Seven Months Ago, Stark Tower Common Kitchen

"So you don't just haunt the gym. Will wonders never cease?"

Bucky stilled, took a breath, and then looked over to Darcy, his narrowed eyes tracking her as she padded into the kitchen from the hall that led from the elevators, her feet bare and the slaps echoed through the quiet space.

She winced at the bright kitchen lights, "Did I startle you?"

"I didn't think anyone was awake."

"Jane, Tony, and Bruce are on hour fifty-two of epic science bender number I don't even know anymore. I've sent myself for snacks since I'm pretty sure none of us have eaten anything other than Dum-E's weird energy shakes in like, thirteen, fourteen hours? I'm not really sure."

Tilting his head, Bucky blinked, "That is a long time."

Darcy padded over to the refrigerator and started rifling through the drawers, "Comes with the territory. At least we won't be going on any unexpected midnight jaunts through the desert on a moment's notice. As much as I miss New Mexico sometimes, I do not miss that."

He let her voice wash over him as she chattered on about what was happening down in the lab, only stopping when she brought a bundle of vegetables to the island he was sitting at and noticed the tablet in his hands, "Any good reading?"

"Steve's Netflix account."

"Is the password still 'password'?" Darcy winked as she pulled a baby carrot from the half-full bag and nibbled on it. "Someone needs to teach that man some sense. And basic Internet security."

Bucky snorted, "Didn't work when we were kids, doubt it's going to work now."

Laughing, she grabbed a platter from the cabinet next to the sink, "Find anything watch-worthy?"

"I'm not sure," he shrugged, turning the tablet so she could see the list of suggestions the app created for Steve. "I don't really want to watch anything, uh, I don't really know what I'm looking for."

"You want something inane to take your mind off your mind?"

One shoulder lifted, and then dropped again.

Darcy peered back at the suggestions—mostly post-war documentaries, with one or two standup comedy shows that she didn't exactly expect to see, because Jeff Dunham, really? That must have been Sam's idea or something—and she flipped through them before paging through the rest of the app.

"How about this," she poured some more carrots onto the tray before opening the carton of pre-cut celery. "Let me go drop this off for my terrible trio, and then I'll pull some suggestions from my queue that I use when I try to forget I live in a nut-house."

"You should sleep if they're not going to miss you."

She waved a dismissive hand, then opened a small carton of dip and shoved it between the carrots and tiny tomatoes, "You have no idea how much coffee I've had. At this rate, I probably won't be able to sleep for another day and a half."

Bucky looked at her for a long minute—he hadn't seen much of her since the incident with Barton's pants and the Internet explosion that followed, mostly because he'd spent the last week or so in his apartment using some of the meditation techniques Bruce taught him instead—and finally nodded once, "All right."

Ten minutes later, Darcy was back, her return heralded by aggravated mutterings under her breath about Dum-E and Butterfingers, who apparently attacked her with a fire extinguisher when she tried to feed their master.

"I do not know how Pepper puts up with him," she grunted as she flopped on the far end of the couch while JARVIS logged her into her Netflix account on the giant flat screen across from them.

Wordlessly, he tilted his head, but Darcy shook hers back as she grabbed the remote and started flipping through her saved list, "So you want something inane, borderline hilarious?"

"I think so."

She kept clicking, and finally stopped on one, grinning wide as she clicked on it, "Oh, now this is perfect!"

Narrowing his eyes, Bucky took in the title, "Troop Beverly Hills?"

"Wealthy housewife going through a divorce ends up becoming leader of her daughter's Girl Scout troop," she nodded brightly. "I used to watch this movie like, once a week on VHS when I was a kid. It's amazing."

"Not sure that's really my type."

With a grin and a dismissive wave, she nodded, "And we can watch A Knight's Tale too. It's slightly more manly, but just as ridiculous."

He blinked, "Is both all right?"

"Both is awesome."

Troop Beverly Hills was just the right amount of inane and insane, in Darcy's opinion, as she watched Bucky out of the corner of her eye as he sat straight and watched the movie with wide, unmoving eyes, and they moved seamlessly over to A Knight's Tale just as the credits to the first movie started rolling.

Darcy tried to stay awake, she really did, but after three or four or five consecutive days spent moving and going and doing, sitting for so long on the soft couch with a warm, heavy afghan draped over her legs, lulled her right to sleep just as Heath Ledger's William Thatcher was strolling through Rouen and discovered the fascinating lady Jocelyn as she walked to church.

Next thing she knew, she was yanked back to consciousness with something cool pressing hard to her neck and a weight bearing down on her chest, "Wha-" she was cut off when the coolness of what was definitely Bucky's metal hand tightened.

"Shut up."

She stilled, barely breathed as she took in the slightly vacant look that made his eyes look black in the room's dimness, and after a minute swallowed against his grip, "You're in Stark Tower. Take a second."

The seconds dragged on for what had to be long minutes until awareness finally came back to Bucky, and he snatched his hands away and dropped back to the far end of the couch, his eyes wide, "Shit, sorry."

Darcy held her hands at her sides as she sat up, "Are you all right?"

"I just went at you with a knife."

"Trust me, I've totally been through worse," she put a hand up and shook her head to stall his upcoming question. "Rule Two: Not to worry."

For a long minute, he didn't say anything, and then he blinked, "What's rule one?"

She tilted her head, her face twisting as she shrugged, "You know, I've never really thought to ask. It's probably irrelevant."

Swallowing hard, he watched her for a minute before returning the knife to the holster at his back and standing up, "I have to go. Sorry."

Bucky bolted out, leaving Darcy in the dark living room, her eyes tracking him as he disappeared around a corner.

Present Day, The Morning Of The First Night Of Chanukah (Also Erev Shabbat)

Standing in the baggy t-shirt and flannel pants she'd gone to sleep in and glaring down at the clothes strewn across her unmade bed, a dissatisfied grunt escaped Darcy's throat as she picked up a black skirt in one hand and a pair of jeans in the other.

"No matter how much you glare, they're not going to spontaneously catch fire."

Darcy lowered the garments and turned her glare to the man standing in the doorway to her bathroom, his still shaggy hair damp, chest bare, and his jeans hanging off the sharp lines of his hips.

Oh crap.

She kept glaring as a droplet of water fell from his hair, glanced off his shoulder and trailed down the center of his chest, and winced as she finally tore her gaze away, only to look down at Cat as she stretched across the bed, shedding orange fur over her clothes, "Ugh," she muttered as she tossed the clothes in her hands away. "Uh, what did you say Bucky? I got distracted."

Chuckling quietly, he moved into the room, and Cat jumped across Darcy's bed and landed on the floor in front of him, took a second to sniff at his right ankle, and then she sat down on his foot, "Weird cat."

With an exaggerated groan, Darcy flopped face-first on top of the pile of clothes, her voice muffled as she wailed, "What am I supposed to wear? Ugh!"

"Jeans, shirt, and a blazer?" He suggested as he put on his own white shirt, because apparently everyone was supposed to wear at least one white garment since it was not just the first night of Chanukah, but also Shabbat.

She groaned again, "It's not the same for women," she groused as he tried to suffocate herself on the lurid green Hulk t-shirt she bought off the street some months ago so show support for Bruce after General Ross started whining for his arrest again. "I can't even right now."

Rolling his eyes, Bucky nudged Cat off his foot, the cat letting out an irate mew before she jumped up onto the wingback in the corner of the room and settled in for a nap, and he padded over to the bed, poking at Darcy until she swatted his hand away, "You're the worst!"

"You're a nuisance," he muttered, until something in the pile hanging half off the far end of the bed caught his eye, and he grabbed it. "Will this work?"

Darcy's head popped up, and she swiped her jeans off the back of her neck, eyes flaring wide when she saw the loose white tank top hanging off his fingers, "Oh my god, you are so my hero!" She sat up and grabbed it. "Skinny jeans, this, a shmata, and my leather jacket. This I can do. Yes!"

"Shmata?"

She grabbed the rest of her outfit, draping the clothes over her left arm, "It's Yiddish, pretty much means rag."

"I know."

Kicking her boots out of her closet, she arched a brow, "You do?"

Bucky favored her with a bland look, and she waved a hand as he brain caught up with her words, "Oh right, right. You spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe back in the ye olde. Right."

"Well," he shrugged. "That is one way to explain it."

Glancing at the clock, she dashed into the bathroom to change, because if there was one thing about going anywhere with the Lewis family, they'd be leaving three hours earlier than they needed to in order to be the first to arrive at their destination.

Which helped to make her a super awkward wallflower at parties when she was little.

All was quiet on the other side of the door, which Darcy expected, since Bucky wasn't inclined to chatter at Cat like she used to when she got ready, but what she didn't expect was to see him sitting on the armchair with the animal sprawled out on his lap as he ran a hand over her fur.

Also, he was apparently in the middle of a staring contest with Mara, who was perched on top of the pillows at the head of Darcy's bed, her chin in her hands as she stared back with wide, unblinking brown eyes.

She cleared her throat, but neither looked away, "Mara," she drew out the syllables, and her niece finally blinked and looked over.

"You made me lose!" She whined. "Meanie."

Darcy arched a brow as she rifled through her tattered makeup bag, "I'm pretty sure he was good to go for at least another twenty minutes," she glanced over her shoulder at the look on his face, and amended. "Okay fine, fifteen."

In the middle of trying not to poke her eye out with her eyeliner, Darcy heard Mara huff, and she looked at her through the reflection in the closet's mirrored door, "Yes?" she drawled. "You know, my psychic powers are on the fritz at the moment, so you're going to have to tell me what you're thinking at me."

"Can Marley and I ride to camp in your car? Please, please, please?"

She rolled her eyes and glanced at Bucky to make a face at him, but saw he was distracted by Cat, who had discovered his metal hand and was batting her paws at his fingers, trying to get her claws around them and drag them to her mouth, "Are your Mom and I'm-Too-Young-To-Be-Called-Nana cool with it?"

That got a snorted laugh out of him, while Mara nodded, her hands cupped over her mouth to stifle her own giggles, "They said if you and Bucky were okay with it that we could."

"I'm good," Bucky piped up.

"Well then," she shrugged. "Go tell Marles the good news."

With an ear-shattering squeal, Mara hopped off Darcy's bed, flinging her tiny arms around her waist, "Thank you!"

Making a face as Mara scarpered out of the room, her shouts for Marley echoing through the halls, Darcy leaned against her closet door, "At least they've both grown out of the age where they don't stop talking, ever. I had to deal with Marles when she was like that, and oh my god if toddlers aren't the best form of birth control ever, I don't know what is."

"You don't want children?"

She shrugged as she went finished lining her right eye, "Well, our lifestyle isn't exactly conducive to a safe environment for a child to grow up in, not that I can really explain that to Mom without her flipping a shit. But I've never wanted them anyway. They're expensive. And time consuming. Some people just don't have it, and I'm pretty sure I'm one of them."

For long minutes, Bucky was quiet, and she watched out of the corner of her eye as he stared down at Cat's back while she continued to play with his hand, and something that felt like guilt pooled in her stomach at the strange look on his face.

"I think I might have wanted kids, once."

Flinching, she almost stabbed herself in the eye with her mascara wand, "Oh."

What the hell else was she supposed to say to something like that?

After a minute, he shook his head, slumping in the chair so Cat could crawl up his chest, "The old me may have. Things are different now."

She really didn't know what to say to that.

Sometimes she was really out of her depth with these people.

The mood was a little lighter by the time they got on the road.

Thank god.

There wasn't a lot of traffic on the highway since it was the middle of winter, and while yes, it was California, which didn't have real weather like most other states did, but very few people were headed out to the beach, in favor of going to the mountains courtesy of some early-season snowfall.

Darcy pulled into the left-turn lane, and pointed to a small blue building on the far side of the street she was waiting to turn into, "That's the senior staff's favorite biker bar. Actually, it's really everyone's favorite biker bar. I had my first beer there back when I thought being a counselor in training was a good idea."

"A biker bar across the street from a children's summer camp?"

She shrugged one shoulder, "Well yeah. The campers never get to go there, but the bikers, as a whole, are pretty decent. Once, one of the counselors got a beer on his hour off, and then stupidly decided to come back to camp. He was fired, because contrary to popular belief, the directors aren't stupid, and you actually need to be sober when you're around children here."

The road finally cleared, and Darcy turned into the narrow street that went up a small hill that overlooked the canyon the sprawling camp was tucked into, with small clusters of buildings interspersed around wide open lawns and tall eucalyptus trees bordering the gaping creek that cut down the middle and led toward the highway underpass.

Darcy drove through the gate, and followed the road around a large building, and down a hill into a small parking lot, "And here we are Camp Shalom Alechem," she murmured as she cut the ignition. "Bucky, get ready, because things are about to get weird."

Marley snorted as she hopped out of the car, "You're so dramatic Darcy."

"But I am so right."

Her parents and Annie were getting out of the car parked a few spots away, while a tall man with a neat blonde ponytail and some absolutely awful, dusty blue Crocs emerged from the buildings on the other side of the pavilion.

"Dennis!" Darcy waved, exaggerating out his name and adding a bit of a whine to the end of it.

"Welcome back, Kid." he said in greeting, giving Darcy a one-armed hug. "You know you guys are really early, right?"

She shrugged and pointed at her parents, "Blame your camp committee board members, I would have liked to sleep in another hour and a half, but no."

Mara walked up to Dennis and tugged on the hem of his polo, which had the camp's insignia embroidered on the right side, "Can I please come to camp next summer?" She whined, which she apparently did every time she saw him, and Darcy remembered her doing the same thing before she left to see the world.

Dennis pretended to think about it, "Well, you are turning eight in January, right?"

"Duh!"

"Then I guess that means you can," he looked at Darcy, and then to Bucky. "So you're the mystery guest Charlene called about."

He shrugged a shoulder and put a hand out, "Bucky Barnes."

"Dennis Harris, Camp Director," he shook Bucky's hand and looked at Darcy. "You really are moving up in the world, Kid. But maybe next time you can have Captain America tag along? Kids would eat that up."

She grinned, "At least Bucky's slightly more famous than the last celebrity guest to swing through here," she went on after Bucky's asking eyebrow arch. "Adam Sandler showed up for services once because he was in the neighborhood and knew one of the camp's medical staff."

"Well I can't say I'll be telling any jokes."

Snorting a laugh, Darcy curled her hand around Bucky's arm and tugged him toward one of the footpaths, "And on that note, I'm going to show this one the cabin area and tell him about the time I broke my collarbone while joyriding on a golf cart in the middle of the night."

Looking down at her, he arched a brow, "Really?"

"I am the reason why, among a very long list of things that Dennis keeps posted on a very large piece of poster board on a wall in his office, the camp counselors don't have golf cart privileges anymore."

"Don't forget an after-hours curfew," Dennis called as they walked away.

She nodded brightly, "I made one hell of an impact during the two years I spent working as a counselor."

"Darcy Lewis, you would have given me so much trouble if you'd grown up with Steve and me."

"Damn straight, Bucky Barnes."

They walked up the road, some were paved, some were still dirt, and past an amphitheater of giant stone steps terraced into the hill, "They call it the Teatron," Darcy explained as they moved past the stage. "When Dennis was hired they started using some of the Hebrew equivalents to certain places. I still forget that they call the dining hall the Chadar Ohel."

"So you worked here?"

She nodded as she jumped on a leaf, and it made a satisfying crunch under her boots, "For a couple summers while I was in college because I wanted to come home without actually being home. Then Jane happened."

"You say that a lot."

"Hey, she's the one who needed the intern."

Meandering up the path, they passed the fenced-off pool, a dance platform that, for some strange reason that even Darcy didn't know was covered by a massive wooden yurt, an archery range that would make Clint weep at the sight because it wasn't properly maintained in the off season, and finally turned into the cabin area, "This place isn't easily defensible," Bucky murmured, his eyes scanning the hills that towered over the camp.

"Well yeah, unless you're a camper, Fort Knox, this place is not," she led him to a cluster of unattached cabins at the far end of the cabin area. "This is the Captains Lounge. All the oldest campers live here."

There were six cabins, the girls and boys sides split by the restrooms bungalow, "So we've got Miriam, Leah, and Rachel for the girls, and Abel, Solomon, and Judah for the guys. I have the distinct honor of being one of the only ten girls at this camp, ever, to have lived in a boys cabin, since we were placed in Solomon for our Captaincy summer."

He arched a brow, wrinkling his nose as the smell emanating from the septic tank built below the boys' side of the restrooms, "Why?"

"Someone thought it would be a good idea to expand the Captaincy to eight cabins, even though it's been six cabins and sixty kids for the last like, forty-five years," she turned around and pointed to the two buildings at the top of the hill that overlooked the six cabins. "So they decided to make Abel and Abe Captaincy cabins, and Solomon was a girls cabin for one weird ass summer."

"Interesting," he muttered, for lack of anything better to say.

With a snort, Darcy nodded to the hill just past a cabin with a wooden board that was decoupaged with the word Judah in blue and white scraps of paper, "Come on up here. You'll love the view."

The dirt path rounded up over the cabin area and led to a lookout point that encompassed the entire camp and the ocean on the other side of the road, and at the far end was an elevated platform bordered by rocks at the base that were painted in a rainbow of neon colors with pieces of mirror cemented into the gaps.

"Nice place," he murmured, the wind ruffling his hair as Darcy hopped up onto the rocky platform, drawing pictures in the dirt with the toe of her boot. "Lot of illicit camper mingling go on up here at night?"

She snorted, "You have no idea. I actually," she broke off, her face falling as she shook her head. "No, never mind."

Sitting down next to her, he nudged her with his elbow, "What?"

Darcy swallowed at the lump in her throat, shaking her head as she looked at the sunlight shimmering off the calm waters, "When I was little," she said, but Bucky got the feeling that it was a different story that she had started. "I always thought I'd get married up here. Then I realized how damn stupid that sounds."

"This place means a lot to you. That's not stupid."

"But that's not it," she smiled a little, leaning into the arm he slung over her shoulders. "Sure I have some great memories from this place, but some of my other experiences were pretty fucking terrible. Not as bad as crazy robots or demigods having temper tantrums, but still pretty shitty."

He squeezed her upper arm, "Yeah?"

"You may or may not remember, but teenage girls are really awful when they want to be."

Snorting, he shook his head, "As much as some things change, a lot just doesn't."

"Pretty much," she tapped his arm and slipped out of his easy grip, crossing her arms over her chest as she took a step over to the old wooden railing built into the ledge and leaned against one of the posts.

Memories whirled through her mind of the one stupid night when she was fourteen and she snuck out of her cabin late at night to meet one of the older campers at this damn spot, her heart warring because despite it all, this was still one of her favorite places in the world.

What things she ended up doing with that boy—she didn't even remember his name, but she definitely could still see his face in her mind—private, personal, and fledgling explorations into sexuality, became the subject of everyone's excited hushed whispers for the last two weeks of the summer.

She almost didn't come back for Captaincy after that.

"Darcy?"

Shaken out of her thoughts, she looked up and saw Bucky next to her, and there was something in his eyes that she couldn't quite figure out as he cupped hand around her shoulder and leaned in, brushing his lips against hers.

It was a quick, easy press, his thumb tracing circles against her shoulder, "Better memory?" He murmured as he shifted back half a step.

"Uh yeah," she resisted the urge to brush her fingertips against her tingling lower lip, and grinned. "Much better."

Her phone chirped, breaking the moment, and Darcy wrinkled her nose as she glared down at the message that flashed across the screen, "Services are starting soon," she murmured, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

But she was selfish, and wanted the moment back, so she held her hand out, "Come on. Let's go do some Jew things."

Grinning back, Bucky took her offered hand and tugged her around to his right side, switching around so he could curl his flesh and blood hand around hers, feel the warmth of her palm against his, and Darcy ran her thumb up and down the back as they walked.