AN: A bit of story headcanon: Sharon & Peggy are sisters here; their dad is Colonel Philips (now known as Colonel Philip Carter). He married Darcy's mom when Darcy was about 11. Peter Quill's is Darcy's cousin on her mom's side. Peggy & Steve have a kid named Sarah, named, of course, after his mom. Bucky's dog is named after Philip Marlowe, the main character in The Big Sleep & other Raymond Chandler novels.

Shifting the posting date to Sundays, in part because I'll actually have time to post then since I don't work on Sundays and because I wanted to get a fresh part up, the first being a repost of the AU ficlet.

Thanks to everyone who's left comments, kudos, or bookmarked so far! I am enjoying the hell out of this little verse, even if it became angstier than I intended it to be, and it rocks my socks that others are too. If you're interested, I made a playlist for the fic: [ ] /ficbyjwynn/pull-out-your-heart

And If I Call For You

Part Two

By: Wynn

Darcy doesn't call him, but Skye does, just as Bucky's sitting down to a late dinner.

"Barnes," he barks out around a mouthful of pasta.

"Sarge, it's Johnson."

She's whispering, which makes Bucky frown. Skye was usually unafraid to speak her mind, even to her superiors, which included him. Dropping his fork, he mutes the baseball game on the TV and says, "What is it?"

"It's Darcy."

The two words make him close his eyes. Of course. Of course she hadn't called Thor because if she had she wouldn't be in whatever predicament she was in now, Thor built like a Scandinavian brickhouse and thus perfectly capable of dissuading even the most ornery of perps from starting trouble. Lifting a hand, he pinches the bridge of his nose and says, "What happened?"

Skye recounts an epic chase through the mall (why the hell Chesterson would go to the goddamn mall after narrowly avoiding a pick-up for his failure to appear in court Bucky doesn't know), a chase included Darcy losing him by the food court only to find him slashing the tires of her car, which resulted in the two getting into a fistfight with each other.

This makes Bucky open his eyes. "Is she okay?"

"I think so. She's got a pretty wicked bruise on her face and some visible scrapes. Maybe a hurt rib or two. I don't know. She won't let the EMT check it out."

Of course she wouldn't. Bounty hunting didn't exactly come with health insurance, though, in contrast to other bail bondsman that Bucky had met, Barton was fair and actually cared about the welfare of his employees. Though not enough to stop Darcy from going after a man with a history of violent outbursts.

"Chesterson?" he asks, reaching to take a sip of his beer in lieu of punching Barton in the face.

"Nada. Which is why I'm calling, orders notwithstanding. Bystanders said he parted with some pretty nasty threats. Something about a baseball bat, so…"

Bucky stands then. At the other end of the couch, Marlowe perks up his head. He watches Bucky grab his plate, scrambling to his feet when he realizes that Bucky intends to move to the kitchen, otherwise known as paradise on Earth for enormous black Labs that would hoover up their body weight in food if left unchecked.

Tucking the phone between his chin and shoulder, Bucky opens the fridge door. "Has she called anyone yet?"

"I don't think so. Trip's still talking to her. If she did before we showed up, no one's come yet. Should I call—"

"No. I'll give her a ride." Bucky shoves his plate into the fridge and, turning, closes the door. "Just give me ten."

"Gotcha."

Bucky crosses back through the living room. He reaches for the remote to switch off the TV, expecting Skye to hang up then, but she doesn't. The tenor of her silence compels him to speak.

"What is it?"

She pulls in a sharp breath. Bucky moves to the door, grabs his coat from the rack, and shrugs it on as she hesitates or gathers her thoughts. He hears her say something, not to him, maybe to Trip. Maybe even to Darcy, he can't tell. A second later, the din in the background quiets and Skye says, "Darcy seems shaken up. She's trying hard notto look it, but I think she is."

Bucky steps outside. "Okay."

"So," she says as he closes and locks his front door, "maybe you could reign in the overprotective caveman bit when you get here, okay? Darcy already knows she fucked up. And she already asked me not to call you, so she doesn't need the trifecta of suck with her fucking up and you showing up and you throwing her fuck up in her face."

The comment stings. "I wasn't planning on it. What the hell kind of person do you think I am?"

Skye doesn't hesitate. "Someone who tends to lose all his sane parts when it comes to Darcy. Particularly when she gets hurt."

The reference, like the comment before it, stings. The last time that he lost his sane parts and slid into overprotective mode had been after Rumlow hurt Darcy, an occurrence to which Skye had a front row seat, both being in the squad room when Bucky received the call and, of course, being best friends with Jemma, who had left Bucky shortly thereafter, deserving more than a man still half in love with his ex.

Jaw tightening at the unwanted remembrance, Bucky jabs the unlock button on his car remote. "Your advice has been duly noted, Deputy. Now, I'll be there in ten. Make sure she stays until I get there."

There's a beat of silence. In it, Bucky thinks he hears Skye sigh, but her voice is composed when she says, "Yes, sir. See you in ten."

He arrives in eight, finding the whole circus outside Macy's, the patrol cars and the ambulance, the thinning ring of rubberneckers, and the tow truck, currently backing up toward Darcy's small hatchback. Bucky parks a few spaces from the patrol cars. He can't see Darcy, but he can see Skye and Trip by their car and the corner of an open door, Darcy likely sitting inside. He takes a moment to collect himself before stepping from the car, before incurring whatever wrath he will from Darcy for his second unwanted interference in her business in one day.

He doesn't have to wait long.

"You called him?!" Darcy asks as soon as she sees Bucky. She sits in the backseat of Skye's car, her legs swung out onto the pavement. There's a rip in her jeans across her right knee and similar abrasions marring her hands. But it's the bruise spanning her left cheekbone that makes a muscle in his jaw twitch.

Skye twitches too but otherwise keeps her eyes fixed on her notepad. "Standing orders."

Darcy narrows her eyes at Skye, but the glare yields nothing as Skye refuses to turn her head. Darcy shifts her scowl to Trip then, but he finds a convenient spot on the ground at which to stare. Out of options, Darcy finally turns and looks at Bucky. She adds a tight mouth to her narrowed eyes as she peers at him, and he sucks in a deep breath to prepare for Round Two.

"What does she mean?" she asks when he arrives.

Each word comes clipped and sharpened, Darcy snapping down especially hard on the 't.' Bucky presses his lips together, her earlier retort about not being his concern flashing into his mind. "I'll tell you in the car," he says, gesturing for her to follow.

She doesn't. She tries to cross her arms over her chest instead, but unfolds them a second later, the movement accompanied by a wince of pain. Definitely a bruised rib, maybe a few. The pain, though, doesn't prevent her from tilting her chin up and staring him down. "I think you should tell me now."

The resistance makes him want to sigh. So too does the prospect of another fight with her, especially one with a live audience. He feels their gazes keenly, Skye and Trip, the EMTs, the few witnesses still gathered round, all of them waiting for his reaction, for the predictable eruption that occurs whenever he and Darcy are in close proximity now. And Bucky wants to fulfill their expectations. He wants to yell at her for her pigheadedness, for ignoring both his advice and his offer to help. But he also wants to wrap her in a blanket, plop her down onto his couch, and never let her leave, the bruise that she sports twisting at his gut. He does neither, though, running a hand through his hair instead and letting loose a soft sigh.

"Just… come on," he says. "You need a ride. I'm offering one. It's not—" He stops and shakes his head then. The fight, nascent as it is, exhausts him. Her hating him exhausts him. Her getting hurt exhausts him, him being unable to do anything about it exhausts him, everything about the past few hours and the next few hours and the past few years exhausts him. Bucky looks at Darcy, and some of what he feels must show on his face, for her hostility fades, enough for him to say, "I'm just trying to help."

Darcy resists a moment longer then her shoulders slump and the fight leaves her. "Okay. Okay, let me get my coat."

She turns then and reaches back into the car for her bag and coat. His jaw clenches at the stiff way that she moves. Bucky wants nothing more than an hour alone with Jay Chesterson along with unrestricted access to his weapons locker. He tries to reign in those thoughts though, Skye in his periphery and her eyes intent upon him.

"Put out an APB on Chesterson," he says to her as Darcy approaches. "Fresh charges for assault, criminal attempt, vandalism, disturbing the peace, whatever else you got."

Skye nods. Her eyes drift to Darcy as she walks past, and it's then Bucky remembers that the two used to be friends. Darcy had pulled away when Skye joined the force, even more when Bucky started dating Jemma. There had been no fight between them, just a quiet letting go from Darcy as she attempted to excise Bucky from her life and an equally quiet acceptance from Skye. Maybe now, he starts to think, but he banishes the thought before it fully forms, his own history with Darcy proof that sometimes the past couldn't be reclaimed.

"And have Dum-Dum fix her car," he adds quietly before turning to follow. "Send me the bill."

Skye nods again. Bucky follows Darcy to his car. She reaches the passenger door before he can and slips inside, not waiting for him to open it for her. His hand tightens on his keys and he tries to breathe in as he circles the car, a long, slow one recommended by his therapist after returning from Afghanistan, one to center himself and to ease his troubled mind in times of stress. The breath, of course, does neither, so he continues on, opening the door and climbing into the car.

The din of the parking lot dims as he shuts the door behind him, plunging he and Darcy into near silence. From the corners of his eyes, he sees her perched tense in the seat, as though she sat on paper, as though the bottom would fall through if she shifted the wrong way or settled down too much. How much of that derived from her injuries and how much from being trapped in a car with him Bucky doesn't know. Likely an equal division between the two, or a forty-sixty split, emotions the crueler kind of pain inflicted upon a person. Lifting a hand, Bucky rubs it across his face. He debates a moment how to proceed, how ease the latter for her and to spare them both an argument. Nothing eloquent though comes to mind, his thoughts dominated by one inquiry only. Lacking anything else, he follows it, despite the potential blowback such a question may inspire.

"Are you okay?"

Silence follows his question. Bucky stares straight ahead, through the windshield at a mom and two kids as they walk past, twisting back to peer at the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles.

"I know what you said," he continues, the silence, the rejection it implies, digging under his skin. "That you're not my concern anymore. And I'm not trying to make you. I just… Are you okay?"

More silence, so long that Bucky draws in another breath for a sigh. He fiddles with the keys in his hands, leans his head back against the seat, and waits, waits for her reaction, for her, again, to set the tone of their interaction. Confrontational? Conciliatory?

A few more seconds pass before Darcy does. She shifts slightly. Bucky sees her wince again and the leather of her seat squeaks as she settles down, but she looks at him as she mutters, "I think that fucker bruised some ribs."

He laughs at that. He can't help it, the tension too much and her response so welcome yet so her, but thankfully Darcy smiles in response, a small one, a tired one and one strained from the pain, yet still a smile.

"I blacked his eye though," she continues, tilting her head toward him. "Tried to knee him in the balls, but that's when he, you know, knocked me down and kind of punched me in the face."

Bucky arches a brow. "Kind of?"

"It was more like he shoved his hand into my face really hard. No form at all."

Bucky's mouth flattens. "You don't really need form when you've got a baseball bat with you."

Darcy winces again and looks back through the windshield. "Skye told you what he said."

"Not in so many words. Just that he threatened you before he left." He hesitates to say the rest, the ground finally steady between them, but he does, safety trumping stability every time. "You shouldn't be alone tonight. He's escalating, and he might come after you again. Which is not to say you can't take care of yourself. It's just—"

"I know what you mean."

Bucky nods. Darcy, though, doesn't look at him. She stares down at her lap instead, at her hands and the tip of her sunglasses peeking out from her pocket. He blames them, the memory of her sliding them on that afternoon, the red of the frames matching the color of her lips, rising in his mind, the memory of her wearing them to bed the night of her graduation, not the first time for them but one of the last, Bucky shipping off for Basic soon after. He blames them for what he says next.

"You could stay with me."

Her head jerks up. Bucky looks away, back out the window at the emptying lot, the squad cars gone now and the ambulance too. "Or I can take you somewhere else," he says, trying to keep his voice neutral. "Sharon's or Peggy's. Thor's. Or Sif's if you want. Wherever."

Darcy doesn't respond. Bucky feels her gaze intent upon him. He ducks his head and toys with his keys again. They ding and clank in the silence. He clears his throat, squirming a bit the longer the silence persists, then swallows before drawing in a breath to say something, anything of substance, or just anything to fill the silence, when Darcy finally does.

"Sif's out of town. Judo competition," she clarifies when Bucky looks at her. Darcy doesn't look at him though. She mirrors his earlier pose, staring out the windshield at the dark evening sky. She bites down on her bottom lip a moment then adds abruptly, "Thor's gone too. Something to do with his whackadoo brother."

"Oh."

"Which," she says, plucking at the rip on her jeans, "I didn't know about until I tried to call him this afternoon. Just so you know. I didn't completely ignore your advice."

Just the me part, Bucky thinks, but he doesn't say it. He nods instead and Darcy does too and they fall into silence again. She stares out the window and he stares at her, Bucky aware that he stares but unable to stop himself. "So," he says after a moment, "I guess Carter 1 or 2 then."

She shrugs in response.

"No?"

Darcy shrugs again. Her hands tighten on her coat.

"Darcy—"

"Sharon snores," she blurts out, the admission loud enough to make him blink. "A lot. A lot and loud. Like a train. Like two trains. Like two trains that snore."

Bucky blinks again. "Okay," he says slowly. "Carter 1 it is." He switches his keys from his right hand to his left before reaching into his coat pocket for his phone. "I'll call Steve and—"

"No. I don't— I, uh…"

Bucky arches a brow at her floundering. The only time she ever had with him had been after his return from Afghanistan, when everything that everyone said or did scraped him raw. He resists the urge to sigh now, just wanting her to say whatever it is she won't say, no matter how it might affect him. "You what?" he asks, twisting toward her.

Her eyes dart toward him and then away. She opens her mouth, closes it a moment later, then glances at him a second time before turning to face the passenger window. "They got the rugrat," she says with another shrug. "I don't want to intrude."

"You wouldn't be. The munchkin loves you. Though," he concedes, "you might not want to be climbed on all night by a hyperactive two-year-old. Although if you came to my place," he adds, trying to smile, "you'd be drooled on all night by Marlowe, so there's that."

Darcy nods, a faint one that he only catches because he's still staring at her. Bucky waits, but she says nothing else, and he gives in now to his sigh. He knows better than to mention the Colonel or her mom. She got along well with her mom, less so with Papa Carter, her teenage years, and Bucky's place in them, a continual well of conflict for the two. And the less said about her real dad the better, the subject sure to plunge Darcy into a abysmally foul mood. Jane couldn't protect her if Chesterson tracked her down, Quill lived too far away and was half a criminal himself, and the other people that could keep Darcy safe and thus keep Bucky sane were cops and thus, in her view, on "his" side.

Except for one.

His nostrils flare at the possibility. But the specter of Skye looms large before him, so he says it anyway despite his disinclination, despite the way his hand twitches in an innate need to punch.

"What about Barton?"

Darcy finally looks at him. She cocks a brow and a hint of a smile plays about her mouth. "And have you punch him again? I don't think he'd let you do it a third time."

He wouldn't. Barton only let Bucky do it the second time because he felt responsible for what Rumlow did to Darcy, he being the one to give Darcy the case. The first time he brushed it off too, Bucky wrung thin and close to snapping from the trauma of war and the end of things with Darcy, from finding her with Barton, slipping out of his place three weeks after they had broken up.

"Besides," Darcy says, breaking him from his thoughts, "he's already holed up at Bobbi's." At his frown, she clarifies. "Someone ratted us out, told him about our run-in this afternoon. Kate said he rabbited to safer ground about two minutes after hanging up." She relaxes back against the seat, the hint of a smile still there. "No, your place is fine. If you really don't mind."

Bucky blinks, sideswiped by her quick turnaround. "I don't. I wouldn't have offered if I did."

Her smile grows. "Yes, you would have. You may have a motorcycle, dude, but you're a knight through and through. Always protecting people."

He tries not to read anything into her acceptance, into the way she smiles at him now. He tries not to feel hope. He tries not to feel anything but gratitude that she'll be safe for the night. But he can't help but smile in return, his wry and self-effacing. "Okay, yes, I would have. But I don't mind. Really. I finished the basement and moved all my gym stuff there, so there's actually a bed in the spare room now." He lifts his keys and grabs the steering wheel. "I can't guarantee that Marlowe won't try to sleep with you though. Or on you," he adds, starting the car.

Her smile shutters a bit. She glances away, off through the windshield. "He always was a bed hog."

Bucky freezes. Of course. Of course she knew, Darcy with him when he first got Marlowe after the war and then staying with him after being released from the hospital after Rumlow. He feels the newly gained ease in the conversation wobble and threaten to fall until Darcy shrugs again, faux casual.

"I don't mind the potential drool. As long as you have ice cream and a hot shower, we're good to go."

The tightness in his chest loosens at their avoidance of the abyss. "Then you're good," he says, putting the car into reverse, "because I've got both."