It was a bad summer.

Actually, she considered it the worst summer of her entire life, and she figured no one would call that an exaggeration.

Especially since she saw Jane turn into ashes, and almost every other person Darcy knew also disappeared at the exact same time.

Once that happened, she knew it had something to do with Thor and the Avengers.

It was better than a hunch; she knew it in her blood that she had to follow the trail of destruction back to wherever the remaining superheroes had to be.

She called people, or tried calling. Reception went down and did not go back up for days, and by the time that she was able to call people again, she got herself to a community centre and was helping kids that were suddenly orphaned.

Her priorities changed, and she was getting a call back from the last person she expected.

"Am I talking to Darcy Lewis?"

She had heard that voice in snippets over the years, but she had never really spoken to Captain America before.

"Yes. Who's this?"

She had to be getting this person confused with someone else.

"Steve Rogers. We have a mutual friend."

Darcy swallowed, and looked around the backroom she snuck into.

She rested her head against a cardboard box marked "PAPER" that she knew were filled with various photos of missing civilians.

"Thor being the friend? Is he alive?"

"Yes."

Darcy let out a sigh of relief. "Finally, some good news."

There was an awkward pause, and Darcy winced.

"I mean no offence. Everybody has lost someone. I can't imagine what you're going through."

Steve cleared his throat on the other end, but did not say anything.

"Wait, aren't you supposed to be in hiding still? What happened? And where's Tony Stark?"

"Darcy, I don't know how much you should –"

"I'm part of this, okay? I've got nothing to lose."

She did not mean to sound so sharp. She was surprised he did not hang up.

"I know the feeling. We can meet up."

"Sure. Buy me a drink."

Darcy was kind of joking. She didn't do that as often those days.

She found less and less things to laugh about.

They met at a bar a couple towns over from Puente Antiguo.

Darcy sat in a booth in the back, wondering if Steve would show up. The bar was close to empty.

People were more likely to drink at home with their families since so many people disappeared that summer.

Since Darcy had no one, she went everywhere.

Tonight was no exception.

Once the door opened ten minutes after they were supposed to meet, Darcy looked up to see a bearded man wearing a baseball cap that obstructed most of his face.

She wore the red barrette like she said she would, so he went right up to her booth and sat opposite her.

His eyes were blue and recognisable. Darcy wondered how long it would take for the five other people there to notice Steve.

"Hey, nice to meet you."

He took Darcy's hand and shook it with a strong grip.

"What do I call you? Cap?"

He shook his head quickly, looking away.

"No. Nobody calls me that anymore."

He looked over his shoulder at the bartender and gestured.

"What do you want?"

"Something stupid expensive," she replied.

There was a hint of a smile on Steve's face as he went off.

He came back a couple minutes later, a beer in one hand and an obnoxious cocktail in the other.

"Sex on the beach," he said, placing the drink in front of Darcy.

"Did the bartender spit in this? 'Cause I know they hate making those," she murmured, turning the glass around and admiring the colors.

"Not that I could see," Steve replied. He took a sip from his beer.

"You're a hard man to find," she said.

"That's kind of the point."

Darcy nodded. On closer inspection, Steve looked tired, and she assumed she looked the same.

Whenever she shut her eyes now, she wondered if she'd ever wake up. And to what exactly, if she did return to consciousness the next morning? She wondered if this was some elaborate nightmare.

"Steve, what the fuck happened?" she asked, and she heard her voice break a little at the end.

He looked at her fingers that fiddled with the stem of her glass.

Maybe he saw that her hands had cuts from trying to move overturned cars with the people who were left behind.

She ran into the street once Jane was gone, and found people screaming.

The nail polish on her nails was chipped beyond recognition. She hated that she spent that much time on something like that, instead of calling her own mother more.

"Thanos." Steve let out a ragged breath. "I used to keep secrets for the sake of civilians' safety. But I figure it doesn't hurt to tell you. You would understand better than most people."

Darcy's throat felt dry. She took a sip of her drink through the bendy straw and nodded.

"Where is Thor?"

"Trying to find Tony. He left Earth and got caught out there."

"How did it happen? The mass extinction?"

Her voice was lowered, her eyes traveling around the bar. No-one was looking their way.

"He snapped his fingers. There was a – magical gauntlet."

"This sounds like stuff that should make sense –"

"Darcy, it still doesn't make much sense to me, and I was there."

Darcy looked up at him and swallowed. "So what can I do?"

"Do what you're already doing. You're volunteering, right?"

"Yeah, but – what about you?"

She supposed she didn't know him well enough, but she was drawn to him, the same way she had been with Thor.

"Is Erik Selvig alive?" Steve asked.

Darcy shook her head. "I got an email from the psychiatric facility he was staying at. He vanished with about a dozen other patients."

Her eyes prickled. When was the last time she cried? A couple days ago when she was alone and not in sight.

"Fuck," she muttered, pressing the heel of her palm to one eye that was leaking.

"You want a tissue?"

His voice was soft, and Darcy felt herself blush.

"Do you have any?"

"No." He sounded awkward.

Darcy chuckled despite the urge to sob. She sniffled, getting back to her drink.

After several minutes of silence, Darcy worked her way through about a third of her drink.

If she was by herself, she would have gone for vodka, no ice and downed it in two gulps.

Even though getting drunk dulled her senses, she learned she didn't like drinking alone.

"What are you doing all the way out here?" she asked, wondering why she hadn't sooner.

Calling her up out of the blue and then coming all this way, when she knew only ten days ago all that shit went down in Wakanda thousands of miles away.

"Wanted to know if Jane Foster was still alive," Steve said, his voice flat. "For Thor. And he mentioned you, too."

"She died in front of me."

"Darcy –" Steve paused, looking unsure of what to say.

He was sorry; he didn't have to say that. Everybody was fucking sorry.

"You were down there when it happened. Did you see a lot of people disappear?" she asked.

He finished his beer and shoved the empty bottle aside. He rested his elbows on the table.

"Yeah. A lot of people."

Darcy nodded, biting her lip.

"My best friend Bucky. His last word –"

Darcy saw something pass over Steve's face. He blinked several times.

She could see he was close to crying as well, now.

"He said my name. And then he was gone."

Darcy looked at her drink and decided against staying any longer.

"Do you want to get out of here?"

They walked back toward Darcy's car. It was a beaten up Corolla with a deep scratch down the passenger's side and Steve offered to drive.

She tossed him her keys and he caught them, looking down at the keychain.

Darcy forgot about it – the photo that she adjusted to make smaller before she laminated it and attached it to her keys. It was the one she took of Thor when they first knew each other.

Steve didn't say anything, but looked troubled.

When they sat in the car together, Darcy wondered what to do next.

"I'm surprised this town wasn't looted," Steve said, looking around.

The parking lot was near empty, and they could still hear the music coming from the bar.

"Not many people lived here, I guess," Darcy said.

The air felt thick.

Steve started the car.

Darcy placed her hand on his leg, and felt him tense at her touch.

"We could go back to my place."

His eyes swivelled to hers. "I don't know."

"What, you'd rather go home? Drive all the way back where you came from and be all alone?"

"I have people back at the base."

"You know what I mean," Darcy said, narrowing one eye, wondering if she did have to say what she really meant.

She didn't want to go home alone. She didn't want him to have just come all this way to just say goodbye.

"I have some idea," he said, his voice soft.

She lifted her hand and threaded her fingers through his hair, making him sigh.

He still gripped the steering wheel as she stroked his face, and his beard.

"Come back to mine," she whispered.

The end of the world seemed to make her bolder.

"Okay."

That was all he said, and he began to back out and then drive off down the road, listening for Darcy's instructions.

During the short drive, she looked around to see if there were any fires started like two nights ago.

Some teenagers liked to steal cars occasionally, too.

She still had her taser after all those years and it comforted her.

Having Steve next to her in the car made her feel better, too.

"How did you get here, anyway?" she asked.

"That pickup back at the bar."

"That piece of junk?" Darcy asked.

"Hey, that piece of junk was okay for about three hundred miles," Steve retorted, though he didn't actually sound hurt. "Except maybe I need to get another one."

The realization dawned on Darcy so sharply that she hit his arm in shock.

"Did you steal it?"

"Technically." Steve looked her way and then back at the road ahead. "But I don't think it was missed."

Captain America stealing cars and driving across the country. It sounded insane, but it made sense at the same time. He was meant to be keeping a low profile, and most likely people weren't going to report a stolen vehicle if they were ash in the wind.

They lapsed into silence for a few miles before Darcy told him to take the exit and then they were back in the town Darcy had been hanging around since last week.

The town had maintained some order with the leftover police and some concerned citizens.

A guy Darcy knew as Fawcett gave her a thumbs up, recognizing her car as they drove past the closed post office.

"It's up here," she murmured to Steve, and they turned into the motel parking lot.

They sat as the car idled, Darcy watching Steve think everything over.

"Darcy, I'm not –"

"You're not stay forever? I wasn't counting on it," she interjected.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and was out the car, leaving Steve to decide for himself.

She ducked her head to look at him through the window.

"You coming, Cap, or what?"

His jaw ticked.

He followed her, his baseball cap lowered.

Darcy might have called him paranoid, but she knew for a fact that nearly every boy she'd seen in the past week had a Captain America t-shirt or action figure, and they all awaited their hero's return.

But he was out in New Mexico with her, doing whatever the hell this was.

She opened her door and he pushed up against her back, his arms already at her waist.

Once inside with the door slammed shut, she spun around.

He ducked to kiss her, but she moved her head back, barely avoiding him.

"Wait," she said.

Out of his grasp, she put her hand on his crotch, cupping him through his jeans.

He grunted, his eyes bright and surprised.

"Darcy –"

She shook her head, not letting him put his hands on her again. She didn't have to look, she kept her eyes glued on his as she unbuckled his belt and pulled down his fly.

Her hand was in his underwear and stroking him, pushing him against the door.

His breathing became heavy.

She didn't flip on the light – they stayed in the dark, shadows all over as she pumped him with a kind of roughness that made a needy sound escape from his throat.

It made her feel incredible to know she made him make that sound –

He pulled her off his cock and she gasped, remembering his strength.

He didn't try to kiss her again, just directed her toward the bed and they landed together, with him on top of her, making her groan under his weight as his hips were suddenly between her thighs, his erection rubbing against where she wanted him most.

His beard tickled the sensitive skin of her neck, and she gasped again as he bit her.

"I don't want to think," she whispered.

She felt the drag of his tongue along her throat and shuddered.

"I don't want to think –"

He shoved her shirt up and kissed her chest, nipping at the swells of her breasts.

She whimpered once her nipple was in his mouth. He sucked at her, still pressing her into the bed.

She fumbled for her pants and pulled them down, and her panties, too.

Steve moved back to pull down his jeans far enough.

When he shoved inside, he pushed Darcy's legs up with his arms until her legs rested against his shoulders, so she was stretched beneath him, her ass scratching against the cheap sheets –

He kept his mouth on her neck, his thrusts brutal and making her feel dizzy and tingle all the way to her toes.

She felt like he could crush her.

A few hours ago she was telling a mother her little girl was gone.

The kid was six.

Now she was under Steve Rogers and letting go, the world disappearing the further they went.

Soon all she could feel was him between her legs, and she cried out.

He held her to his chest, his face buried in her hair as he came deep inside.

A few moments later, Darcy pushed him off her, walking off to the bathroom.

She looked like a nightmare in the mirror, with deep circles under her eyes and a mark on her neck from where he bit her.

She wished he did more.

She scrubbed at her face with a washcloth, and then felt something on her leg.

She looked down, seeing his come leaking from between her folds.

She got out what she could with her fingers before getting in the shower.

When she came out again, he was gone.

Her legs felt sore the next morning as she rolled over, and then felt the shape beside her and moved back like lightning.

She grabbed her taser from under her pillow and held it up before realizing it was Steve next to her.

"When did you get back?"

"You were sleeping. I have your keys, remember?"

He sounded alarmed, with his hands up as she still held the taser aloft.

She put it down, sighing.

"Fuck, man. Where'd you go last night?"

She hated how sad she sounded. It sounded desperate.

"I went to get my truck."

"That was miles away."

"I ran," he said, and Darcy felt her lips quirk slightly at the ridiculousness of it, that he moved that fast and she forgot that he had powers.

She hadn't known him long enough to know what he was really like, but this didn't seem like the Captain America she read about growing up.

"Your truck isn't dead?" she asked, and he shook his head.

Why the hell hadn't he just left her?

Because he wasn't like that. He didn't treat people that way, and she was mean enough to think that of him last night.

She was still surprised he didn't leave straight after breakfast.

They ate Clif bars and bananas, with beaten up juice boxes and coffee, crumbs getting on the bed.

"When you get Tony Stark back, what happens?" Darcy asked, her mouth still full.

They had not mentioned the disaster that day yet, though it was always on their minds.

It was like having a bruise that got pressed whenever they moved at all.

"We have to get the gauntlet."

"Why?" Darcy asked.

Steve watched as she wiped her face with her hands and pushed the hair from out of her face.

The heavy scent of last night's sex was still on him, but she was relatively clean.

"Infinity Stones. Thor was looking for them."

"Right."

She thought of Thor being out there all by himself, and felt her chest tighten.

"With all of them, Thanos snapped his fingers and trillions of lives in the universe vanished," Steve said, and Darcy swallowed the remains of her food hard.

"So it was by chance," she murmured.

It did not make her feel any better, did not make her feel any luckier for having stayed. She had to stay behind and deal with the aftermath.

Dead people did not have to worry about the living.

But she didn't say any of that to Steve.

She saw Steve staring at her in the corner of her eye.

"What?" she muttered, eyeing him.

"I'm thinking about fucking you again," he said, his voice low.

Darcy felt her stomach flip at his blatant remark. "Oh."

She didn't have to think about why it was happening – they were both lonely.

But somehow the word didn't seem to cover everything they felt.

So maybe distraction was a good enough reason for Darcy to climb on top of Steve and ride him until he came with a grunt, one hand on the base of her throat, the other biting into her ass.

Seconds later, Darcy sighed, landing on the bed beside him and staring at the ceiling.

They went back to the same bar once it opened that afternoon.

This time, Steve got her a strawberry daiquiri while he nursed another beer in the same booth as last night.

Darcy didn't cover her love bite and she saw the bartender spot it and look away.

It didn't make her embarrassed. It just made everything feel more real, and why she wanted to fuck away the pain came flooding back and she couldn't look at Steve in the eye.

She knew what his come tasted like. She blew him just before they left the hotel, her knees on the rough carpet while he stood above her.

She wished she'd asked him to choke her or something else like it.

Maybe if he hit her she'd not want to drive her Corolla over a cliff.

"Darcy?"

He brought her back. He put his hand on hers, and she ripped it away.

"I'm fine. Can we leave?"

"I just told you what was going to happen."

"What?" she snapped, shaking her head. "Are you talking in code?"

He frowned. "The Stones. There's the Time Stone."

Darcy's heart began to hammer.

"What does that mean?"

She had an idea, but didn't dare say it out loud.

"We might reverse time."

She sat with that for a full minute, just nodding faintly.

They didn't speak until they got back to the hotel room.

"What we did here won't have happened," she said, and felt Steve take her hand when she was halfway to the bathroom, wanting to cry alone.

She looked up at him, and he wiped away her tears with his thumbs, his bottom lip trembling.

"I don't know what's going to happen," he admitted.

His voice sounded utterly ruined in her ears.

She stepped closer to him, their hips touching.

"Can I kiss you?" she whispered.

Steve nodded. "Of course."

She tilted her head and he slanted his mouth over hers, his tongue hot as she let him inside.

He was urgent, and Darcy stopped ignoring that he'd been desperate this whole time to really feel her.

She'd been keeping him at arm's length because if she had to deal with this now –

With how he was looking at her and making her feel like he really cared how she felt, too –

She shuddered, feeling some more tears bubble up.

He was leaving.

He kissed her down her neck, down her front over her shirt.

She let him take off her clothes one piece at a time, and he was slipping his tongue between her slick folds while she stood, a reversal of their roles from earlier.

He was persistant, holding her up so that she didn't suddenly stumble.

She whimpered, and then it became another sob.

"Shh," he whispered, and he was up and kissing her, and she could taste herself on his mouth, smell her arousal on his beard.

He gathered her in his arms and lay her on the bed.

He was tender, even gentle at times, making her feel like her heart was thrashing in her chest, threatening to burst.

They didn't close their eyes as they made love, rocking together.

"You're so beautiful," she said, because she felt like she had to mention it, that he was so perfect despite the crappy hotel light.

He found her clit and pressed it, making her shudder.

"I want to feel you."

She gasped, clenching – and he moaned, his thrusts becoming erratic as he chased his own release.

The next morning, she woke with him dressed beside her, ready to go.

"Time to go?" she murmured, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

She didn't mention that he held her all night while she wept.

"Yeah."

His voice broke.

She pulled on her clothes and followed him out the door.

A tear escaped his eyes as he looked down at her, stroking her face.

"Might see you," he said, and she nodded.

He also might not.

He took off his hat, putting it on her head and playfully pushing it to cover her eyes.

She gave a short, wet sort of laugh.

When he drove off, she pressed her keys hard into her palm until she felt nothing else.