Didn't I do it for you?
Why don't I do it for you?
- "Cellophane" by FKA twigs
Part One: Minotaur
Darcy's phone pings when she's in the labs, readying herself to leave for the night. It's Friday night and she pulls her phone from her cardigan pocket to read the display.
Sorry, can't make it.
Her hearts sinks a little. She closes her eyes and sighs. She was looking forward to meeting the guy who's just texted her. But there's no explanation, no rain check. She deletes his text and turns off her desk lamp.
"FRIDAY, off," she murmurs, and the lab lights dim immediately.
She takes the elevator upstairs and manages to put herself back together before she reaches the common room. She walks in from the hallway, seeing the back of three familiar heads.
Steve, Sam and Bucky are all sitting on the couch watching TV and she puts on her best smile.
"Hey, dumbass," she calls.
She laughs as all three of them respond to her by whipping their heads around. She walks up behind the couch and runs her hand along the back of it, her fingers ghosting over Bucky's shoulder before she stops in front of them, partially blocking their view of the screen.
"My date cancelled on me, so who's taking me out?" she asks, crossing her arms.
Steve sips his beer and shakes his head. Probably training business, and Sam gives her a similar response.
"I got a date," he replies, but he's smiling at her. "You'd like her. Kelly."
"Kelly from R&D? The sleeve tattoo?" Darcy asks, picturing the woman who always wears big gold hoops on her ears. "Good for you."
"Yeah," Sam says. He nudges Bucky. "He hesitated."
Bucky is watching Darcy the entire time, a beer in his metal hand. Darcy glances at him and her eyebrows hike.
"I thought you were seeing… I wanna say Gertrude?" Darcy asks, screwing up her face as if she can't remember the name.
"Stephanie," Bucky says, and Darcy supposes he means to seem annoyed by her deliberate blunder but his eyes are bright with amusement. "We broke up."
"Ah. Sorry, dude," Darcy says. "Stephanie, Gertrude – same thing."
"It's not really –"
"Anyway, I still want to go out, so leggo," she says, cocking her head in the direction of the elevator beyond.
Bucky blinks at her. "You were going to go on a date dressed like that?"
Darcy pauses, shocked. "What's wrong with my outfit?"
She looks down at her body and Bucky's eyes rest on the stain on her thigh.
"Is that Sriarcha?" he murmurs, and Darcy flips him off.
Sam and Steve chuckle together. Darcy gives a gasp of mock hurt.
"I'm a damsel in distress. And clearly I like food, so…"
Bucky puts down his beer and stands up, and Darcy's face changes. She thought it would take more nagging, but she had noticed Bucky was less of a wet blanket lately.
"See you, fellas," she says to Sam and Steve, and Sam gives her a little wave.
Bucky follows her out and she presses the button for the elevator and they wait. She bumps his boot with her sneaker.
"Thanks, for this," she murmurs, and Bucky shakes his head.
"Nothing to it, Lew."
She gives a small smile at the nickname. She can't remember when that started – probably months ago, but it's all he ever calls her and she likes it.
When they're riding down to the lobby, Darcy scoffs.
"God, what was Gertrude's problem?" she mutters.
"Wouldn't know how to begin to answer that," he replies, sounding a little weary.
She glances at him, and he pushes the long hair out of his face, carding his hair through the strands and watching the numbers go down as they descend.
"I'll help you find someone else," she says, nudging him. "I'm the best wingman. Not that you need any assistance. I bet girls hear an Ariana Grande song in their head every time you look their way."
His eyes swing towards hers and he blinks.
"I don't know who that is."
"It doesn't matter. I'll get you some phone numbers," Darcy says with a wave of her hand.
"Anything for another chance to get burned," he mutters.
He sounds disheartened but she knows he'd try anyway. She suspects his a hopeless romantic and he will never stop looking.
The bar is called Minotaur and Darcy wanted to go for weeks. The guy she was texting with told her about it, and tonight was meant to be his first night off in a while. Darcy keeps checking on Bucky to see if he's okay, because there are a lot of loud noises from all the arcade machines that take up the majority of the bar.
Bucky surveys the room and Darcy can see he's looking for exits and possible dangers and she ducks her head as she smiles. He gestures to the bar.
"You want a drink?"
She nods. He walks off and she spots Galaga in one corner and she lunges toward it, looking for some coins in her purse. She hasn't played in the longest time but it's an old favorite. Soon Bucky joins her with two beers and she's too absorbed to acknowledge him.
"Lew."
"Hmm?"
"Could you hold my beer?"
Darcy loses her last life and she sighs, annoyed. She glances at Bucky, forgetting what he said.
"Hold my beer," he says, and she takes both of them wordlessly.
The bar is busy but Darcy doesn't think he's on high alert. He seems distracted, and she finally notices what he's staring at – a shooting game with one red and one blue plastic guns in their holsters and Darcy takes a sip of her beer, her eyes widening.
"You'd be really good at that."
Bucky glances at her briefly as he feeds the machine some coins.
"I've never played before."
Darcy scoffs, taking another sip and licking her lips.
Bucky picks up the red gun and takes an expert stance, readying himself. She laughs a little at how serious his face looks and he sticks his tongue out at her for a lightning second before the first level starts.
He hits every target without blinking. Darcy points at the pedal on the floor.
"You hit that to reload."
He draws the gun back and reloads, then takes down five more targets. Darcy watches him move through each level precisely. He's untouchable, even when he's swarmed by gunmen running across the screen.
People at other machines begin to take notice, and Darcy sees several men come to stand near her and watch Bucky decimate the prey.
"Holy shit, dude," one guy says. He's wearing a Yankees hat and Darcy's afraid Bucky will notice.
He's very sensitive about the Dodgers still and loathes the Yankees entirely.
There are murmurs around them and Darcy smiles. She can tell Bucky is starting to feel a little edgy because he lets himself be hit a couple times, wiping out two of his lives.
His third goes when a blonde girl walks by and Darcy sees that's her mark for the night. She watches the girl out of the corner of her eye as she orders a drink at the bar.
Bucky got a high score and writes his name as AAA and steps back from the machine, taking his beer from Darcy. The crowd has disappeared and Darcy nods at the blonde with legs for days.
"Her?"
"Yeah."
"Well, like I said, you don't need help from me," Darcy replies.
He hesitates just the same and Darcy frowns.
"What's up?"
"I don't want to ditch you."
"It hasn't stopped you before," Darcy retorts, but there's no venom to her words. "Go ahead, I'll be fine."
Bucky's jaw works for a second and Darcy watches his face as he considers the blonde. He glances away finally, shaking his head.
"Nah, I'll get you a date."
"What?"
"I'll be your wingman," he says, taking another sip of beer.
He glances around the bar and Darcy makes a face.
"You want to give me dating advice?" she says, her eyebrows quirking. "You? A literal one hundred year-old?"
Bucky looks her up and down. "You got any better ideas?"
"Yeah. In my phone."
"Did the guy who cancelled come from your phone?" Bucky retorts without missing a beat. It makes it seem like he's been thinking about it for a little while and Darcy narrows her eyes.
"You want me to follow your antiquated dating advice?"
He rolls his eyes. "I'm not old-fashioned."
She didn't doubt that, but the idea of Bucky meddling in her dating life makes her feel unsettling things and she wants to hunch her shoulders and drink in a corner instead of being grilled.
"What happened to Brooklyn? Wah."
"Rude," he replies. "You always use the same dumb voice for men when you imitate them."
He was right, which makes Darcy laugh.
"I have a high voice, of course you sound fucking stupid when I'm doing an impression."
They pause, and the bar is forgotten while they stare each other down. Darcy relents because she never wins staring contests with Bucky and knows she never will. She shakes her head.
"It's not about sex."
"I know it ain't," he replies.
"Don't make fun of me," she says, and he chuckles.
"I'm not. You're gorgeous, and you want a boyfriend," he replies.
Darcy feels herself blush and she shakes her head. She's terrible when it comes to compliments from him because he gives them so freely, and she knows he's serious enough to never lie to her.
He tugs at her elbow and she lets him drag her over to another game – Street Fighter II – and they play a couple games. Bucky doesn't go easy on her but she puts in the effort, smashing the keys over and over and yelling when she's almost beating him.
"Shit," she mutters, and Bucky just laughs.
She leans against him as she laughs with him, bumping her forehead against his metal arm concealed by his jacket.
The next day they're getting bubble tea, wearing sunglasses under the sun while Manhattan bustles around them.
"So if we're doing this right, there's no more guys from apps," Bucky says, and Darcy makes a face.
"Come on. I have to… network?"
"What's your type?" Bucky asks, ignoring her gripe. He sips his drink and chews on the tapioca pieces while Darcy thinks.
She looks at a man walking across the street wearing a suit, a cell phone at his ear. His African American and built like a tree.
"Black?"
"No," Darcy says, and then shakes her head. "I mean, yeah. But – 'type' seems kinda dumb to me. I like men. I just like… men."
Bucky considers this. "Okay. But we need something to work with."
Darcy thought about it when she showered that morning. She wishes she had a better picture in her head. She sighs a little.
"I don't usually like the guys who are into me, if that makes sense."
"What type is that?"
Darcy shrugs. "I dunno, but at some point they usually say I'm a real woman because I'm not really skinny and that makes me super uncomfortable."
"Right," Bucky replies, nodding. "Because you're…"
"Thick?" Darcy says, and Bucky looks confused.
"I was gonna say built like a Coke bottle."
Darcy's smiling before she can stop herself.
"But I shouldn't say that," he adds.
"Steve said once that I look like the girls on the planes? Like, the ones painted on the side of the plane during the war?"
Bucky looks stunned, pulling his straw away from his mouth and swallowing.
"Stevie said that?"
She's never heard him refer to Steve as that before and she smiles again.
"Yeah."
Bucky goes quiet, mulling this new information over.
"So why didn't he…?" he cuts himself off, looking at Darcy. "When was that?"
"A while ago."
When Steve said it, he sort of blurted it and then felt bad about it. He had as little game as Darcy did, so she never tried to initiate anything other than playful banter.
She knew she wasn't exactly his type. So wasn't exactly ideal girlfriend material.
"Listen," Darcy says suddenly, and Bucky's eyes snap up to hers. He seems pulled back from his thoughts and there's a flash of concern across his face. "I need help."
"You said you were fine."
"I need someone with your expertise. Also, you're a male, so maybe you'll be more honest than Natasha. She's the only other person whose advice I'd want."
She thinks of Jane and Bruce, two brilliant minds equally bad at navigating their own romances. She trusts Bucky the most but she doesn't add that. She feels that's implied by how she looks at him.
"No-one is more honest than Natasha," Bucky replies, and Darcy tilts her head.
"That doesn't make any sense."
One night Natasha came home in a blue sundress during the summer, her arms caked with blood she assured Darcy wasn't hers. Darcy sometimes thinks of how composed Natasha was, looking like she wore two long red gloves with splatters down her dress. She had the most secrets.
They lapse into silence and Darcy thinks of Bucky calling the spy Natalia once, which made Darcy's mind reel with the implication, the birth name so personal in her ears.
"Don't date anyone from SHIELD," Bucky says, and Darcy shoots him a look.
"Wouldn't it be easier if I did?" Darcy mutters. "Less to explain."
"Most of those guys are above your pay grade, and not exactly nice," he says, and Darcy frowns a little at him.
"They've talked about me with you."
"I don't talk to anyone," Bucky says, but Darcy can't be fooled.
"Then you've overheard them say shit."
"You want someone decent? Look outside the Tower," Bucky replies.
He finishes his drink while Darcy tries to guess in her head what Bucky's heard. He stands up, giving Darcy a pointed look.
"Okay, I won't. But I'll need you every step of the way."
She follows him down the street, and she's thankful that he's slowing down for her. Usually he moves as fast as possible to get out of public spaces.
"You're not completely hopeless," he says.
Darcy's stomach flutters and she swallows, feeling that old warmth, that assuring glow from within. At least she's got Bucky, even if she ends up dying alone.
"I know, and I'm cute as hell," she murmurs, and Bucky laughs.