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Chapter 15: Beautiful DisasterSummary: In which there is a high-speed chase, an allusion to a Red Pill and a Blue Pill, and Bruce gets uncharacteristically involved.
Notes: Hi, all! I'm posting early. I'd like to speed this up so we can catch up and I can utilize some of the ideas I've got hidden away in my JotterPad app. This one's a little bit rock 'n roll. And Tony and Bruce gang up, so hopefully that'll satisfy everyone. I do hope everyone is enjoying the direction I'm taking. It took me a stupid long time to figure out how I was going to sew this one up, and it's taking a while to build, but I think it's coming along nicely. Thanks for all the kudos and comments, I LOVE hearing from you about the plot so far! Please enjoy this section, and let me know how you like! Love you all! PS-I don't own Marvel, I don't own Game of Thrones, and I certainly don't own The Matrix. Unfortunately. Sarah
((()))
"That is a really big ball of twine."
"It is. Really big."
"Really, really big."
"What do you suppose you could use it for?"
"Dunno. Good question."
"Could make a good noose outta that, if I was desperate."
"God, everything is killing with you, isn't it?" Darcy teased, elbowing him in the ribs.
Bucky smirked. "Like everything is sex with you?"
She giggled, weaving her arm through his and leaning into his side. "Well, married to a guy like you, can you blame me for being a little distracted?"
He rolled his eyes, but the tips of his ears were pink. "So, now what? You saw your giant ball of twine…"
She snorted as they turned and began away, arm in arm. "Oh, don't pretend you weren't curious about that ball of twine, Mr. Barnes."
He chuckled, shaking his head. "Oh, it was the stop of a lifetime. You wanna go into the gift shop? I'll buy you an ironically miniature one."
She threw back her head and laughed. "Yes! I want an ironically small giant ball of twine. It'll sit on my desk and Tony can laugh at it."
They went inside. The shop was small, but appropriately homey, and he slapped down the fifteen outrageous bucks on the counter and declined the receipt. "Nah, I don't think it's coming back," he snickered at the cashier.
Darcy cooed over it and stuck it in her pocket. "Thanks. Just what I wanted!" She got up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. "You're getting scruffy, Sir."
He unlocked the Mustang and opened her door. "Yeah, well, this annoying someone I know wanted to take a detour rather than stop at a motel."
"Ooh, curbside service from an old-fashioned gentleman," she drawled as she slid into the passenger seat. "This girl can appreciate a rugged five o'clock shadow. She ain't no snob."
He shook his head in bemusement and shut her door, getting in the other side and starting the engine.
"And this car is doing it for me a little bit, if I'm being honest."
He raised one eyebrow. "Oh, yeah? She likes the healthy rumble of a V-8?"
She ran a hand over his thigh. "Mm-hmm."
He backed out of the space and pulled back out onto the highway. "I wonder if we should even hook back up with Route 66. I mean, it does have its own nationwide name and we do have people after us. Even under the radar, it's probably risky to stay on it for long."
They took back roads for the rest of the day, finally stopping at dusk at a motel just outside Topeka, where he sighed in relief as he shaved and she lounged on the bed, flicking through HBO stations. "How about Hot Mommas Like It Rough?" she called.
There was a short pause. Then he stuck his head out. "That's on HBO?"
She snickered. "No, there's nothing on HBO. Go figure. That's on the…Playboy Channel. Pay Per View." She looked at him and wiggled her eyebrows. "What d'ya say? Wanna mix it up a little?"
"Ugh." He rolled his eyes and went back to shaving.
"I'm kidding!" she cackled, tossing the remote down on the comforter and following him in. She sat down on the edge of the tub and watched him.
"What?" he finally asked, shifting self-consciously.
She shrugged. "Nothin'. Always liked watching Nathan shave when I was little—you know, before I figured out he was a dick."
He snorted, switching off the electric shaver and stowing it back in his bag. "That before they split up?"
She nodded. "Yeah. They both ended up being dicks, it turned out."
He approached and sat down next to her, shoulder to shoulder. She didn't match him—she was much shorter than he was. "If it's any consolation, mine weren't real great either."
She sighed, pulling a hand through her hair. "Lewis," she scoffed. "I think Barnes sounds good…"
"I want you to take the name because you want it, not because you feel like you should."
She set her head on his shoulder. "No. I want to."
He reached up to squeeze her knee and turned to kiss the top of her head. "We've gotta get home before you can start paperwork."
She chuckled. "Seriously—did we think we'd actually get a normal honeymoon? We can't even go on a regular date."
He snorted. "Yeah. Stupid us."
"We could, however, write a comprehensive review of the motels from Hawaii to Manhattan. Could make some money off of that."
He laughed. "Always thinking ahead, my Darcy."
"Well, you can't think in reverse, that's just—Whoa." She jumped, cutting herself off.
Her hands were glowing again, bright red.
Bucky crouched in front of her and studied the reaction with a curious frown. "Wow."
"Shit," Darcy swore.
"What does it feel like?" he asked softly, trying to diffuse her panic.
She bit her lip. "Hot. But cold. I dunno! And…and like…I dunno, like I could throw a car."
He held out his left hand.
She cringed back.
"You're not gonna hurt me, babe," he insisted.
Wincing, she set her hands to the vibranium—
And sparks flew like a Fourth of July firework in the tiny bathroom, the same reaction caused by Aldrich Killian in Hawaii.
She let go, flinching away.
Calm and cool, Bucky turned and drew one of his knives from his bag and cleanly slit a shallow cut along his forearm.
"What are you doing?!" she gasped, shocked.
"Let's see if you've maintained your healing ability." He offered it. "Go on. Quick now, or it'll heal on its own."
Sighing in frustration, she shook her head at his cool attitude to pain, but set her hands to his arm, around the cut, like she'd done with Tony's burn, not touching it directly, but outlining it with her fingers.
For a long few seconds, they sat there, waiting, staring down at the blood pooling up in the cut and leaking down his skin, dripping down onto the tiled floor in deep red drops, the color of a merlot they kept stocked in the fridge back home.
She made a grudging noise. "Jamie, this isn't going to—"
As she spoke, the cut disappeared, getting thinner and thinner, before disappearing entirely, the skin on his arm neatly closing the narrow seam.
"Wow," Bucky said again.
"Great, now it's going to end up on me," she complained, pulling away and staring down at her bare arm.
But nothing happened. Her arm was its usual smooth, porcelain self.
"Holy fuck," she muttered, eyes wide.
Bucky laughed—out loud. "Well, that's a step in the right direction, at least."
The sensation was like fingernails on a chalkboard or a creeping itch at the base of her spine, and she gritted her teeth against it, slamming her fist down against the porcelain edge of the tub.
With a loud snapping sound, it cracked, a three-inch spider web through the side as long and wide as her hand.
She gasped, jumping up to stare at it, her mouth open. "Oh, fuck."
They were silent for a moment, Bucky's hands cradling Darcy's elbows to keep her steady.
"Well," he said. "I think it's fair to say that your body is still, uh…working out all the kinks."
((()))
Things continued like this for the next week. They picked their way slowly down the highways, always watching their tail.
They stopped at a few more roadside attractions, and even a little free zoo where Darcy snapped a picture of Bucky with a llama that she swore had the same flat look of sarcasm that he usually wore. She continued to giggle at it later in the day. "It's even chomping on some hay! All crooked—look at his teeth!" she laughed, bubbly and carefree. "You're both so cute!"
He rolled his eyes.
Her hands would glow rebelliously at odd intervals. She'd nearly punch through a random motel room wall.
She woke him up once to warn him that their cover was blown, and they made a break for it, losing their tail in the middle of the night, headlights off, Darcy not needing any extra light to navigate back roads. "You must've been dreaming hard if I heard them before you did," she muttered, glancing in the rearview mirror.
Bucky's voice was grim as he palmed his SIG. "I was half-asleep, at best. I didn't hear a thing."
At one point, just outside St. Louis, they were nearly caught.
"I've never used anything long-range before, Jamie," Darcy chirped, cursing the high-pitched fear in her voice. "I'm no sniper."
Bucky's glance flicked from the rear-view mirror to her lap, where she was clutching his sawed-off. A dark smirk curled one side of his mouth. "I said to grab the Beretta, not the sawed-off," he teased, swerving as the dark Rover behind them tried to inch to their left on the deserted stretch of highway.
She swore under her breath and dug around in the backpack at her feet. "What does it say about us that this is becoming old hat?"
He snorted. "That we're never gonna get a normal honeymoon because we're not a normal couple?"
She jammed the shotgun back into the pack, snarling her frustration. "It's weird enough that you can even call us a couple. While I was in college, just the thought of a serious relationship gave me hives—now I'm married to a merc."
He chuckled, watching the mirror again, his eyes barely on the road in front of them. "Yeah, well, the merc still can't believe he actually had the balls to ask you."
She pulled out the Beretta and checked the clip. Full. She slammed it back shut again with the heel of her hand and glanced in the side mirror.
"Is it weird that the sight of you checking the magazine on a high-powered handgun really turns me on?" he asked suddenly into the disquiet of the cab.
She burst out laughing, throwing off her seatbelt as she turned to adjust her position in the seat so she could watch their pursuers approach. "Good. Now I know how to get your attention next time Mr. BroodyPants makes an appearance."
But he only snorted. "Just admit it—Mr. BroodyPants turns you on, too."
She let a small giggle escape. "What can I say? Some girls think the whole 'Wounded Bird' thing is hot."
But he didn't continue the joking mood. He was scowling at the mirror again. "How the fuck do they keep catching us?"
She sighed, adjusting her grip on the weapon. "I don't know."
"Tony's gotta be tearing his hair out by now, but I don't dare get a burner phone if they're managing to catch up to us without one!"
"It's just a few more states and we're home-free, though, right?"
Bucky snorted again. "Yeah, and we'll be bringing it all right home to Manhattan—a population of approximately one-and-a-half million people. No big deal."
She sighed again, deeper. "Yeah, well, that's where Tony comes in."
"Right, the man whose beach house we leveled. That guy."
She started chewing on her lower lip, the SUV getting larger and larger out the back windshield. "You know Tony doesn't care about that."
He shifted into fourth gear and gunned it harder, his eyes on their pursuers as well. "That's beside the point."
"I know."
"Get your seatbelt back on."
She frowned. "But—"
"I don't care if you're more indestructible now. I have no desire to watch you get thrown out the windshield, Darcy." His voice was low and dark.
She did as he told her, slinking down low in the seat again—
Just as a bullet popped against the back screen.
She jumped.
Scowling, he maneuvered and shifted into fifth, a grim smile curling one side of his mouth at the roar of the Mustang's engine, and his eyes narrowed on the team approaching behind them.
"Do we have the advantage of speed, then?"
Those cornflower eyes flicked back to the rearview mirror again, calculating, he was always calculating—it was so sexy. "Difficult to say. A Mustang's specialized for speed, but a Rover—why is it always a Rover?—is big. That means big engine. It might not matter so much how fast we go." He took a deep breath. "We've got a manual gearbox, though, that's good."
"Didn't even know you could drive stick."
A tiny smirk, there, at the corner of his mouth. "Only thing available back when."
She nodded. "Right. Yeah." She studied the view flying past, trees whipping by in blurs of color. "Sometimes I forget."
He did some fancy footwork and shifted again, smoothly, no lurch or drag to be found. "Forget what?"
She shut her eyes and rested her head against the headrest, just for a moment. "How old you are."
"Old enough to be your grandfather, you mean?"
"Only in terms of years, yes. Not really in terms of…age."
"To be honest, I was surprised that didn't bother you."
She surprised him again and smiled. "Actually, I thought it was sexy."
He snorted. "Why?"
She shrugged. "I dunno. You were…beyond all the stupid, cheap, bravado shit. I'd been there, done that. I wanted someone mature and secure—"
"Hardly secure, Darce."
"You were secure in who Bucky Barnes was, yes. I wanted…someone interested in more than a roll in the hay, you know?" She started fidgeting with the gun in her lap. "I'd had enough of men staring at my chest, and guys getting drunk and coming over for a little tap. My list of long-term relationships was short for a reason, you know?"
He nodded, eyes ahead.
"I wanted to be treated like someone other than the fun times girlfriend, I wanted to be treated like someone other than the stupid intern, just a go-fer. I wanted…"
"You wanted to be treated with respect," Bucky filled in for her, eyes flicking to the rearview again.
She shrugged. "I had respect. I mean, I—"
"No, you didn't."
She turned and looked at him, his hands loose on the wheel, deceptively relaxed.
"When you sat down across from me you moved like a girl that was used to not being taken seriously. So you'd learned, the hard way, to act the part so that people couldn't see you. The real you."
She stared at him, mouth opening in surprise.
"You wore your casual attitude and your fast talk like armor. If you rammed people like a freight train before they had a chance to form an opinion of you, they couldn't let you down. People can't let you down if you don't let them in."
She blinked, Tony's words sifting through her head, his opinion, what felt so long ago now, back in Hawaii, that Bucky had had to tunnel under her defenses. "I…"
"I get it," he said, his voice low. "I do that, too. And that's nothing compared to the armor I wore after I became Bucky Barnes again. I know how I was. How I still am, sometimes. I clam up tighter than a bank vault, I don't speak for hours at a time. I sleep like a toddler. I'm more manic than a rabid dog." He smirked. "Don't know how you even put up with me, half the time."
She started chewing on her lower lip and studied the gun in her lap as she slid her finger along the cool steel. "Well. You're my best friend and I'm in love with you, for starters."
He huffed out a small laugh. "You spoke like people's opinion of you was a foregone conclusion, and I figure it's probably because you got tired of looking for male approval."
She frowned, opening her mouth to argue, though, with what words, she wasn't sure. "Hey—"
"Daniel was the last straw. You broke the cycle. But the armor remained. Armor's heavy, it's hard to shrug off on your own." Finally, he turned to look at her, and his eyes telegraphed a hard-won lesson. "You need help."
She met his gaze. "You mean, like Erwin and Killian helped the last of your buried memories float to the surface?"
His expression went slack in surprise, his mask ripped off to reveal his vulnerable eyes, and for a moment, he looked helpless.
She tried to soften the broach in the topic with a gentle smile. "You can't hide from me, any more than I can hide from you."
Still stunned, he blinked at her, his hands steady as the Mustang plunged forward.
"You didn't think your behavior had changed? That I wouldn't notice? That I wouldn't put two and two together? Jamie…"
He blinked again, more slowly. "I…"
"You were acting like you did when we first met. Guarded. Stiff. Mournful. I left you to it. We…we come to each other when we're ready." She shrugged. "But sometimes you need a gentle push."
Their pursuers chose that moment to ram them from behind, throwing them forward as the Mustang jerked and protested, wheels squealing against the pavement, and smoke drifted up and past the windows.
"Shit," Bucky snapped, retrieving his fumbled focus. He tromped on the brakes, throwing the Mustang skidding around to face the other way, and the Rover twisted sideways. He yanked on the handle between their seats, throwing them into a hand brake turn straight out of Top Gear.
The air was filled with the sharp tang of burning rubber and the deafening squeal of protesting tires against the gripping pavement.
"Keep your head down," Bucky yelled—
But Darcy was already flicking the window control and sticking her arm out, determined to at least use their new position to their advantage, and something very…strange happened.
Time slowed as the car whipped around.
The wind sent her hair tumbling around her shoulders and face, but she barely noticed.
Her vision sharpened and her aim struck a clean line down the tuning fork of her right arm, and as she fired, the kick-back barely even registered in her rapidly firing brain.
Everything was rapid shutter release and bullet-time Matrix special effects.
A chill went up her spine, and she squeezed the trigger, watching the bullet ripple through the air, zing through the open window of the Rover, and easily pierce the passenger's temple, sending him slumping forward, dark, arterial blood streaming down his cheekbone.
There was a moment of still silence as the two vehicles sat, its occupants staring at each other in open shock and hostility.
She pulled her arm back in, all focus and calm. "Drive," she said.
Bucky didn't need telling twice, and he released the parking brake and threw the Mustang back into gear, smoothly taking flight again as the Range Rover recovered.
Neither of them spoke.
Bucky's eyes were tight and sharp on the rearview mirror.
Darcy focused hard on pushing down her sense of rising panic, but also the heady adrenaline rush of the unnamable thing she'd just done.
It wasn't guilt, no. She didn't feel bad for her potential killer-slash-kidnapper-slash hired gun. But the sci-fi movie effect was going to come back to bite her in the ass—in fact, it had just done so.
Bucky, of course, took it all in stride. "Keep that Beretta in your hand, dollface," he said.
He let the Rover catch up to them this time, one part curious, the other part just anxious to get this confrontation over with, not only so they could get someplace far away to rest, but also because he wasn't sure what the fuck had just happened and he wanted to check Darcy over—thoroughly.
He tightened his grip on the wheel, wincing for the poor sports car as the British SUV rammed them again—this time in an attempt to get ahead of them on the left, metal crunching between them. "Sonofabitch," he muttered under his breath, but finally the truck edged past, taking the front position.
He smiled.
"You turned the tables," Darcy said, her voice full of confusion, but also, he thought, a tiny bit of awe.
"Valuable move if you can manage it. Now I'm in pursuit of them and I can duck out at any point."
"But they can fire at us better from back here," she argued.
"Can they?"
She blinked, looking from him to the back bumper of the Rover Sport, then back to him again. "If I shoot through the gas tank, I can't really—"
"That's just a movie effect," he cut her off, nodding as she guessed correctly. "It'll leak, but it actually takes a lot to light fumes up, especially in motion. You can't make them spontaneously combust."
"Damn," she swore, a grin slowly stretching across her face.
"What's the smile for?" he asked, but he was already catching it.
She shrugged, checking her clip. "Oh, nothing. Just that we're like a team, now. Like, literally." She looked at him again, laughing softly. "And this adrenaline's gonna have to burn off somehow…" She raised one eyebrow at him.
He smirked.
She stared at the back end of the truck for a long moment, her hand clenched around the Beretta.
"Take a breath," Bucky coached, his voice low.
She did, slowly.
"Let it out. Go slow."
She did, nodding as the air rushed out through her mouth.
"Now loosen your grip. Clutching a weapon too tightly negatively affects your aim."
She tried to relax the stiffened muscles in her hand.
"Good. Focus. Peel everything back until it's just you and the weapon you're holding."
"Yes, Master Sergeant," she snarked.
He huffed out an annoyed breath.
"Just drive, Soldier Boy," she said.
Laughing, he gunned it, giving chase.
The Rover was fast, but this time, it didn't have much advantage. The Ford was faster off the line and they caught up to them in just a few short minutes, Darcy tempted to climb out the window and hang out, action movie style, sort of like Bucky had done just a few weeks ago.
"Don't. Even. Think about it," he suddenly spoke, his voice low and threatening.
She smirked at the sensation of him reading her mind. "You know, your Winter Soldier voice doesn't scare me—it just turns me on."
He rolled his eyes, his jaw set in irritation. "I mean it. I've been doing this a lot longer than you."
"Ugh, but it would be so bad-ass—you did it! You're bad-ass! You wonder why you get so many looks from girls when we go out for coffee? That's why! You're a sexy, bad-ass throwback with a metal arm!"
"Darcy, for God's sake—are we really gonna talk about my Calvin Klein potential right now?!"
She huffed. "I'm just making a point—you could make a killing if you did some modeling. No…pun intended."
The Rover slammed on the brakes—hard, sliding to a stop in a way that she figured took points off as far as the Top Gear guys were concerned.
But it forced Bucky to crunch down on the brakes as well, swearing again as he did so.
The driver's window rolled down and a man all in black ducked out with a very large gun.
Both sides of the backseat were occupied similarly.
"Jamie…" Darcy murmured as they stared.
"Hold on," he said, his voice low with concentration as he slammed it into reverse and they careened backward, the G-forces pinning her to the passenger seat, the scenery rushing back through time out her window.
She grabbed hard at the arm rests, squeezing her eyes shut—
And he pulled on the parking brake again, sending them spinning around the other way.
She gasped as they rocked to a stop. "You could drag race for a living," she murmured weakly.
He gave a soft little laugh in the sudden quiet, watching as the Rover recovered yet again, turning around in pursuit.
"God, they're dogs," he muttered, throwing it back in gear and heading straight for them. "Alright. You wanna play? We can play."
Darcy's eyes went wide. "I thought you were supposed to go in the other direction?!" she shrieked as she realized what he was doing, her voice nearly drowned out as a red sedan passed them, swinging wildly to stay out of the way, its horn blaring the Doppler effect as it passed, before fading again.
But Bucky was calm, his hands steady on the wheel as they screamed closer and closer to the SUV.
Realizing that their quarry perhaps wasn't as stable as they'd been led to believe, the other truck put on a burst of speed in reverse, the engine positively roaring as they fled.
Bucky chuckled.
"Jamie!" she said again, grabbing his arm. "What the fuck are you doing?!"
"You trust me?"
Again, with the Aladdin lines, making her a gooey puddle of Disney cute at his feet. "Ugh!" she grumbled, holding on.
But he broke just shy of the truck, minimizing the damage to the front end as he slammed into the Range Rover's grill.
Unfortunately, their pursuers were either in too much shadow or were wearing partial black gear, their features unable to be clearly deciphered and committed to memory.
But the eyes of their driver were clear enough, wide and shocked.
The two in the back leaned around and began firing, first at their tires—which they missed—then at the windshield, the bullets pinging uselessly around.
"You're a shit shot!" Bucky yelled, knowing the driver would be able to read his lips through the glass. "Get some fucking professionals."
"They can't have you, remember?" Darcy commented. "You're mine."
Another bullet struck the windshield, and it cracked, the spider web spreading quickly across the glass in front of Darcy's face.
"Damn it," Bucky snarled, but he didn't ease his chase.
Another bullet, one Darcy couldn't see around the fractured safety glass, and it split the skin of her shoulder open in a shallow graze, slicing a sketch of blood to the surface and dying her t-shirt crimson red. "Ah!" she yelped, more in surprise than against the sudden flash of pain.
Bucky started swearing again, rapid-fire, phrases that sounded old, raw things she'd never heard before pocked roughly with violent Russian, a little French that she could just barely identify as she pressed the heel of her hand against the damp heat on her right arm, cringing.
"Hang on, Darce," he told her.
"Fuckers," she growled, cringing, her temper flaring up out of nowhere, a familiar tingling sensation creeping through her fingers. She raised the Beretta—
"Not through the windshield, Darcy!" he shouted, his human hand inching toward the emergency brake again.
"Shit!"
The Rover slammed on the brakes, and they rammed into them unexpectedly.
The Beretta went tumbling out of her grip and was lost somewhere in the floor well at her feet. "Son of a fucking—!" She slammed her hands down on the dashboard in a fit of rage, her vision reddening—
The glow of her hands arced in an electrical zap up the dash and rippled the windshield, sending glass everywhere. It buckled into the front of the Range Rover, throwing them off, the Mustang shooting backward as Bucky fought for grip. The Rover's grill warped, a sizzling sound began issuing from the truck, and an invisible force of air slammed the SUV forward, careening helplessly on its two left tires.
They squealed in protest, but the attempt at rapid overcorrection came too late, and the boxy truck slammed down on its driver's side, rolled once, and tipped into the ditch, hissing.
Bucky recovered the Mustang enough to get it into a controlled skid, and they drifted across the oncoming lane of traffic and swung to a rough stop, in the lane, and even facing the right way, tires smoking.
Breathless, they looked at each other—
And the Range Rover exploded in a cloud of orange and black smoke, huffing gasoline fumes rising into the air as the metal warped and fused in the ditch.
Darcy jumped, letting a gasp of shock escape as the heat reached them, billowing in the breeze through the space where their windshield used to be.
There was no movement from within.
The silence was echoing and boundless as they sat there, watching, breathless.
The air was filled with the smell of burning rubber, toasted leather, and lit gasoline fumes.
It crackled as it was engulfed and two more, smaller, explosions popped free as chemicals mixed and reacted to their own combustion against each other.
"Look at that," Darcy muttered, watching dazedly, "I did make them spontaneously combust."
Bucky nodded. "You did."
He put it in gear and drove away.
((()))
They ditched the trashed Mustang, with regret, two hours later, and she stood restlessly by, in the dark shadow of a Missouri sunset as he hot-wired a black Chevy Tahoe to replace it, gripping the recovered Beretta in her left hand and clutching at her right shoulder the best she could. Her arm burned. What was truly disconcerting wasn't the discomfort, but the knowledge that what was a mere prickling, burning sensation to her would be unbearable pain to an…ordinary human.
Neither of them spoke.
She stood in the dark splash of a building housing a deli and an art studio and watched the muscles in his human arm work, accompanied by the soft whirring of his left, his skin gleaming with a light sheen of summer sweat and drawing her hungry eyes.
Whatever had happened back there had awoken a strange pulse in her and she swallowed back the nearly unbearable—quickly bordering on painful—urge to jump his bones, right there, in the alleyway, in plain view of whoever happened beneath that nearest streetlight. She was agitated, and usually agitation served to simply piss her off further, but whatever was assaulting her veins was making her a volatile, inhuman…thing.
She wanted to drag and pull at his powerful body, she wanted to rake her nails over his skin and draw blood, she wanted him to—
She clenched her jaw, pushing down on the tightening in her belly.
"Stop grinding your teeth," he said, his voice low and soothing.
She swallowed again, shutting her eyes and tipping her head back, trying to take a deep breath and focus. "Sorry."
He worked in silence for a few more minutes.
She wasn't sure what he was doing. She'd timed him with the Mustang, and she knew for a fact that he could hotwire in under two minutes, but she didn't ask what he was doing now, here, at the backend of the Tahoe. She clenched her hands into fists, simply trying to focus on that, and nothing else.
"It makes you feel high, I know, alive and unbeatable, but it'll eat you alive if you give it the ammunition of your resistance. The trick is not to fight it so hard," he spoke again a moment later, still focused on his task.
She took another breath.
"You try and fight it, it'll take you down, quickly and efficiently. The more you struggle, the tighter it tightens the noose around your neck."
She growled out her frustration in her throat, pacing one way, then back again behind the truck, her sandals slapping on the pavement. "I can't decide if I want to rip something to shreds or fuck you against that wall."
He didn't react to her vulgar choice of words; in fact, he didn't particularly react at all, as though she'd pointed out that her favorite color was blue. He didn't laugh, either, which she was grateful for. "Perfectly normal."
"How do you even know what's normal here, Jamie?!" she snapped. The shock of blowing up a Range Rover Sport on a deserted strip of highway was wearing off, and fast. "I've got a foreign cocktail of shit in my blood right now. None of this is normal!"
"Try and keep your voice down, baby. We're trying to lay low," he said, his voice deep and smooth.
"Don't 'baby' me right now, Jamie! I just blew up a fucking SUV!"
"Darcy…"
She pressed the back of her shaking hand to her forehead and winced in pain. "I just blew up a British import with my bare hands and I'm starting to lose my grip on this, Jamie, I don't know what the fuck is happening to me, and my shoulder really fucking hurts, and—"
And she was suddenly pressed back—hard—against the Tahoe, Bucky moving so quickly he was a blur of dim color in the sunset, and he pinned her there with his body, his eyes dark as he hitched her wrists against the cool paint job. "Darcy," he said again, but he didn't sound angry, or even frustrated, or even forceful. He just sounded low and soothing, like he was speaking to a wounded animal that needed coaching and comfort. "Darcy."
She stared at him, her heart pounding out a tattoo against her ribcage and she knew he could feel it against his belly. She was breathless, and she wasn't sure if it was from recent events, her physical desire for him, or both, the sharpness encroaching from all sides. She felt vaguely claustrophobic and was unsurprised that even in this new state she was slowly finding herself in, he was still capable of overpowering her with ease.
"Darcy, solnishka," he whispered, releasing her wrists to cup her face. "Let go. It's alright."
His voice was a bright, soft thing against the inside of her skull, comforting and supportive, encouraging but not too syrupy sweet.
"I'm here. It's alright. I won't let it devour you."
She settled her hands on his chest and swallowed thickly again, forcing it down.
"Don't do that," he coached. "Don't push it down. Let it out. Trust me." He used his grip as leverage and forced her chin to tip so she had nowhere to look but his face. "Focus on me."
She wriggled against his hard body, flinching at the sharp arousal it drew out of her, and she bit her lip as everything in her strained toward him, her core tightening further.
He didn't seem to react. She knew he kept a tight leash on his self-control. "Focus on me."
She wished he'd loosen the slack a little.
"We can't go at each other like two animals in this alleyway, Darcy, and I can't have you suffering a panic attack while I'm trying to steal someone's car. Look at me."
She flinched again.
"Look at me, solnishka," he repeated, his voice softening further, in that warm way he had when he used those Russian terms of endearment, like velvet on her skin and she shamelessly managed to get a knee between his legs, pressing up—
His jaw hardened and his voice followed suit. "Darcy. Look at me."
She did.
God, his eyes were blue, bright sky at evening, just before the sunset on a lake.
"I just need you to hold on for a few more minutes and then we're out of here, okay?" he soothed her. "We'll be out of here and we can crawl into another hole in the ground and I can take a look at your shoulder, okay?"
Her breathing unsteady, she nodded.
He slowly released her, and went back to his task, which, she found out five minutes later, had revolved around disconnecting the brake lights so they wouldn't be as easy to trail in the dark.
((()))
An hour later, they were holed up in another motel room, this one done up in stately blues and the television had been left on HBO, where a season three episode of Game of Thrones was playing. Darcy narrowed her eyes at it, suspicious, as Bucky studied the wound on her right shoulder.
"Stop clenching your jaw," he gently scolded, his fingers barely there on the skin of her upper arm. The light-as-air touch only made the flush in her body spike higher and she wriggled, searching for a comfortable position on the bed.
He leaned over, apparently nonplussed, and flicked on the bedside light.
Jon Snow came on the screen, in an ice cave on the television, wearing layers of fur.
She sighed, immediately identifying the episode and rolling her eyes, casting around for the remote. Disappeared in their flurry of activity, getting inside under cover of darkness.
"Just a graze," he confirmed, his fingers pressing and probing harder now. "Skin's already knitted up again."
She shut her eyes, trying to ignore the sensations wracking her and look at it clinically. What the frickety-frack was going on?
"You might have a faint scar…" he offered.
"Don't care," she murmured.
He got up and went into the bathroom. "Let me just clean it, okay?"
The furs were gone, now, and Jon was naked on the screen with Ygritte, and they were kissing madly, all wrapped up in each other.
"Oh, fucking hell," she complained, under her breath.
He still heard her. "What's wrong?" he asked as he came back into the room.
She scowled, sighing heavily.
He followed her gaze to the TV, studied it for a moment, and smirked, giving her a sympathetic look as he found the remote and shut it off, just as the sex started. "There. Better?"
She gave him a baleful look. "No."
He chuckled softly and sat down again beside her. "Sorry."
She ran her other hand down her face tiredly, trying to breathe, deeply and slowly. "God, did this happen to you? Do you remember wanting to tear things up like this?! I've never felt like this before!"
He ran a hand soothingly down her arm. "Not quite like this. You're obviously hopped up on the adrenaline surge though."
She slipped out of his grip and folded her legs up, pressing her hands against her face and hiding there against her thighs. "Kill me. I don't want this." Warmth touched her face, and she jerked back as her hands began to glow again, like they were protesting the idea. Her whole body ached mercilessly.
And beneath it all, the vision of a burned out SUV, hollow and smoking in a ditch.
"Jamie…"
He began washing the dried blood and ick off her arm, gently, though the washcloth was rough from overuse. "I know, baby."
"Everything hurts. My whole body is one giant throb."
He set the washcloth aside and ran his fingers over his work. "I know. That I do remember. That's not the Extremis. Whatever's going on inside you, your two doses are mingling and reacting, and some weird side effects are…to be expected."
"I just wish it would do what it was gonna do and be done with it. But it's like every time I discover some new ability, it starts all over again and my body needs to…recalibrate!" She slumped over on her back on the bed. "I'm tired, Jamie…"
He set his hand on her belly, inadvertently making her scars there ache and tug at her libido even further. "I know."
She looked at him, really looked at him, studying his face, his features, tired but warm and open. His eyes were especially bright today, a fathomless cornflower blue that she seriously thought she could convince herself to get lost in. "I wanna go home. Don't you wanna go home?"
He nodded. "I'll get you there as fast as I can. I'm working on it."
She set a hand over his. "I know."
They shared a shower, and when she inevitably got impatient at his affectionate machinations, he just smiled and calmed her with a look. He deliberately took his time working up to the actual sex, but her satisfaction was nothing less than bone-shakingly, toe-curlingly intense—and ongoing. He didn't stop there, and she lost track of how many rounds they went, barely resting in between.
She tugged her fingers through his hair, glancing at the digital clock in the dark. "Oh, God, it's after three," she said, her voice hoarse. She cleared her throat and wove her fingers back through his hair again.
He curled his fingertips into the soft skin at the small of her back and pressed his mouth to her left hip. "It was late when we got here," he murmured. His eyes flashed in the dark like a cat's and a passing car's headlights through the slats in the drapes blinked across his face, revealing a crooked smirk curling one corner of his mouth. "Feeling better?"
She took a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh that sounded, surprisingly, as relaxed as she felt. "You know your way around, that's for sure."
He chuckled softly, nuzzling his face against her belly, his stubble stinging against her scars. They were fading already, leaving tiny white welts behind. It was funny, she thought, that the only physical sign of any vulnerability on her was what attracted a surprisingly large amount of his attentions, whether he realized it or not. He was like a content puppy, pressing his face against her.
Her White Knight.
"If you could go back and change something, what would it be?" she murmured, running her fingers through his hair. God, it was soft, she could seriously do it all day. Suddenly, she was so ironically content, she never wanted to move from under him, where her legs her pinned. She marveled that she could be so shamelessly comfortable with someone as she was with him.
He pressed his mouth to a particularly raw scar and looked up at her, his face disturbingly clear in the dark. "Nothing."
She jerked her head back to stare at him, frowning, confused. "What do you mean, 'nothing'?"
He shrugged, awkwardly, in his prone position. "I mean, nothing."
She blinked. "You wouldn't change…anything?! You?!"
Another funny shrug, his left shoulder whirring gently. "No."
She laid there for a moment blinking. "Well…why the hell not?"
He shrugged again, looking away in that funny way he had that told her he was embarrassed and uncomfortable with the current topic.
She narrowed her eyes, studying his body language, and nudged a knee up, against his hip. "Spill, Soldier Boy."
He smiled self-consciously, burying his face in her waistline again. "You'll laugh."
She tugged at his hair. "No, I won't." She shifted her hip and he retreated a bit, letting her adjust. "C'mon."
He huffed out a sigh and set his chin on her hip. "It's weird, right?"
She nodded. "Yes, in fact, it is. Very."
"And it's gonna sound trite."
She nodded again. "I'm counting on it."
He sighed again, rolling his eyes. "Right. But…"
She raised her eyebrows. "Go ahead…"
"There's no…guarantee…that whatever I would change wouldn't alter the fact that…I…met you," he said, his voice low and quiet, sober as he looked up at her.
They shared a long look.
"So, you're saying you're a believer in fate."
He pressed another kiss to her hip. "Mm. Guess I am."
She watched him, content and still, eyes closed against her body. "I guess that's the only way to make sense of what happened to you, isn't it?"
He opened his eyes. "You're not a believer in fate?"
She shrugged. "Guess I wasn't, really, until I met Jane." Her eyes tightened at the mention of the astrophysicist. "But…I mean, I steered a camper van straight into a Norse God who'd been kicked outta the house by his asshole father, and then I tazed him because I thought he was a drunk, high creeper. Then things got…a little…weird. So. I guess I don't have any way to explain that, either, other than a work of…fate."
"I mean, I don't think it's all…laid out," he continued. "I mean, you make a choice, and your path…delineates. You know what I mean?"
"So you're a Many Worlds sorta geek," she said, smirking.
His ears went pink. "I guess."
"So, somewhere there's another Bucky and another Darcy, and they're living in Upstate New York with a Passat and two foster dogs? He's an investment banker, and she's a corporate lawyer and they have a vacation house on the coast of Maine?"
He looked up at her. "Is that…what you want?"
She barked out a laugh, and it sounded sharp in the soft darkness of the room, the summery breeze through the window. "God, no. But I guess there has to be a world out there where you're not the Winter Soldier. Right? None of that happened."
"I guess. That's why I wouldn't change anything. If none of the stuff that happened still happens, how can you still be a…a guarantee?"
She buried her hands in his hair again. "Well, I could turn your argument against you and postulate that if you're a believer in fate, then we're star-crossed, meant-to-be, Romeo and Juliet lovers, right?"
He cocked a brow. "Romeo and Juliet were idiots who killed themselves over a misunderstanding."
She scoffed. "That's beside the point."
He chuckled. "Are we, though?"
Something about this sobered her, fast. "Well." She stumbled. "I don't want anyone else. You're…it…for me. I wouldn't have married you otherwise, and…and, I dunno, it all felt sort of…destined…to me." She blushed and cursed that he could see it in the dark.
But he only nodded. "Mm. You felt too good to be true when you sat down on that lab stool, I'll tell you that much."
"Well, you were pretty lost in your head, there, Soldier Boy. How do you know I was there at all, and not a figment of your—"
"Psychosis?" he offered.
She tugged at his hair. "Stop it. No, I was going to say 'imagination'."
"Oh, I misunderstood," he teased.
She pulled harder. "Ah, I forgot, that's a thing with you, having your hair pulled, isn't it?"
Instead of another kiss, he rasped his teeth along the jutting bone of her left hip.
She squirmed against him. "Stop it," she whined. "I can't take anymore, seriously. I don't think I've got anything left. You bled me dry, you vampire."
He started nipping his way along her torso.
She squealed as she wriggled beneath him, but was trapped by his weight, and that arm, which he'd wrapped around her waist, the now-warm metal smoothness of his fingers pressing into her skin. She couldn't even slide her legs free.
"I'll make a wager that you aren't," he contradicted, giving her a dark and promising look.
He won the bet.
((()))
Tony scowled at his computer screen.
It would appear your hunch was incorrect, Sir, JARVIS said, the automated voice sounding, if Tony's ears weren't playing tricks on him, a bit regretful.
"Yeah, I got that, buddy, thanks," he said flatly, pushing back from his desk. "Any other stupid ideas?"
Triangulating any residual signal loss between here and Oahu was a bit of a long shot, Sir.
Tony narrowed his eyes. "I don't like your tone, J."
A pause. Apologies, Sir. And usually humor serves to distract you so well.
Tony sighed, flopping back in his desk chair and tipping his head lazily back to stare at the ceiling tiles. Guilt was a hard lump in his chest, and though he tried to push it down—Steve was right, Darcy would smack him—it was sharp, with a jagged edge.
He took a deep breath, then let it out, slowly, through his nose, trying to rationalize.
James Barnes was a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them. And though half the team discounted him ninety percent of the time, the man was capable of wiping the floor with each and every one of them with minimal effort—with the obvious exceptions of Thor and a pissed-off Bruce, of course. The fact that he didn't, even when they treated him like dirt should've been all the proof they needed that he was on their side. Not to mention the fact that he took all of their harsh judgment lying down, and quiet. He rarely defended himself.
Darcy did all that for him—and against his wishes, most of the time.
For God's sake, the guy had enlisted, deliberately putting himself between their grandparents and Hitler. No matter what had happened in the interim, that man was still in there somewhere.
Even Tony Stark was capable of putting things firmly in the past and leaving them there.
The man was a fucking force.
And the look in his eyes when he looked at Darcy…like he was a drowning man and she was the buoy…like she held the roadmap in her hands…she wasn't any port in a storm for him—she was the only port.
If anyone was capable of keeping Darcy safe in the chaos, it was the Winter Soldier—or the man who used to be the Winter Soldier. Was he still the Winter Soldier?
Tony had never dared ask him much about his scarred past.
The details he'd managed to glean—accidentally—from Darcy were more than enough—sometimes, too much. And besides, whenever he did bring it up, Bucky winced like he was waiting for the proverbial punch, as though the first place he went was his murder of the Starks.
And that said nothing of his worry over Romanoff, too. She was out there—alone—playing Cat and Mouse, looking for those two in the blizzard. Something happened to her and Rogers would flip.
He felt so fucking useless. He was out of options.
He'd checked tracking devices, he'd checked cars, he'd check the beach house so many times he was starting to think of redecorating ideas himself, for God's sake.
"Pull it together, Stark. If she was dead, you'd know it by now. Buck's keeping his head down, just like any other soldier," he muttered to himself, pressing his hands to his face.
"I'm sure they're fine, Stark," a voice suddenly spoke, quite near.
Tony might have made a noise that sounded vaguely like, "Gah!" and jumped a foot out of his rolling chair, grappling and scrabbling at it before it careened across the room on its wheels. "Seriously?!"
Jane Foster, Astrophysicist, stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest as she watched him with a bemused expression. She held a small stack of papers in one hand and eyed him with a raised eyebrow. "On edge?" she offered.
Immediately, Tony felt his hackles rise. The last time he'd spoken to the scientist, she'd been in the middle of a row with Darcy, using sharp words to make her opinion quite clear on the matter of her engagement to Bucky. It hadn't left Tony with a good taste in his mouth, and though he heard Pepper in his head telling him to be cordial, he did feel a small tic in his shoulder as he looked at her. "You could say that."
"I'm sure Darcy's fine," she allowed, shrugging. "She's with Bucky, after all."
His short patience since this had all started chose that moment to really take its toll, and he clenched his jaw, that tic of annoyance making his shoulder jerk again.
Jane, of course, caught it. "What?"
He sighed, reaching up to pull a hand down his face. "Nothing, Foster, nothing. Just…I don't get you. Okay? I don't. I don't fucking get you at all."
She jerked, her expression twisting. "What's your problem?"
He pulled up another screen on his computer and with a flick of his hand, tossed the security cam footage up on the holo-display. "It's just that the whole building is in an uproar—you're so-called best friend has been kidnapped—likely tortured at some point in the near-past—but the best you've got is a shrug and, 'I'm sure she's fine—she's with Bucky, after all'—like you haven't spent the last half a year bitching and moaning about the guy." He threw his hands up as he crossed the room to the blue image hanging in the air. "I just—I can't wrap my head around it—and that's with an MIT degree."
She leaned on his desk, scowling. "And graduating Summa cum Laude doesn't prepare you to understand the female mind—is that what you're saying?"
He snorted, grabbing the image and turning it one way, then the other. He hated that he had time-lapse footage of the whole mess but he could do nothing with it. "Hey—don't make this a Feminism debate, Foster. I give Darcy free-reign. The girl can do whatever she wants. I'm not like that. This is about you not giving two shits about the team you're supposed to be working with."
"Hey, Tony, I've mocked up those slides we were looking a—" Bruce said as he came breezing into the room, but stopped as he saw Jane's expression. "Oh." His lab coat fell still around him as he hesitated near the doorway.
"Banner," Jane said, gesturing. "Perfect timing—would you say I've been acting like I don't give—what was it?—'two shits' about the team for the past six months?"
Bruce jerked, eyebrows bumping up. "Uuhhh…I'm not…I'm not really looking to get in the middle of—"
"Just say it, Banner," Jane snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Uh, yes," he finally landed, wincing belatedly as he stuck his hands in his pockets.
"Really?" Jane cocked her head and nailed him to the wall with her baleful frown. "Is that so?"
Bruce shuffled a bit, shrugging. "Well, Darcy's been…quiet. I guess." He nodded. "Yes, quiet. She's been…not quite herself."
Tony shook his head and swiped at the holo-image, sweeping the next one into place, a still of the beach house's front patio with the screen door hanging off one hinge. "Understatement of the year."
"Well, of course she hasn't been herself," Jane argued. "With the serum in her blood, she's been—"
"The last time I spoke to her, it wasn't about the serum," the doctor interrupted. "She, uh…mentioned inviting you over before they left on their trip, and, apparently…"
"Apparently you asked if someone in particular would be around and when you were told he would—as it is partly his apartment—you declined the offer," Tony cut in, his words sharp and cutting.
Looking hopelessly awkward, Bruce nodded, glancing at everything but the astrophysicist as he bounced on the balls of his feet. "Right. That."
Jane threw her arms up. "Well, it's not like—"
"You haven't made your feelings on the matter clear?" Tony interrupted again. "Nah, it wasn't like that at all."
Jane stood there, shaking her head.
"Son of a bitch," Tony muttered under his breath. He'd have caught more than just post-event house trauma had he had the security cameras pointing into the damn house!
Bruce approached and stood there, studying the image as well.
"I…have trouble…trusting him," Jane offered a moment later, sounding apprehensive.
Tony snorted again. "Well, you're not the only one—you and Hill should form a club."
Bruce smirked.
"Seriously," Jane insisted. "I mean, you guys are okay with him?!"
Tony shrugged. "He fought the Nazis, Foster. What else has the guy gotta do?"
She huffed. "Bruce?"
Banner turned to give her a sheepish sort of look. "I hardly have any room to criticize anyone, Jane. And besides—he sort of reminds me of me. Like he's waiting for…" He didn't finish, offering a placating sort of look before turning back to the security footage. "Definitely looks like Extremis damage to me."
Tony pulled a hand down his face again and blinked hard—tiredly—at the image. "What sort of effects might that stuff have on her in her condition?"
"I—"
"But you're okay with him—and Darcy?!" Jane interrupted their postulating. "I mean, Stark—you—you…" She appeared to be grasping at straws. "You feel like—"
"Like she's my daughter?" he offered, turning to glare at her. "Yes. What's your point, Foster?"
She gave him an exasperated look and huffed again. "Well, you're okay with the two of them?! Together?!"
Tony sighed, finally turning and giving her his full attention. "Foster. Let me explain something to you: Darcy is a big girl. I love her to pieces, yes. But she's a big girl. And that means she's capable of making her own choices. She does not need a parent to look out for her. The fact that she doesn't mind me doing it is wonky enough." He gave Bruce a look.
"But you do care! And you see no problem with her and Bucky?!"
Tony's eyes drooped shut for just a split second. God, he had a splitting headache starting to throb in his forehead and she was going to smack at it until he screamed. "Foster, Bucky is an adult as well, and whether you like it or not, the two of them are together. In fact, I'd say they're so together that you ought to just accept it, because no amount of bitching is going to change it—they're solid. Capiche?"
She scowled. "You just think they are. How can he possibly even…?"
"You think someone who might be fragmented is incapable of knowing what he's feeling?" Bruce asked, then, so softly and so pointedly, that for a moment, the room was silent.
Jane stared at him, mouth open, hearing her own mistake. "I didn't mean—"
"Yes," Bruce interrupted. "You did."
She snapped her mouth shut, standing there, staring at them both.
"I've killed people, Jane," the doctor said, matter-of-factly. "Bucky knows what that feels like. It's a guilt that you can't put down. It sticks. And if you think that Bucky is okay with that, I can guarantee to you that he isn't. Have you read his medical file?"
Jane backpedaled rapidly. "Well, no, but—"
"Because if you had, then you'd know that his PTSD is record scale. His trauma was off the charts, Jane. Night terrors. Flashbacks. Rapid onset memory triggers. Depression. Anxiety. Panic attacks. Paranoia. Everything you'd expect from someone who was—"
"But how can you even prove what he went through to begin with?!" she snapped. "Where's the scientific proof? Brainwashing is just a working theory."
Tony blinked. "You love Thor?"
She gave him a stupid look at the rapid change in subject. "Of course I love Thor."
Tony shrugged. "Prove it."
She blinked back at him. "Well, I—" She jerked, staring at him. "I…" She frowned.
"You can't, can you?" the inventor said, raising his eyebrows at her. "You can't prove that any more than Bucky can prove that what he did was under someone else's influence and manipulation, can you?"
She sighed. "Well…"
"The difference, of course, being that the fact that you can't prove it doesn't leave a hole in you the size of South America, and the idea that there must be a reason that you have memories you have no recollection of putting in your own head. That you were tortured for years on end, that you were manipulated and bent to someone else's will."
She sighed.
"You know, the first time Darcy had one of her episodes, it took me ten minutes to get in to see her, he was so protective of her. And when she joked about going back in time and I offered to do the same for him, keep him from falling off that train—" He smiled at the memory—"he refused. Falling out of that train was something that could 'stay there', he said."
She frowned. "Why?"
Tony shrugged again, looking thoughtful and sad. "Because fate put him here. Put her in his path. That tells me that he'd be willing to do it all again—all of…that…just to make sure that he didn't miss her."
She stood there, staring at him.
"So, yeah. I'm okay with them. And frankly, it's no one else's business. They all like to joke about her living in the lion's den, but none of them are brave enough to look him in the face, are they?"
Jane flinched.
"Far be it for you to throw stones, hm?"
Bruce clapped a hand on Tony's back. "We should get back to this, Stark."
"I just worry about her," she finally said, her voice low. "With him."
"That just means you've never really looked at them," Tony snapped, his eyes cold. "Doesn't it?"
