Stakeout

Darcy sighed at sat back in the nondescript sedan that Steve had rented for this stakeout. She sipped at her coffee-a mocha cookie crumble from Starbucks-and stared out the driver side window at a light blue townhouse. She glanced over at her partner for officially one month and took in the fact that he was actually here in New Mexico, helping her old roommate with a stalker problem, simply because Jane needed help.

"You're kind of remarkable, you know that?" Darcy told him sincerely, causing a pink blush to appear on the man's neck and cheeks.

"Thanks, Darce, but I'm just doing doing what anyone would do," Steve answered, offering her a little half smile as he drank from his black coffee.

"Yeah, but I really appreciate it," the brunette gave him an answering smile. "And so does Jane. She didn't want me to come back here alone."

"Why's that?" Rogers asked, intrigued by his partner's elusive past.

"Let's just say that this isn't the first time I've dealt with this stalker," She answered semi-cryptically.

"We're not done talking about that, but I think I've spotted our guy," Steve told her matter of factly. Darcy nodded at him as they both moved silently from where they were sat. The man-Grant Ward- was making his way to Jane's front door, his back to the pair of detectives until he heard the click of Darcy cocking her Smith & Wesson personal handgun.

"Hi Grant," Darcy said with a fake cheerful smile.

"Sheriff," Darcy greeted the older man brightly as he scowled. "I believe you lost something."

"Lewis," The sheriff, an older man who served as a marine in his good days and was now pudgy and his fluffy salt and pepper hair was beginning to thin, grunted. There was an obvious animosity between the two of them. "Is there a reason you have my trainee cuffed and in a holding cell?"

And that must be the cause of the animosity.

"Yes, he's a psycho stalker. This time, though, he was stalking Jane and she knew that you, Sheriff Garrett, wouldn't do jack shit; she called my partner and I. We found Ward lurking about her lab and home. After looking over the evidence she had gathered herself and gathering our own evidence, we decided that Ward wasn't-what did you call it?-'Just being a horny little bastard' but was, indeed, stalking Dr. Foster." Steve chuckled at the vehemence in his partner's voice. This was only the third time he'd heard her so ready to shoot someone. The first was whenever they were on a stakeout and some asshat started catcalling her and making lewd comments. The second time, a rookie made the mistake of saying something painfully sexist.

In front of her.

And Natasha.

Lets just say that all three men who had earned the spitfire's anger didn't fair well. Neither did Ward, who eventually earned himself a nice long sentence after being linked to the burning down of his family's house.

"So what did you mean back in the car?" Steve asked as they both relaxed in his motel room with ice cream cones-his a single vanilla scoop, hers a double scoop of mint chip.

"I meant that for a full year until I was able to relocate to New York, Ward stalked and harassed me and Sheriff Garrett did nothing about it, that prick. He said that he just had a crush and that he was just being a boy. Grant Ward is delusional and dangerous to the public, but Garrett took the kid in when he was just a wee lad." Darcy explained, earning a bump in the shoulder from Steve.

"Does this mean that I've unlocked the 'Tragic Past of Darcy Lewis'?" He asked playfully.

"You don't reach that level until we've at least gone through eight life or death scenarios."

"Well, there was the time that Tony got us into a shootout with the Serpent Society," Steve finished his ice cream and began counting on his fingers all of the times either one of them could have died.

"Mmm, bar hopping with Clintasha," Darcy offered from in between melt bites of her own dessert. Clint had recently been partnered with the CIA liaison for indefinitely, so Darcy had taken to calling them 'Clintasha'.

Steve shivered at the memory. Never again. "The whole thing with Howard Stark."

"I think that was more of a life or death sitch for Mr. Holier-Than-Thou Stark. Honestly, I'm surprised that Tony turned out the way that he did."

Steve put the third finger and began to think some more. He snapped the fingers of his other hands as he remembered. "Your undercover time as dueting with that famous asshole, what was his name?"

"Ah, Harry Osborn. Nice kid. Perverted, but nice." Darcy commented as she finished off her snack and leaned back in Steve's rented bed.

"He was disrespectful and deserved the concussion that I gave him."

"Speaking of disrespectful and deserving of a concussion, the Johnny Storm case," The brunette reminded him with a shit-eating grin. Steve groaned and leaned back next to her on the pink floral duvet. He held up his left hand with the total tally-every finger up but his pinky-and sighed.

"Four down, four to go. This does not mean that you should get held hostage or anything any time soon, Lewis, you understand that?" The blonde ordered her, half playing but still very serious.

"How many life/death situations do we have to be in before I unlocked your story? I'm not the kind of girl who shows you mine and doesn't expect to see yours in return." She waggled her eyebrows at the innuendo and earned herself a playful shove from her partner.

"Seven. Seven life or death situations, two sleepovers, and you have to braid Thor's hair."

"...I've actually been looking for an excuse to do that," Darcy told him, grinning wide enough for him to know that he should probably apologize to Thor sometime in the near future.