"Maybe it is all a test
'Cause I feel like I'm the worst
So I always act like I'm the best..."
- "Oh No!" by Marina and the Diamonds
Part Nine: Purgatory Or Steve's Brooklyn
Darcy walked out of Gunn's camp and all she could feel was the adrenaline still pumping through her. She stalked into the night with her breath coming in short bursts, taking out her phone to scroll through her contacts.
She went straight to voicemail. Rogers' phone must have been switched off. His voicemail message was monotone as it greeted Darcy while she kept walking.
"You've reached Steve Rogers. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you."
There was the short beep and Darcy mustered another snarl.
"Where the fuck are you, fucker? Call me back."
She supposed that if he didn't recognize her number he'd know her from the tone of her voice alone. Her phone buzzed in her hand and she felt another spike of anger but it was Jane calling, not Rogers.
"Jane."
"Darcy, what the hell is going on? You're all over the news."
"What?"
"You exploded at that asshole on TV."
Darcy managed to forget that moment entirely, only focusing on Pepper's pain and the implications of that particular exchange with the media, and not her own.
"Did you go to confront Gunn at her office? Cherie told me that's where you went."
Jane sounded frightened and Darcy longed for her friend to be beside her instead of wherever the hell she was. She actually had no idea where Jane was at that point, since she stopped asking when it got too hard to see her over the past six months.
"I went there. I might have threatened arson."
"Well, that's great," Jane snapped, sounding on the edge of exasperation. "I'm going to have to put out metaphorical fires tomorrow because of your stunt. Explain to me how I'm meant to convince people their daughters are better off associating with us."
Darcy stopped in her tracks, feeling her stomach drop.
"Oh, fuck."
"Yeah," Jane said. "I know this is hard –"
Darcy made an incredulous sound. "You have no idea what this is like. I'm sorry I fucked up but that journalist – if you can even call him that – was attempting a disgusting personal attack for the sake of some clicks."
"You need to calm down," Jane said, which only made Darcy want to throw her phone against the pavement. "You need to get indoors and stay out of sight for a while."
"Jane, I am sorry –"
"You don't sound that sorry," Jane interrupted. "When people apologize, they're not supposed to then list justifications for their actions."
Darcy bit her lip. "Right."
"I'll call you in a few days."
Jane hung up without saying goodbye and Darcy took her phone away from her ear and stared at it in her hand. She felt sick.
She made it back to the hotel she and Pepper were staying at and went up to her room, wiping her eyes as she opened her door with her key card.
She stepped inside and pressed her head against the back of the door, sighing. She was tempted to raid her mini bar and drink herself to death. She switched her phone to silent while still facing her closed door.
"Hear anything from Tony?"
Pepper's voice caught her off-guard and Darcy clutched at her chest, wides wide as she spun around to see Pepper's feet sticking out from under the desk that had the hotel telephone resting upon it.
"I'm down here, sorry. Should have warned you," Pepper murmured.
Darcy got on her knees and shuffled over, Pepper coming into view. Blotches of mascara rested under her eyes and she hugged her knees while staring straight ahead.
"Pepper."
"I keep wishing tomorrow and this won't have happened. We'll still be at 65% percent and I'll gasp, 'Thank God'."
She finally glanced at Darcy, her eyes red and cold.
"I thought I knew what 'upset' felt like. Turns out I had no idea. I have a brand new threshold and all I keep thinking is why did I have to buy that box of condoms instead of being on the pill and never letting my boyfriend finish inside me?"
"You don't have to do this," Darcy said, because this version of Pepper was scaring her. She was apathetic, she was without hope."
"Yes, I do. Because people are already saying that they won't vote for Tony because I lied to them. Even the ones who are pro-choice," Pepper mumbled. "Imagine that."
Darcy looked at Pepper's legs that were shaking.
"The only thing I had going for me was that I was white and educated," the redhead went on. "And now I'll be a baby killer and it'll be used for every angle people want it for."
Darcy swallowed. "It's not over."
"It's over."
Darcy closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. "What happened was illegal. Someone at some clinic had a file or a piece of paper and they can't just leak something like that with there being consequences. Miranda Gunn had to –"
Pepper wasn't listening. "What if I'd had three kids and couldn't afford a fourth? What if my family was poor and it just wasn't going to work to follow through with it?"
"Follow through?" Darcy repeated. "Pepper –"
"So because I was twenty-fucking-one it's okay to slutshame me? What the fuck?"
"It's not okay, it's not okay," Darcy said, trying to pry one of Pepper's arms away to hold her hand, but she wouldn't budge.
"It was a cluster of cells in my uterus."
Pepper stared at Darcy for a few seconds, more angry tears falling.
"You ever had an abortion?"
Darcy looked down. "No."
"It's horrible. People want you believe that you walk in and they roll you back out, but it's traumatic and it hurts and – I was twenty-one. I was twenty-one!" Pepper yelled.
Darcy flinched.
"We can fix this."
"Grow up, Darcy," Pepper snapped, and Darcy immediately drew back, afraid to let her see she'd started to cry.
She sat on the edge of her bed, jiggling her leg to calm herself down. The cogs did not want to start turning. Darcy couldn't move past Pepper's anger and hurt. She didn't know what to do.
There was a sharp knock on the door and Darcy jumped up from the bed, racing over to answer it.
Tony stood in front of her, his face twisted with rage.
"Where is she?"
"She's – "
He pushed past her and went to Pepper, crouching to pull her into a tight embrace. Darcy lingered, wringing her hands.
Tony got up, taking Pepper by the hand. Darcy finally remembered something, locking eyes with Tony.
"You're meant to be in Tampa," Darcy began.
Pepper whispered something to Tony and she walked out, picking up her shoes on the floor that Darcy managed to miss when she came in before. She left Tony and Darcy alone.
"Did you take one of the suits to get here?" Darcy asked, Tony's blinking rapid. "Did anyone see you?"
"Me flying here is the least of our concerns," he said, his voice delicate. "Seeing my wife like that on television takes priority."
"I wasn't expecting it," Darcy blurted, at a loss. "I should have prepared."
"No-one should have to know that information," Tony said, a finger raised.
He didn't seem to know what to do with himself and Darcy watched him begin to pace.
"I already went down to confront Gunn about it."
Tony froze, glaring at her. "Do you have any idea what kind of harassment case you've exposed us to?"
"This isn't about my ego, Tony," Darcy snapped.
He closed his eyes. "When is it not? When is it not with you, Darcy?"
"I did what was right. And she won't sue me because I'll find out who the leak was."
"The right word to use in this situation is 'us', because what you do reflects on me, and you know that," Tony said, his finger pointing to the ground. "I'm so goddamn mad I don't know what to do."
"Mad at me?"
"Probably not as mad as I should be," he replied, rolling his eyes. "I should have been here."
"You were booked out."
"My wife –"
"I know," Darcy whispered. She looked at the floor. "I know."
Tony let out a sigh. Darcy licked her lips, blinking away more tears.
"And that's my kid," Tony added, his voice sounding tight.
Darcy looked up to see his eyes were shining, too. She bit back a sob and nodded. She took a deep breath through her nose and looked around for her bag of papers and schedule.
"I'll divert some things. We'll work it out."
Darcy went for her phone, unlocking it.
"You need to leave, Darcy. I need to stay but you're going."
Darcy glanced up. "I can fix this."
"You swore at a journalist on live television. You're out of control. You have to go."
"Are you firing me?" Darcy asked, and beneath all the disappointment she felt an anger toward Tony.
"You're taking a break."
"Where am I supposed to go?" she whispered, frowning.
"Mexico. Hawaii," Tony said, waving a hand around. "Go home."
Darcy looked away. She didn't have one of those anymore. All her things were in a storage unit in Queens, the monthly fee deposited from her bank account. She deleted the notification emails when she got them, reminding her that she lived out of a suitcase.
"Right."
"You can take my jet."
"I can make my own way back to New York," Darcy snapped.
Tony shook his head at her, frustrated. "You don't want someone recognising you in La Guardia or whatever other airport you land in. You're taking one of my jets and Happy's driving you."
He took out his phone while Darcy packed, feeling her anger slowly melt into sadness and shame.
"Two days," Tony said, when Happy got to the room and it was time to leave.
Darcy nodded dumbly.
They landed in New York and Darcy took her phone off flight mode to see that Carol had sent her a few messages asking her to call her back.
Darcy felt a panic rise in her chest as she dialled her number in the Uber on the way to her hotel.
"Carol."
"Have you heard from Steve?" Carol asked. She sounded frantic. "He always calls me when there's a vote but he didn't this time and when I tried to call him is phone was off."
"I tried to call him earlier, but –"
"I tried calling him at Gunn's office in Des Moines," Carol went on. "But the intern I spoke to said he was fired and then didn't say why."
Darcy felt her heart sink. What if this was somehow her fault? How was she supposed to live with another fuck-up so close to the other ones?
"Darcy," Carol prompted, and she realized her friend had said something and she hadn't responded.
"Sorry," she replied.
"I would go there myself but I can't get out of these meetings tonight or tomorrow morning."
"I'll go," Darcy said. "I'll go check on him. I just need his address. I just landed."
She asked her Uber driver to pull over as Carol sounded off Rogers' address.
Darcy took a deep breath. She was going to Brooklyn.
Darcy waited for one of Steve's neighbors to open the front door, slipping inside when they walked out. She climbed the steps from the foyer two at a time, wishing her legs could carry her faster.
She went to his door – 14A – and knocked several times, hoping he could hear her over the music that she could hear from the outside.
It sounded like Ray Charles.
There was a rattle of the chain and then the door opened, and for the briefest moment Rogers' eyes were staring down at Darcy, before he promptly shut the door in her face.
"No."
That was all he said. Just 'no' and then the slam of the door. Darcy flinched, before her hand went to the doorknob to twist at it in vain.
"Let me in."
"You win, Darcy, okay?" he called, and her hand dropped to her side. "You win."
She swallowed. Him getting fired didn't seem like winning at all. In fact, it was worse than losing because it meant she didn't get to choose when this – what this was – ever ended.
She let out a sigh, and pressed her forehead against the door.
"Please go away."
"Carol sent me," she called back, feeling the hard wood against her skull while she half listened to the music inside. "Please just tell me you're okay so I can tell her."
He didn't respond, but Darcy didn't hear his retreating footsteps.
She closed her eyes. "I should have called you back after the press conference. I should have made sure you were okay."
She sighed again. "Steve – I'm sorry."
She moved back, waiting, resting her hand against the door frame. She looked down the hallway she stood in and missed her old apartment.
There was a click and a rattle and the door opened, Steve back in place with his eyes trained on her. Darcy swallowed, waiting.
He moved aside, the door wide open. She found her feet, taking the first step inside as the music grew louder. He was blasting it from somewhere in his living room.
He shut the door behind her and Darcy readjusted the strap of her bag, looking around. His place was cramped just like his headquarters, with stacks of old newspapers everywhere, and unironed shirts on coathangers hung on doors to his bedroom and the bathroom.
His couch looked old and lumpy, and his TV had dust on it.
Darcy glanced up at Steve, who was making his way to the kitchen area and she followed him cautiously.
"What the hell happened, Steve?" she asked. "Wait, are you drunk?"
He wasn't as agile, he wasn't smooth. He had an open bottle of Jack Daniels sitting on his counter with a tumbler half full beside it. He didn't answer her, just picked up his glass and took three long gulps of it, draining it. He went to refill it and Darcy stepped forward, snatching it from him.
"Let me. Christ," she muttered, and she took the bottle from the bench and poured herself nearly a glassful, moving aside before he could take it back.
She took a gulp like he did, feeling the delicious burn all through her, and she sighed.
"You got fired," she said, and he made an annoyed expression.
"There it is," he muttered, and then he walked out of his kitchen into the living room, Darcy following him once again.
"I didn't come to gloat. I want to know why. Did it happen after you called me?"
He threw himself onto the couch as Darcy remained standing. He nodded.
"Yeah. But I was too late to stop her."
Darcy frowned.
Steve licked his lips, sighing. "Around the Superbowl she asked me to do some digging but I convinced her to hold off. I didn't want to exploit someone else's secrets."
"What changed her mind again?" Darcy asked.
"She and Ainsworth were struggling and she knew Pepper was helping Tony win a lot of the women's vote," he said, narrowing his eyes slightly. "She became someone I didn't know anymore. She wanted dirt, she wanted to know everything I knew."
"Did you know about Pepper?" Darcy asked, her eyes widening.
"No, I swear," Steve said, his hands up. "She had a source through her husband's company. Some snoop out looking to drive a nail into a coffin."
"She went behind your back," Darcy breathed.
"It was after you turned down the Vice Presidency," he said, and Darcy swallowed hard. "The source came to me first, not realizing I wasn't in on it."
"You took it to her."
"Yeah," he said, and then he looked away. "She said if I wasn't 100% on her side then I wasn't on her side at all. She said she'd leak it this afternoon."
"You told her not to," Darcy said.
"Of course I told her not to leak that Pepper –" He cut himself off, sighing once more. "I said I was quitting. She said she wouldn't let me and that I was fired."
Darcy stared at him, and then she put the glass to her lips and drank until it was empty, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her chest felt tight.
"I had Thanksgiving with her family," Steve said, sounding surprised. "I – I took her kids to school when she couldn't. I believed in her."
Darcy sat down beside him, their animosity forgotten. She hated seeing him like this. She had never had a day like this before when everything felt this unfair.
"I don't care what you say, this is my fault," Steve muttered, looking down at his hands. "I should have convinced her to drop out. Now she's shot Stark in the neck while shooting herself in the foot."
"The stakes were high. She couldn't handle it," Darcy said, never taking her eyes off of him. "It's not your fault."
"I want it to be," he snapped. "I want this to be something I had control over. I can stand the idea that this is just normal. Someone doing that to someone – a woman doing that to another woman is not fucking normal."
He put his face in his hands and Darcy moved forward, her hand hovering.
"Steve."
"Don't call me that," he said, taking his hands away and glaring at her.
Her hand shot back to her lap. "It's your name."
"You of all people can't call me that when you –" He looked away, sighing. "Fuck. Fuck."
Darcy kept still while he mulled over whatever he was thinking. There was a silence between them as the music played in the background. The liquor had begun to work its way through Darcy's system and her tongue felt looser.
"This," she began, and Steve turned his eyes to hers. "This is the longest relationship I've ever been in. You and me."
"That can't be true," Steve replied instantly.
"It is. And I hate you," she said, letting out a shaky breath. "And I'm so mad at myself because I care that you don't have a job anymore. I wanted to beat you."
"My heart bleeds for you," he deadpanned, taking the glass back from her and getting up, going back to the kitchen.
He returned with his glass full, sipping. He glanced at her face and sighed.
"You're not all that bad," he murmured. "I am genuinely surprised. Would have thought you'd had half a dozen marriage proposals by now when I first found out about you."
"And then you met me," she said, snorting.
He smiled. "Yeah."
Darcy didn't look away, just watched him sit beside her, his arm settling on the back of the couch. If he was someone else she would have thrown a leg over him and kissed him. Instead, she just took his drink from him and took a sip. He watched her with fascination.
"You wanna watch a movie?" he asked.
The ended up with All the President's Men playing in front of them while they spoke, Darcy growing steadily drunker while they shared from the same glass.
"I hate this movie," she muttered, and Steve turned his head toward her, frowning.
"How could you? You're a Democrat." He took a sip of their drink.
Darcy shook her head, narrowing her eyes at the faces in front of them.
"I'm just mad it's physically impossible for me to fuck 1976 Robert Redford," she murmured, and Steve choked, pulling the glass away from his mouth, coughing.
She watched him dissolve into a long laugh, his hand clutching his stomach as it took over his whole body. Darcy stared at him while resting her chin in her hands.
"Fair enough," he finally said, shaking his head.
They watched the movie while Darcy considered their options.
"What about an investigation? Gunn's hubby."
She never usually used a word like that but she was admittedly unlike herself that night, especially with all the alcohol in her blood and stomach.
Steve's face changed to something harder.
"I checked the source, there's no way to determine who the leak was."
"How?" Darcy asked, looking away from the screen. "He's in the field. He's high up enough to pull strings –"
"Darcy, trust me. I checked," he said, and their eyes met.
"It's not fair," Darcy said, and she knew it made her sound like a child.
Steve just nodded. She watched him take another sip, his eyes glazed.
"What did those Harvard guys tell you when you asked about me?" she asked.
Steve glanced at her, then away again.
"Darcy –"
"It was consensual. I want to know what you know."
"You really don't."
"What, and I didn't call you like I did in Chicago?" she blurted, and then she pressed her lips together, realizing she'd accidentally said the thought out loud.
She felt her cheeks redden and she bit her lip. "I think we know each other well enough for us to talk about it."
He didn't say anything at first, thinking. He looked right at her and said:
"Is that what you really sound like?"
She knew what he meant instantly. Was how she sounded on the phone what she really sounded like when she came?
"Yes," she said, feeling her stomach flip. "Did the idea of those guys taking turns with me turn you on?"
"Yes," he said, and Darcy blinked at him.
She turned away, trying to focus on the movie. It felt longer than usual, and when it was finally over Steve turned to her.
"I'll get a cab," she said, and he shook his head.
"I'll take the couch."
"I have a hotel," she retorted, though she didn't actually want to leave. She stared him down, before pretending he convinced her and nodded.
They walked toward his bedroom and he let her in, holding the door wide open. She shuffled in, seeing his bed was made. He probably hadn't slept there in months.
"It's a single," she said, only stating the obvious to make conversation, because her nose was filled with his scent and she felt herself blush again.
"It's a king."
"A king single? That doesn't bother girls you bring here for sleepovers?" Darcy asked, attempting to tease him.
He locked eyes with her and said, "When I bring girls here I don't tend to do a lot of sleeping."
She glanced at his mouth and he caught her, eyes darker than before. She swallowed. He dropped her bag on the floor with a thud.
Darcy took a distinct step back toward the bed and he got the message, nodding at her.
"I'll bring you some aspirin in the morning," he said, and Darcy nodded back.
He left her, Darcy's hands balling into fits as she wondered if she could actually fall asleep.
