Upon seeing Natasha walking into the common living room to join him on the couch, Bucky, with a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth, looked at Steve sitting on the nearby loveseat, his ever-present sketchpad on his lap.
"Still got that hot date coming up, pal?" he asked. At this point, Natasha was curled up next to him, remote in hand, as she scrolled through the list of shows on the DVR.
Steve's head whipped up at Bucky's question. "Wait, what?"
"You know, with that dame you were telling me about." Bucky slid his left arm around Natasha's shoulder, making a pathetic attempt for the remote. She acted as if nothing had happened and continued going through the DVR.
Steve's eyes widened. "Oh, OH!" He felt his face redden slightly. "Yeah, ah, about that." He ducked his head, rubbing the back of his neck.
Bucky sighed. They'd been having this conversation for a couple of weeks. "C'mon Steve. I'm sure she'll say yes. Just gotta ask."
"James," Natasha began, looking at him with narrowed eyes, "I am sure it would be much easier for him to do so without your persistent pestering." She finally had settled on a show, and the episode had begun to play.
He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Oh Nat, but I'm just being moral support. I've had this guy's back since we were what, like 8?"
Steve nodded. "Something like that, Buck. And as far as the moral support goes, I appreciate it. Just gotta go at my own comfort level, I s'pose."
Bucky leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knee. In the loveseat, Steve automatically mimicked him. Natasha rolled her eyes, but quirked up the corner of her mouth in a small smile. It was moments when they did things like that, in their own unspoken language, that she wished she had had a chance to have a lifelong friendship.
"Steve, I want to let you in on something a lot of guys don't know," Bucky said. He nodded towards the sketchpad. "Could you do me a favor and draw me a simple lady? Kinda like she's on that Operation game?" Steve's pencil flew over the paper, and he handed the pad to Bucky. "Geez, man, you didn't have to make her look sorta hot."
Darcy chose that moment to walk into the room. "Tasha! You already started the episode!" She sat at the opposite end of the couch. When Steve glanced up to see who was there, the tips of his ears reddened. Bucky didn't seem to notice this, but it didn't escape Natasha's notice.
"Sorry, Darcy. These two delayed my text." Natasha shrugged apologetically, tilting her head towards Bucky and Steve.
Darcy's gaze flickered that way, and she grinned. They looked like they were up to something. She could only imagine what sort of trouble they had gotten into as kids. She had a feeling they could be little shits, but she also thought skinny Steve, from what stories he'd told her, could've pulled out all the stops sympathy-wise with his blue eyes, as if he were a 1930s Puss in Boots. She may or may not have put more thought into this than necessary, and hadn't run this theory by Steve yet. Which reminded her — she needed to have him see one of the Shreks with Puss in Boots in it before she did.
"Now everybody knows the basic erogenous zones. You got one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven!" Bucky was explaining as Darcy pulled herself out of her thoughts. She saw him writing something on the sketchpad in his hands.
Steve was too polite to roll his eyes at his best friend, so he just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Do I even need to remind you Buck? You, me, Army? Also, USO girls?"
Before Darcy could stop herself, she blurted out, "Wait, seven?"
All eyes were on her. Bucky passed the pad down to her. She looked down at it, as did Natasha.
"Ah, I counted these two as one. Looks right to me." Natasha nodded in assent. The pad was passed back to Bucky, who then passed it over to Steve.
"Seriously?" he asked, exasperation clearly evident in his voice. He looked at the sketchpad and then back up at Bucky, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "This is one?"
"Yeah," Bucky replied slowly. Steve turned the pad around, looking at it from a different angle, his eyes widening in recognition.
"Ah. Okay." He handed the pad back. "Your numbering was a little off from the actual area. Made it hard to see from that angle."
"Multiple angles often help," Natasha offered. Bucky chuckled. If Steve's face wasn't flushed before, it was then. Even Darcy felt her face flush, and she usually wasn't one to get easily embarrassed by conversations like this one.
"Now, most people will hit 1-2-3 and then go to 7 and set up camp," Bucky began, pointing out the numbers as he explained.
"And I'm taking it from your tone of voice that that isn't a good idea," Steve responded dryly.
Natasha snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. "Well, if you go to Gorky Park, you don't spend the whole day on the «ferris wheel»."
Bucky turned towards Natasha, smiling. "«Really? That's your example?»" Natasha huffed, bumping her shoulder into his, trying not to smile back.
Darcy cleared her throat. "So I'm going to guess whatever Tasha's example was, it meant something like, don't spend all your time on the best thing. Work your way up there."
Bucky nodded, and Natasha gave her a look of approval. For what, Darcy didn't know, but she still felt good about passing whatever little test Natasha had administered.
"Exactly. Couldn't have put it better myself, doll." He smiled at Darcy. "And before you argue, Steve, that a person might, if it were anything like 7, you forget, the important thing is to take your time, you want to hit 'em all, and you mix 'em up. You gotta keep them on their toes."
"Oooh, toes!" Darcy blurted out excitedly, her hands flying to her mouth as she realized her brain-to-mouth filter apparently wasn't working. Everyone turned to look at her again. "Well, for some people," she mumbled.
Bucky quirked an eyebrow and smirked. "I'd really like an explanation to this." Even Steve looked curious at her outburst.
"I must agree with James, as loathe as I am to admit it in this instance." She patted Darcy's knee. "Sorry, Darce."
Darcy sighed. "Um, not as interesting as you'd hope, I swear. Just involved the family dog —." Natasha's hand whipped up to cover Bucky's mouth at the same time as Steve's did. Their hand collided, and she could hear Bucky's muffled whining and complaining, but continued. "I was house-sitting for my parents one weekend I was home from school, dozing on their couch. Having a steamy dream." She paused, knowing she was blushing furiously now. "And all of a sudden in the dream, the mystery man was doing this thing with my toes. Right before things got really interesting, I woke up."
There was silence. "And?" Natasha asked.
"The family dog was licking my toes, as he managed to pull my socks off my feet that were dangling off the end of the couch. Somehow that translated into my dream." She brought a hand up and covered her face, cringing as she finished the story. The only chuckles she heard were coming from Bucky, as she got a sympathetic pat on her knee from Natasha. Steve looked at her with a mixture of confusion and admiration.
"All right," Bucky said, pulling the hands off of his mouth. "Back on to our lovely 7 spots, Steve, you could start out with a little 1, some 2, a 1-2-3, maybe 3, then 5, try 4, a 3-2, 2, or 2-4-6, 2-4-6, 4, 2, 2, 4-7, 5-7, 6-7, 7… 7… 7… 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7… seven, «seven», seven."
As he started to pick up steam in his number combinations, Darcy noticed Natasha kept biting her bottom lip. She also noticed how Bucky kept pointing out the locations on the sketchpad, but his eyes were now focused on Natasha. Steve seemed to notice this, too, and at one point, Steve's eyes met Darcy's, and they shared an awkward glance, almost like they both felt they were intruding on Bucky and Natasha.
Once Bucky stopped saying numbers, Natasha turned off the television, stood up, and wordlessly left the room, heading down the hall towards the elevators. Darcy glanced at Steve again, who raised his eyebrows in confusion.
A moment passed in silence, as Bucky sat on the couch with a pleased smiled on his face. Then, like a spell was broken, he leaned over and squeezed Darcy's shoulder. He stood up and clapped Steve's shoulder.
"Dollface, Steve, this has been a quite an insightful, and surprisingly educational, afternoon. I'm, ah, gonna go catch a smoke. Let's grab drinks later?" Without waiting for a response, he walked with a bounce in his step towards the elevators.
That left Darcy and Steve in the room. She smiled at him. "So, that didn't get awkward at all."
Steve laughed softly. "No, no it didn't."
Darcy slid to the end of the couch closer to Steve. "I gotta know, how did this conversation start?"
Steve toyed with the pencil in his hand. "Ah, just Bucky being Bucky. Thinking he needs to look out for me, in his own special way." He chuckled.
"Do you have a third date with someone coming up?"
He looked up at her sharply, quirking his head to one side. "Third date?"
She nodded. "Yeah, that's usually the date when people get a little more, ah, physical with their relationships these days."
"Oh. No, no, nothing like that." He looked down at the sketchpad and quickly turned the page. He didn't want to see that picture anymore. "No date yet."
"Well, I'm sure Bucky said this, too. But all you gotta do is ask, Steve." She reached over and put her hand on top his that was resting on the arm rest of the love seat. "Don't worry about any of that number bs. I mean, yeah, file it away. But when that time comes, you're a smart guy." She gave him a half-smile.
He looked at her hand on top of his, and flipped his hand so his palm faced up, lacing his fingers with hers. He half-smiled back at her. "What are your plans for dinner, Darcy?"
"Um, ah, dinner?" She was suddenly speechless, as things seemed to fall into place in her head. Taking a deep breath and giving him a full smile, she replied, "I have no plans. So I'm game for whatever."
He smiled back. "Same here." He started to stand up, and noticed she did the same, moving closer so she was almost leaning into him. He looked down at her feet before meeting her eyes.
She raised an eyebrow at him, eyes sparkling with amusement. "What?"
"Nothing. Just checking to see what kind of shoes you had on. You know, to file away for later." They started walking towards the elevator.
She looked up at at him, noticing how blue his eyes were, and how he seemed to be looking at her innocently, and decided that he definitely had used them to his advantage as a kid.
"Sure, filing away for later. You play innocent well, Steve Rogers. But I'm on to you. And I will find your quirk, and I will file it away until one day when I'm ready to fully exploit it." She put her free hand on her hip as she said this to further emphasize her point.
As the elevator door dinged open, Steve gave her hand a squeeze. "I look forward to it."