Once again, this is unbetaed. So please pardon my very terrible mistakes. I've also finally decided where this falls within canon! Even though it's not canon compliant exactly, I decided that it takes place after The Winter Solider, before Age of Ultron. HOWEVER, the Triskelion battle and the fall of SHEILD hasn't happened. I imagine that after the bridge and recognizing Steve, Bucky escaped on his own.
That may be different than something I've suggested before, so thanks for putting up with inconsistencies and just riding along as I drive this thing :)
p.s. apologies to any New Yorkers reading this and me getting locations in Brooklyn totally effing wrong!
Darcy never considered herself a fashionista. She could drool over Vogue spreads or peruse judgey fashion blogs, sometimes she spend her down time scrolling through outfits on Pinterest, but her style radar was pretty much nil. She preferred comfortable to ever trying to look stylish or sexy, her wardrobe full of leggings, chunky sweaters, t-shirts, and worn jeans.
Most of her days since moving into Stark Tower were spent in lab coats, so it really didn't matter what she wore.
For her night out with Bucky, she decided she wanted to look a little more special for a change. Maybe outfit wouldn't land her in any fashion forward style blogs, but she was definitely stoked to be wearing what she deemed "real people clothes" for the evening.
There was a burgundy dress that had been collecting dust in the back of her closet for a few months. That with her chunky cream colored sweater and some black tights with little hearts on them were perfect. She looked nice, still comfortable, but not like she was trying too hard.
Darcy was applying her favorite lipstick-a shade of crimson that nearly matched her dress-when she was interrupted by her favorite resident AI.
"Miss Lewis," Jarvis called from above. "I have the address you inquired about earlier. I've emailed the information so you may access it on your mobile."
"Thanks, J." She pressed her lips together and popped them open again, admiring the way the red looked against her ivory face. Even during her time in New Mexico, she hadn't gained even a hint of color on her cheeks. Sunburns abounded, though. Her entire life she was either porcelain white or lobster red. England's may have sucked because of the constant rain, but at least she wasn't a walking sunburn while they lived there.
"There is one other matter, Miss Lewis, although I hate to mention it before your date with Sargent Barnes."
Darcy's head snapped up, her curled tresses spinning around her shoulders. "It's not a date."
Even though she was alone in her apartment, she peeked out into the hall, worried that someone had overheard the slip.
"I beg your pardon for the assumption," the AI apologized, with some hint of embarrassment. If it was even possible for a computer to feel embarrassed.
She wasn't going on a date with Bucky. Yeah, she was dressing up, but that was for herself, not for him. It was because she wanted to wear something nice for the first time in weeks. If he happened to think she looked good while wearing it, then that was just an added bonus.
No, it wasn't a date. A date involved dinner and in depth, soul-bearing conversation followed by a romantic walk home and a hot kiss goodnight. Not at all what she had planned for the evening and certainly not with Bucky.
Sure, she had some not so PG thoughts about him sometimes. She wasn't blind. Even under the hobo look and the PTSD, there was a hot as hell dude that sometimes made her knees shake when he looked in her direction. But he was one of her best friends. Any flirting she did was completely innocent, it didn't mean anything, it was just all in good fun.
"Um…er…what were you saying about some other…thing?" She stammered, trying to banish Jarvis's suggestion from her thoughts.
"I finished translating Professor Hodges' voice recordings as requested."
"I take it nothing interesting came up?"
"On the contrary, Miss Lewis. In a recording dated a week before yours and Dr. Foster's visit to the college the Professor, well—shall I play the translation for you?"
Darcy turned and sat down on her closed toilet seat. "Go ahead Jarvis."
"I must ask forgiveness." The professor's translated voice came through the overhead speaker in her bathroom. His words were in English, though they were still his voice. How Jarvis managed to restructure the sounds was beyond her understanding. "I have been tasked with a grievous mission, by sinister people. I must do what I can to make it right, though I am uncertain anyone will ever discover this recording. Perhaps years from now and it will only serve a purpose to clear my own name, perhaps it is selfish for me to wish that. I wish I could make a different choice, a better choice. But there are those that I care about, their lives are at stake. They will hate me, when they think they know what I have done, but I must protect them.
If she dies, I cannot regret it. It is not her death they want.
They are a virus. They will infect and destroy. This is the beginning, to tear the chosen ones asunder.
This is as much as I can reveal.
I hope it counts for something, in the eyes of Allah."
The recording ended, the voice lapsing back into Arabic as if nothing was out of sorts. Darcy remained seated, eyes shifting absently over her bathroom tiles, replaying Hodges' words in her head.
"I believe the Professor avoided using proper nouns to avoid detection," Jarvis suggested.
"So, he or 'they' didn't want to kill Jane?" Darcy assessed.
The discovery didn't make things clearer to Darcy. It made it more complicated. The only thing it revealed was the fact that Hodges' was in fact, innocent. He wasn't working under his own agenda. Someone had bullied him into trying to kill Jane. But he wasn't supposed to kill Jane?
"I must say well done, Miss Lewis in your idea to translate these recordings. It's clear the Professor never expected someone to find it so quickly. Very clever of you."
Darcy gave a small smile. "Thanks, Jarvis."
There was a beep from her door, alerting her that someone was in the hallway. "Sergeant Barnes has arrived."
"Crap," she groused rushing out of the bathroom and toward her bedroom. She scrambled to find her boots and grabbed her phone, dialing Jane's number. "Are you home?" she asked when Jane answered.
"Yeah, I'm in the lab. Why do you sound out of breath?"
"Don't go anywhere tonight."
"I don't have any plans."
"Good, stay home. Stay in the lab, science it up. Just don't leave the tower, okay?"
The door buzzed again as Darcy zipped up her knee high boots.
"Why are you being weirder than usual?" Jane questioned.
"Just do what I say. I'll explain later." She hung up the call and threw open the door. "Hey!"
"Hey." Bucky returned, curling his hair behind his ear.
She glanced over Bucky's outfit, envying the way guys could always dress down no matter where they went. Bucky was in a white t-shirt, faded jeans, and black leather jacket. A gray flannel peeked out around the edges of the jacket. He still wore his usual combat boots.
He looked like a hipster dreamboat in all of his layers, but Darcy knew he chose it all out of practicality than trying to look good. Bucky wanted to blend in and look normal and he also wanted to hide the arm from sight. His hand was covered in snug leather gloves.
"You clean up nice," she grinned. "Ready to sneak out?"
"Lead the way, ma'am."
They ventured downstairs to the residential lobby and grabbed a cab. Darcy directed the driver to an address that took the across the Brooklyn Bridge. Residual thoughts of Hodges' recordings and what possible development would come of it fled her mind.
She glanced over at Bucky in the seat next to her, trying to gauge if he had any idea where they were going, or what his reaction might be. He remained quiet, staring out the window at the East River as they made their way out of Manhattan.
When they reached a certain set of cross streets along Bedford Avenue, Darcy told the driver to stop and let them out. She handed the driver cash as Bucky walked around and opened her door. She joined him on the sidewalk and looked around.
Cars and bicycles lined the street and graffiti art covered the brick buildings. Trendy cheese and record shops had flipped their signs to close, bars opened their doors, inviting hip New Yorkers to warm up on the crisp autumn night. It lacked the shoeshine stands, the war propaganda, the early model automobiles that Darcy had studied in the black and white photos Jarvis dug up for her, but she hoped it was familiar.
Darcy bit her lip and looked up at Bucky. "It probably looks way different now but…"
She trailed off, watching Bucky take in his surroundings, eyes studying the street signs, details of the buildings, and people around them.
"I'm home," he said. "You brought me home."
His eyes gazed past her head, unreadable, squinting against orange streetlight and neon signage.
"Kind of. I wasn't sure exactly where you live, but I asked Jarvis to dig up some public records about where you and Steve grew up…"
His gaze snapped to her face and she stopped, nervous that she'd made a bad decision. She was on the verge of apologizing, suggesting they grab a cab, and go back to the tower when Bucky reached for her hand and pulled her down the sidewalk.
"This way," he said moving her along and around the corner. He assaulted her with memories, pointing out landmarks, alleyways, stories of shops that had existed before they became trendy bars or pop up art galleries.
A smile played around the edges of his mouth with each tale he told, especially those of him and Steve and their misadventures as kids.
They stopped in front of a group of brownstones, sheltered by large hanging trees. Bucky stared up at the one in front of them, the large bay window lit, its insides cover by a white, gauzy curtain.
"Wow, you remembered."
"Yeah," he replied, carding his free hand through his hair. "My building was here," he said. "They must have torn it down."
"I'm sorry," Darcy offered, also staring up at the brownstone that had replaced Bucky's childhood home.
"It's okay, it was a shitty building, probably demolished not long after the war," he said. "My ma always talked about getting a place in Jackson Heights, something with a yard for me and my sisters. It was her dream."
Darcy turned to him. "Maybe she did eventually."
Bucky shook his head. "She died when I was thirteen. After that it was just me and the girls until they got married. Then Steve's mom died and we got a place a few blocks from here. Then…" The war. He didn't need to say it.
They lingered for a few more moments in silence, the sounds of the city in the background while Bucky relived memories from his past, his hand curved around hers.
"So, trip down memory lane isn't the only thing I have planned tonight."
Bucky's mouth curved. "What else you got, doll?"
She wanted to laugh. Being back in Brooklyn really brought back that accent. "Come on."
She smiled, nodding back in the direction they had come.
.
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.
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They walked into a faux-dive sort of bar, a few blocks away from where the cab had dropped them. A red glow hung in the air, floorboards sticky with beer. A double screen behind the bar played some old, cheesy sci-fi flick with not-scary metal robots and monsters with laser eyes. The blonde, busty damsel in distress screamed for her life as a hostess with dreads led Bucky and Darcy past, toward a back table against the wall.
The salt and pepper shakers were mismatched, but there was a jukebox playing in the corner near them. A band set up their instruments on a small stage, drums and cymbals clanging as the musicians concentrated more on beer and girls than anything else.
Darcy thanked the hostess when she let them know their waitress would be over soon. The table was a small high top, words and doodles carved into the dark, worn wood. A small red menu was passed to Bucky and he studied it. Pizza was the only option, every variety and topping imaginable. It was fancier than he thought a place like that might produce, not that he really had much for comparison.
Darcy chewed her lip as she perused the menu and shed her sweater, draping if over the back of her stool.
"Hey guys, how's it going tonight?"
Their waitress had jet-black hair, styled in a way that Bucky might have seen back in the 40s, her lips ruby red, a sleeve of tattoos covering one arm.
"Two PB&J's," Darcy requested, ditching the menu. "Both pepperoni and mushroom."
"You got it," the girl winked, spinning away.
"I only understood two words of what you just said," Bucky admitted.
"You'll see," she promised with a sing-song tone.
His gaze trailed to the wall beside them and the dozens of clippings, pictures, and doodles wallpapering the plaster. There was a black and white newspaper clipping, a caption citing the "Battle of New York," and a picture of Steve and Natasha mid-fight, dressed in the Captain America and Black Widow gear. Over their faces someone had scribbled "Avengers Sux" in angry black ink with a dozen exclamation points following the sentiment.
Darcy caught him lingering and rolled her eyes.
"Such bullshit," she muttered. "Not everyone is a big fan of The Avengers, especially in New York. You read about the Battle, right?"
Bucky nodded. He'd briefed himself on the major points in history in the past couple of decades, paying special attention to everything about the Avengers; from Tony Stark's invention of Ironman to Captain America's reawakening and Loki's attempted take over.
"A lot of damage was done to the city and a lot of people think the Avenger's are half to blame."
"They were trying to save them," he defended. He was still torn on his own beliefs, but he knew Steve only ever wanted to save the World.
"Hey, I'm on their side! They did save everyone. It's Loki's fault everything got so fucked up. But some people think that if the Avengers didn't exist, neither would Thor, or aliens, or any of the other weird crap that has followed. They don't realize evil existed before Thor dropped out of the sky or Captain America woke up from the ice."
Bucky could attest to that. His memories from just before he "died" were more vivid than anything else. He remembered Red Skull and the magic and mystery that surround the insidious new Nazi power. Back then, there was no way people would have had the stomach for attacks from space aliens. Apparently, not much had changed.
"That was how Jane and I got stuck working for Tony."
Bucky's brow furrowed. "I don't follow."
"S.H.I.E.L.D. sent us into hiding as soon as Loki made an appearance on Earth. We didn't have a fucking clue what was going on, we were just shipped off for our 'own protection.'" She lifted her hand an made air quotes. "It was way later that we figured out Thor came back and we were in danger because Erik was kidnapped and they didn't know if Loki would come after us to hurt Thor." Bucky clenched his metal fist under the table. He knew about some of Loki's power from recent history and didn't like the mental images that came with the idea that the god would harm the woman sitting in front of him. He reigned in his agitation as she continued. "Then the whole thing with the Dark Elves…people were fucking scared. Both the US and the UK were fighting over Jane and her knowledge of aliens. They thought she could help fight any impending wars between Earth and alien beings, like somehow help build a fortress."
"Could she?"
Darcy shrugged. "Maybe? But she's not that kind of science. She doesn't build weapons and tech. Anyways, Tony swooped in and offered her a job and basically protection from government vultures. I think that's basically why she moved us here to New York, just to get away from all the pressure."
The dark haired waitress returned with a balanced tray on her arm. She set down two beers, two shot glasses of brown liquid, and two slices of pepperoni and mushroom pizza. Darcy thanked her and let her know to keep the drinks coming.
"PB&J?" Bucky questioned.
"PBR, a shot of Jameson, and a slice of pizza," Darcy explained. She lifted her shot glass in the air toward him. "Cheers."
Bucky mirror her action. "What are we drinking to?"
"Home," she stated, "And memories and good pizza and cheap booze."
They clinked their glasses together and Bucky watched her toss back the shot, chasing it with a beer, and making a sour face as it all went down together.
"Where is home for you?" Bucky inquired, relaxing into the space. It was difficult to be completely relaxed. His eyes were darting around, constantly searching for threats or targets.
"Currently, Avengers Tower," Darcy replied.
"You know what I mean," he said, with an arch look.
"I grew up in Virginia. I ended up at Culver because of a state scholarship."
"Parents?"
"Just me and my mom. My dad split when my brother and I were little. I was seven."
Bucky nodded. Memories of his family were fuzzy at best and he couldn't remember his father. Maybe he and Darcy shared a similar history; maybe Bucky's dad had also skipped out.
"You talk to them much?"
"My mom got remarried my freshman year of college and Kyle's fine, but she's kinda got her own thing going on," Darcy told him. "We do the phone and holidays, but it's hard sharing my life when most of it is supposed to be secret."
"What about your brother?"
Her eyes dropped to the table and she took an extra big bite of pizza. "He died in 2008," she muttered through a full mouth. "He was stationed in Afghanistan, his convoy was ambushed. It was pretty fucking brutal."
The attempt at nonchalance was easy to see through. Bucky could hear the bite behind every word. A special kind of anger that shoved itself behind any sort of unfair loss and forcibly reared its ugly head from time to time. He recognized it all too well. He had to punch it down every single day of his new life.
"Hey, hey," Darcy called, switching gears. "No sad stuff, right? We're supposed to be taking a break from the serious stuff."
Bucky offered her a small smile. "That's right."
Darcy waived at their waitress. "Another round!"
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.
It had been a while since Darcy had consumed alcohol. She'd have a drink or three at her once a month pizza and beer night with Tony on the rooftop. Those were friendly beers, sipped slow and combined with lots of grease and cheese. Nice, friendly beers that didn't get her smashed. Darcy's plan had been to share a few friendly beers with Bucky that night, loosen them both up, and have a little fun. It was a good plan. A great plan.
It was the shots of whiskey in between the beers that sent all her plans to hell.
Drunk Darcy was a little more stupid and a little more brave than normal. Fortunately, she never erred on the side of belligerent or terribly messy. But she was obnoxious. Even she could admit that the morning after a drunk night, when she had a chance to sober up.
"How are you not even buzzed?" Darcy questioned stumbling a little bit out of the cab. She wrapped two of her arms around Bucky's and he guided her toward the residential entrance of Stark Tower. Her words slurred just a touch. "Wait, are you and I'm just too drunk to tell?"
"Super soldier serum," he replied. "Metabolizes everything differently. It'll take a lot more than six shots and your weight in beer."
Darcy groaned. "Ugh, how unfortunate."
Bucky chuckled at her dramatics. "Trying to get me drunk, doll?"
His mouth was curved and his brow notched up in that cheeky way he had that made her stomach flip flop every time she saw it. One cue, she felt a little cartwheel from her insides, more intense than ever. It had to have been the booze making everything seem more intense.
Bucky pulled her forward, her knees feeling a little wobbly. She was regretting the heeled boots just a little, lamenting the fact that the four extra inches barely brought her just past his chin.
"That wasn't the plan," Darcy said, in answer to his question. Jarvis bid them good evening as they stepped into the elevator. "The plan was to have fun and forget sadness."
The elevator doors slid open and Bucky continued to tug her toward her apartment, supporting her as her feet criss-crossed in front of her.
"I did have fun," he assured her.
"And forget sadness?"
His answer was a despondent chuckle. "There were moments."
"I'll take what I can get," she shrugged, stopping in front of her door. "Wait, a smile! I promised a full-on, beam of sunshine, gigantic smile."
"Maybe next time."
"No way," Darcy held out her hands to stop him. She set her purse down on the hall floor, stepping back, and thinking for a moment. "I will get you to smile, damn it! If it's the last thing I do!"
She gave a little spin, to punctuate her passionate declaration, only it didn't go so well. Her dress twirled and her feet seemed to have two separate minds, twisting in different directions. A heel snapped and she yelped, falling forward.
Bucky leapt in front of her, sliding under her before she could hit the ground. She collapsed into his arms, Bucky kneeling on the ground and holding her upright.
"Smooth move, doll," he said. "If I smile will you quit trying to break an ankle?"
She scrunched her nose at him, the action making her very aware of just how close their faces were. Her arms dangled over his shoulders, her chest pressed up against his, each breath she drew bringing them closer. Bucky's fingers flexed at her sides, moving against her ribcage. She felt hot all of a sudden, wishing she wasn't wearing such a bulky sweater, wanting to feel his grip on her. His warm breath caressed her chin and her eyes dropped to his lips.
Darcy knew she wasn't thinking straight. She wasn't thinking about anything, really. Her brain had fogged over from alcohol and feelings that had been dancing at the outskirts of her brain. Feelings that had taken center stage the moment "Barnes" and "date" were put together in the same sentence. Before she realized it she was leaning in and tentatively brushed her lips against his.
I KNOW! I DID THE THING! THE CLIFF-KISS!
I love writing the cliff-kiss though! I can't help myself!
Fun fact: The bar they visit is based on a bar here in my lovely city of Chicago. The PB&J is a real menu item, I love it! It's my favorite! I regularly order PBR's and Jameson shots when I go out. If you're off age and like whiskey, I recommend it!