Notes: Okay, so there are like at least three stories I should have been working on, but this hit me on the way to work, and I just had to write it. Enjoy!
Dance With Me
Things from before were fuzzy most of the time. Like, he could remember living in Brooklyn, and little Steve, and his mom and sisters, but it was as if he was watching it all through thick glass. It was all there, but not really his. But his soulmark, he remembered that with vivid clarity. He remembered going to dance hall after dance hall, dancing with anyone who was willing, waiting for the day that the one special girl would say his words. But none ever did.
Bucky went to Europe thinking that that girl would be really disappointed when her mark faded, never getting the chance to meet her other half. And he wouldn't tell anyone but Steve, but just looking at his mark at night, in his tent, he could feel his heart clench, knowing that he wasn't going home to a happily ever after.
"At least you got a mark," was all Steve would say, turning over and pulling his itchy wool blanket up to his ears. "Least you got a chance of going home."
"Don't think either of us are going home, Stevie," Bucky would stare up at the roof of the tent and listen to his best friend breath even out. "Maybe you'll find my girl some day," he looked over at his sleeping friend, tucking his hands up under his cheek, and closed his eyes. "Look after her, will you, punk?"
He could still feel the words on the inside of his left forearm, he would look down at the gray metal while he was re-piecing his memories, and almost see them sometimes. He wondered if he still had a soulmate out there somewhere, and if he did, was she still waiting. She would be an old lady, but he wanted to find her anyway.
Darcy's mark had always been a little faded. Not like Nana's, after Gramps died, but a little less crisp than her friends. Her mother had taken to her to all kinds of doctors to try and figure out why it was different. Every single doctor told her the same thing, they didn't know. Then one day, she was sitting in front of one of Jane's machines, she caught a glimpse of the words running up her left arm, and they were inky black, just like Jane's.
"Janie!" she shot up from her seat and ran out of the lab to where her boss had wondered, looking up to the sky for a even a trace of her own soulmate. "Its black!" she shoved her arm into her friends face, shaking her with the other hand. "It's normal."
"Doesn't mean anything, Darce," Jane's shoulders fell. "Even if you do find them, doesn't mean they'll stay."
"He's coming back," Darcy curled her arms around her tiny boss, and hugged her close. "He came back last time."
"I know," Jane folded up her lawn chair and went inside. "We should really think about packing up."
"We still going?" she asked, looking at the mess that was Jane's lab, and then over to the television where Tony Stark was talking to the press about the disaster that was the Triskelion, a clip of the helacariors falling playing on repeat behind the billionaire. "I mean," she pointed at the TV. "They're a mess, do we really want to hitch your Nobel Prize nominated ass to them right now?"
"I appreciate that you're looking out for my reputation," her boss started packing her notebooks into a waiting box, shrugging. "But we are contractually bound to Stark Industries for the foreseeable future."
Darcy just nodded and ran her fingers over her newly blackened Words, then pulled her hair up into a messy bun and joined her boss in their packing, pausing once in a while to write down new data points from the machine that she had spent the better part the last year watching. The one that read atmospheric conditions for traces of the BiFrost. The best she could tell? It was going to be clear skies all day, which was nice for anyone wanting to go to the park, but meant nothing good for her best friend and her mate.
Darcy unpacked yet another box into their new lab, breaking it down and leaning it against the stainless steel bench. She stretched her arms and rolled her shoulders. It felt like they were back to square one without any of the Stark built machines. She watched as Jane directed Captain America, call me Steve to place her old handmade machine against the wall that looked out over the lush jungle of Wakanda.
"This alright?" the Captain settled the machine in the corner and looked over at Jane, one eyebrow cocked.
"Perfect," Darcy sighed, leaning back against the workbench.
"What was that?" Steve asked, a little smile tugging at the corner of his lips. She knew full well that he heard her, enhanced hearing and everything. "A little to the right?"
"No," Jane glared at Darcy over her shoulder. "Right there is fine. Thank you for your help Captain."
"It's just Steve, ma'am," he shuffled his feet and looked down at the floor. "Left the shield with Tony. Not Captain America anymore."
"Bullshit," Darcy coughed into her fist.
Steve opened his mouth, then closed it. "You know," he scratched at the back of his neck and settled himself next to Darcy, leaning on the bench. "There are a lot of things I've been trying to get used to in this new century, but dames swearing and people showing their Marks, I just can't wrap my head around."
"Stick with me, Stevie," she knocked her shoulder against his biceps. "You'll get used to it real fast," she held her left arm out, turning it back and forth in the bright lights of the lab. "I'm still getting used the fact that mine looks like everyone else's now."
Steve gently took her wrist in his hand and pulled it close. "You haven't Matched?"
"Nope, still waiting," Darcy said while the former Captain studied her Mark like he had never seen one before. "Who ever it is, they've got really nice handwriting. I feel bad for them, cause mine is little better than chicken scratch."
"Huh," he just gave her a distracted smile before letting go of her arm and nodding his farewells to her and Jane, and leaving.
"Weird."
"Cut him some slack," Jane said from where she was already fiddling with the knobs on her trusty old BiFrost detector. "His friend, the one that Hydra had all brainwashed, decided to go into Cryostasis today. Steve didn't look like he was taking it well," the lights on the machine flashed for a moment before going dark again. Jane frowned at it and hit it with the heel of her hand a few times. "It's why I asked him to help."
"That sucks," Darcy boosted herself up on the lab bench and flicked through the closest journal to try and find the original instructions for the machine that Jane had taken a wrench to. "I don't know what I would do without you, Janie."
"Go to grad school?"
"Shut up."
It to be past midnight, but when you worked on Jane's astrophysicist schedule, that didn't mean anything. And anyway, it meant that no one would be in the 'We're not the Avengers anymore, Darling' kitchen to steal her baked goods before they were finished. 'Looking at you Barton,' Darcy thought as she danced around the tile floor in her socked feet, waiting for the timer on the oven to ding, so she could pull the muffins out to cool.
Steve's friend had come out of the freezer, as Natasha called it, that morning, and would be up and around anytime. So she was baking celebratory muffins. Nat hadn't been sure what Bucky's favorite muffin might be, so Darcy baked every kind she could think of. There were dozens of blueberry, cranberry and orange, pumpkin, snickerdoodle, and double chocolate fudge muffins cooling all over the kitchen.
She dumped a new batch of flour into her mixing bowl, jamming to her Baking Mix on her iPod when a shadow fell over the doorway. Darcy grinned up at the figure, who was probably Barton, sneaky sneak who snuck everywhere. Dude showed up everywhere, sometimes even behind her, dropping his stupid spy ass from the ceiling like a cartoon character.
Darcy hummed a few bars of the song she was listening to, as she swallowed a mouthful of chocolate muffin, she was just sampling, making sure they tasted right, okay? And pointed her spatula at the shadowy figure and sang, "Shut up and dance with me!" The figure stepped into the room, lights glinting off his new vibranium arm, a shocked look on his face. She squealed and dropped her iPod into the batter. "Damn it," she growled and pulled the earbuds out of her ears and fished the sticky device out of the bowl.
"Doll, I've been waiting forever for you to ask," Bucky's voice growled from the other side of the counter. The iPod made a bigger splash the second time. He pulled the bowl towards him and pulled the ipod out, setting it carefully on the counter. "What do you say we start with coffee, though? That's what you kids do now, right?"
"Well," she cleared her throat and looked at the man that Steve had been telling her about for months, pining for his best friend, and smiled. "I can get a pot started, then you can help me start on these muffins," she tipped her head back and forth. "They may or may not be for you anyway, Soulmate."
"Best offer I've had in a long time," he took her hand a kissed the knuckles, licking a bit of lemon batter off his lips.
Notes: A special thanks to Walk the Moon for the inspiration. Thank you as always for reading! Please take a moment to feed the muse.