A is for Anticipation

Darcy huffed and perched on the end of her bed. Clothes littered the floor around her, covering the pine boards and fluffy white rug. The resultant mess was one she'd have to clean the minute she got back if she didn't want to risk some of Tony's C-Robots venturing in and going to town. She'd caught them at it just a couple of weeks ago, and while she and her Vine followers had gotten a kick out of it, her Friday night plans hadn't exactly consisted of undressing stubborn, sentient machines.

Though... Darcy wouldn't have to deal with the mess later if she just dealt with it now. Of course, that would mean not going at all… which would make things a lot easier in the long run. Sure everything would be good for a while, but the long-term prospects? Nope. Not so great.

Because there was no way this could end well.

Irritated, Darcy collapsed back onto her bed and flung a hand over her eyes. See, this was why she didn't believe in sleeping with her friends. Things always got so complicated when feelings became involved. In the past, she had never been the one to catch the damn things, but now here she was. Friends With Benefits, she'd always believed, was a far easier arrangement when the 'Friend' part was really a 'You're Not Someone Whose Company Outright Disgusts Me' rather than a 'Seeing You is Often the Best Part of My Day'.

And yet, she'd broken her golden rule by fucking two of her closest friends.

Yep, because that madeso much sense, Darcy.

But goddamn it, who could blame her? Like, have you seen those two?

Now if only 'those two' had just been two of her closest friends and not also two of the most famous people on the planet – or vice versa; things would have probably been a lot easier. But throw in two gorgeous, funny trolls that she just couldn't help but get along with, an environment where she constantly bumped into them, and a friendship she hadn't seen coming and you have a recipe for disaster.

Yep. That was right. Steve Rogers and James 'Bucky' Barnes.

With a groan of disbelief, Darcy sat back up and gazed around her room. The wall sconces gave off a gentle light that did nothing to soothe her rattled nerves, and she was sorely tempted to hurl her remote at the built-in music system that sat in the far wall. She might have loved that song just this morning, but it was irritating the fuck out of her now. Not that she could blame Kanye for her current situation. Nope, this was all her fault.

Well, and Steve and Bucky's, because if anyone was to blame for their general theirness, it was those two.

Darcy wasn't exactly a romantic, but nor was she a cynic. Hanging out with Jane and Tony, and Hell, even her happily married parents; she'd seen love – true love, as Disney would call it. She just knew it was a lot rarer than some people claimed, and that looking for it, or even just venturing into a relationship, ended in disaster more often than not.

That was why she didn't really date, as a general rule. Sure, she'd always figured she'd get married at some point, but that had always seemed a long way off. Still seemed a long way off, to be honest. And she most definitely didn't fuck or date her friends – asking for trouble, really. Things always seemed to end badly, with one person hurt badly and the relationship often spoiled beyond repair.

Just not worth it, she'd thought.

And yet, she'd chosen to fuck two of her closest friends on a regular enough basis that sooner rather than later…. Well, here she was, wasn't she?

Darcy half-heartedly prodded a pair of denim shorts with her foot. The idea had seemed okay when Bucky had first asked her if she wanted to go out to dinner with them. That had been just last night, and annoyingly enough, he and Steve clearly knew her well, because they'd known to ask her when she was freshly post-orgasm.

Sneaky bastards.

So, Darcy would probably be well within her rights to cancel. She could just call them now and tell them she'd changed her mind, that they should just keep things the way they were. Don't fix what ain't broke, and all that.

But just as Darcy was reaching for her phone to let the boys know of her change of heart, an image of how they might react tore through her mind.Fuck. They weren't the sort to really let it show on the outside, but Steve would furrow his brow a little and those blue, blue eyes of his would dim…. And Bucky's face would go carefully blank, the kind of blank she hated to see because it reminded her of when she'd first moved into the Tower and he'd still been mostly Soldier, no Barnes, and…

It wouldn't do.

She'd just have to go. She was a big girl, she could handle it. And even when things went south – Darcy's breath caught at the thought of not being able to crash at theirs after a long day, of not having one of them drag her out for coffee on a whim, of not trying (unsuccessfully, because damn those super-soldier reflexes) to beat them at Mario Kart….

Well, Darcy would just have to cross that bridge when she came to it, as her mother so often put it. Because there was no way this could last. There was no way this wasn't going to end badly, but that didn't mean that she couldn't enjoy this in the meantime. The friendship was just as good as the sex, and if she had to… in order to keep it, then that's what she'd do.

Darcy grabbed her phone, and yep, she now only had a couple of minutes to actually finish get dressed. She pulled a green wrap dress over her head (and hoped to Thor she hadn't mussed up her hair too badly, because now she had no time to fix it), slipped on a pair of strappy high-heels and checked her make-up in the mirror for what had to be the fifth time.

Knock. Knock.

The oddly hesitant sound of metal knuckles rapping against the door. A cold chill shivered its way down Darcy's spine, and her breath stuttered even as she clenched her fists to help strengthen her resolve. With a deep breath, she turned off the room's main light and walked to the door.

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This is the first time I've posted something on here in quite some time, so it's a little strange. You can find my other Avengers FFs over on AO3 (same username).

This project will be slightly different to them, however, in that I intend to publish a chapter (each containing around 1000 words) every day for the next twenty-six days.

(But Phee, why 26 chapters? Why 26 days?)

Well, in exactly 26 days, AOU is released here in the UK, so when the idea for this story struck me the other day (doing a non-linear story with the alphabet being the only inspiration) , I thought it would be fun to do a little something in celebration of the film's release. So I waited a couple of days so that the final chapter would be released just before I left for the cinema.

Ah. Good times.

Anyway, let me know what you think. I'm hoping to have a TBP chapter up within the week, the next BWITC chapter up next Thursday, and the next chapter of this story up tomorrow.

I'm also currently taking prompts for chapter titles, so if you have any ideas for what B, C, D or E (etc) should be, let me know by giving me one to three word chapter titles/prompts in the comments section.

As always, it's been a blast.