the month, Bucky was resisting the urge to pick a fight with Steve—about anything really, the Dodgers leaving New York, Hydra, Steve's terrible habit of throwing himself out of the Quinjet without a parachute—and accidentally destroy the room in collateral damage.
But the last thing he needed was for anyone to think he'd been triggered and take him down.
Like Natasha.
Or Thor.
Or Pepper.
So he refrained.
He'd been doing so well anyway.
Busy picking the thin, sticky strands out of his arm as he walked into the kitchen, the first thing he saw was the center island, covered in a massive cornucopia of pumpkins and squashes and corn and a number of foods that he was pretty sure didn't exist when he and Steve were growing up.
The pile was so huge that he almost missed Darcy, who was perched on one of the stools at the far end, bent over her sticker-covered laptop, the white of her headphones shining from her ears as she stared intently at something on the screen.
She was so absorbed she didn't notice him come in.
Not that his ego was so huge these days, but that never happened.
Shaking his head, he brushed the clump of sticky strands off his hand and into the trash before rifling through the refrigerator, searching for the leftover orange chicken from dinner the night before.
As he shoved the container of beef and broccoli—covered with tiny spiders drawn in purple pen—out of the way, Darcy let out an ear-splitting squeak, and he jerked up, his head bashing against the upper shelf, "Shit!"
He whirled around, one hand rubbing the back of his head—the milk shelf was heavy—his brows hiked up to his hairline when he saw Darcy sitting up straight, her wide eyes glued to the image on her laptop and her hands clapped over her mouth, "Oh. My. God."
"Darce? What's wrong?"
She kept gaping at the screen, "Oh my god that's Darcy!" She squealed.
"Pretty sure you're Darcy."
The Darcy he was pretty sure was his Darcy jumped so badly she nearly fell off her stool, flinging her headphones away, "Oh my god, when did you get in here?" She screeched.
He favored her with a pointed look, and she waved it off, "So you caught me off guard. It happens, but whatever, because oh my god, that's Darcy!" She gestured back to the computer, and he could see a paused YouTube video on screen.
"But you're Darcy."
"No, no, that's Darcy," she shook her head so hard her hair flipped over her shoulders.
"I thought I had the monopoly on identity issues around here."
"No, you don't get it, that is Darcy."
Bucky's eyebrow twitched, and he was seconds away from getting JARVIS to call Jane.
Because apparently his person—he was still hesitant to use the world girlfriend, because there were still so many days where he did quiet know which way was up—had finally gone off the deep end.
He took a closer look at the video, "That's some guy's torso."
"Yes, Darcy's torso. Oh my god! Lizzie has only been bitching about this guy since Episode Six, Snobby Mr. Douchey, was posted back in April. April Bucky! We've literally been trapped in suspense for months."
"I have," he cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest. "No idea what you're talking about."
Something that happened a little too often for his tastes.
Darcy rolled her eyes, "That's because you keep ducking me or, even better, distracting me when I try to introduce you to the parts of the Internet that aren't news-based or your weird little hacking sites. Or . Don't think I haven't noticed."
Without look at all apologetic, he shrugged, and then gestured wordlessly to the computer.
"Lizzie," Darcy huffed, leaning the screen back so he could get a better view. "Is Lizzie Bennet, and she's from this small town in central California. Since like, March, she's been posting video blog about her life and her crazy mother, who totally takes all the cake from my crazy mother, by the way, her two perfect sisters, and these super wealthy people who moved to town one day, which includes William Darcy, who we have never seen before this moment, and oh. My. God."
"And you watch this because," he trailed off as he looked at the image frozen on screen of a redhead wearing a dark gray patterned dress, and she was staring at a man wear black slacks and a red shirt.
"Oh my god Bucky, I don't even know right now, but what the hell happened next? Cliffhangers are the worst, the absolute worst. Oh my god, is it Thursday yet? I need it to be Thursday more than I need air."
"I'm pretty sure that's not true."
"You so don't get it," she narrowed her eyes as she grabbed the plate of gourmet pumpkin chocolate chip cookies off the island, handing off to him as she scooped up her computer and her phone. "But you will. Come on, I'll totally make it worth your while."
He snorted, "You better."
The smirk was still plastered to her face as she leaned up and kissed his cheek, and Bucky let her take him by his metal hand as she led him to the elevator, and then to the apartment she shared with Thor and Jane.
And Bucky was pretty sure he was going to regret this.
Five months later
"Oh my god! Bucky come quick!"
Rolling his eyes, he favored his reflection with a bland look as he tightened his towel around his hips and made his way from his bathroom to the living room, arching a brow at Darcy.
Because his Darcy was sitting on the couch, rocking back and forth and squealing happily as she stared down at the computer resting on her knees.
He sighed as he rested one shoulder against the doorframe, "What happened to the Bennet girl this time?"
Darcy's eyes were bright, and she let out another high squeak, "It wasn't the Chinese food!"
"What?"
She waved a hand in front of her face, which was turning redder and redder by the second as her excitement grew, "He came back!"
Bucky took a deep, patient breath, "Darcy, you mean?"
She nodded with so much force he thought her head was going to fly off, and then stopped abruptly, "You are naked."
"We really need to work on your observational skills."
Slowly, she unclenched her fists and carefully placed the computer on the coffee table, "I can observe just fine," she stalked across the room, drawing one hand down the center of his chest before she settled it on his towel. "But oh my god, it needs to be Monday, like now, because Darcy is back!"
Bucky's hands framed her face and he gently touched his forehead against hers, "Focus Darcy."
She tipped her head up and ran her nose against the side of his, "We're not going to make those dinner plans with Thor and Jane, are we?" She murmured against his mouth.
"Probably not," he kissed her, hard and quick, pushing her up against the doorframe until she broke away with a gasp.
"You, you definitely owe me," she breathed hard as she finally got the better of his towel and pushed it away.
"I'll order you Chinese," he growled and kissed her again.
Note: If you haven't watched the Lizzie Bennet Diaries yet, get thee to YouTube, stat. It will change your life. Also, this was actually first written two weeks ago, but I figured I'd save it for the anniversary of the LBD fandom's Darcy Day.