Chapter 11: Break On Me

Summary: In which Tony attempts not to kill Steve, Steve attempts to stay out of Tony's wrath, Natasha attempts clever things in a car, and Darcy has a surprising revelation.

Notes: Oh, my God, you guys-I'm sorry this took so long! Ugh! I really didn't mean for this to get away on me. I've been trying to write, and some days it's great and others, I just sit and stare at it. I'm still not quite sure where I'm going with this, what the endgame is going to be. If anyone has any requests of ideas, I'd seriously love to hear them! Also, are you still out there?! I know I took a while here, and I'm afraid I've lost a lot of people. I apologize whole-heartedly, too, for being so forgetful about those comments. I do see each and every one, including kudos, and I'm sorry it takes me so long to reply to them. I love you all-and I thank you so much for reading and (hopefully) enjoying, but my brain is like Swiss cheese, no lie. So please, please, let me know how this is for you guys, and I'll seriously try and keep up this time. I love you all and I'm so thankful that someone out there is reading my lame crap. This one's going to be a bit short, as I'm catching up to my writing pace. Again, throw those ideas at me! So I shaved a bit off this, am still fishing around in my head, and kept the angst to a low-level simmer. Tony's less than happy about all this, Steve is feeling epically guilty, Natasha's just annoyed, and Bucky and Darcy are just trying to keep their heads above water. I hope you enjoy! Let me know. Chapter Title taken from the Keith Urban song of the same name. LOVE Keith Urban! I thought-given the last scene here-that this one would be the most appropriate to use for a title. It'll make sense when you get there. Love y'all! Sarah

He'd been right.

As usual.

Damn him.

Nightmares plagued her for the next few days and nights while they laid low in that little motel room. She slept in fits and starts, often passing out early on the bed in front of the television and waking in the night, restless and disturbed. The shadows that stretched the room through the slats in the blinds seemed to move across the floor, corner to corner, and it always seemed to happen when Jamie was asleep beside her, finally succumbing to numb unconsciousness. She had to talk herself down twice in her own head that, no, of course Aldrich Killian wasn't stalking her through their ugly motel room, lurking in dark corners and watching her sleep.

The shadows under his eyes deepened.

Her guilt increased.

And so did her vague sense of terror.

Jamie seemed dreadfully sure that they were being tailed. And she'd yet to encounter anything he was sure about failing to come to pass. If anyone had iron-clad experience, it was him. He even outstripped Natasha, and Darcy knew Natasha would let him steer the ship in any regard.

So why hadn't they made a move yet? It felt like they were just sitting ducks.

He went out every afternoon, but wouldn't tell her what he was doing. She figured it was likely a combination of things. Feeling out the area. Checking their trail. Maybe leaving false ones. Hunting down a low-key way they could get back to the Mainland. They didn't really have a choice beyond a personal charter and she knew he'd never trust an independent pilot.

Besides, he probably knew how to fly, anyway.

She was proven right not two days later, when he packed everything up and gently woke her. He helped her dress in the dark, then skirted her out under the cover of pre-dawn, back to the Jag, leaving the room unlocked behind them.

He didn't reply to most of her questions, and she didn't ask many. He pulled in at a small airfield, told her to stay put, and locked her in the car again.

She watched as he went over to the office door, set into the factory, hangar façade of the building, and knocked, once, twice, three times, and waited. The door opened. A short man with what was obviously a military bearing exchanged a few words with a very stiff Bucky, cash was exchanged, and he disappeared back inside, shutting the door again behind him.

Bucky returned, tossed the backpack full of their things over his shoulder and retrieved her from the front seat. "Say goodbye to the F-Type."

She sighed, running a hand over the dash. "Such a pretty car."

He smiled tiredly. "Gas-guzzler, but she's quick. Couldn't drive her long. This will have to do." He gestured. "We gotta go, dollface."

She hauled herself out of the car and he shut the door, leaving it unlocked with the key under the passenger mat.

"He's not piloting us, is he?"

"No. I am."

"Of course you can fly." She yawned and righted herself as she knocked against his shoulder. "And you trust that guy?"

He slid his arm around her waist, steadying her. "Not on my life, but he's a former Marine. That gets him points. It's his plane. He's got a buddy that can fly it back over for him out of California. Private airfield, more points. And he took cash, and didn't ask questions. Gotta be good enough."

He loaded her into a small passenger plane, a little two-seater, and she watched in the mirror as he fired everything up and checked the equipment.

"All gassed up," he muttered as she climbed in beside her. "Strap in, babe."

She did, frowning as the motor started up, deafeningly loud. "Have you ever done this as…you know, Bucky Barnes?" she had to shout.

He snorted, gesturing to the headset that matched the one he slid on. "No, actually."

She put hers on, too. "No?!"

He smiled as he flicked switches and the bay door rolled up behind them, his voice clear, now, in the ear phones. "Relax. It's all up here." He tapped his temple. "We're fine. Besides—it's all we've got. I don't intend to drive around in circles on this island with a tail on my ass while we wait for Tony Stark to come find us. Ain't my style."

She rolled her eyes, but her mouth twisted into a smirk of its own accord as they turned and taxied out. "Ain't your style."

They rose into the rising sun, the cockpit blazing with new light and she had to squint while she dug her sunglasses out of the backpack. Not that she needed them. She passed out again as they reached the ocean.

((()))

With a frustrated growl, Tony tossed down the chunk of side table he'd been studying and turned to glare at the torn apart living room of his beach house.

The place was a mess.

The fridge was still stocked.

The front door was off one hinge, the screen's handle—if he wasn't mistaken—melted.

Darcy's striped Roxy sweater was still hanging on the hook off the front entrance. Bucky's black baseball cap was on the peg next to it.

"They got out of here in a hurry," Steve called from the back hall.

"I went to MIT, Rogers. Tell me something I don't know." He reached up to undo the top button on his John Varvatos and continued to take inventory.

The cream couch was flipped on its front. The dining room chairs were strewn about, two of them missing legs, their limbs adding to the mess. One of the chairs was toppled over a patch of brownish stain on the white carpet, and his stomach turned over at what he suspected to be dried blood. He didn't approach; he didn't think he wanted to know.

The sliding door was wide open to the deck.

The side tables were overturned.

The round kitchenette that he'd insisted on even though Pepper accused it of being 'too pedestrian' had clearly been slid roughly across the floor, half on the tiling, half off, a large, offensive skid mark making a tattoo across the surface.

Definitely in a hurry.

"Their bags are still in the back of the closet, and the drawers are still full," Steve reported as he came back into the main room. "So they didn't pack—at all. Toiletries still in the bath cabinet, nothing's disturbed. Clean job, on the surface."

Tony glanced again at the brown patch on the carpet. "Sure. On the surface." He glared up at Steve. "Go get Buck's bag, eh? Bring it out."

Steve frowned, eyeing him confusedly, a little crease forming between his eyebrows, but he went, surprisingly, without argument. Tony added a point to his tally. Clearly, Rogers was treading lightly. Just as well—Tony was furious with him and had made it abundantly clear over the last several hours.

"Ah!" Steve had gasped as his head snapped to the side. His neck gave a protesting crack.

Tony had just smiled grimly, clenching his jaw against further anger.

Steve had taken a longer moment to straighten than he'd expected. "I deserved that, I know." He reached up to dab at his bleeding lip, caught by his teeth from the inventor's right hook. He'd licked at the blood, even as the gash shut again.

"You're damn right, Cap."

—"Stark."

Tony jumped, knocked from both the memory and his hazy anger. It had been there, pale red in his vision, for the past 36 hours, as he and Steve worked together to get to the beach house and untangle what had happened. They'd taken a direct route straight from their rendezvous point in Pasadena, regardless of Steve's insisting they lay a more circuitous trail. Tony had replied that, quite frankly, he didn't give a flying fuck if anyone could track them. He had a repulsor blast he could introduce them to.

"Why do you need Buck's bag?" Steve finally asked as he dodged fallen furniture and set it down on the kitchen counter.

The duffle was stiff in Tony's hands—or maybe he was just nervous. "Got a hunch," he mumbled, unzipping it and rooting around.

It was largely empty. He'd left a zip-up hoodie inside, but at first glance, it didn't appear to contain anything else.

Except for the little hidden pocket at the side.

Smiling just a little, Tony unzipped it and slid his hand inside, coming out with Bucky's sleek, black Starkphone, presumably untouched in the entire disaster.

Steve's mouth dropped open. "How did you know that would be in there?"

Tony hit the button on the back, waking it up. "We think alike."

Steve frowned like he was slightly hurt. "And how's that?"

Tony shrugged. "Paranoid."

Steve snorted. "Yeah, Buck can be paranoid. What's your excuse?"

Tony glared up at him. "Dying in a wormhole. Is that good enough?"

Steve flinched, then sighed, then took a few steps back, surveying the rest of the room. "This place is a mess."

Tony tapped the screen, scrolling around. "That's one way of putting it."

Steve hovered for a moment, watching the inventor scroll through the smartphone, before drifting off toward the garage.

Tony hunted down the timestamps in the phone, confirming it had been a number of days since there'd been any activity on it. The last entry had been Bucky's call in, when he'd desperately asked Bruce for suggestions. Recalling the brokenness in Bucky voice—arguable the strongest person he'd yet met—still haunted him a little. The dichotomy of that strength versus any vulnerability bothered him. Or, rather, what bothered him was the obvious fact that Bucky was just incredibly skilled at hiding it from everyone else.

His bond with Darcy seemed more and more intricate as things progressed.

Tony wondered how everyone else in the Tower could possibly miss it.

He sighed. The only bright spot was, of course, that Killian hadn't gotten his paws on the phone. It was just lucky that Bucky knew to keep it hidden when it wasn't on him. The dark spot was the fact that Bucky's tracker had been removed, therefore making the GPS on the phone useless. Not, of course, that Tony could really argue with the tracker's removal to begin with. But he pushed the memory of a suffering Darcy to the back of his mind—again.

He slid the phone into his back pocket and went through the room, taking a detailed inventory. He knew Pep would want to get it cleaned up quick-as-you-can, furniture replaced. She'd take advantage of all her recent design ideas that she hadn't been able to stretch her muscles on in the designing of the Tower.

Finally, bracing himself, he approached the one toppled chair and set it upright, trying to ignore his shaking hands.

There was a small circle of what had to be dried blood on the carpet, enough to leave a small stain, but not enough to seem a congealed puddle.

Furthermore, the chair still bore remnants of someone's captivity in it—cuffs of some high-tech material that he'd have grim fun studying back in his lab at some point still dangling from the arms. He bent over to look. Black, some sort of heavy nylon derivative?

"Hm."

They were wound small, so definitely Darcy's little wrists.

But they'd been torn loose and free.

So…

He scowled at the implication and looked around. Nothing else to tell just what had happened to her while she was incapacitated. Nothing. Things had been hurriedly cleaned.

The back rooms were bare, as well, effectively scrubbed, nothing to give away that anything was amiss aside from the slightly tossed contents of the drawers and cabinets. Even that stuff was mostly left alone.

"What the fuck, Killian?" Tony murmured aloud, worry gnawing at his gut.

"Stark!"

That worry spiking, he followed Steve's call of mild alarm down the hall to the connected garage and paused in the doorway. "What?"

Steve hid his flinch at least partially, but ignored the surly tone, gesturing out the busted window of the garage. "We got a body."

Tony sneered. "There are about a dozen lying around, Rogers. What's different about this one?"

Steve's face was grim. "This one isn't Bucky's work."

In other words, harsh marks on the body to signal mode of death. When the Winter Soldier killed you, it was just a single striking blow, nine times out of ten, merely a snapped, lolling neck.

Tony stepped down into the room and crossed to him to peer out the window and down to the rocky ground a story-and-a-half below.

"It's Natasha's," Steve said, voice low.

"It's a woman." And her head had been smashed in by the solid lava. "Definitely not Buck. Kid's got a code."

"What is going on?" Steve asked aloud for both of them, his tone exasperated.

Tony scowled, studying the woman's blond, blood-matted ponytail. "I dunno. Let's go down there and maybe she can tell us."

((()))

Darcy dreamed. And it wasn't just any dream. It was a very fond memory.

She woke in Bucky's Tower apartment to the deep shadows of very early morning. Refusing to open her eyes yet and spoil the warm glow, she frowned when she realized the bed was cool.

Blinking sleepily, she looked around. The sky scrapers outside were lighting everything in fluorescent colors, bright reds and blues, brightening the night past the expensive drapes.

But she was alone in the bed.

She sat up, wrapping the bed sheet around her torso as a chill hit her. "Bucky?" she called.

No answer.

Frowning in concern, she tugged the sheet off with her and traversed the suite, finding it empty until she finally turned and took in the stretching balcony, long enough to have doors in both the bedroom and living area. Sighing with a certain amount of sad resignation, she went back to the bedroom, slid the door open, and went out into the warm summery night.

New York was all a-bustle below, the City That Never Sleeps. But up here, it was just the distant sounds of horns and yelling, the wind and the buzzing glow of neon.

He was leaning on the railing, looking out over the city, his chest bare and his black lounge pants low on his hips, the scars on his back creating a patchwork of tattoos. His left arm glowed blue from the building nearby.

She paused, watching him as his hair blew gently in the breeze. "If I'd known you woulda' ditched me our first night together, I'da held onto you little tighter, Soldier Boy," she said, softly, knowing he'd be able to hear her at five yards no matter her volume.

The tic of his right bicep was the only indication that he heard her.

Sighing again, she tightened the bed sheet and went out to him, approaching the railing as she glanced around at the surrounding windows for stargazers. She was in only a sheet, after all…

His eyes were closed, his hands braced on the concrete barrier. He didn't look at her; not that he needed to.

She slid her hand around his arm and latched her hip against the cold stone.

And then he spoke, surprisingly, his voice low. "Well. I'm a little out of practice."

She laughed softly, studying him, his eyes still closed. "Yeah, well, if that's outta practice for you, I'd hate to think what you're like with practice. Haven't had sex like that in…ever."

A teeny, tiny tic at the corner of his mouth, and he finally eyed her out of the corner of his eye. "Sex like what?"

She sighed, looking out at the skyline, so lit up it drowned out all the actual stars. Shame. "Sex that felt like more than sex." She swallowed at what sounded like some sort of heavy confession, and focused her energy on not looking at him. The admission that the night meant more to her than that implied things…things she wasn't sure she could say…things she wasn't sure she had the strength to say, the courage…not yet. And certainly not to him while he was in the state he was in.

But he didn't comment. He just sighed. "Sorry. Couldn't sleep."

She was sure, of course, that this likely had more to do with panic and memory than anything else, but she didn't say that. She just stood there, her hand on his warm human arm, his pulse thrumming against her palm. "After all that, it's a wonder." She laughed.

Surprisingly, he smiled. "I was restless. I didn't want to wake you. You looked…"

"Was I drooling, just a little?" she teased.

But he didn't laugh. "You looked peaceful."

She sighed, edging closer to him and huddling a bit against his warmth. It was summer, but the night wind was cool on her bare skin. "Be more peaceful if you'd come back inside and lie down next to me."

But he didn't seem inclined to move.

"You're not gonna ask me if I'm alright?" he murmured.

She looked up at him, and he looked down at her. "No." She reached up to brush a lock of hair out of his eyes, where the wind had blown it. "I know better than to ask if you're alright. If you're out here in the middle of the night, I don't need to ask."

He gazed out again, over the city lights. "It's like white noise. Helps me think."

She edged closer still. "I think maybe Bucky Barnes has done enough thinking for the night, don't you?"

He looked down at her again, his face deceptively passive.

"Besides—he can start all over again tomorrow, right? It's a whole new day."

His arm came up around her waist.

"That leaves him a few hours of merciful peace, wouldn't you say? Don't you think he's earned it?"

He frowned, just a little. "I don't think he's earned much of anything, really."

That stung to hear. But she swallowed and treated it like everything else he said: with acceptance and gentle steering in the other direction. "Well, he certainly earned the last few hours with his girlfriend, catching up on that practice he mentioned." She let a loose giggle escape.

A small smile, there, just at the edge of his full lips.

Scenting a small slice of victory, she leaned in closer, smiling. "And he's certainly earned a little more, if he thinks he needs a refresher course." She looped her hand around his and tugged, letting the sheet dip just a smidge, showing him a tantalizing expanse of her naked back. "Not that he does, if we're being honest."

"And you're offering? This course, that is?" Beautiful playfulness in his voice.

She gave him a coquettish look over her shoulder. "Mm-hmm…the teacher only has one requirement."

An eyebrow went up at her fanciful tone. "And what's that, dollface?"

"No brooding, whatsoever. Is that clear, Private?"

He smirked, following slowly after her. "I was never a Private, Darce. I was—"

"Shut up, Sergeant, and get in here." She tugged him heartily forward and he finally laughed, soft, but bright in the dark, as she slid the door open again.

"Darce…?"

She shifted, the dream dissipating, slipping through her fingers like fog.

"Darce…"

She frowned, sunlight cutting through her eyelids, waking her up. "Mm…"

"Solnishka…wake up."

She stretched. "Five more minutes…"

A gentle laugh, and a hand, fingers over her pulse. "We gotta go, dollface," Bucky murmured in her ear.

Finally, with a sigh, she came to full alertness and blinked against the bright, cheerful light. The ear piece was digging into her temple and she was curled on the passenger seat of the private plane. She jerked upright in surprise. "Whoa." Full wakefulness hit her like a smack to the face and her head spun for a second. "We're here already?"

Bucky was smiling bemusedly at her, his eyes soft. "Yeah. Wasn't long. Just a few hours."

"I slept that whole time?!"

His flinch was painfully obvious, but his tone was forcibly light. "Yeah. Like I said, it wasn't long. It's just after lunch."

"And I didn't even feel us land…" She looked around at the medium field they'd landed in.

He gently extricated her earpiece from her hair and pulled it off her ear. "Yeah, you were out pretty good. Feel okay?"

She blinked a few times, trying to center herself back in the present. "Yeah. Was having a dream."

Tightness around his eyes. "About?"

She waved a hand, tugging on her belt straps. "No, it was good. It was…it was a memory. You were there." She attempted a comforting smile, growing tired of his worried looks, but she yawned instead, curling in on herself again. "God, I'm sorry. I've been like a cat the past few days. I keep sleeping. Is that normal?"

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I slept a lot, after, yeah. Docs kept me under observation for a while when we got back to base. And besides…what you've been through…you're body's going to process it any way it can. You've just gotta let it do its thing. Okay?"

She sighed. "Where are we?"

"Orange County. Private airfield."

She sighed, pulling her fingers through her hair. "Oh, right. The…the shady friend. We just leaving the keys under the seat?"

He smiled. "Yeah, actually. Ready to go?"

"Ready as I'll ever be."

He dropped down out of the pilot's seat and came around to retrieve her, her short legs dangling. He smiled, scooping her into his arms and down, safely to the ground. She laughed as she landed with a soft bump, and he pressed a little kiss to the space behind her ear, making her giggle. "C'mon."

"What's first?"

"We're stealing a car."

She sighed, but followed after him. "Of course we are. What could our honeymoon have been, other than this?"

((()))

"Damn it," Natasha muttered under her breath, shifting gear and changing lanes. Another tail. She couldn't seem to shake these bastards.

Well. At least the plan worked. The red Toyota Tundra was following her, rather than Buck and Darcy. At least, with her, they were just a minor annoyance. She had to hope they didn't have a shadow, themselves. Though, knowing Buck, he'd have found a much cleverer way than she to shake it off. They were probably back on the Mainland by now. Or, at least she hoped.

The truck had been on her all morning, since she'd left her hole-in-the-wall shack of a motel room, which had to mean they'd been watching her nearby. Of course, she'd known that going in, but sleeping with a Beretta under your pillow tended to help sleep find you quicker when you were on the run, and while she hadn't really expected them to make a move, she was surprised that they were being so consistently dogged.

If Killian wanted her, he'd have made a move by now.

When she'd gotten back from the garage after killing Erwin, she'd found Darcy face-to-face with him, having broken free of her secures, her eyes full of murderous rage.

She'd have gladly helped, had the rest of Aldrich's security team not descended on the house, and she'd wasted most of her time subduing them, a few glimpses of Bucky doing the same making her gasp in relief a few moments later.

The only thing she'd had time for after that was getting them all away in the cars, having no choice but to leave the bastard where he lay, unconscious, on the living room floor. They didn't have time to truss him up like a turkey and throw him in the backseat. They had to go and go right then, or get mowed down by automatic gunfire.

Snarling under her breath, she shifted gear again and took the exit without signaling, sliding deftly through two narrowly spaced cars, ignoring the honks of protest she received for her troubles. "Hey, I thought that was a smooth move," she muttered under her breath, watching in the rearview mirror as the Tundra missed the off ramp and was swept into the flow of traffic headed toward Kailua.

"Hah." She took the stop sign and headed right, going in the opposite direction. "That should hold you for a bit."

((()))

"So how do you hotwire a car, anyway?"

Bucky paused. "You're in my light, babe."

"Sorry." She jerked her head back against the headrest of the MKZ and the leather was supple beneath her head, warm and pliable in the heat of the sun. "You shouldn't need much," she teased.

He smirked. "Doesn't mean I don't enjoy it when I'm doing something that requires concentration."

"I always thought you just popped the console, ripped at the wires and stuck a few together and you were done. That's how they do it in the movies."

He raised one wry eyebrow. "Yeah, and the movies don't show you the alarm going off, or the police being called, or the car misfiring, either."

She frowned. "Aw. That's less fun."

He snorted. "Yeah, and you know what else is less fun than it looks in the movies? Getting shot. Keep your head down, moya solnishka."

She sighed, sliding down further in the seat until her forehead was even with the window ledge. "Things are worse than I thought if you're speaking in Russian."

He was silent. She cut a glance back at him. He looked broody too. Sad face.

"What's it mean, anyway? You calling me your little pet bird, or something?"

Another small smile broke through his intense scowl of concentration. "My sunshine."

Her heart squeezed and she was in serious danger of cooing, but before she could, the engine suddenly purred to life beneath her. "Ooh." She peered over to watch as he snapped the console shut again and adjusted the steering column. "That's hot."

He slid into the driver's seat. "Grand Theft Auto is sexy?"

She clicked her seatbelt. "I think of it more as borrowing, really."

He chuckled, securing his seatbelt and adjusting the mirror. "Well, whoever owns this Lincoln isn't likely to use this empty parking lot with his next expensive ride."

She sighed as he slid through the lonely parking spot and settled back in the seat, crossing her ankles on the dash. "Is that why you chose this—because it's expensive? Does that have some significance?"

He shrugged, switching on the blinker and slipping onto the road. "Depends on the situation. You want something that won't draw attention. That means, either, middle of the road, or—in different environments: expensive. Sleek. Not too attention grabbing, but something that says that I'm a rich executive making my boring way home from the office. It's black. That's nondescript in the daylight and capable of being practically invisible at night. It's top of the line enough to give us good zero-to-sixty, but middle line enough to allow for good mileage, thus cutting the number of stops to refuel. And it was all alone in a less-than-nice parking lot. Easy pickings."

"…And the Winter Soldier had plenty of need to steal cars in the last sixty years?"

He made a conscious effort not to look at her. "Well. There were those two times I tried to escape."

She jerked and her feet fell off the dash and back to the floor with a hollow thud. But she was silent. No yelling, no exclamations.

He risked a glance.

She was staring at him, wide-eyed, mouth parted just slightly.

Wincing internally, he broke eye contact again in favor of watching the road.

"Twice?"

He nodded. "Mm-hmm."

She blinked, cold shock sliding through her like winter slush. "And…when were you going to…" She was well aware she was stammering like an idiot.

He sighed, stopping at a red light. "Didn't remember it. Until now," he finally said, shortly.

She blinked again.

"Didn't make it anyway, obviously."

"I…I…" she stuttered, staring ahead, lost.

"St. Petersburg the first time. I was too lost in my own head, too muddled. Second time, though, I made it all the way to Chicago. We were on a mission in Cuba, assassinating an arms dealer. And I remember I just…woke up. Made a run for it while they were all standing over the body."

Just like it always did—every single time—the pain for him started as a little, tiny fissure at the center of her heart and bloomed, like a webbed crack in a windshield, outward, until there was no more room for it all, the entire muscle throbbing helplessly, and she cast about, looking for words.

But there were none. There never were.

And she always thought it felt sort of surprising. Like going up a flight of stairs and reaching the top, and forgetting you were all out of steps, that moment of hollow expectation when you realize you can go no further in your current fashion and your chest bottoms out, your foot slamming hard into the floor—some distance from where you expected it to land. One sick swoop of vertigo as you righted your outlook.

"I…"

"It's okay, dollface. It's new. I don't…really wanna talk about it."

So they were both shut down.

They drove on in silence for a long time, through Costa Mesa, then Long Beach. She made a game in her head of all the expensive supercars they passed, and she'd checked off Lamborghini, Maserati, and Ferrari by the time they crossed into Los Angeles County. "Still missing McLaren," she muttered four hours later.

"Hm?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing."

He chose a clean, but slightly shabby motel on the outskirts of LA, locked her in again, and left. So she sat, with her thoughts as her only company, until he came back an hour later with snacks.

They ate in silence, the TV giving up nothing but grumpy static, Darcy on the bed, Bucky keeping watch at the wide picture window.

After twenty minutes of her staring at the cracked ceiling above the lumpy queen bed, he abruptly got up. "I'm gonna take a shower."

Darcy jumped from her staring contest with the crack and glanced over at him. He was stiff. "Okay."

The door shut.

The curtain swished.

The water started up, the pipes in the walls gurgling behind the headboard.

She sighed. "So you just got married," she muttered dejectedly. "Five things long-term couples wish they'd known before the wedding." She snorted humorlessly. So far this was turning into a poorly written search result article clicked on in the wee hours of the morning, half asleep but determined to make it an all-nighter, a college exam in four hours but no more room in her head to study. She'd clicked on many an article out of sheer boredom and curiosity, though it often never pertained to her.

"Five: Trust. Fifty-eight percent of those tested indicated that if they did it over again, they'd work on issues of trust, most of which they stated they brought to the relationship from previous long-term commitments. Ugh. Check." She sat up, glancing out the front window. "Four: Sex. A whopping seventy-six percent of study participants indicated that they wish they'd waited longer before marrying to determine the difference between sexual satisfaction and emotional connection. Idiots."

She pulled a hand through her hair, scowling at the tangles. "Three: Communication. Forty-nine percent of participants admitted to deep-seated problems in the foundation of any relationship: clear, open lines of communication. It's not usually that hard to open your mouth, people: if I can manage it with a clammed-up former assassin, just think how easy it'll be for you." She slid off the bed and stood there, hands on her hips, staring at the bathroom door, open just a crack. He hadn't put on the light, not that a super soldier was incapable of showering in what other people would consider the dark. She unbuttoned her teeny shorts and slid them off, kicking them up onto the end of the bed.

"Two: Infidelity. Thirty-two percent of study participants admitted to a lack of ability in keeping to a monogamous relationship. Assholes."

She tugged her t-shirt over her head and let her hair settle on her bare shoulders. "One: The So-Called-Three-Year-Slump. A whopping eighty-seven percent admitted to feeling bored in their relationship and that they wished for a greater sense of adventure in their life with their spouse. I've got some spare they can borrow." She shimmied out of her underwear, pushed the door open and stood there a moment, watching his shadow move behind the shower curtain, quick and efficient, as always.

Then she shoved it open and stepped in beside him. The water was blazing hot.

It was a testament to how distracted he was that he actually started a little, but he was immediately on alert, reaching to turn down the temperature. "What's wrong?"

She pulled the curtain shut behind her. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

And she kissed him.

She pressed forward against him, daring him with her mouth and her hands, her palms flat on the broad expanse of his scarred chest—

And with an abrupt shove, he'd pushed her back, his eyes intense and uncertain as he looked at her in the dark.

They faced off under the spray, steam rising around them, totally wasted. Hot water only lasted so long, after all.

She waited for him to speak. She expected him to tell her she was traumatized and that it wasn't the time for sex. She waited for him to tell her she was tired and wasn't thinking straight and that he was equally exhausted and that they should just focus their energy on getting home alive.

But he didn't.

He didn't do any of that.

He surged forward and kissed her instead, his hands coming up to cup her face, pulled her up on her toes to reach him better, his mouth warm and damp from the shower spray.

She tugged her fingers through his dripping hair, pulling him down to her as well, delving into his mouth with her tongue.

He gave a low sound of satisfaction, his hands drifting off her face and down, over her shoulders and back, digging into her hips to pull her closer, grinding her against him.

She might've mewled into his mouth, but she couldn't be sure over the hiss of the water. The only thing she seemed sure of in all the horror of the past week was that she needed him. Needed him—all of him—and right bloody now.

And evidently, judging by his lack of protestations, they were in a certain amount of agreement, because all Bucky did was reach blindly back to turn off the spray before hauling her up around his waist and stepping out of the stall, both of them dripping wet all over the carpet.

And then they were wrapped up under the covers, all wet hair and teeth and tongues and mouths desperately seeking, hands clutching and clenching, the soft brush of the motel sheets on bare skin.

He knew what he wanted and she was glad not to stop him, his intention crystal clear and identical to hers, and the next second it was all deep angles and moans and shudders, and she was so fucking sure she was going to shatter if he kept up his bruising pace, and his human hand might crack the headboard, but no one cared, and she cried out in rough-throated satisfaction as his teeth closed around her shoulder.

((()))

The sunset was leaking in through the slats in the blinds over the picture window and creating lines on the dewy skin of his back.

She reached out to trace them, letting her head tip back against the headboard, enjoying the heady rush of calm that always followed really good sex.

He propped his chin on her belly and looked up at her through his bangs, a lazy smile stretching his mouth.

She let out an equally lazy giggle in reply, adjusting her hips where they were half trapped under him. Trapped in a good, comfy way, not the sort of 'my lover won't move' kind of way. Bucky never did that.

His hands slid over the small of her back and up and he pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her right hip.

"Mm…" she sighed.

For a long time, it was quiet in their little motel room, night seeping in through the blinds, the room growing deeper dark. Soon he was just a shadow laying there, his head on her belly, his arms around her waist, her fingers in his hair. His steady breathing lulled her. He was always so steady. His eyes were shut, but she knew he was awake.

"I think I died," she murmured into the silence.

He shifted, just barely, his breath against her naval huffing in humor. "Mm, I dunno if I'm quite that good…"

He thought she was joking

Her heart cracked, but she said it anyway, her voice low and detached. "I'm serious."

Now he moved, adjusting to look up her body and into her face.

But she couldn't look at him. She couldn't even stop the one lone tear from escaping her right eye and running across her temple into her hair. "I think I died."

He was silent, his hands tightening stiffly at her back.

"I remember they drugged me. And there was shouting. Then nothing."

A moment passed. Two. Three. He laid his head back down, his stubble pressing a pattern into the soft skin over her belly.

"You probably just…"

"I didn't pass out. This was different. It was just darkness. And cold. And…nothing." Another tear. "There was nothing. And when I…woke up…there was a…a sound, I…" She paused, hearing it in her head. "…a long ringing…like a heart monitor. Flat line." She stared up at that crack in the ceiling, her new vision—newer still—tracing the very grooves in the plaster. "I think I was dead, Jamie," she whispered.

His arms tightened around her, but he didn't ask her why she hadn't said anything earlier. He wasn't the sort of man to ask a question like that. He was, however, the sort of man to ask what most people considered a silly question; the difference, of course, was that he always expected a plain answer, something more than the obvious lies. "Are you alright?"

She didn't move. She couldn't move. She felt paralyzed and numb. What made it worse was the fact that she knew, when it ended, the fallout would be intense, the most intense she'd ever felt, including her ordeal the previous spring. "…No." It wasn't enough. She knew that. But it was all she could manage.

He shifted, pressing his face against her belly, nuzzling her. "What can I do?"

Her heart clenched in her chest and she held her breath, waiting for that downward spiral to start, triggered by the sheer sound of him begging—something she never thought she'd hear. But nothing came. All she felt was the rebound of emotion from him, the overflow of grief that even he couldn't manage to fully contain. "…Nothing."