Everyone for thirteen floors of Stark Tower got muffins. Everyone. Even the lab assistant that ignored the cutesy basket being offered. A muffin was bounced off his head a minute later. No one knew until then that a bot that was nothing but an arm could throw with that kind of accuracy.
Well, no one except for Jarvis, Tony, and Darcy, but they weren't telling.
In the week since the attack in Hell's Kitchen, Darcy has been doing everything she can. Literally. If she isn't helping the Science! three, she's pranking Barton, practicing swearing in fourteen different languages with Natasha, coordinating events with Pepper, or making massive meals with Thor (cause man, the Avengers put AWAY some food), she's baking up a storm in the Avengers communal kitchen.
Or helping Dumm-E deliver all the food she's been making. Anything to keep her from thinking. Or sleeping.
After the eighth day of her shoving biscuits in the faces of the legal department, Sam Wilson steps in.
Darcy has been fuming to herself, muttering about men that can't get over their own egos, and baking, and she finally gets fed up and chucks a cinnamon roll over her shoulder.
Instead of hearing the splat on the floor she expected, she gets a snicker. "Woman, did you just assault me with pastries?"
Turning on her heel, she sees the Falcon standing with an amused look on his face, and a giant smear of icing on his forehead. He doesn't move an inch as she stomps towards him, and throws herself in his arms.
He keeps the hug he has her in firm, and mutters into her hair. "Honey, your boys are stupid. They're the world's biggest idiots, and they know it. But they're hurting real bad right now. And I know you want to fix it, but you can't."
She buries her face further in his shirt and nods. "I know. They gotta fix their shit first. But why does it have to hurt ME so much too?"
"That's the price that comes with loving a superhero. You think Pepper ever had it easy? You know Jane didn't. It's the price we pay for them."
"I knew…" she's not too proud that she won't rub her snotty face on his shirt. He's nice enough not to say anything. "I knew there was always the chance they wouldn't come back. I didn't think either of them would just leave, though. How could he just leave me? What did I do that wasn't good enough?"
"It's not like that. It's not a matter of it being enough. He has to work through what was done to him. You've done more than anyone could have expected helping him with it. But sometimes, there won't be anything you can do. It's all on him."
She sighs. Knowing that doesn't magically make anything better. She and Sam stand there for a few minutes.
"You totally just rubbed icing into my hair, didn't you?"
"Well, you DID throw a pastry grenade at my head."
"Over my shoulder, dude, I didn't know you were there."
"Darcy?" Rings out over their bantering.
Both of them turn around to see Steve, Captain America himself, looking unsure. They exchange glances, and break apart, with Sam heading towards the elevator.
"Tapping out of this one. Darce, you got my number. Cap, fix this shit."
They stare at each other for a minute. Neither has the words to start the conversation that needs to happen. Finally, Darcy huffs out a breath, spins around, and storms back to her baking station.
"Darcy, I'm-"gets interrupted by a face full of icing. She might not want the shooting lessons Barton is trying to talk her in to, but give her a taser or a spoon capable of starting a food fight, and she's accurate as hell.
"Hell no. You guys were both jerks, and I'm not accepting a freaking "I'm sorry for abandoning you with no word for MONTHS" apology. You guys figure your thing out, or don't. I'm not letting you make me TRUST you again like I did if you're going to flake on me."
He's managed to get most of his face clean, and is giving her his best Captain look.
"Dar-"
She throws her pans in the sink and leans over them, trying not to cry. Knowing her boys were okay was nice, having one of them within squeezing distance hurt.
There's a hand on her shoulder, and that's all that takes to make her next breath a sob. He's there a moment after, turning her into his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Darce. I shouldn't have left, I just thought I could find him. I thought I could bring him in."
"Yeah, go get your pal, bring in the Soldier, I get it. I do. But you fucking DON'T."
She wrenches away.
"You've never understood. He has to deal with both. Who you knew, and who he was when he was the Soldier. He was both, and he IS both, and he always will be. He's never going to be 'Bucky from Brooklyn' again. He isn't. He wasn't when he was one of the Howling Commandos, he wasn't when he was the Soldier, and he isn't now. You have to accept who he is now. Or he'll never come home."
Getting Steve to shut up is an art. She hasn't quite mastered it yet.
"So what do I do?" he rails. "Give up? He's sleeping on the covering on the god damned couch, and don't think we aren't talking about that, and he won't eat, and he won't agree to talk to you. He's back at stage one, and I don't know what to do. I just know that in the last five weeks I've been shot at, almost poisoned, had three hydra teams come after me, and have my best friend try to cuddle me because he messed things up with his girl."
"You are so crap at this, Rogers."
"What?"
"WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST ASK?" she shouts into his face.
He looks perplexed, and she rolls her eyes.
"No matter what happens, stupid, I'm still your friend. Your friend that you bailed on, and don't think that's going away any time soon."
She sighs. "You and James might have bailed on me, but I was still there. I did my best to be a good friend. If you were hurt or in pain or sick, I'd have been there. Do you really think I wouldn't have been there? All you had to do was ask me to help you, and I'd have broken a damned speed record getting to your side."
He looks at his feet, and it's then that she breaks.
"What did you come here to say?"
"I…," he shuffles his feet for a minute. "I miss you being… around. I know you moved out of the apartment, and I don't blame you, not for a second. I'm moving into the tower too. It's stupid not to be around the rest of them, and… I hate not seeing you every day. I was a jerk, and I know that, I should have been here…"
He hesitates for a moment. "Will you move down to my floor? Stark gave all the Avengers a floor, with suites, and I know you're on Thor's with them, but I'd rather have you close-"
"Shut it, ass hat. Are you going to bail on me again? Cause I'd rather stay on Thor's floor where I know I'm wanted than be left again."
"Not again, Darce. The last mission scared all of us."
"I had my taser, I totally could have owned that."
"Right. Seventeen Hydra agents against your taser."
"… I could make it work."
Steve can't hold back anymore, and has her wrapped up in a hug a moment later. "Yeah, honey, I know you would."
She SO doesn't hug him back. Really.
"Where is he?"
"The apartment. I had his things moved from your room there to a room in our suite here, but he's still staying over there."
"Makes sense, and it makes it easy. It's familiar to him, would make him feel safest at the… damn it, Steve, get your hands off the cinnamon rolls. I'm taking at least half a dozen with me." She smacks his hand. "This isn't over. You have a lot of making up to do, punk."
He nods solemnly. "Can I get Thor to help me move your things to one of the suites on my floor?"
"No."
His face falls, and he nods. "That's fair. I shouldn't expect-"
"You can get Jane to do it. I don't want Thor touching my Iron Man undies."
The look she gets then is something that should be reserved for six year olds on Christmas morning. There is so much hope and happiness on his face, she decides it needs more icing. And some powdered sugar. He still beams at her while he wipes confections off his face, and she smacks him on the chest.
"I'm going out. Not sure how long this is going to take."
Her footsteps coming up to the door are loud, as is her key in the lock. There is a Soldier pretending to be asleep on her covered couch, and the rest of her former apartment is vacant.
"You know, Imogen was the last thing I assigned to be moved."
There wasn't so much as a twitch from the couch. She set the plate of treats on the coffee table. "I didn't know if you'd show up again. Or where you'd want to settle. Or if you'd want to be near us at all."
"You have the apartment for a month. Or space in the tower. That's where Steve and I are, but it's up to you-"
"Don't go."
She sighs, and goes to shut and lock the door. "What do you want me to do here, James? You've been gone for a long time. You left. And while I admit, I'm pretty darned awesome, I'm not a mind reader. What do you expect from me, here?"
"You believe in me. You said so." It's soft, and anxious.
"I do. Always. What do you need?"
"Can I touch you?"
"Can you?" She sits on the couch and offers her wrist, and doesn't move when he takes it in his metal arm.
He strokes his thumb along her wrist. "I don't kind of love you."
She feels the sob well up in her throat, but keeps it down.
"Oh?"
Both his thumbs stroke up her arm, wrist to elbow. "I could break any of these. At any moment."
She shifts her hip against his on the couch. "Yeah, you could. Is there a point here that's going to stall the GINORMOUS yelling at that you're going to get? Cause, that's imminent."
He pulls her fully on top of him, holding her in place. "What's the point here, James, because I'm missing it?"
"You trust me," he states.
"Yeah, thought that was the issue."
"You love me."
"…shut up."
He buries his face in her hair, presses a kiss to her head, and states it again. "You love me."
She snorts, and turns away. "Yeah, ass clown. I love you. And you fucking ran away. So, let go, and let me pretend I have some sort of dignity."
"No."
"Say what now?"
"I'm not fucking Captain America-"
"No, I think I'd have noticed."
"-But I AM dangerous."
"I KNOW that, man. I've known that since before I MET you. Why is it an issue NOW?"
"Because I don't kind of love you. I love you more than I thought a broken jerk like me was able to love someone. And I don't want to hurt you, but I could."
There's silence in the apartment for close to ten seconds, before Darcy starts yelling.
"Are you fucking KIDDING ME? You've been gone for months, broke my fucking heart, and it's because you're a goddamn cliché? The guy realizes he has feelings, gets scared, and runs off? You can NOT be for real."
"Darcy, I'm a killer."
"Bucky, I work with super heroes. Guess what? Neither of our lives is exactly normal. Did it REALLY take you that long to catch on? Cause jeez, dude, I thought you were smarter than that."
He tightens his arm around her. "You don't understand-"
"No, dumb ass, YOU don't understand. We've been together how long now? And I've known since before you set foot in this apartment that you were an assassin. I still let myself trust you anyway. That first night you stayed over? I didn't even lock my bedroom door. I didn't even close it all the way, so I could hear if you needed me. So, get over yourself. You don't get to make these giant kinds of decisions for me. I'm a big girl, have my grown-up pants and everything, and I'M the only one that gets to make judgement calls on my life. So you can either deal with it, or there's the fucking door right there."
If she wasn't tucked up close enough to hear his heart beat, the stillness would have scared her. Not a single muscle twitched, and he was barely breathing. Finally, he quietly stated, "But I could hurt you."
Just as quietly, she replied, "You already did. You left me, James. Do you think that didn't hurt more than anything?"
His reply takes a while in coming.
"So, what do we do now?"
"That depends, I guess. Take the Winter Soldier thing off the table. Take the Avengers, the Doombots, Hydra, all that bigger than life crap away. Do you still want to be with me?"
"God, Darcy," he rasps, as he almost squeezes the breath out of her. "I can't imagine you not being here. I missed you so much. I can't… I can't not have you with me. I don't think I can let go of you as it is."
"Okay. Then we try to fix this. Imogen moves into my living room. You move into your room in Steve's suite. You take me to Coney Island, and I'm NOT riding anything that'll make me ralph, Steve already warned me about that. Jarvis will be monitoring, like he always has been, so if you start acting like you're going to relapse, we can get help. You will then spend a very, VERY long time making this up to me. And if you ever pull a fucking stunt like this again, I have FLOORS full of people willing to beat the hell out of you. I'm not even limiting it to Avengers, I've been bribing the accounting department with cookies."
Darcy's head is tilted up, and the kiss she receives is desperate and reverent in turns. Finally pulling away, they rest their foreheads together.
"Did you just threaten me with desk jockeys?"
"Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. They know numbers, man. I'm pretty sure they can kill you with the power of tax brackets."
When Bucky and Darcy enter the communal living room hand in hand, she realizes that she was wrong. THIS, the look on Steve's face, is what a six year old on Christmas morning looks like. She's glad she knows her guys, and had the forethought to call ahead. She keeps a serene look on her face as Bucky collapses in giggles at her feet after Dumm-E nails Steve in the side of the head with a brownie.