Disclaimer: I do not own the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I did find a runaway kite with Iron Man on it this week, but the lawyers tell me that doesn't count.
Soulmark AU Reminder: Everyone has a Soulmark, a tattoo with the first works their Soulmate will say to them.
It's not unheard of to have multiple nicknames for a pet. Though it says "Lady" on her adoption form, your little miss could answer to many other things: Pretty Princess Poofy Paws, Principle Face Licker, or Protector of the Balcony Because Pigeons Are Evil.
But when you live in Avengers Tower, none of these things matter, because of the No Pets Policy.
Darcy had thought about getting a gerbil or a fish or something and just naming it "No Pets Policy," but whenever she mentioned the idea to Jane, she always found a memo in her email, reminding her of the policy. Usually she and JARVIS were BFFs, but anytime he chose to reiterate to her that she was not allowed to have a furry companion on the premises, she dissolved into grumbles against all omniscient AIs with sticks up their incorporeal butts.
That was why Jane was startled at 4 in the afternoon on a Thursday when she looked up from her Science! to hear Darcy, with a glance at the clock, say, "Ooh, it's about that time. Gotta go feed my dog."
He had met the Lieutenant when he was out on patrol. As far as he could tell, the Lieutenant lived behind a dumpster in an alley three blocks away from the Tower, and Steve had never seen a more excited mutt. He was half wet nose, half energetic tail wagging, and he was always happy to see Steve, whether he showed up in street clothes with the leftovers from his dinner or stopped by in full uniform with a milkbone.
That day, he arrived at "the Lieutenant's quarters" with some leftover schwarma, which he wasn't that fond of but Tony insisted on sending someone out for at least once a month to "celebrate that one time we saved the world and Manhattan from aliens and bombs and Loki, remember?"
He watched his friend chow down, and then got down to pet the enthusiastically thankful pup before he left.
The petting was interrupted by a woman's voice, speaking very familiar words.
"His name is Charlie," she said. He could hear her footsteps as she approached from the end of the alley behind him. "Better watch your fingers, though; sometimes he gets bitey when he's excited."
Steve stood up and turned to look at his Soulmate. The Lieutenant frisked over to her, jumping up on her and making her laugh. She had a great smile. Steve was looking forward to making her laugh.
He stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled.
"I've always wanted a dog named Charlie," he told her.
Darcy shoved Charlie down and stared at her Soulmate in amazement. She had always known that she might meet him in this sort of situation, and in preparation for this moment, had given the name "Charlie" to every single dog that she came across, even the plush one that her ninth grade boyfriend had given her for Valentine's Day.
"You're Steve Rogers," she told him, and it came out less nervously than she had expected. "I've seen you around, but I guess we haven't met yet. I'm… your Soulmate, Darcy Lewis."
"Doctor Foster's assistant, yeah," Steve replied, watching Charlie as he happily ran back and forth between them. "It's nice to meet you."
Darcy nodded, not sure whether she was dreaming or if the last five minutes were real.
Steve sighed. "So. What should we do first, do you think? Go apartment shopping?"
Darcy dropped the food she'd brought for Charlie and leaned down to pick it up, momentarily leaving her surprised face unguarded. She was attacked with love in the form of a tongue to her mouth and nose.
"Schwarma breath," she accused, as she stood and wiped the dog lick away.
Meeting her Soulmate was one thing.
Realizing that he was Captain America was another.
And now he was asking her to move in with him? Already?
"Well," she told Steve, "that escalated quickly. What, do you have an engagement ring on you, too?"
Steve laughed. "No, I was talking about the Lieutenant. We can't exactly bring him back to the Tower, and now that we're… well, now that we've got a dog, we can't just leave him here."
Darcy nodded. "I guess we should make an honest pup out of him. He can't live on leftovers his whole life. Wait, did you call him 'Lieutenant?'"
"Lieutenant Charles Gizmo of the Howling Commandos."
"So he's under your command?" Darcy asked, with a raised eyebrow.
Steve tilted his head in a half shrug and barked out an order: "Lieutenant! Sit!"
The Lieutenant obediently turned toward his Captain and sat, tail still wagging excitedly.
Steve looked back at Darcy and found a smile on her face. "Wait there," she told him. "I'll be right back."
As she rounded the corner, she heard Steve tell Charlie, "At least we know who's really in charge."
Darcy returned with two cups of coffee and a plan.
"Are you okay?" Steve asked, as she handed him both coffees and got down on one knee to make sure their furry pal was other-people friendly.
She nodded. "I'm good."
"You sure?" He frowned.
"I'll... be fine. I'm guessing you're having the same weird day I am?" She made a face at him.
He hadn't thought too much about it, but she was right. It wasn't every day that a guy met his Soulmate and adopted a dog and started a relationship that went from zero to sort of moving in together in less than five minutes. Before he could think of a reply, she changed the subject.
Indicating the drinks with a nod, she told him, "That one is for you. Mine has a ton of sugar in it. I figure I've probably gotten coffee for you a million times without knowing it. It's either you or Barton who takes it black, but I figured he's the one who likes it with cream." She clicked the leash onto the collar and looked up at him. "Did I win?"
Steve tilted his head and smiled at her. "I don't mind it black."
Darcy stood and sighed. "Well, I'll do better next time." Before Steve could start to think about when that might be, Darcy took her over-sweetened drink out of his hand and put the leash there instead. She brandished her smartphone. "Ready to go?"
"Where?" he asked, taking a sip of his coffee.
She smiled. "Brooklyn."
After a treacherous cab ride (treacherous for their faces and their coffee; Darcy spilled half of her drink on her sleeve due to the Lieutenant's first-car-ride excitement, and Steve was convinced he was going to have a fat lip after being given an exuberant kiss. From Charlie, that is), Darcy decided that everyone should have to look for a dog apartment with their Soulmate on the same day they met them.
Dog Apartment. Dogpartment. Barkpartment. Abarkment. Dog Parkment. Pup Tent. Pupitat. Puppy Pad. Doggy Digs. For one thing, they had a great time trying to decide what call this living space.
She was totally okay with the first place that JARVIS had lined up for them to see, and the second, and the third.
Steve... wasn't.
He was always standing in the shower and deciding it was too small for him or finding fault with the fire exit or noticing some huge building flaw that he would then argue with the super over whether it would get fixed before they moved in or if he would have to fix it himself. It taught her a lot about him.
Darcy was sure that he learned a lot about her, as well.
She insisted on there being at least one window that Charlie would have access to when no one was around, so that he wouldn't get bored. Also, enough room in the living area for the correct couch to coffee table to entertainment center spacing ratio was crucial. And the door lock: enough to feel secure, but without overdoing it.
Hilariously, neither of them cared how big the bedroom was, and the place they both liked the most only had enough room for a twin sized bunk bed. It made up for the bedroom-space deficiency with a gigantic (for Brooklyn) closet and bathroom, not to mention the cavernous kitchen, dining area, and the little attached backyard.
Darcy decided that the most surprising thing about Steve was his capacity to come up with a completely fabricated explanation for why they were looking at apartments, and to deliver this intricate lie with a completely straight face to an unsuspecting property representative. He had begun to do this after the face the super from the first building made when they told him they'd only met an hour earlier.
After leaving the third place, she punched his arm. "You're enjoying this a little too much," she told him. "Are you giving yourself points for whether that last one believed you, or because I couldn't keep from cracking up?"
He grinned. "Both."
"What are you planning for the next?" Darcy asked, checking her phone to see where they were headed. Charlie jumped up on her, but she shoved him down.
Steve knelt to scratch Charlie's ears. "I think I'll tell them that we're newlyweds. I wasn't going to warn you, but maybe you need it: I'm going to call you 'honeybun.'"
Darcy laughed. "You just cheated yourself out of some serious me-blowing-your-cover-story-with-giggles points, there," she informed him.
"I'm confident I can come back from it," he told her. "I might switch up the pet name. How do you feel about 'sugarlips?'" He stood, and as they walked down the street, his hand closed around hers.
It was different from when he'd grabbed her hand trying to sell the "we've been dating for two months but we're just ready to take that next step" story. This hand-holding was... real.
Darcy knew she was smiling, and probably blushing, and she fought against the instinct to crush the fuzzy feelings floating up through her. She told herself that this was the way it was supposed to be: these feelings, this person.
She looked down at the frisking mutt at their feet. She owed this happy beast, no matter how terrible he was at taking a walk. Charlie seemed to enjoy doing everything except walking: he ran full speed only to be stopped suddenly at the end of the leash, he sniffed everything in his radius (including she and Steve at least once every couple of minutes), and they had to keep him close so that he wouldn't exuberantly greet any unsuspecting passers-by. But without him, she wouldn't be here, happier than she'd been in a really long time, with only more happiness on the horizon.
"I'm not saying we shouldn't look at this last place," Steve mused, "But I really liked the one with the big bathroom and the backyard. What do you think? We could put a dog bed for the Lieutenant in the bedroom, and then get a really comfortable couch or a fold out sofa for possible sleepovers."
Darcy glanced up at him. "Uh… you haven't been… looking at these places like you'll be living in them?" she asked.
"Well, aren't we—" he began.
Darcy interrupted with a laugh. "If you're getting an apartment for a dog, what does it matter if the shower is comfortable for you?"
Steve stopped, and rubbed the back of his neck with the end of the leash. Charlie jumped up on him as though he had treed a cat.
"If one or both of us isn't planning on living there eventually, we might as well just put him up in a really nice doggy hotel," Darcy pointed out. "Although, I dunno. That kind of thing gets expensive. Probably not as expensive as getting him his own apartment..."
"Wow." Steve said. "I guess… I guess we really are looking for a place together."
"Sort of eventually, but yeah," Darcy replied. "...You sure you don't have an engagement ring on you somewhere?"
By the time they arrived at the local animal shelter, Steve had already decided that this day was on his Best Ever list. He watched as Darcy worked on adoption paperwork for the Lieutenant and wondered how long it would take for his Top Ten List to be full of Darcy Days. Charlie jumped up and licked his face, and Steve pushed him down to sit.
A shelter volunteer gave them information on how long it would take Lt. Gizmo to get his shots, and named the day when they could take him home. Then she asked for a picture with Steve.
"How many girls are 'your, like, biggest fan ever,' would you say?" Darcy asked as they waved goodbye to Charlie.
"About one in five?" Steve estimated, wondering if she was jealous and not sure how he should feel if she was.
"Don't worry," Darcy assured him. "I get it. Popular guys…" she waved a hand. "Can't help it."
Steve knew that this was a dangerous subject, but couldn't see any way out of it. He held the door to the shelter open for her when they exited. "Actually," he said, unable to shrug off his share of the blame, "I did volunteer for the... super soldiering."
"Yeah, and I get that it made you all…" she made a grabbing motion in the direction of his pectoral muscles. "All-American... and everything, but it's not like it changed who you are. A guy can be super hot but a jerk, but you're—"
"Super hot?" he injected.
She floundered adorably, then gave him a small shove that put him slightly off balance. He laughed.
"I don't think it's a bad thing for your Soulmate to think that you're super hot," Darcy told him. "And what I think doesn't really matter anyway, the fact is that you are."
"Super hot."
Darcy blocked Steve's view of her face by pulling her hair across it, but Steve wasn't fooled; he knew she was trying to hide a blush. He grinned. "Yes, fine," she allowed. "I think that you are super hot."
"Not a bad thing to know," he agreed. He hadn't expected the buoyant feeling, though. The mirror gave him the facts of his own case every day, but hearing his Soulmate state them was something completely different.
"That's not even my point," Darcy said, exasperated. She was adorable when she was exasperated. He had tried to see how annoyed she would get by trying to figure out the situation surrounding an unsafe section of floor in the fourth place they had looked at, but she didn't lose her cool easily. He was looking forward to doing some more research on that subject.
"Most people see you with their eyes," she continued. "But you're not only what you are on the outside. And most girls… They only get to see that, but I guess I'm lucky; I've got a free pass to find out what you're really like."
Steve looked down into her earnest face and knew that he was the lucky one.
"I'm not saying I'll never get jealous or anything, especially if you get all 'oh, the ladies love me' or whatever, but—" Darcy stopped talking as Steve pulled her into his arms. "What…'s happening right now?" she asked.
"I didn't mean to interrupt," he replied. "I was just thinking about kissing you. Probably. But go ahead and finish."
"Uh…" Darcy seemed to have lost her train of thought. "...I'm good. But just so you know, this kind of 'sweeping me off my feet' thing won't always get me to shut up."
Steve nodded and ran his fingers along the line of her jaw. "I'll keep it in mind," he promised.
Darcy shucked out of her jacket and closed Jane's notebook. Jane looked up at the clock and could have sworn that only five or six minutes had passed since Darcy had made her ominous dog-related announcement, but it appeared it had been closer to five or six hours.
"Did JARVIS send you the memo again?" she asked.
"Nah," Darcy replied, as she steered Jane out of the lab and shut the lights off. "I don't have to worry about that anymore."
"What do you mean?" Jane said, only making minimal effort to escape back to the Science!
"My Soulmate and I spent the evening looking for an apartment together."
Jane refused to take another step. "What?"
She could see that Darcy was smirking as she leaned forward to hit the button for the elevator.
"It's in Brooklyn, down the street from where he used to live."
The elevator swooshed open, and Darcy pushed Jane on.
"Wait, what?!" Jane objected.
"And JARVIS helped me find it, so he won't ever have to bother me with memos about Lieutenant Gizmo, because he'll be there instead of here."
Jane blinked, and found her voice. "Don't you usually call them 'Charlie?'"
"Oh, you know how it is," Darcy smiled. "Dogs always end up with more names than you mean to give them."
Author's Note (February 26th, 2016): Thanks for reading! As always, you can read this fic on ao3 or check out my fic blog at iwillwriteyourfic DOT blogspot DOT com. And I would love to have any ideas you have for future Silly Words fics!