Darcy comes home midafternoon to a stubborn jerk of a roommate with a cold pancake between his teeth, sitting on the floor in front of her couch, playing Mario Kart. She rolls her eyes, plops herself down on said roommates lap, and steals the rest of his pancake.

"You know you're losing against yourself, right? It's not as much fun as when you lose against Steve."

Bucky doesn't respond, just turns his body left, in the direction of his fake vehicle. When done chewing, Darcy rests her head on his shoulder, and grabs a remote.

Two more races happen before he shrugs, blue shells her, and states, "I did that, you know?"

"What, shelled my Yoshi? Yeah, you totally did."

"I took out Howard and Maria Stark. In their car. And it looked like an accident."

"Don't do that, asshole. We talked about this," she stated, as she swung around to sit on his legs. His face was studiously on the floor, and she wasn't going to let that fly. "The Winter fucking Soldier had orders that he carried out. Maybe that's what we need to deal with, but you didn't do that. I mean, back in the 40's, were you aiming to maim Howard?"

"Maybe…" was mumbled.

"For real? You hated Stark that much?"

"He was a smug, arrogant jerk."

"So were you, and yet here you are. Being all 'I'm not good enough because I was a murder bot-"

Bucky cringes back into the couch at that. "Shut your face, man. My whole point is that you're being a stupid head about the fact that they fucking brain washed you for close to a century. You're here now. With us. With me, and Steve, and Sam, and Jarvis, and Tony, and all of the rest. You've got us, dude. Why are you still trying to run? WHY, are you running from Steve and me?"

After a few minutes of silence, she nudges his cheek with her nose. "Let me know, when you figure it out. I'm going to bed."

She's awake for the next two hours, waiting to hear the bedroom door open, or the couch settle. When she hears the front door latch click instead, she swears the pain in her chest is heartburn.

Jarvis checks in with her as often as he can. Even he sounds conciliatory. She asks everyone to shut up, ignore it, and eat all the baked goods she's been making.

Jane tries to talk about feelings. Since she's 'having relations' with a literal GOD, she gets no props. Especially since she won't give details.

Steve doesn't know what to do. He's half tempted to chase after his friend, and half wanting to be at the apartment to feed Darcy break up food.

Darcy doesn't know what to do at all. After two years of it, she thought she could handle what came with a 94 year old war vet with PTSD and brain washed conditioning. Apparently, she couldn't.

She goes to work and back. She deals with Tony's meltdowns, Jane's Science! freaks, Bruce's frustrated periods. She makes sure they look good on the news, feeds them all when they're in the tower, and convinces Thor to put the hammer down softly.

Steve's gone taking out Hydra often enough that the apartment feels empty. After a couple of weeks, she moves half her clothes into the suite on Thor's floor of the Avengers Tower that was reserved for her. At least she has Jarvis.

She still goes home every day to check the mail and see if anyone has shown up. After a month, she cleans out the fridge, packs up her stuff, and drapes the rest of the furniture with cloth.

She can tell they're not coming back.

She makes sure housekeeping cleans up enough that someone would notice if they were there, using their rooms. She checked the first time. The place is clean as can be.

It's not home anymore. Not without the super soldier snoring lightly in the next room, or the assassin sleeping in her bed.

She decides to cancel the lease three months later. They still have a couple of weeks left before they have to empty it all together, so she goes back to figure out how to store the guys' things. She doesn't want to maneuver their stuff, it feels wrong to touch what isn't hers, but she feels it's better her than a stranger. Ideas on boxes and garment bags are made, and she promises herself she'll come back on Saturday.

She takes one final look around, and sighs. Bracing herself, she opens the door-

And has a body not only fall into her, but knock her to the floor.

Scrambling out from under, taser in hand, she skids to a stop. "Bucky?"

She kicks the door shut. The sounds of people scurrying up the stairs stop her from running to her… person.

"Jarvis?" she whispers, "What the fuck?"

There is no sound. Jarvis isn't there.

She moves to the fallen Soldier, standing over him with her taser drawn. She hears him draw a rattling breath and cough, and steels her shoulders. Whoever is coming up those stairs isn't getting their hands on Barnes.

Not until she gets a chance to kill him first. Bastard.

Something shiny outside of her window catches her eye, and before she can do more than flinch, there's an explosion somewhere in the vicinity of the roof. Turning, she sees War Machine not more than a foot from her living room window. His face plate flips up, and he yells-

"Get him some place safe, I got this!"

The plate flips back down, he disappears from sight, and not five seconds later she hears a crash as something barrels through the wall in the hallway. The sound of guns and screaming has her dropping down to pull at Barnes.

"Come on, asshole, we need a hidey hole, and I got a spot all picked out."

Crouching, she manages to get his left arm around her shoulder, and forces him up, though they're both stumbling.

"Dar-"

"Nope. Moving now, talking later. Maybe. If I decide to listen to your stupid ass. We're hiding out in Steve's closet until Rhodey gets shit taken care of, and until I get my Jarvis back."

"I am back on com, Darcy. The HYDRA agents currently advancing on your position managed to block communications momentarily. Colonel Rhodes was able to destroy their technology."

"Awesome, Jay, you have no idea how happy I am to hear from you. And Rhodey is my new favorite."

They make it to the closet, and she drops Bucky to the floor in a heap while she shuts the door and presses an ear to it.

"Any news to report, Jay?"

"Nothing so far. Colonel Rhodes has positioned himself in front of your apartment, and is removing any target available. There are some agents attempting entry from other points in the building, but Agents Barton and Romanov are… stopping them."

"What's with the pause, man?"

"… I was tempted to say thwarting them, because their countenance is quite gleeful. Then I realized, that would be something you would say. I think I'm developing bad habits from you, Darcy."

"Hey dude, Stark designed you to learn and adapt. You're learning from the best. Don't be shy, embrace your dark side. It's cool, over here we eat dessert for breakfast."

"I had wondered why you make so many muffins."

"Hey, muffins are just an excuse for people that don't want to say they're eating cake for breakfast."

"Indeed. The area seems secure for the moment, you might want to tend to Sargent Barnes' injuries."

Darcy spins on her heels. "Injuries?"

Barnes is in the pile she left him, breathing heavily. "Fuck. Jarvis, give me the low level and a body scan."

Lighting that barely illuminates the closet comes up, and a red glow crosses Bucky's body.

"One gunshot wound through the right shoulder, through and through, broken right wrist, three cracked ribs, greenstick fracture in the left tibia, and severe bruising of torso. No head trauma, and no threat to major organs."

"Thank Odin for that. All right, jerk, roll on your back so I can get to your shoulder."

It takes some finagling, but she gets him on his back, although she can't get his uniform off. She's struggling with the leather of his vest when she feels his metal hand brush her hair. Lurching back, she smacks at the arm.

"No. No, you don't get to do that. You walked out on me MONTHS ago. I'm helping you because it's the right thing to do, but you don't get to touch me. You want to talk about you being a fucking tool later, maybe I'll be up for that. But you don't get to act like nothing's different. Just let me fix your damned shoulder."

More time passes before they get his uniform off, his shoulder mildly clean and patched up (and screw Steve, it might have been one of his favorite shirts, but he ran off too), and him settled on his back in a pile of Steve's clothes that make his chest hurt a little less.

Darcy may be the living embodiment of pissed off at him, but she wasn't cruel. And those bruises looked like they HURT. Like, more than when she spanged herself on Science!

She sat herself close enough to be able to help him shift if he needed to, but as far away as she needed to be to not run her hand through his hair, or rub circles on the not bruised patches, or hold his hand. She wanted to do all of those things, but her pride wouldn't let her. Not after four months. Which reminded her…

"Hey Jarvis? How long is there on the lease? If Barnes is back, Steve might show too. They might want to keep the place."

Jarvis takes a moment to respond. "I've just been assured they will have another month to decide. Shall I have them change the names?"

"Yeah, that'd be good. Barnes can have my room, and they can make that call."

Bucky tenses next to her. "What? What about the lease?"

She snorts. "You've been gone for four months, Steve for three. You really think I'm going to keep living here all on my lonesome? You and Steve, if you can find him, have a month to decide if you want to stay or not."

"Darcy-"

"It's my job. To take care of the Avengers. Let me know if you want to keep the place, and I'll have the lease renegotiated. Or help you find somewhere else if you want to leave. But it's been empty for almost two months, so it's practically brand new."

"Where's Steve?"

"Where were you?" she retorts. "Cause chances are, that's where Steve was five minutes later."

"He was supposed to stay and take care of you."

There are loud clanging noises outside of the closet, and she rises to her feet, taser in hand. "No one takes care of me. I take care of myself. When I trust other people to do that for me, they always leave."

The door opens, and War Machine is there, a struggling Captain America under one arm. He dropped him to his feet, and Steve stands up, straightening his uniform with a cranky expression. Rhodey grinned.

"Boom! Were you… oh." Taking one look at Darcy's face, tears starting to leak from the edges, he pulls her into a hug. He then shoots out Cap's bedroom window and takes off towards Stark Tower, Darcy still wrapped around him like a limpet.

Captain America and the Winter Soldier both stare out the broken window, jaws agape.
"Stevie?"

"Yeah, Buck?"

"We fucked up. Real bad."

"Yeah. I think we really did."