Happy 6th December. I hope you enjoy today's advent fic. It's a bit happier than yesterday's and features Darcy and Steve, so I hope you like it. Thanks to everyone who's reading.

F: Feel So Close – Calvin Harris

As per usual, I don't own anything to do with Marvel.

Feel So Close

"Tell me a secret," Darcy murmured, stretching her body out across the bed and curling her toes before settling back into her previous position.

Steve paused, charcoal in hand, his eyes flicking up to study her curiously.

"Like what?" he asked.

She snorted at that and reached out with one leg to kick lightly at the sketchbook in his lap.

"Duh, I don't know. That's why it's called a secret," she gently mocked, softening the harsh edge to her words with a lazy smile. "Tell me something that no-one knows about Steve Rogers – not even Natasha or Jarvis."

He smiled at that and nudged her bare foot back onto the bed, She took the wordless hint and resumed her pose once more.

"Not even Natasha or Jarvis?" he questioned.

She shot him a disbelieving look.

"Please. Natasha is a goddess who knows things about us that we don't even know ourselves… and half the time it's before it happens. And you know Tony's paranoid enough that Jarvis has some kind of surveillance going on over every move we make."

He conceded the point with a raised eyebrow and then glanced between his sketch and her again.

"Can you move your arm a little to the left," he requested.

She obliged and then smirked at him. "You know, you're lucky I'm not self-conscious at all. You staring at me like this could give a girl a complex."

That snapped his attention right back to her. "You're beautiful," he breathed. "The most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

And she was. Having her laid out in the bed in front of him like this only made that apparent. She was all lush curves and soft edges, dark hair and pale skin offset by red lips.

If pre-serum Steve had been presented with such a woman, he would have stammered like an idiot and then had a heart attack. Of course, post-serum Steve had still stammered like an idiot the first time he saw Darcy naked too, but the chances of the heart attack were a lot lower.

She blushed, but didn't argue with him.

The first time she had tried to brush off a compliment he had given her, a crestfallen look had creased his face and Natasha had thoroughly schooled her during training that day on accepting the genuine compliment as her due. Of course, given how painful it had been to walk the next day, she figured she had better learn to accept them graciously, for the good of her protesting muscles if nothing else.

She could deflect like no-one's business though.

"And how many women have you had sprawled across your bed, Captain?"

It had been a throwaway comment. He would laugh, she would laugh and then they would go back to what they were doing.

Except he blushed.

Now if that wasn't telling, she didn't know what was.

"Captain!" She sat up and put on her best scandalised Southern Belle accent, hand dramatically pressed to her heart. "Don't tell me there have been legions?"

Steve fidgeted uncomfortably and stared fixedly down at his sketchbook, the tips of his ears turning red.

"Not legions, no," he finally muttered, scratching the back of his neck.

"But there have been some?" she asked delightedly. "Does Tasha know about them?"

He squirmed and then shook his head. "It's not that big a deal. Is it alright if we finish this?" He tried to turn the subject away from the issue at hand.

She watched him curiously for a minute before a sly smile crossed her face. "I'll make you a deal," she said.

Steve groaned audibly but Darcy ignored him.

"Natasha doesn't know about this, she I would bet that Jarvis doesn't either. That means it's a secret." She grinned. "Tell me the secret and I'll go back to posing without complaining."

Steve's lips twitched at that, as if he knew that at some point she would start complaining that the room was cold and her foot had fallen asleep and her neck was aching. Okay, maybe he knew her a little too well. Still, he nodded in agreement and she settled back down into her previous position.

The charcoal resumed its scratching across the page.

"You know it's not that big a deal," Steve began quietly.

Darcy scoffed. "Really? Because if it was one of those legions who taught you that trick with your fingers, then I need to track that woman down and thank her."

Steve laughed softly at that. "It's not really even a secret either," he continued. "Bucky knew, and I'm sure that Howard and Peggy at least suspected. I was so different after than before."

"Thank before?" Darcy frowned. "Ah, so this was a USO tour thing."

She studied Steve carefully as he sketched her. She hesitated at the look on his face.

"You know you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she told him. "If it's private."

"No," he cut her off. "I want to tell you. I just…I don't get much chance to talk about these things. It feels like so much is happening now that no-one cares anymore about…"

His voice trailed off, his fingers stilled and she could have cried at the look on his face. It was so easy to forget that for him, things that happened during the war weren't just a distant memory, but his recent past.

She rose out of her pose yet again and scooted forward to perch on the edge of the bed. Leaning forward, she pressed a soft kiss against his mouth.

"I adore you," she whispered.

He rewarded her quiet words with a smile and she caught his bottom lip in another kiss, just because she could.

"Okay." She shuffled backwards and resumed her pose once more. "Tell me about the USO tour and my poor virginal Cap."

He shot her a look and she grinned cheerily at him in return, waiting patiently.

He began slowly, hesitantly, as if he needed to gather all the strings of the past together first before he could begin telling his story. Unbidden, his voice slipped into a soft cadence, his Brooklyn accent gradually becoming more pronounced.

"So, on the tours there were these two dames called Jessie and Lizzie. Jessie had grown up in Iowa and loved touring with the show and Lizzie had been training to be a ballet dancer before the war, and I remember wanting nothing more than to draw them in action. I just remember that Jessie had the most beautiful wrists and way of twisting her hands when she danced…"

Darcy listened quietly and reverently as he shared his story with her. He was kind of amazing, she thought. She would have to remind him of that as often as she could.