Leaving On A Jet Plane MarvelLitChick

Chapter Management
Chapter 17
: Don't You Wanna Stay

Summary: Hello! I'm back! A little late, sorry guys! I'll make this short and sweet: I'm on vacation for the next week and a half, so I might even post another chapter in the next few days. No promises. This one's pretty compact at eighteen pages, that's about two scenes. Sorry if that's a bit short, but I think the two scenes really pack a punch. They really set the stage for the third part of the story, here, so get those brain's turning! Again, anyone with ideas, throw 'em my way. Hope you all saw the Thor 3 trailers out there (I loved the Loki's reveal and I seriously keep trying to think up ways to write him so it won't feel unoriginal-he's always been my favorite) and I hope you're all enjoying your Game of Thrones (I know I am, and I think Lady Olenna's an even bigger badass than before!) Anyway! Hope you guys like this one. There's some action, followed by some angst. Let me know how you like! Love y'all!
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Bucky hooked his finger around the upper edge, and quietly shuffled the page, turning it as deftly as possible.

Darcy sighed in her sleep beside him.

He winced, waiting for her to wake. She was such a light sleeper now, he was hard pressed not to wake her just shifting in the bed. Half the time, now, she'd lurch awake, eyes wide in panic.

But she just settled deeper into her pillow and stilled again.

He smiled, smoothing the next page of Harry Potter and continuing on. He'd read it twice already, but it was all he'd grabbed two weeks ago, for Darcy to distract herself with. Besides, this one was the best one and he didn't mind rereading it, even at two in the morning.

Again, the cool, cloying sensation of homesickness tingled through him, and he swallowed, frowning at the feeling of suction in his chest.

He could almost pretend—here, in this spare, dusty motel room—that they were home, in their Stark Tower suite, the New York skyline out their window and Darcy asleep across the room while he read in his favorite chair in the corner, turning pages and listening to the soft sound of her breathing.

But they weren't home.

They were in some cold, random truck stop motel in the Middle-Of-Nowhere, Illinois. They'd spent the day staring out at nothing but flat fields, some with corn, some without, and Darcy had fiddled with the radio, searching out good music that she could sing along with at the top of lungs from the passenger seat.

He smirked.

At least she was finding ways to have fun with this, no matter how small they were.

He looked down at her again, a lock of her waving brown hair fallen over her face. His fingers itched to sweep it back, behind her ear, but he resisted the urge.

She was so heartbreakingly beautiful, sometimes looking at her hurt. Sometimes, just the idea of her hurt.

That he couldn't have met her then.

That things had turned out the way they had.

That it felt as though she had given up so much just for him.

He still wasn't sure he was comfortable with that—in fact, he knew he wasn't comfortable with it. Half the people in that building flinched when they saw him, and while he had come to expect it, it bothered him that Darcy invoked a similar reaction, if not one that bordered on ridicule.

It was odd, he thought, that an organization that thrived on the earth's most sensitive secrets could find it so hard to believe something they hadn't seen with their own eyes.

He wasn't sure what else he could do to prove to them all that he was…while maybe not entirely sane, certainly stable.

Darcy's voice in his head chided him softly at the idea that he wasn't lucid.

But these new memories in his head certainly weren't helping, and he worried they were getting in the way of him keeping her safe.

He hadn't gotten a burner phone.

He'd checked each and every one of their vehicles so far for anything resembling a tracking device.

Darcy had no marks on her.

So how were they finding them, over and over, so consistently?

And what did they want? They'd already lost her. They had to know that Bucky would defend her to the death, and they knew killing him would be highly difficult…So.

Where did that leave them?

Groaning softly, he tossed the book aside and pulled a hand tiredly down his face. He just wanted to go home, sleep in their bed, maybe a little sex in the shower…Was that really so much to ask—

He jerked, a sound making him cock his head, his ear turned to the parking lot outside their window, where the curtains were thin and filmy, perfect for spying through.

Nothing to see, and he narrowed his eyes at the large picture window, considering.

Very gently, he eased off the bed, snatching up his discarded t-shirt as he went. Good thing he'd left his lounge pants on.

There it was again. A car door?

A cocking rifle?

A detonator?

"Get it together, Barnes," he muttered under his breath, retrieving his trusty SIG from the front table and folding his human hand around it. He still couldn't decide—after all these years—if it was a good thing or a bad thing that his dominant hand had been the one to remain human.

Funny, too, that even the mechanical left hadn't made him ambidextrous. He did have a rhythm down, an instinctive functionality to lean on that left side during a fight. But he still found himself relying on his right all too often, his guns just finding themselves there as though they felt more comfortable against the heat of his human skin.

He didn't need to check the clip. He'd just done that before he'd gotten in bed, along with threading on his silencer. Just in case.

He'd learned the hard way, after all…

But his index finger folded around the trigger and settled there, steady and sure.

Another sound—this one definitely a car door. It was soft, meant to keep quiet, but it didn't work against his enhanced hearing.

And there it was—the adrenaline rushed out and through his blood, caught on the rapid current in his veins, igniting every new nerve ending they'd given him, every new instinct, every open neuron until the Winter Soldier was straining just below the surface of his skin, and he took a deep breath, closing the hand they'd given him around the lock on their door and flicking it open.

Footsteps.

He wrapped that hand around the doorknob, twisting as slowly as possible—he didn't want to give away his position.

He took that one second to empty his lungs of air, pushing it out, and he centered himself, his routine since that first sniper mission with the boys all those decades and decades ago, pulling his focus taut and shutting down his rapid pulse until his breathing was even and his concentration clear and sharp.

Then he threw the door open, revealing two men in tac gear, their helmets off—overconfident idiots—and their faces exposed, rifles drawn and level.

He fired without thinking and was already swinging, taking aim at the second merc before the first had crumpled to the ground, a neat red hole in his forehead.

"Whoa!" the second one shouted, voice sharp in the silent night, and he dropped his gun, hands flying up as he waved them in the air. "Whoa, man! Hold up!"

He paused, staring him down with a scowl, the scowl that Darcy had often called 'fucking terrifying', silent, his rage burning under his skin.

It was funny. Times like this, The Other Guy—as Bruce put it—really did take over to a certain extent, and often, he wasn't completely aware of what he was doing at all times, flying simply by instinct and nothing more. He realized now, belatedly, just how angry he was, illustrated by the fact that his hands didn't shake, his aim rock solid, his composure eerily steady, even to himself.

"Jesus!" The other man in black folded to set his hands on his knees and he bent, trying to catch his breath, staring at his partner with his mouth open. "You killed Kevin!"

Silent, his hand clenched around his weapon, then eased.

"Seriously—you killed Kevin!" he insisted, breathless, his voice high-pitched and quavering.

Bucky raised one brow, staring impassively down at him. "That's what happens when you shoot someone in the head."

English?

Yeah, he was speaking English.

Sometimes, when tension was high, he wasn't certain just what was going to come out of his mouth. Once or twice, he'd found Russian on his lips without making any conscious decision to use it. That creeped him out more than almost anything else, that his mind still wasn't entirely his own.

"Fuck, man," the merc said again.

"You're not very good at your job," Bucky spoke again, his voice low and even.

He looked up at him, his face drained of color. "Man, I'm not here to fight you. I just need the girl."

Bucky cocked his head and studied him, silent. Something else Darcy had mentioned, off-handedly, of course: that nothing was creepier than his silent scorn in those recordings from DC. Sometimes it paid to take things into consideration.

And it had the desired effect.

The other merc fell to his knees, his Adams apple bobbing. "Don't kill me, man! I was just sent for the girl! That's it!"

Bucky took a step forward, then another, still silent, and placed the tip of the SIG against his forehead. Some small part of him felt a strange niggle of pleasure at the full-body tremble this elicited. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. "Your Skorpion says otherwise."

He shuddered again. "It's just standard gear, man, it's just standard gear!"

He cocked his head the other way, studying his reaction. "That's awfully expensive standard gear."

"Man, I just do what the boss says!"

He narrowed his eyes. "Aldrich Killian, you mean?"

He nodded vigorously, shaking all over. "He just wants the girl back, he just wants the girl!"

His hand tightened around the SIG and he pressed the muzzle harder against the coward's forehead, increasing the shaking even more. "He can't have the girl. She's mine."

It came out more growl than words, and with a start, he realized how possessive it sounded.

The merc slumped further, his eyes slipping closed. "Shit, man. He's gonna kill me—he's gonna kill me if I don't get her back!"

The rage gathered in a spike and he snarled, stepping closer still and shoving the muzzle into him, forcing his head back so he had no choice but to look up into his blazing eyes, blind with anger. "I'll kill you before I let you take her from me."

He actually whimpered. "I did not sign up for this!"

"Then next time, when Aldrich Killian tells you to sign on the dotted line, you put down the pen. See how this works?"

He shrugged. "You wanna kill me, it'll at least be faster coming from the Winter Soldier."

Bucky smiled, using all his teeth. "I wouldn't say that."

The merc swallowed reflexively. "I can tell you anything you wanna know! Anything!"

He paused, considering. "How'd you find us?"

Another hopeless shrug. "I dunno, man! They told us to get in the car and they sent us an address while we were en route!"

"What's he want with her?!"

"He didn't tell us that! Just that she's supposed to be important—soon."

He cocked his head again. "Soon?"

"That's all I know, man! That's all I know! I dunno when, he just said 'soon'. He wants her back so he can finish her and do the same creepy testing he was doing with the other ones and—"

He snarled again, unable to stop the involuntary reaction. "The other ones?"

Another reflexive swallow, so thick he could hear it. "Yeah, man, he's got other ones—but, but, they're not as good as she is, 'cause there's something else wrong with her!"

His eyes narrowed again, and he stepped in closer. "What's wrong with her?" He needed to confirm what else he knew, what else Killian understood.

"There's some other serum in her, man! She's supposed to be some sort of hybrid, and he wants her back so he can make the others like her! That's all I know, man—he just sent me out to get her back! He just wants the girl back! That's it!"

"Who else is after us?!"

Another stuttering shrug. "I dunno, man! He just sends us out in groups! I dunno how or where, dude—I just signed up 'cause the money was good and I haven't been able to find a job since I left the Navy! That's it! That's all I know!"

For an interminably long moment, he stood there, this new information whipping around in his head at rapid fire, indecision warring with grim certainty that he couldn't feasibly let the merc in front of him live.

Besides—he was right. Killian would likely just kill him anyway.

The Winter Soldier wouldn't let him live.

Sergeant Barnes wouldn't have let him live, either. He'd have identified a potential threat from above and sent off a bullet without thinking twice, one eye on Steve's position below the entire time.

He didn't want to believe he was still anything like the Winter Soldier, no matter how much evidence liked to periodically appear.

He certainly was just a shadow of the man who used to go by 'Sergeant' all those years ago.

So who was he now? He found himself groping in the dark emptiness in his own head, there, on a cheap motel room stoop, at whatever-o'clock in the morning, with an expensive, ultra-designed SIG pressed to some poor kid's forehead.

He couldn't be the Winter Soldier. He just…he couldn't.

He knew he wasn't James Barnes, no matter how much he liked to pretend with himself.

He wasn't really sure who Bucky ever was at this rate.

What identity did that leave him?

"Fuck, man—Kevin…" he said again, his voice low and confused.

Jamie.

He could try and be the man she thought she'd married, no matter how ridiculous it sounded.

"You've got thirty seconds," he said, his voice low and threatening—he wasn't sure how to turn that part off and wasn't sure he even wanted to at this juncture. "Take your man and go."

The merc sank to the ground, bracing himself on his hands where he panted for relieved breath. "Fuck, man…"

"Clock's ticking," he growled.

He was up like a shot, forcing unsteady legs into action. His military past was evident in how easily and quickly he hauled his dead partner over his shoulder. With one hand, he opened the back door, then he laid out the other man in the backseat and shoved the door shut again, barely glancing over his shoulder at the assassin behind him. He stood there a moment, staring through the window at him, and Bucky would've felt hopelessly guilty had the two not come in guns practically blazing.

He'd do anything to protect Darcy.

Anything.

"Ten…nine…eight…" he started counting down.

Jumping, the man threw himself into the driver's seat of the black Tahoe and turned the ignition.

Casually, Bucky approached, leaning in just a bit too far.

He jumped.

"You tell Killian something for me: he keeps this up, and I'll come after him myself. And he doesn't want to meet Mr. Hyde."

And he stepped back.

He stood there, watching as the poor guy pulled away, burning rubber as he peeled out of the lot and back onto the highway, his face white in the mirror.

With a rush, the adrenaline ran out, leaving a hollow ringing in his ears and an unsteady shaking in his hands, and he couldn't go one more second holding that damn SIG.

Breathless, he locked the door behind him and tossed it down on the bed—

Where Darcy was still sound asleep. How she'd slept through gunfire was beyond him, especially in her current state…

Pulling his hands down his face, he took a deep breath and sat down at her feet, gingerly, to avoid waking her. He sat there for a long time, watching her sleep in the dark silence of the room.

What he wouldn't have given in that moment, to be back home, in their bed, safe and sound, with Darcy out of harm's way.

She had chosen this, yes, chosen to remain with Jane, chosen to follow her in her pursuits, chosen to stay with SHIELD, and take the job with Tony, and to date a former Soviet assassin, yes.

But that didn't stop him from feeling guilty and latently furious that the only thing keeping her from safety and consistency was his presence in her life.

But frustration was really nothing new to him, and neither was fury, not since he'd woken from that decades-long nightmare that was his time in Russian captivity.

And he couldn't change that.

He couldn't change that any more than he could change the fact that he'd fallen head over heels for the woman in front of him and would fall apart without her.

Sometimes he felt like he hadn't tried hard to enough to push her away.

He thought that maybe, just maybe, if he'd been more stern, if he'd put on a mean face—the one he was so good at slipping on when he wanted to—then maybe she'd have just married some suit that worked in accounting, or one of Tony's other assistants, one of the lower ones that Darcy helped Pepper oversee. Maybe she'd be safe now.

Safe and entirely human.

Unaltered in her utter perfection.

And he'd be miserable.

He knew how that would've gone.

And he'd made excuses for himself for not taking that route.

Did it make him a selfish bastard to just want something for himself after so long as a puppet? He'd finally gotten himself back and here was a girl—a stunningly attractive, warm, wonderful woman—who didn't balk at his every movement. It had been so long since he'd felt warm. So long since he'd felt anything other than icy numbness, anger, fury, dark suppression. The things they told him to feel.

He'd missed friends, someone to talk to.

And Steve didn't…Steve didn't have the same effect anymore.

He'd missed smiling and laughing. He'd missed flirting.

He'd missed sex.

God, he'd missed sex.

He'd just wanted something for himself.

The need to wrap his arms around something and hold on tight had been so suffocating that he'd barely been able to breathe.

And she was there, offering herself up.

Was it so awful, so wrong, that he'd taken her offering like a religious sacrifice?

What was worse: the fact that he'd done so, or the fact that he couldn't regret it, no matter how hard he tried? Was it so bad that he'd never looked back? He'd given her so many outs, and she'd balked at each one. He'd threatened so many times to just end it because he wasn't good for her, and she'd laughed, and yelled, and snapped, and even slapped once or twice, and he couldn't regret a moment of it, not a single second, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much he thought he ought to now.

Even though looking at her in this moment felt akin to ripping his own heart out and crushing it in his metal fist.

He'd been numb to everything for so long, that he was surprised when a drop of moisture hit his hand, and he blinked to realize he was weeping. Sighing and rolling his eyes, he brushed his face dry and set a hand on Darcy's arm. "Solnishka?"

She stirred. "Whassa matter?"

"We've gotta go, love," he murmured.

She frowned, but sat up, groggy, pulling the back of her hand across her eyes. "Again?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Why don't you go splash some water on your face and I'll start packing up, okay?"

"Mm-mm…" she hummed, sliding down from the high bed and shuffling across the room. The bathroom door shut behind her with a soft click.

He stood, stretched, and retrieved his SIG.

The door opened. "Two questions," she said, sounding slightly more aware now as she framed herself in the doorway. "Why is your gun on the bed? And why are you crying? I've seen you cry all of once in the entire time I've known you, and it was only because I was lying unconscious in Bruce's lab, sliced up to within an inch of my life."

He sighed again. "We should do this later," he said, his voice low.

Darcy frowned, not unkindly. "I think we should do it now, before it gets chased off by something else." She crossed her arms over her chest and stuck out a hip, revealing just the edge of her black boy shorts under the t-shirt she'd been sleeping in. It read: 'You read my t-shirt. That's enough social interaction for today.'

He grabbed her backpack from the floor and started tossing things in willy-nilly. "Darcy…"

"Jamie. Seriously—things always get pushed to the back burner with us. And not for lack of trying—it's just how our life is."

He straightened and looked at her.

She looked exhausted. Her skin was washed out and her eyes—wide and less than enthused—were puffy. Her brows scrunched into her version of a compassionate expression. "Your eyes are red." She cleared her throat. "Give it up, Barnes."

He sighed, again.

"Don't sigh," she told him, her voice softening. "You know, you worry so much about me that I think your own feelings sometimes pass you right by and you don't even notice until they've plowed into you." She crossed the room again back to him. "They tried so hard to program you not to feel anything. They almost succeeded. They almost buried you—even from yourself. You don't have to hide behind it." She pressed her palms to his chest. "I heard a couple car doors. What did I sleep through?"

He sighed again, deep and long, and tipped his forehead down into hers, his posture softening in reluctant surrender as he slid his arms around her. "Couple of mercs."

She didn't tense.

"That doesn't make you nervous?"

She shrugged. "I trust you. What happened? You kill 'em? There a bloody puddle outside the door?"

"One of them. I let the other go."

She was silent.

"I shouldn't have."

She reached up to brush a lock of his hair back, off his forehead. "What does it say about our life that mercy might not be such a good thing?"

He tightened his embrace. "I sent him back with a message."

"What did he say?"

"Just that Killian wanted you back. Sounds like he's trying Extremis again, and you're the key if he wants to create more hybrid soldiers."

She snorted unexpectedly. "God, if that doesn't sound like the plot of an X-Men movie."

He gave up a small smile.

"That explains the SIG. That doesn't explain your puffy eyes."

It was like she knew.

"If you're about to blame yourself, you can fucking save it, Barnes," she whispered, and her tone was a strange mix of sweet and threatening.

He bit the inside of his cheek.

She pushed him gently back, then back again, until his knees had folded back onto the bed and she had curled her legs around his waist, straddling his lap. "Talk."

"Darcy, we don't have ti—"

"You sent the guy back with the body of his dead comrade—if that doesn't send a message, whatever you growled at him should at least slow them down for ten minutes, Sergeant. Now, I know something happened up here while I was strapped to a beach house kitchen chair." She stuck a fingertip against his temple and pressed, knocking his head sideways for a second.

"And I refuse to push, because you're seriously the most awesome partner a girl could ask for. You don't needle and pick like modern guys do. But don't, for one second, think I believe that you're okay. Whatever happened to you fucked you up a little bit again, and while I'm patient, I refuse to sit around and watch you brood. It's. Not. Healthy. Just because you're done seeing the SHIELD shrink does not mean you don't need to use words to talk things out when they bother you. Fuck the fucking twentieth century, God damn it, for making all you men believe that feeling emotions makes you weak and un-masculine. Such a fucking load of bullshit. You. Don't. Fool me. Sir. So spill. You are breaking my heart."

For a long moment, he just looked into her face, searching it for something; he wasn't sure what. He pressed his hands against her, curving the small of her back until she was closer, and she set her forehead against his collar bone. "You have got to be the strongest creature I've ever met," he murmured. Pre-dawn light shone weakly in the front window, turned sepia gray by the lacy drapes. "I wish you didn't have to be."

She gave a soft little laugh. "Go back and tell my father that."

A small smile tugged at his mouth. "You and me, both."

She sighed, sounding strangely contented.

"I feel like we're on borrowed time, dollface."

"Your Spidey Sense is tingling?"

He sighed. "I'm serious, Darcy."

She pulled back. "Okay, okay. The full name, you mean business." She smoothed his t-shirt. "Are the walls closing in?"

He looked her square in the face. "I don't know if I can protect you from what's coming."

She shrugged. "I trust you."

He huffed out a breath. "Darcy, I'm not a superhero! I'm serious."

She cocked an eyebrow. "You're not? Gee, you sure had me fooled."

He groaned, pulling his hands down his face. He hadn't slept a wink and it was now after three in the morning. "Darcy…"

"Why do you feel like we're on borrowed time?"

"They keep finding us. Whatever this is, it isn't over."

She shrugged again. "We'll get home. Then we can work on detangling their knot."

"I have the creepiest feeling that that's what they want us to do."

Another raised brow. "Babe, you're sounding a little paranoid, now."

He took a breath. "This isn't HYDRA talking, Darcy, this is decades of experience in espionage. Yes, they've been trailing us, yes, it's clear that Killian wants you back, but considering I'm your bodyguard in this, don't you think this has all been just a little too easy? In my experience, this flight we've been on isn't supposed to leave room for half a honeymoon."

She hesitated.

"Because it feels like getting you back is a game to him so far, like he's willing to sit back and settle for the next best thing."

She frowned. "And what's the next best thing?"

"I. Don't. Know. That's the problem."

She was silent.

"And now we're told he wants to create more soldiers like you? That sounds eerily familiar, Darcy, and I don't find it encouraging. What's his game plan? Did he say anything to you in the woods that day?"

She twitched, arching her back at the reminder of the scars on her belly. "Not much. Just that I could be…more. And that he didn't need to help me much."

He latched on. "See, that's my point. What the fuck has he got up his sleeve?"

She blinked in thought for a moment. "So…"

"It almost makes me wanna just drive in circles until he tips his hand. Which he won't. He's a fucking genius, Stark level. He's not gonna slip on anything less than aggression, and I don't feel confident enough to confront him, regardless of my threat. It was empty. There's no way I'm going after him with you in tow."

Her expression buckled into a scowl. "And why not? I'm stronger now, I'm—"

"That doesn't mean I'm okay with walking in there with the very thing he wants—you! You can make your own decisions, Darcy, but if you think I'm okay with making you even more vulnerable than you already are, then you haven't been paying attention!"

She sighed, looking at him, hard. "So…what?"

He flopped back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

She bounced against his hips and braced herself against the jolting of the mattress with her palms on his taut belly. His abdominals were still rock hard and defined, and she would've taken the opportunity to trace them with a fingertip if the mood in the room were just a fraction lighter. "Jamie…?"

He pulled his hands down his face again, heaving a deep sigh. "I love you."

She was silent. It sounded like a whispered confession, and she wasn't sure she should interrupt him mid-flow. He was usually better when he got it all out at once.

Her heart, though, gave the usual flutter at his declaration. The same one it had given her that first time he'd said it, that New Year's Eve night, standing on a random street outside a random diner in the middle of Hell's Kitchen. She'd been so sure she'd been unrequited, that he'd never be okay enough to utter words like that, and to hear him speak them so unexpectedly had sent her reeling and she felt the same dizzying sensation every time he'd said it since, like she had to hold onto him for dear life.

She hadn't thought she'd ever be the sort of girl to have a relationship stable enough to allow for those sorts of words, but the fact that she'd earned them from him made it all the more precious.

"I love you—with everything I have, Darcy. But I'm just a guy. You have so much faith in me—too much faith in me. But I'm getting that old feeling again, like part of me is slipping through the cracks. I can't protect you from everything, no matter how much that rips me up inside, no matter how much this thing inside me wants to tear a hole in the world to keep you from harm."

He sounded so full of despair.

"My entire life has felt like it's been outside of my control. The only thing I did was rebel. The only thing I did that felt like my choice was remove myself and…and then I enlisted. What was the difference? The world was falling apart anyway. It was just me and Stevie. But even that wasn't in my control. Lousy at holding onto it."

Darcy's heart squeezed. "You weren't lousy at hanging onto control—you had yours stolen, Jamie."

"What's it matter? You've said it yourself—I've barely had the chance to make any of my own choices. And here I am again. It follows me around—we can't even go on a vacation, a date, Darcy! We can't even go on a fucking date. This is ridiculous."

She sighed. "Well, I, for one, am too stubborn to let that stop me from trying. And I know you are, too."

He blinked up at the ceiling, his eyes moving as he traced something. "I know. It's just…I didn't want any of this for you. And I know you've made your own choices. And I can hardly argue with them, given the fact that I'm head over heels for you. I just…I was just naïve enough, after everything that should've taught me otherwise, to think that we could be anything akin to normal. You've suffered far too much, and it's not going to stop." He looked at her, his eyes hard, imploring her to understand. "You know that, right? It's not going to stop, Darcy. This is just the beginning."

Caught in the tight thread of his gaze, she could only nod.

"Life's not fair. I know that. And wishing for something doesn't make it happen. I just…I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but even doing that, this wasn't what I was expecting. They turned around and used my own trick—they came at us sideways." His hands folded into fists.

She wrapped both of her hands around his human one and held on.

"I can feel it all slipping away. This was just an interlude, soon to be a vicious coda. And the urge to cling to you and never move ever again is paralyzing."

He fell silent.

It took her a long time to decode everything he'd said and formulate it into something resembling a single emotion. He was very eloquent and emotive and sometimes he said so much she had to go back and retrace her steps to get at the root of what he was feeling.

Fear.

Crippling fear.

Something he wasn't particularly used to feeling.

And it was dredging things up from the muck he'd buried it under.

Something vaguely related started coalescing in her chest and she folded herself into the crook of his arm and tucked herself against him, setting her head in the hollow of his shoulder. "You're scaring me," she murmured.

"I'm sorry."

The ticking of the clock on the wall was the only sound in the room, gray turning to blue as the sun started peeking over the horizon.

"What do we do?"

"…I don't know."

((()))

Something was ringing.

Tony frowned, the sound yanking him from sleep, and opened his eyes, blinking groggily.

He'd fallen asleep in the lab—again—and his neck was tighter than a bowstring from the way he'd been sprawled on his desk, half out of his rolling chair.

The ringing returned and he jumped, looking around. His phone. Where the hell had his phone ended up in all this mess?

That was it—he'd been up late going through commutations in hopes of narrowing down what had been done to Darcy, using the equations he'd stolen from Killian's lab all those years ago. He'd relied on those equations to cure Pepper, and he hoped they could help Darcy, now.

He must've set his head down for just a second…

The ringing started again, and he lurched up from his desk, wincing at his sore body. Four in the morning. It was almost four in the fucking morning—who the hell was calling at four in the morning?

Suddenly desperate, he lunged for a blinking pile of papers, the flashing screen of his phone shining through them and snatched up his phone, swiping the screen as he whipped it up to his ear. "Short Stack?"

Silence on the other end.

He frowned, listening. "Darce? You okay? Tell me you're okay." His heart was thundering in his chest.

"Hey, Tony."

Not. Darcy.

His heart plummeted into his stomach and a chill ran up his spine, standing the hair on his neck on end. He swallowed at the familiar casual timber of Aldrich Killian's voice and sat heavily down, fumbling awkwardly at his computer's touch screen. "Killian. What'cha need, buddy?"

"Ooh, long time to reply, there. I didn't catch you at a bad time, did I?"

He strained in an attempt to listen to any telling noises in the background, but there were none. "No. Just working in the lab."

"Yeah, you always struck me as a workaholic, night owl type of guy."

Tony let silence take over, refusing to give the insane inventor the satisfaction of his terror.

Although he was.

Utterly terrified.

He'd thought he'd killed this man three years ago—or rather, that Pepper had, technically. The last time he'd seen him he'd been crushed under the weight of his own serum, a burning man of nothing more than flame, unstable to begin with and driven into a tight spiral by his own ambitions.

The thought, then, that Tony had almost gone that way, had driven him so hard in the other direction that he'd destroyed all his suits. He'd had to start over afterward—with Pepper's approval, of course—and do it the right way this time, or risk the team lacking air support.

And now he'd fucked with Darcy.

That was both the women in his life.

It was starting to piss him off.

"How've you been, Stark?"

He flinched. "Get to it, Killian. You called to taunt, so go ahead. I'm waiting. I've got too much to do, here, I'm a busy man."

"Ooh, impatient, too, hm?" He sighed. "I know, I just couldn't resist. It was a double edged sword for me, really. I knew, choosing to act on my information with HYDRA, the patient being your girl and all, would draw your attention. It was a risk I had to take, you know? For the betterment of mankind."

"You mean the advancement of AIM."

Killian chuckled like they were good buddies. "Well. However you want to put it."

He had so many things he wanted to say, but he wasn't sure where to start without giving Killian any vindication at their predicament.

So he started by studiously ignoring him while he tapped his touch screen, waking up JARVIS and immediately silencing him to avoid giving away his game plan. He quickly opened his signal tracking software and hit 'Begin Trace', sitting back and waiting him out. Killian had always been a bit of a showman and Tony knew he wouldn't last long without starting a big, long, slightly transparent conversation.

Really, this might be the break he'd been desperately searching for, if he played all his cards right. If he could manage this hand all the way to the end, he'd even let Bucky finish him off—for good this time. It would be so satisfying to just sit back and watch while the Winter Soldier ripped him to shreds. He had the errant thought that his metal arm was probably capable of ripping a limb clean off. Would that be enough against Extremis, multiple limbs notwithstanding?

"Aw, nothing to say, Tony?" Killian needled. "You must be beside yourself with worry. Or have you already talked to your little girl?"

He bristled. Darcy wasn't 'little' anything. Only an idiot would be stupid enough to call Darcy 'little' in any capacity.

But he held his tongue.

"I missed a romantic interlude, didn't I? To think, I could've had both the lovebirds, had I just acted sooner and swooped in on your little Wedding Weekend, hm?"

No surprise that he'd been watching them long enough to know about their extended weekend at the B&B.

Everyone had been so angry that the two of them had practically eloped, but Tony thought it was hilarious. They'd all been so against the romance from the start. They hadn't made their scorn particularly obvious—with the notable exceptions of Hill and Foster—but then, they hadn't really needed to, had they?

Their patronizing chuckling and backhanded comments about the lion's den had done the job well enough.

Tony had to admit, at first, he'd been as surprised as any of them.

But then that surprise had turned to intrigue.

He'd narrowed his eyes and watched from the corners of them, considering, observing. He'd made note of every single time Bucky's eyes searched her out and stayed there just a fraction of a second too long, every time Darcy smiled like she was deliberately trying to make him reciprocate, every single time that everyone else missed.

"It was, Killian. Super romantic, totally a Disney movie. You would've loved it," he snarked.

He'd kept track of the subtle changes in their exchanges, as they'd slowly slip-slid down a slope from friendly chit-chat, to witty banter, and the straight drop of flirtation.

That Wednesday she'd snuck out for lunch had been a dead giveaway. She'd made it a habit of ordering something in, flitting down to the café in the lobby, or ducking out for Starbucks, returning in ten minutes and eating at her desk, but she'd been gone that day for almost two hours, finally blowing in, breathless and flushed and apologizing profusely in between telling him how pretty Central Park was in the afternoon, with the ducks swimming around the pond.

But he'd just smiled and told her not to worry about it.

And it continued.

And—not so subtly—Bucky's presence on the lab floor had seemed to increase, just the smallest amount in those first few weeks. They went out of their way to keep it quiet.

But eventually it was something that was impossible to hide.

And they didn't try.

If there was a main staff meeting, they'd sit next to each other, chatting.

If there was a gathering of some sort, while everyone was getting drunk in Thor's corner, Darcy and Bucky were in the opposite one, feet up on the balcony, laughing.

No one had been able to get him to laugh since he'd arrived. So astounding was the effect of the open, contagious sound of his laughter that everyone took it in turn to stop and stare, blinking stupidly, as though they weren't sure what they were hearing.

And then the comments started.

'Lunch? What do you mean, lunch? Was it, like, a date?'

'You make sure you twist his head on right, now, okay, Darcy? Remember: Righty-Tighty, Lefty-Loosey. Don't forget.'

'You two are pretty cozy lately. Tell me: does that arm of his get all warmed up?'

Tony had bristled, already feeling vaguely protective of her—and Bucky as well, the poor kid—but he'd kept his mouth shut. It was none of his business and the two of them could pick their own fights.

And when she started sleeping over and sneaking out, doing the Walk of Shame, she'd picked a few, snapping at Wanda, telling Maria to sit on it, blushing when Sam gave her a knowing smirk.

"Well, damn," Aldrich sighed. "You know I love Disney movies."

But Jane.

Foster had been the last straw. Again, he'd offered as little support as possible, because he didn't want to interfere or make it worse.

But enough was enough.

An engagement was serious and frankly, Tony found it incredibly impressive that Bucky had pulled the trigger. If James Barnes could repair himself enough for something as serious as marriage, what was anyone else's excuse?

Darcy had done something to him: put him back together, threading every little tiny piece back into its correct spot until the puzzle of him was complete, if a bit frayed at the edges.

But somehow, some way, that still wasn't enough for the rest of the team.

Of course, there were exceptions.

Natasha and Steve watched quietly, smirking at each other.

Sam would chuckle and shake his head.

Bruce finally broke down once and said, 'Are Darcy and James a thing? They sure seem comfortable with each other.'

And Tony had muttered, 'You finally noticed everyone giving them a hard time?'

'Hardly seems fair.'

The whole thing had brought some strange latent instinct out of Tony that he still felt a little restless with: the urge to shield them.

He finally just said it. "He'll kill you, Killian, before he lets you take her from him. You should know that."

And Aldrich laughed. "Oh, not if I take them both."

"Then he'll kill her and himself," he snapped, then blinked, whiplashed at his own words, and he realized it hadn't been something he'd really considered before that moment.

But he somehow knew it was true.

This was the very last thing Bucky wanted for her, and Tony was certain he'd do anything to shield her from a life like the one he'd suffered through. And he certainly wouldn't let them take him back alive. Not again.

A stinging sensation began somewhere in the vicinity of his sternum and he swallowed thickly, willing it away.

"Oh, I don't know about that. Love is a strong motivator. Isn't it, Stark?"

He narrowed his eyes as a window popped up on his touch screen in place of JARVIS' voice. 'Western Seaboard, Southwestern United States,' it read, 'Triangulating. Please stand by.'

"I pricked your ego a little bit, again, here, didn't I, Tony?"

He rolled his eyes, but watched the screen. There was no way Killian was stupid enough to give him enough time to pinpoint his location, was there?

Unless he was just that confident.

It would be like him, really, given what he'd had to do the last time they'd met.

"I messed with your little girl, huh? Don't think I didn't figure out how you felt about her. I mean, anyone with eyes would be able to see the way you look at her. And I've been watching for a long time—not to mention my guys on the inside during that whole HYDRA meltdown last year." He whistled low. "That was a doozy, huh? Almost snuffed her out with that one. Tell me something: I've been dying to know. Did he cry? Did he? Did it actually reduce the Winter Soldier to tears?"

Knowing that his silence would be a dead giveaway was the only reason Tony answered him at all. "Nothing reduces him to tears, Killian, and you'd be a fool to try. How many men that you've sent after them have returned? Hm?" Never mind the image that he didn't think he'd ever get out of his head: Bucky, tears tracking silently down his face as Darcy's pain medication had gone to work.

'Triangulating: Southern California,' JARVIS little window told him.

Killian groused through the phone line. "He's formidable. I'll give you that."

"Hah!" Tony actually laughed, the giggle bursting out of him with surprising force. "'Formidable' is putting it nicely. Boy hits the right stride, he'll shred you where you stand and you won't notice until you take a step to walk away."

Aldrich hummed a cute little laugh. "I'm not particularly worried about him."

'Marin County, CA,' popped up onscreen. 'San Francisco Bay Area.'

"You should be. Extremis or not, if you think you've got the brute force to beat a HYDRA drone, you don't. I've done my own research, Killian. He knows how strong he is, but I can tell you that for all he understands, he's ten times stronger. Listen to me very carefully: No matter how this shakes down, you. Won't. Touch. Her. He won't let you. He's like a rabid dog and she's no slouch herself, and that's not even taking into account what you made her into. Together? The phrase 'power couple' could take on new meaning."

"Hm. True," Aldrich hemmed and hawed. "Sure. But I don't really need to do any of that, if my other objective goes through. And it will."

Tony didn't bother asking what that other objective was; he'd never learn it by straightforward means.

"So, really, either way, I'm bound to happen across the information that I need."

The GPS program zoomed in, closer, hovering over San Francisco, then zoomed again, pulled up close to the Bay Area. Tony narrowed his eyes again, watching closely.

'San Rafael' came up in the little box.

There it was.

A mansion on the Shoreline, standing on an outcropping in the wooded San Francisco hills.

He grinned. "You sound awfully sure of yourself. I seem to remember that attitude from the last time we met—you know, that one time, when you died?" he snarked.

Killian chuckled. "Except I didn't—although your sweetheart did give it the old college try, it's true. But the game's only gotten richer since then. You've sweetened the pot, haven't you? All I need to do to cut you down is sit back, and watch it all unfold, just exactly the way I predicted it would, Tony. I've already set the wheels in motion. My fallback is a given and it's far, far too late for you to pull out now. I'm just a little bit bummed I won't be there to see the look on your face."

And he hung up.

But Tony had his exact location now, the address for that stately mansion standing out in bright blue on his screen.

He flicked a button.

Shall I prep a suit, Sir? JARVIS offered.

Tony slid his phone into his pocket and started for the door. "Not yet, J. Gotta do some prep first. I'll let you know, hey?"

Affirmative.