A/N Yay fluffy Christmas fic! I'll be honest there's not going to be a whole lot of plot in this one, I just wanted to write some fun and fluffy vignettes of our favorite trio :) Also this was supposed to be up yesterday (my plan is to post chapters in real time to the story) but my internet decided to give up the ghost for most of the evening so lets all just pretend it's the 12th today... Also this is unbetaed so let me know if there is any horrific cringe worth mistakes/typos :)
Bucky's head popped through the gap between the front seats. "Are we there yet?"
"Do you see a cabin?" Darcy asked shortly. It had been a long drive upstate and she was getting a headache from the glare coming off the freshly fallen snow.
"No."
"Then we're not there yet." Without taking her eyes off the road, she reached over her shoulder and pressed his head back. "So sit your ass down and put your seatbelt back on."
"I'm hungry and we've been going two miles per hour down a deserted dirt road for the past hour and haven't seen another car since we turned off the main road. We're not going to have an accident and Bambi isn't going to give us a ticket so I think I'll be okay without my seatbelt on, Dollface," Bucky returned. It had been a point of contention between the two of them for months, Bucky not feeling that modern safety laws should apply to him and Darcy being of the click it or ticket generation.
"I'm going 30 which is as fast as I'm allowed to go with chains on the tires, which we stopped to put on as soon as we turned onto the private, not abandoned, road twenty minutes ago. And if you don't put your seatbelt back on I will stop this car and we'll all just sit here and stare at each other and then you'll never get lunch."
"She'll do it," Steve interjected, not looking up from the map that he'd pulled out of the glove box after the GPS lost signal a few miles back.
The car was already decelerating when Bucky sighed audibly which preceded the sound of the clicking of his belt.
"Why did we bring him again?" Darcy asked looking sidelong at Steve.
"Because last time we left him home alone unsupervised for more than a day we came home to find trash strewn all over the apartment and the curtains pulled off the wall," Steve answered calmly.
"You think you're funny punk?" Bucky reached between the seats and flicked the back of Steve's ear, who did think he was funny and chuckled lowly despite the fact that his ear was rapidly turning bright red. "And I told you not to believe a thing out of Natasha's mouth. The curtains were not my fault," he added with a petulant grumble.
Darcy and Steve traded a covert sidelong glance, but both managed to refrain from commenting.
"Bucky does have a point," Steve said instead, changing the subject as he peered at the map. "This place is pretty far off the beaten path. How did you even find it?"
"One of Coulson's team told me about it the last time they were in town," she answered vaguely.
"The hacker?" Bucky asked, knowing the two women had bonded over their adventures in breaking through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s firewalls.
"No, her SO," Darcy admitted with a cringe, knowing how well that news was going to go over.
"Ward?!" Bucky exclaimed. "Special Agent Grant Ward is your source for your romantic weekend getaway spot?"
"Why do you have to say it like that?" Darcy shot back.
"Why didn't you tell us before?" Bucky replied with a question of his own. "I hate that guy."
"I know, which is why I didn't tell you. And Grant is a perfectly nice guy."
"So he's Grant now?" Bucky scoffed.
Darcy rolled her eyes. "Agent Ward is a perfectly nice guy. You just don't like him because you embarrassed yourself the first time you met him because you tried to talk shit with Natasha in front of him and you didn't know he speaks Russian. Which was a total rookie move b-t-dubs."
"It was sloppy," Steve couldn't help but agree, throwing an amused glance over his shoulder at their bickering. He was always ready to jump in and play peacemaker if one of them was about to take it too far, but he knew how much they both enjoyed their verbal sparring matches.
"He speaks terrible Russian," Bucky felt the need to point out, as if that somehow meant it didn't count. "And that's not why I don't like him. He's a smug asshole, that's why I don't like him."
"You're a smug asshole," Darcy countered, meeting Bucky's gaze in the rearview mirror.
"I know, but for me it's part of my charm. He's just an asshole," Bucky retorted. "Back me up Punk."
"It's true," Steve agreed as he admitted defeat and started refolding the map, it wasn't going to help him find their destination if it wasn't on the map to begin with. "Buck's not nearly as charming when he's not being smug and/or an asshole."
Bucky punched the back of his chair hard enough that something deep in the seat groaned and Steve's seatbelt locked.
"Hey now, this is a rental!" Darcy said sharply.
Steve, however, just laughed as he unbuckled his seat belt and readjusted it so that it wasn't choking him. "Yes, Ward is smug, but most Agents are when they get to a certain level. I think you have to be to do the sorts of things we do on a daily basis," he mused, knowing that he too, had his moments. "But I didn't think he was an asshole."
"You only think that because he was sucking up to his boss's favorite superhero," Bucky countered.
Darcy didn't really think that Ward was the kind to worry about brownie points, but only rolled her eyes because they had finally arrived. "And we're here!"
Steve and Bucky both fell silent as they took in the log cabin nestled deep in the woods. Bucky of course was the first to break the silence.
"Is this an old abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house?" he asked incredulously.
"I think the term Grant used was private," Darcy replied, looking at the cabin a bit dubiously herself.
"Special Agent Smug Asshole sent us to a dilapidated shack in the woods. Fantastic."
"It's not dilapidated," Steve said slowly, trying to stay positive. "It's rustic."
"Right, it's got a sort of vintage charm to it," Darcy agreed with Steve verbally, while mentally thinking that Bucky's description was more accurate.
The three of them fell back into silence for several long beats, all of them evaluating the structure in front of them that was supposed to be their home for the next three and a half days.
"Welp, it's going to get dark soon, so we should probably get inside and unpack the car before it gets any colder," Steve finally said.
Darcy raised a single eyebrow in Steve's direction, it was still early afternoon and they had several hours yet before sunset, but she started moving, zipping up her coat, pulling on her gloves and rewrapping her scarf around her neck in anticipation of getting out of the car which was his intention so it didn't really matter.
Walking around to the back of the rented SUV, Darcy popped the hatchback and started pulling out the coolers of groceries that contained their lunch, figuring that if it really was as bad on the inside as it looked on the outside they could at least have lunch before she had to listen to Bucky congratulate himself about how right he was about Grant all the way back down the mountain. Being the gentleman they were both Steve and Bucky wordlessly took a cooler from her hands, leaving her to lead the way towards the cabin.
Clumsy with her thick woolen gloves on, it took her a few minutes to first fish the key out of her coat pocket, and several more to struggle with the lock. Finally she managed to get the tumblers to click and pushed the door open, the stiff and squeaky hinges protesting loudly. Taking a step inside the dark cabin, the drawn curtains not allowing any of the winter sun inside, she took a deep breath of stale air while she looked for a light switch and braced herself for the worst.
"Oh," was all she could say when lights sprang on around the room.
She realized that Bucky's first instinct was probably correct. That this cabin was, or perhaps still is a secluded S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house. Built to look uninviting on the outside, but actually quite cozy and rather homey on in the inside. Everything was oak and knotty pine, with overstuffed plaid sofas, and a colorful rag rug in front of a large fireplace. There didn't seem to be anything in the way of electronics, no TV or computer, she didn't even see a phone, just the lights that she assumed ran off a generator somewhere since they were most certainly off the grid. She had mentioned to Grant that she would love to get away with the guys and just unplug from the world for awhile, and it seemed that he had delivered perfectly. Turning around she looked up at her boys and grinned, her smile widening when she saw them grinning back down at her.
"All right," she said clapping her hands together. "Bucky can you find the thermostat and get the heater turned on and maybe start a fire while Steve and I find the kitchen and get lunch set up?" she requested since it was just as cold inside as it was outside with the cabin having been shut up and unoccupied for who knows how long.
"Anything for you sweetheart," Bucky said with a rakish grin. "And alright, I'll admit it," he paused for a half a beat before turning to do as she asked, "Ward isn't a complete asshole."
A/N And there we have it, the scene is set so to speak... I feel the need to mention that I personally love Ward and any opinions voiced by James Buchanan Barnes are his and his alone :P Anyways... All the chapters are going to be about this long but there should be 6 of the before Christmas so hopefully that will make up for the length. Let me know what you think so far!