All Steve wanted to do was crawl into a hole and be miserable. He was an idiot; of course Darcy didn't want to date him. She had told him from the beginning that she wasn't a girl, she was a gym buddy. Now he had ruined it, and she wasn't his girl or his gym buddy.
But the alarm went off like it did every morning, and the sun came up and Steve dragged himself out of bed. He stood at the door for a long time, unease roiling in his stomach, as he considered whether he should just stay home. But he told himself firmly that he was not a coward and forced himself to put one foot in front of another all the way to the gym.
Of course, of course Darcy and her father were there. Sal and the Major were talking in the office, and Darcy was the only other person around. She was getting really aggressive with a punching bag.
His stomach lurched.
He couldn't leave things like this, couldn't just ignore her. So he walked over to her and stopped a few feet away.
She didn't stop. Didn't even look up.
"Darce," he finally said, regretting it as he heard the pleading tone in his voice. "Darcy," he tried again, "I'm so…"
"Don't," she said shortly, finally pausing, stilling the bag, and looking up at him. "I don't want to talk about it."
He was somewhat stunned by her flat refusal, "but I…" he tried again.
"Steve," she was pleading with him, and he finally noticed that her eyes were welling up with unshed tears, "Can we just…can we just forget it? Can we go back to the way things were?"
He let out a heavy breath, "Yeah." He said finally, "Yeah we can do that."
Her answering smile was watery and weak, but at least she was smiling. "You should go say hi to the Major," she said finally, before turning back to the bag.
The major, it turned out, was watching him carefully already as he approached.
"Steven," he called out in a booming voice, "good to see you son."
He tried to smile at the older man, "Morning Major."
"Give me a minute of your time, will you?" he said, pulling Steve over to the far corner of the gym with a grin. Steve followed obediently.
"Listen," the jovial tone was instantly gone and Steve snapped his eyes up in surprise. "I don't know what's between you and Darcy and I definitely don't want any details." He said in a very serious tone, "but don't you let that girl push you away," he said, "lord knows she'll try." His mouth twisted in a wry grin, "Now I don't really care what it is you actually do," Steve winced. He hadn't been sure that the old covert ops phrase he had dropped the night before would still work, but at the time he had been so relieved to drop the conversation about his military background, even if it meant that the General now knew he wasn't exactly out of the military. Now, though, he sincerely regretted not just stumbling through some lies about ranks and units, "But I want her safe and protected and happy Rogers. And I haven't seen her relax around another man like she does around you since her brother died."
He seemed like he was finished, but all Steve could do for a long moment was blink in surprise.
"Sir," he began carefully, "I can promise you I'll always keep my eye out for her, but anything more than that well…" he paused and took a breath, "It's her choice, and it seems like she's made it."
"Well," the Major harrumphed and crossed his arms, "She made the wrong one." And he turned on his heels and walked back towards Darcy.
Steve didn't know whether to feel better or worse.
He tried, he really did. He forced himself to stick to the same gym schedule he always had, which meant he saw her every day. And he put on a smile and critiqued her form and made a joke every now and then, but it just wasn't the same.
They didn't meet on weekends any more to run around the city like idiots, jumping off of whatever they could find. He wasn't allowed to do things like toss her over a wall. He was strictly hands off these days. When he even so much as brushed up against her at the gym, she stiffened and moved away.
There were no more movie nights, no more detailed plans for the zombie apocalypse. The best he got was a book or DVD, which he watched on his own. It wasn't nearly as fun.
And he just couldn't do it. Natasha was starting to glare at him at team practice, and even Tony was noticing that he was pre-occupied.
He didn't need Natasha to tell him that he had to do something about this. She had, in fact, pretty much already told him what he needed to do. Option two hadn't worked, he had tried to show her how he felt and she pretty clearly got the message, and just as clearly didn't want what he was offering.
The thought of distancing himself from her, getting over her when he had only just realised how much there was there to get over, had seemed completely impossible when Natasha had first suggested it. But it was hurting more and more to be around her every day, and the short and final pain of drawing a line was starting to seem a whole lot better than this drawn out misery of pretending like they could go back.
It was after 10 and Darcy was just about ready for bed when the doorbell rang. She grumbled irritably to herself as she went to see who could possibly be coming by this late. If Jane had lost her keys again…
It wasn't Jane. It was Steve.
She swallowed heavily and paused. The constant nervous churning in her gut whenever he was around hitting her in an instant. But they were friends, or at least pretending, so she opened the door.
"Steve," she said with a smile that probably looked incredibly fake, "What's up?"
"I'm sorry," he said, "I know it's late." He didn't sound too good. He didn't look too good come to that. Worry was quickly trumping discomfort.
"Don't worry about it," she dismissed, "Are you okay?"
"I'm not, actually," he said, looking at his feet.
"What happened?" she could hear panic creeping into her voice, but this was Captain America and the scale of shit that he could be involved in was really epic. "Is everything okay? Are you hurt?"
"It's not that," he said, still refusing to meet her gaze. The queasy feeling in her gut was starting to creep back.
"Do you want to come in?" she asked hesitantly.
He shook his head.
There was a long expectant pause before he spoke again.
"I just came to tell you that I'm…that I can't…" he stumbled and paused. "We're not friends," he said finally. "We used to be, but we're not anymore. And I know I messed it up, and I know it's all my fault, but I still can't keep doing this."
She felt like the bottom had dropped out of the earth and she was in freefall.
"Can't keep doing what?" she half whispered.
"Pretending like things are okay, pretending that this is normal, that I don't…" he trailed off with a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his hair. "I can't do it anymore Darcy," he said, his voice firmer now, "It's too hard. I can't stop feeling the way I feel and I'm never going to get over it if you're here in my life every day making me love you."
He was looking somewhere over her left shoulder, face stoic, refusing to meet her gaze.
"Don't," the word ripped itself out of her throat. She wasn't sure what she was feeling right now, but she knew that the thought of going through life without Steve was awful "Please don't do this."
He finally looked at her, and for once she couldn't read his expression, but it caught her breath.
"I'm so sorry," was all he said though, and then he dropped his gaze again and turned his back to her and walked down the hall.
She stood there and watched him go the whole way.
He didn't look back.
Sal was not happy with him. He didn't like facing the older man's disapproval, but there was no way he was going to be in the gym at the same time as Darcy after what he had said to her. He wasn't going to explain it to Sal, but he had a feeling that he sort of had an idea anyways, because while he gave a lot of flak, Sal also was really understanding about letting him know when Darcy was in the gym and when it was safe.
It wasn't exactly helping though. Days were turning into weeks and the ache of missing her didn't seem to be going anywhere. Natasha, goddam her crazy perceptive spy skills, just told him to give it time.
It didn't hurt, though, to have another way to work out his pent up frustration, so he was almost relieved when the Avengers where called in to deal with a situation up town.
The situation, it turned out, was robots.
"Does anyone else miss the days of incompetent hired guns," grunted Natasha over the coms as she picked up a piece of fallen metal pipe and smashed the head of one of the approaching monstrosities.
"Every god damned day," an arrow came in from high above them taking out two of the things with a clean shot through their vulnerable visual ports.
"Alright," Steve was happy to lose himself in the job for a little while, "enough chatter, Hawkeye keep up the cover fire, Stark see if you can trace these goddam things to whoever is controlling them, Widow, we're on the ground getting the civilians out of harm's way."
What a time for both Bruce and Thor to be out of town. The Hulk particularly, Steve thought as he whipped his shield at a group of robots, would really have enjoyed smashing these things.
There were an unfortunate number of people out and about on the street when the fighting broke out. Many had run for cover inside buildings, but there were a few groups trapped outside, their exits blocked by machines that were shooting to kill.
"Widow, you head east, see if you can get those people somewhere safe, I'm going to head for that group up the block."
Natasha nodded and sprinted off, both guns drawn and firing with truly impressive accuracy as she went.
As Steve drew closer to the group of civilians he had spotted, blocked between a fallen car, a chunk of upturned concrete, and a group of the robots, he could see that they, at least, were somewhat organised. They had taken cover behind some of the debris and were hurling things at the oncoming machines. He could see a kid, maybe 14, clearly just come from a baseball game, cracking pieces of rubble at the things with surprising accuracy. He got one straight in the visual sensor and it just stopped in its tracks.
He ran for the group, blocking fire with his shield.
"That's a hell of a swing you've got there son," he said to the kid. And then he noticed with a gut dropping suddenness that the woman who had been lobbing up bits of concrete and metal for him to hit, who had been half obscured until he got close, was Darcy.
She was looking up at him in surprise. He had been so successful in avoiding her for the last few weeks that seeing her this close felt like a knife in the gut. He wanted to run away, wanted to pull her to him and never let her go, wanted to just say fuck it to the other civilians and the robots and drag her somewhere safe.
He gave his head an internal shake and forced himself to focus on the job.
"Alright ladies and gentlemen," he said in what he hoped was a calm tone, "let's get you inside shall we?"
Just then he heard a grinding clank coming from behind him and he turned with a sinking feeling. About 20 more of the things had rolled up beside the few that had already been there. Apparently they didn't like it when civilians were taking them out.
Tony came over the com with a crackle. "Heya Cap, I've got some good news and some bad news."
"Just tell me Stark," he said impatiently.
"Well, the good news is that these things are being remotely powered from the city grid. Very cool tech. It also means we can probably take 'em out just by throwing the breaker and overloading the SOBs. It's not even hard. You see a grey metal box anywhere near you cap? Bout as big as two mailboxes, probably has a lightning bolt on the front."
He peered down the street and saw what he thought Tony was describing not 300 meters past the line of robots.
"Yeah I see one," he said dubiously.
"Well, all you gotta do is get in there and throw the big red switch."
"What's the bad news," he asked warily
"I'm kind stuck in some giant robot crushing claws and really need you to do this now, like in the next 60 seconds."
He looked up at the line of robots bearing down on them, their fire coming faster now as he struggled to block it. No way he could get all of the civilians and Darcy to safety, get past those things and flip the switch in 60 seconds.
"Kinda pinned down with some civilians at the moment," he said, "Tasha?"
Her com crackled, "Too far," her voice was strained. They heard a dim explosion over the com and a rain of gunfire, "and I'm a bit busy."
A hand was on his arm. It was Darcy.
"I can do it," she said, her face firm and determined. "If you can get me through the line, I can do it. Get into the box, throw the switch right?"
She must have been closer than he thought to hear all that.
He looked down at her, the very thought of it bringing his heart up into his throat at the same time as he was impressed all over again by her strength of character, but he kept his voice carefully neutral. "That's real brave of you ma'am, but it's too dangerous."
She let out a noise of exasperation, "Steve, I can do this, you know I can."
He just about dropped his shield. Did she just call him Steve? She was looking at him with a very familiar exasperated expression; arms crossed and chin jutting out as she glared at him. She knew. She knew who he was. He could hardly think.
"Jesus Christ Cap whoever the hell that is just let her do it." Tony's voice came blaring out of his earpiece. He did not sound like he was in good shape. It snapped him out of his frozen shock.
He looked back at the group of civilians behind them, most of them just kids. He looked forward at the terrain she would have to cover. If she could edge by the line-up and avoid any other of the machines, yeah, she could do it. Those were some big and terrifying ifs. But it wasn't like he had any other options open to him.
He was going to have to analyse how the hell she knew it was him another time. And maybe talk to her about throwing herself into situation where he would have to send her out into danger.
"Jesus fuck" he swore softly, because it felt appropriate. "Okay," he took a breath, "okay."
He ran to the overturned car and ripped off the closest door, it felt like a familiar move, he would be okay with this.
He gave Darcy his shield.
"This'll stop anything that's shooting at you, just put it in the way okay?" she nodded, eyes wide as she looked at the shield on her arm.
"No heroics, don't worry about taking any of them out, I'll run you around the line, then you go as fast as you can and you run for cover the minute you're done, okay?" He gripped her arms and stared into her eyes, willing her to just this once take an order.
"Got it," she said firmly.
He wanted to say something. But, as usual, he was always better at doing than saying.
He cupped his hands around her face, roughly threaded his fingers through her hair and pulled her mouth to his. She was momentarily frozen in shock, and he almost pulled away, but then her mouth opened under his and her hand was gripping his arm, and she was straining on her toes to push closer as he licked into her mouth with a groan.
"Okay," he said with a gasp, roughly dragging his lips away, and then, before she had time to say anything, and perhaps more importantly before he had time to think about the fact the she was kissing him back "Let's go."
He ran, pulling her beside him and forcibly shoving the part of his brain that was asking him just what the hell he was thinking aside, his makeshift shield between them and the line of machines. They started taking heavy fire as they approached, but he just hollered in her ear over the noise "shield up" pushed her sideways, and took a running leap at the closest metal monstrosity, bringing the car door crashing down on its head.
He willed himself not to look back at her as he crashed his way through one after the other of the things and began running the stranded civilians to the closest building, but he caught sight of her sailing over a block of rubble, her feet hitting the ground smoothly as she kept running.
And then he heard Clint, from high above them whistle.
"Who is that?" he asked, although Steve was sure he knew no one was going to stop to answer. And then "Is that Darcy?!"
Just then, all the fighting stopped as the things whirred to a halt, power source cut.
There was a lingering moment, where everything was suspended while everyone waited for things to not be that simple, but Tony had been right. The things were non-functioning heaps of metal now.
Steve let out a breath. Not two seconds after glancing back to make sure the group of civilians behind him was alright, he sprinted for Darcy.
He found her sitting on the curb, his shield propped up in front of her, looking shell shocked and dirty, but otherwise fine.
"Going offline," he said abruptly into the coms, and then ripped the thing out of his ear.
He sat beside her carefully, peeling off his cowl. The damage, apparently, had already been done. But he didn't know what to say know. All of the tension and fear that had led him to kiss her like that was bleeding out of him with the adrenaline, and now he was going to have to face the consequences.
"Hi," was all he could think of to say.
Darcy let out a hysterical little laugh.
"Hi," she said back.
"So," he began awkwardly, figuring that honestly was probably the best policy "I have no idea what to say."
"Yeah," agreed Darcy, "This is an odd situation for sure."
"You were incredible," he tried, because that was honest too "they'll probably try to give you the key to the city."
She grimaced, "god I hope not."
There was another long pause.
"How long have you known," he finally asked, looking down. He didn't know what she must be thinking, but he was pretty sure he didn't want to see it on her face.
"You know that night with the bilgesnipes and Lonny's fight?" she asked.
He nodded despondently. That was weeks ago. How could she have known for that long …?
"Well, the scientist I work for is Jane Foster, and those things were 100% Asgardian. So I was down in the labs the next morning listening to a lot of garbage about trans dimensional migration patterns."
"The labs?" Steve asked weakly, because he could see directly where this was going.
"Yep, that same place where you go for your science debriefs and where someone like Maria Hill is liable to call you 'Captain' when I was just thinking 'what the hell is Steve doing here.'"
"Oh," he said finally.
"Yeah," she said, an edge of anger in her voice, "It was a bit of a shock. Steve, how could you not have told me?"
He sighed heavily, dropping his head into his hands, "A lot of it is because it's really not safe for people to know who I am," he started slowly, "and then there's the part where I used to get to be just…me when I was with you." He trailed off, knowing that she wasn't going to let him get away with the easy explanations.
"I get that part of it, I'm not stupid. But neither are you Steve. You know that you'd always be Steve first to me, and you know about my brother." The worse were harsh and sibilant, cut out from behind clenched teeth. "How could you try and kiss me when you knew how I felt about what you did."
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "That was stupid," he could freely admit that now, "but I didn't know…I didn't know if you'd even want that…with me. I guess I was hoping that I could figure that out first and deal with the other stuff later."
She let out a little breath and the tension in her shoulders relaxed an inch or two.
"That was stupid," she agreed, but she sounded closer to tired than angry now. "And I hate that you lied to me, even if it was by omission."
Something clicked into place.
"So, when I called you that night…you knew?" he felt a new wave of awkwardness and embarrassment wash over him. That call had not gone well on a number of levels. And now he knew, at least partly, why.
She nodded.
"Oh," he wanted to ask her what she would have said if she hadn't known, what she thought now. If she had even known that he was trying to tell her he wanted more than friendship from her, or if she hadn't suspected until he had tried to kiss her In front of her door like an over eager kid on his first date. But all he could think of to say instead was "I'm sorry I kissed you."
"It's okay," she said with a tiny little smile, "It was a pretty amazing kiss."
Steve blew out a breath, because yeah it was, but that was kind of a confusing response from her. Wasn't she pretty clearly not interested in kissing him? Isn't that why he had torn himself away?
"Look," she was twisting her fingers through the leather straps on his shield nervously, "it's not that I haven't thought about…about us."
Steve felt like he was paying attention to her with his whole body, his skin tense and vibrating with her nearness, but he kept his gaze averted and let her talk.
"And Steve Rogers…well, maybe that would have been…but Captain America?" her voice broke like she was holding back a sob. "I want to be friends with you Steve, I do but the idea of falling for a guy who goes out and does this stuff" she gestured at the wreckage all around them. "It's terrifying." She wiped hastily at the tears building up in her eyes.
"Darcy," he couldn't help reaching out to her. This was new information, and he didn't know how to process it. All he knew was that she sounded so lost and hurt and despite the fact that he was the one who had wanted to put distance between them, he needed her to be close. She leaned into him immediately, pressing her face against his shoulder as he stroked her hair. "I never wanted to lie to you," he said finally.
"I know," her voice was muffled and damp. "You can't help who you are. It's just," she paused, her breath hitching against him, "I watched Jim's fiancé lower him into the ground Steve. I can't, I just can't."
He sat there for a long while, his hand running across her back as she sobbed into his shoulder.
It didn't change anything, not really. Part of him wanted to latch onto the thought that she wouldn't be hurting like this if she didn't feel something for him, or the way her voice had softened when she had said 'Steve Rogers' like it might have been so easy if he wasn't… He sighed.
The truth was, he still couldn't be just a friend for her, and she still couldn't be anything more for him, but at least they both knew it now. Even if the weight of it was settling heavy on his shoulders, even as he held her in his arms.
It was Natasha, thankfully, that found them first. She just gave Steve a sympathetic look and tucked her arm around Darcy's waist, pulling her to her feet.
"Come on, little hero," she said, wiping a tear of Darcy's cheek with her thumb, "There's a lot of people who want to thank you. One of 'ems Tony Stark, so I'd make a list of all the most ridiculously expensive things that you want."
He heard Darcy laugh wetly as they walked away. When he picked up his shield, it was still warm from her arm.
