Darcy was not a chorus girl. Even if she wanted to be, she was too short and her chest would burst out of the costume. All the dancing girls got the same uniform, while she had to wear the same three or four outfits in rotation, drying her things on a tiny clothesline she made from some scavenged frayed rope.
Darcy used to be a singer in a jazz club in New York. Now she travelled with Steve and the rest of the troupe all over Europe to inspire the armed forces. She'd shiver in her little gowns, her hair done just so, her smile the same every night even when men were heckling all kinds of godawful things.
Steve knew all this because he got to know her over the months, catching her around backstage and in between towns. Eventually he had to ask why she was doing this.
"I wasn't making enough to get by back home," she said, shrugging.
Steve knew it had to be more than that. She ran the risk of pneumonia, getting bombed out, having some guy grab at her or worse.
"Her husband's not around," one dancer told Steve when he asked around. She was putting on her lipstick at the time, looking at Steve in her mirror. "Why do you care?"
Steve knew why – he cared about her, wanted to look after her. Maybe it was a dumb impulse, but she made him want to keep her safe from everything that happened, even though she carried herself onstage like she was born to perform.
She would sing four or so songs, before introducing Captain America and his Ladies of Liberty. She was technically their opening act, but she always drew a happy crowd. By the end of her act, they were so rowdy Darcy had been nearly pulled off the stage into the mass of men below many times.
There were new rules that she only stood in certain areas, but the more risqué songs in her repertoire stayed, which seemed to be half the problem.
Steve had nothing against what she sang. Sometimes she sung French, other times Spanish. Her English songs could be lively and innocent ones to swing to, others were like a burlesque dancer had possessed her.
Offstage, she always had her head in a book, and one morning Steve walked by her tent and looked at the cover, eyebrows hiking. She was reading The Hobbit.
"I've read that one," he said, and she looked up, frowning at his interruption before realizing who it was.
"Me too, this is the six time I'm reading it."
She snapped it shut, patting the seat beside her. Steve hesitated, but sat beside her, looking around at the rest of the camp moving around and getting their breakfast. There was cigarette smoke everywhere.
"I heard you asked about me," Darcy said, and Steve felt her eyes on him, the same ones that could be large and bright with earnestness or heavy-lidded and sultry during a sexier ballad.
Steve should have known – the girls around him gossiped enough about each other, so it made sense this got back to Darcy as well.
"Wondered about you being part of this."
"Well, what's your story?" Darcy asked, digging into her pocket and taking out a smoke and lighting it with a little silver lighter. She took a short drag and blew the smoke out of the corner of her mouth away from him. "You already know mine."
"Hardly," Steve said. "I was part of a soldier program to make the perfect fighter."
"Oh," Darcy said. She gave him a quick once over.
Her eyes roving his body made Steve want to push her up against a door and kiss her, but he just swallowed, looking at his hands.
"The program shut down because a German spy infiltrated it and murdered Dr. Erskine."
"I'm… sorry," Darcy said. She bit her lip. "You heard about my husband?"
"He enlisted?"
"Yes. But he died."
It was Steve's turn to say, "Oh."
They sat together in silence as Darcy smoked, her brow furrowing.
"How old were you, when you got married?"
Darcy pretended to appear scandalized. "A lady does not reveal her age."
She rolled her eyes, flicking ash on the ground. "Seventeen. He died two years later. Then I signed up as an Army performer."
"You're very good."
"Thank you," she murmured, in the same voice she reserved for admirers. "You're sweet."
After that day, something changed. Darcy no longer waved at him in between performances. She'd smile instead, giving a little wink, like it was a secret.
She became a welcome distraction from the constant performances. Steve felt less alone knowing she wasn't living the life she presented to the crowds.
One night she performed a number that always had soldiers hollering for her. Darcy did her hair in thick victory rolls, her lipstick wet-looking and bright red, her eyeliner sharp. Last of all, she drew on a beauty mark on one cheek and stuck on little eyelashes to make her appear doll-like.
Her red dress was strapless and pushed her cleavage together and up, her long silk gloves matching. Steve knew that because it was worn so often that it did not shine as much, but the diamante that covered her dress still shone bright under the spotlight.
Instead of being backstage helping the girls get ready, Steve hung around in the wings, watching as the music began, Darcy posing by the microphone.
Steve knew the song off by heart. It was the only one she sang that had a cuss word, but those sorts of things flew just fine in the Army. Steve wondered what people back home would think, knowing Darcy was doing this every night for husbands and sweethearts. He knew the men thought of her when she left. Or dreamt of her in the hours after.
As she began to sing, her hips swivelled, and the wolf whistling began.
Steve was amazed that she did all this by herself. That she bewitched hundreds of men by a simple gesture.
A few minutes ago, all the men were singing along with her to a Bing Cosby song, like she was their little wife, or even their child.
As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent, you asked for the latest party
The crowd was whooping, whistling. There were yells Steve could hardly make out. He gripped his mask a little tighter in his hands as Darcy's arms moved up like she was appealing to God, her throat a long line.
She dropped her arms, gripping the microphone stand, her voice more raw and provocative, like she was alone with each man in their head, a secret tawdry moment. The more she sang, her hands travelled up and down the mike, then up and down her dress.
"Come on, baby! Take it off!" came a yell, and Steve's eyes darted to the crowd.
Darcy laughed, and tossed one glove aside, nowhere near the men, like she was teasing the idea herself.
Crawling down the alley on your hands and your knees
I'm sure you're not protected, for it's plain to see
Diamond Dogs are poachers and they hide behind trees
Hunt you to the ground they will, mannequins with kill appeal
The other glove was off beside its partner. Darcy tossed her hair off her shoulder, grin widening.
Will they come? I keep a friend serene
Will they come? Oh, baby come into me –
Steve knew for a fact that the line was "unto" not "into". She was deliberately flubbing it to blur the lines between innuendo and outright sexual and he couldn't help smirking a little at it, because Darcy seemed to enjoy the reaction.
"She's shameless," one girl whispered beside Steve.
The character Darcy played was shameless. And those girls somehow forgot that they were performers just the same.
Come out of the garden, baby
You'll catch your death in the fog
Young girls, they call them the Diamond Dogs
The men were stamping their feet, and Steve shook his head, seeing her magic trick for the millionth time. She never got old.
The next verse was the one that had men laughing every time. Steve anticipated someone yelling something lewd, but Darcy usually rolled with the punches.
In the year of the scavenger, the season of the bitch –
The last part she practically spat, making the crowd erupt in predictable laughter, including Steve.
He felt a tap on his shoulder. One of the girls looked up at him apologetically.
"Sorry, hun. Lucy's zipper's stuck and we've all tried getting it up."
Steve sighed a little, more at the situation that the dancer asking him for a favor. "Yeah. I'll fix it."
He was using his super strength to unstuck zippers, when he knew the men in the crowd were probably going off to fight in a matter of hours, Steve going off to another camp to do the same song and dance again.
He left the wing and went into the ladies' dressing room while Darcy continued to sing.
Much later, he was coming back from dinner to his tent, and saw Darcy walking toward her own minus her makeup and sparkly dress, her hair still pinned up.
Instead of continuing his way, he followed behind her, until she got to her section and ducked to open the flap.
She spun around, but did not scream or even scowl his direction. Her eyes just darted behind him, watching to see if there was anyone around to see them together.
She moved back into the tent, and Steve swallowed, glancing around.
They were alone – or close to it.
The second he stepped inside, Darcy's hands were on his neck, her nails sliding up to his hair and tugging him down to her to kiss him.
His lips brushed hers, and she shivered, her eyes wide.
"You think you're special, Steve?"
He swallowed, pecking her on the lips for a second, almost polite. He knew the woman she was onstage was different to the Darcy that read books and kept to herself, looking lonely with her sad eyes.
She was testing him, wondering what he thought of her. The truth was he had never met anyone like her before in all his life.
"I've only slept with one other man. My husband," she amended, and Steve nodded.
He cupped the back of her head, unfurling the victory curls a little with his large fingers.
Their noses brushed, and he kissed her again, slower and gentle.
Her sigh set him off – and then he was sweeping into her mouth with his tongue, seeking her out, hoping she would return the feeling of want.
She stroked him back, and she was soon shuffling back toward her little bed, and they settled on it with a short creak, Darcy beneath him.
Steve thought of the priest he knew growing up, the same one that ran after Bucky often enough for his antics with girls in bushes or behind dance halls.
Steve was no virgin, but he still wondered if what he was doing was crossing some line. Was Darcy still technically married, even though her husband was dead?
She felt her hands go to his costume's top half, trying to find something to pull up or down. She was not about to stop or kick him out. Steve knew where these kisses were going.
He moved back, tugging the material and letting it fall to the ground, and saw Darcy lick her lips at his naked chest, making him feel bold and capable.
He shuffled down a little, adjusting them so Darcy's legs were apart with his head between them.
"Steve," she whispered, her eyes shining at him from above. She was leaning back on her elbows, assessing him.
His hands went under her skirts, splaying across her thighs and squeezing. She felt impossibly soft and solid at the same time, like her thighs were silk and stone, and his fingers found the waistband of her panties.
He pulled them down, Darcy's hips raised. Once they were off, he settled down again, her skirts up to her waist. Her lower half lay naked for him, the thick thatch of hair between her legs making Steve's dick ache in his pants.
He threw her legs over her shoulders and drew his tongue all the way up her slit to the little bud at the top, his thumbs spreading her open to see inside.
Darcy let out a gasp, and seconds later her hand covered her mouth. If someone came running because she started screaming, Steve probably couldn't come up with a decent excuse as to why he was otherwise in her tent instead of his that night.
She was wet, and he began lapping at her, one of her hands coming down to bite into his forearm. He gave her everything, dipping inside with his tongue and stroking her bud with a finger, and then just kissing her everywhere, his nose bumping her pubic bone.
"Jesus, Steve," she whispered. "Please don't stop."
She sounded so desperate he almost shucked off his pants to shove inside her but he closed his eyes, willing himself not to just drive into her as soon as possible.
She was so beautiful and lost in her own pleasure, wriggling under him as he pushed her further toward the edge. Her hand transferred from his arm to his head, pushing his face against her.
He sucked her little bud and she felt apart, muffling her own moan as Steve felt the wet release against his chin. He kissed her through the aftershocks, her legs shaking and Steve could not help feeling pleased with himself, his ability to do that to her.
She grabbed at his shoulders, pulling him up so her hips cradled him, and she kissed him like before, all filthy and demanding, making Steve groan against her, thinking his cock might split the material that trapped it.
He reached down, pushing his pants down past his thighs, releasing his cock. He looked at Darcy's face to gauge her reaction.
She bit her lip, nodding, and he smiled.
"Come on, Cap," she murmured against his lips, and he felt her hand on his shaft, directing him toward her. "You know what to do."
He kicked off his pants, hooking her legs over his hips and rubbed the tip against her wet folds that lay open, flush and rosy for him.
She gasped as he pushed inside, wrapping her arms around him.
Her mouth was at his ear.
"Don't let up."
Steve never made love like this before – just hard and fast fucking with skin against skin. The bed creaked with his buck of his hips and Darcy began to giggle.
"Oh, shit," she whispered. "You'll have to be quick."
He was already halfway there, to tell the truth, but he didn't mind. He'd do it again the first chance he got, and Darcy wasn't about to leave the dance troupe for home.
"You feel incredible," she whispered, and he turned his head to kiss her, driving into her faster.
He could feel the coil inside him growing taut, and he felt between them for her little bud, pressing down on it, making her eyes widen.
"I'm gonna –"
He covered her mouth with his own, muffling her little cry of pleasure, her cunt fluttering around him. It was enough to make him dizzy, desperate for his own release.
He pulled away from their kiss, and Darcy kept nodding.
"Don't come in me. Don't come in me," she whispered.
At the last second he pulled out, spilling against Darcy's pale stomach, the seed pooling in her navel. He grunted, feeling like he could die – before he settled to normal breathing again seconds later and crashed down on top of her, his cock still twitching.
There was silence for a full minute before Darcy began to laugh softly in his ear and he moved his head to see her, hand over her mouth and eyes full of mischievous joy.