Summary: Getting to the heart of the matter.
Notes: Hi guys! Not much to say this time, I thought I'd just leave this here. Finally getting into a rhythm with this one, so hopefully that's good. Also, I've got a few little tidbits of ideas for an upcoming Thanksgiving story. Let me know if you have any yourselves, maybe I can work some things in, little one-shot type deals. Seriously-I love hearing from you guys on what you really liked. Hope you enjoy! PS-Chapter title taken from the song of the same name by Remy Zero, particularly on the soundtrack for Smallville. Remember that, guys?! Smallville! Ugh, God, that was, like, forever ago. Sarah
((()))
The air conditioning thermostat kicking on woke Darcy from a patch of restless sleep around two in the morning. Really she was surprised she'd passed out at all. She'd been sleeping for shit since they got back, all in fits and starts, and trying not to fall asleep at her station in Tony's lab.
He scolded her fairly regularly over it, telling her in no uncertain terms to go home. She usually argued that she was fine and that he should shut up.
He usually did.
The fact that it had become routine over the past few days somehow made it all that much worse.
She'd tried turning the air down three times now, but JARVIS told her it was set by the 'Building Administrator' and she kept forgetting to ask Tony about it.
She was fucking freezing. Sighing, she tugged the blankets up higher and curled onto her slide, staring out the windows at the glowing signage of the skyscraper next door. It lit the room blue and red and for a moment, she imagined she could hear it buzzing in the silence.
And it was, too, it was so. Fucking. Quiet.
It occurred to her that, though Bucky was surprisingly unobtrusive, he had a loud presence—or maybe it was just loud to her because she was particularly aware of him. Sometimes, she felt like a planet, orbiting the sun.
Was she supposed to expand into a Red Giant now, burning off her excess self in the aftermath of everything that had happened? Was she supposed to blaze until nothing was left of her but the white dwarf at her center, the weak core that made up her true self, directionless and with nothing to circle round?
Swallowing hard, she shoved the thought aside, trying to think about something else, but she wasn't sure how to do that. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to be doing, or how she was supposed to be doing it. She wasn't sure if there was something she was supposed to be setting in motion, or something she could do to fix it—any of it.
The guilt of it all was so heavy. God, if this was even a fraction of what he carried around on a daily basis—which she knew it was—she had no idea how he wasn't crushed beneath the weight of it. She was lucky—considering she'd never been one to believe in miracles—that no one else had been more seriously injured. A mild concussion, mild smoke burns, a few lumps, bumps, scratches and the like was what she considered getting off easy.
If she shut her eyes and concentrated, hard, she could almost feel him at her back, his body heat against her spine, the bed dipping under his comforting weight, his human arm curled around her middle, his palm flat against her belly. He'd press his forehead to the column of her neck, and sigh. He'd murmur some Russian term of endearment, or that he loved her. And slowly, his breathing would change and he'd sleep. And she'd lie awake for a while, listening to the sound of his peaceful slumber in the dark.
But his side of the bed was empty and cold.
Cursing under her breath at the tears pricking her eyes, she sat up and swung her legs over the side, sliding down from the high mattress and hissing at the icy floor. They really needed to get a thick, plushy area rug for beneath the bed.
They.
The word stuck in her mind.
So the majority of her brain was still in denial, then.
That was good.
She could work with denial. The tiny corner of her brain that was fearing the worst still hadn't done any irreparable damage to the larger section still certain they remained an 'us'.
The doubt, though.
It crept in, stealthily, under the floor boards, stealing in under cover of darkness. It was whispering, but the whispers echoed in the hazy corners of her mind until they were shouting and she tried to drown them out running the shower in the bathroom and standing under the spray.
But it didn't work.
Most of the time, she thought she was pretty strong, tough, but malleable, to ease the way to bend, rather than snap.
But the strength she'd shored up during the past few months had been liquidated, and she fumbled now, good after so long practicing her ability to hide her suffering from others, but unable to hide it from herself.
She bowed under the pressure, vaguely surprised that she could still contain enough tears to cry her heart out under the spray and glad that if Tony had overridden the security lock on the cameras again, he wouldn't be able to hear her.
She was surrounded mostly by warm, wonderful people that cared for her, were worried for her, and supportive, tender and comforting, and trying so hard to help—too hard.
And Darcy didn't think she'd ever felt quite so profoundly alone.
Anger took hold, and she slammed her hand into the tap, shutting off the water, and she stood there for a long moment, just breathing while she dripped, sopping wet, on the ceramic, staring at the small dent she'd made in the handle. "Fucking bastard," she snarled under her breath.
She was going to kill Aldrich Killian.
He'd done this to her—to them—to her Jamie.
She got out, letting the anger drive her as she got dressed again in jeans and one of his t-shirts, worn soft against her skin, let it drive her past her loneliness and the empty, aching fact that she hadn't been laid in way too long, and let it drive her all the way to the door of the apartment—
Where she stopped, the anger dissipating all at once.
What was she going to do? Use her Spidey-Sense to track a mad inventor across the country and invade his hidey-hole?
She wasn't completely human anymore, but that didn't mean she was strong enough to take down an entire arm of a terrorist group by herself.
Refusing to acknowledge her growing sense of helplessness, she went over to the bookcase—studiously ignoring the picture frames hanging on the wall—and pulled out a book, one that he'd mentioned once was probably his favorite, then snatched the blue blanket from the ottoman, and left.
The halls were dark and quiet, and totally deserted. Thankful, she got in the elevator. "Hey, JARVIS?"
Yes, Ms. Darcy, where might I drop you? the butler asked, inferring that a lack of surname created the need to formalize her first one.
"The lab, please."
Of course. Is there any other way I might offer my assistance?
She paused, eyes on the ceiling. Was a computer program seriously offering her support during a time of emotional upheaval? That was weird…and sort of…sweet? She couldn't help but smile. "No, J. Thanks, though."
Of course. The lab floor. The doors slid open.
This hall was dark, too, the lab door closed. Darcy slid her card over the security panel and, with a beep, it admitted her. She went in, keeping the lights off and able to see quite clearly in the dark.
Bruce's adjoining office door was open and she went to make sure he was safely asleep—elsewhere. It was empty.
She stood for a long minute, beside the bed, listening to the soft, steady beat of the heart monitor in the dim quiet, confirming her suspicions for the past year—he had a strong heart, in more ways than one.
With a melancholy sigh, she pulled what had become her chair up close and sat down, and did something she'd found herself somehow unable to do much of since this all had started.
She looked at him.
Really looked at him.
Somehow, he looked like a stranger, his face soft and peaceful in sleep, and in a way that wasn't true sleep. She'd watched him sleep often enough over the past year, and somehow, this, here, looked different—wrong. She idly wondered if he'd looked like this while he'd been frozen—as though caught mid-animation, like someone hit 'pause', like he was about to move.
The urge to run her fingers through his hair was almost foreign and when she reached out to run her finger down the plates of his left arm, the metal was cool.
"You're supposed to wake up," she murmured. "Why aren't you waking up?"
The monitor didn't change.
She sighed. "We could play that game we usually play, the one where one of us uses the line that if the other one dies, we'll never forgive them. That's always fun."
It smelled vaguely like Bruce's cologne; she was suspicious he wore something trite, like Stetson. Trite, of course, only because he turned into a hulking green rage monster when he was upset.
"I'm not sure why I'm even…" With a self-deprecating smirk, she drifted off. "Maybe you can hear me." She swallowed, the heartache starting anew, sharper, now that she sat before him. A rogue tear escaped her lash line and rolled down her cheek; she didn't bother wiping it.
"I miss you," she whispered, her voice raw and cracked. "I miss you."
Nothing.
She looked down at her lap, where she was fidgeting with her ring. "I can't sleep. I'm not really eating. You'd be pissed at me." She laughed damply. "The apartment feels like this big, empty wasteland." She reached up to brush her hair behind her ear and saw her hand was shaking. "I'm sorry I haven't…stayed around that much. I can hardly…I can hardly stand to look at you like this." She took a deep, shaking breath, and cleared her throat. "You're…you're not supposed to be like this. You're supposed to be up and walking around, 'cause you're a super soldier and super soldiers are really hard to knock down, and what's the point of you being a super soldier if a fucking bomb goes off because of your new wife and…"
She swallowed and brushed the wetness off her cheeks. "I had no idea a person could produce this much moisture from their face. I feel like a wussy Valley Girl, crying at the drop of a hat."
Emotional turmoil is something everyone experiences, JARVIS suddenly cut in.
She jumped, gawking at the ceiling in awe. Was this some new setting Tony had installed for her benefit?! If so, she was going to have a few words for him in the morning.
It is nothing to be ashamed of. Would you like me to summon Mr. Stark to provide comfort?
She took another breath. "This would be funny under other circumstances," she muttered. "I'm sure of it." She raised her voice. "No, JARVIS. Thank you. You're…very kind," she fumbled.
Of course. And he fell silent.
She shook her head. "I, um. I brought Gatsby." She shrugged. "Not sure why. Reading was sort of…a thing. With us." Her cheeks flaming, she pulled it out from under the blue blanket and set it on the bed beside his metal arm.
Where the fingers of his hand curled into a fist, very slowly.
She jumped again, lunging up out of the chair as she stared.
And very slowly, they unfurled and relaxed again at his side, falling still.
Moving cautiously, as though any sudden movements might break whatever spell was in play, she stepped back up to the bed and tugged her chair in again. "Jamie?"
Nothing.
"Baby…?"
He was totally still. The heart monitor hadn't even interrupted its pattern.
She sighed and sat back down, tugging the blanket over her lap. "You're such a tease." She picked up the book and flipped it open. She hadn't read Gatsby in years, since she'd read it as a freshman in college, weeping her way through it. It was near the top of her list, too, up there with To Kill A Mockingbird. The only two classics she'd ever voluntarily read. "I feel like you can hear me. So…I'm gonna read. Okay?"
Nothing.
She shook her head. "Jerk." And she turned to page one.
((()))
Tony left early the next day, not saying much to her, but instead choosing the subtlety of giving her a long, drawn-out hug as he slipped out around one.
Darcy finished up the last of her filing and followed his lead, poking her head out of the lab and spying down the hallway in both directions for any well-intentioned souls looking to cheer her up. She was surrounded by plenty of support, but she'd never been the type of person to accept help when offered. Since she'd left home and gotten out from under her idiot father's thumb, the very last thing she was okay with doing was allowing others to offer their shoulders to cry on.
She was perfectly capable of crying on her own shoulder—all alone, in secret, away from prying, judgmental and/or smug eyes.
Bucky had quickly grasped that, and learned that when he deemed she needed support—whether she stubbornly admitted it or not—he just had to force it on her. And he was so efficient, she usually relented, and all at once, too, finally realizing about herself what he had seen all along—that she wasn't so strong as to be impenetrable.
Intuitiveness had been a super power he'd had all his life, then; it wasn't something he'd acquired after his…transformation.
She stood in the hallway for almost five minutes, risking discovery while she debated whether or not she had the balls to trip upstairs for a pair of sneakers, her eyes on the doorway to Jane's lab.
Which was how she ended up hiking uptown in her black Jimmy Choo heels and tube skirt, plucking her peach, silk cowl neck tank away from her collar in the New York heat.
She'd be damned if the threat of sore arches would be enough to expose her to more ridicule from Foster or Hill—or even Wanda, who had made herself noticeably distant since her friend's elopement. Darcy wasn't certain what to make of it, but she sure as hell wasn't about to seek out an answer. She was too proud for that, and her dignity told her that she didn't need anyone anyway, as long as she had Bucky. And Tony. And Steve and Nat, who never—never—passed judgment of any sort, whatsoever.
She sighed, glancing at the street signs and rolling her eyes when she saw she was only to Fifty-Sixth and Park. When she'd left, she'd bravely told herself that it wasn't that far between Park and the Midtown Courthouse, not far at all.
And it wasn't, really—unless you were in six-hundred dollar Jimmy Choos. They'd been a splurge gift to herself a few months ago, something she'd been wanting to do for a while. But the famous designer hadn't exactly designed his heels with a lot of walking in mind. It was her fault, after all. She'd been dreading running into Hill, or Bruce, or—God forbid—Jane.
She'd run into her a few times since Jane's serious attempt at an apology the previous week, and Darcy had found herself totally incapable of looking her former friend in the face. She'd merely brushed past her like she'd barely been there, blocking the hallway, and as she'd stalked off, she'd been able to hear Maria's voice in the doorway, muttering to the astrophysicist under her breath. No doubt, they were discussing how to handle Tony's PA once she was a widow.
But she'd swallowed—hard—and straightened her back as she turned into the lab, a few choice words for them both snapping into place in her mind about just what the two of them could go and do.
She comforted herself, in the evenings, when the apartment was cold and still, that if Bucky were awake, he'd bark something snappy that would shut them both up for weeks, using his reputation to his advantage, blocking hallways so they'd be forced to skirt around him, glaring daggers with those Winter Soldier eyes of his until they looked away, giving ground.
It was funny, really. He was a total Alpha Male when he really wanted to be. It was just that he so rarely wanted to, unless he was defending her.
She was exhausted. No one had any clue as to why Bucky still slept. And Bruce was settling into a pattern now, changing out this tube or that cord, and Darcy could hardly stand it.
He was breathing.
He'd moved—barely—but he'd moved. Bruce had run a full gambit of tests the next morning, after she'd told them about the occurrence, but all to no avail.
He was in limbo, and there was no sign at all that he was on his way out.
She was hanging on by her fingertips, keeping a stolid face during the day, and falling into a dim puddle of despair at night, when no one could see, reading until her eyes were screaming to keep herself distracted before crying her heart out in the shower and crawling into bed and shivering all night. She was largely sleepless, or plagued with strange dreams where she appeared to be moving from room to room in a mansion she'd never been in before, dimly lit, with voices in the distance and flickers of movement only in the corners of her eyes. She'd wake, bleary with a headache, slam down some coffee, and go straight to the lab, hiding from anyone and everyone who wasn't Tony until it was time to leave again. Tony had taken to giving her space, peppered with long moments of worried staring.
She was on autopilot, and she knew it.
"Hey, gorgeous."
She jumped, yanked from her grim thoughts by a low voice behind her. She whipped around, catching herself up on her left Jimmy Choo, to find a young man leaning against the façade of a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint, one of many that New Yorkers seemed to assume they were famous for. Darcy had never understood that.
He was likely about her age, but looked younger, and with his shaggy blond hair and Justin Bieber cheeks, it was only too apparent he thought he was spectacular.
The number of blonds Darcy had really noticed since discovering the opposite sex were few and far between, and she looked at him wryly, then looked again.
His green eyes held on her, a little narrowed, a little cunning. He had cheeks too round to cut glass, and a weak jaw, a dimple in his chin, and swept bangs that nearly had her rolling her eyes. Combined with his slouched designer jeans and bejeweled crucifix t-shirt, it was fairly clear that he was trying way too hard.
But she'd learned with Daniel; she kept her face flat and noncommittal. "Excuse me?"
He smiled a little half smile he probably meant to look charming, but really just came off as suggestive and cocky. "I called you gorgeous."
So sensitive and embarrassed by the average compliment, she felt heat glow in her cheeks. "Uh. Thanks," she muttered, looking up the street. She'd wanted to make this a quick and painless trip. She straightened her Kate Spade on her shoulder and started off again.
"Hey!"
She sighed, rolling her eyes, but kept walking as the sound of pounding, much-too-expensive Nikes thundered up behind her on the pavement. Heels, fine. Sneakers? No.
"Hey!" he said again as he caught up to her and fell into step beside her. "Where you going, babe?"
She flinched at the familiar endearment. It wasn't one Bucky used that often, but it always sent a little wave of longing trailing down her back when he did. "Babe?" she repeated. "A little presumptuous, don't you think?"
He didn't reply to the comment. "Where you off to in such a hurry?"
She kept walking, listening to the staccato of her heels on the pavement against the general backdrop of Manhattan's usual din: car horns, the white noise of traffic, people yelling, cab drivers bellowing at each other. "The courthouse." Then, feeling brave, she added, "What's it to ya?"
He chuckled, like they were fast friends and his flirting was wildly successful so far. "Well, you look lonely, walking all by yourself. Why don't you let me accompany you?"
She snorted, glancing over at him. He was just her height—in her heels. "'Accompany' me?"
He shrugged, smirking.
"Not to sound like a bleating feminist, but you hear how misogynistic that sounds, right?"
He looked at her sideways, the smile slipping. "Just a guy trying to be a gentleman."
"Ah." She nodded. "Is that what this is?" She smiled. "Because I know a handful, and, uh…that's not something any of them would say."
He snickered, switching around to walk backwards. "Well, maybe they wouldn't say it," he offered.
She shook her head, pausing at the corner of Fifty-Eighth to wait for the walk sign, like so few people in the neighborhood—she had no desire to get smacked by a speeding cab. She'd lived through far too much comic book garbage to die by taxi. "That's the point, though. You see what I'm saying?"
He just shrugged, slouching beside her.
She sighed, quickly tiring of his false, King Joffrey attitude. "Look, do you need something? Can I help you? I'm a little busy, and while I'm slightly flattered, I'm, uh…definitely not in the market."
The light turned and she started to cross.
He jumped after her. "Well, why not?"
She snorted again, sorely tempted to begin listing the reasons off on her fingers, if only to dissuade him with what would surely sound like silly fairy tales to him. Metal arms? Yeah, right, lady, tell me a real story. "Because the ring on my left hand is particularly heavy," she said instead.
He laughed again, nodding and giving her that sly smirk again. "Yeah, like a ball and chain?"
She laughed with him, but it was more like mockery than anything else. "More like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy." Even she couldn't deny the extreme appeal of some well-placed, old-fashioned romance.
He gave her a blank stare, then tripped over a rut in the sidewalk. "Who?"
She sighed. "Buddy, seriously, I'm on my way somewhere, so if you don't need anything, I doubt you can do better than a three-carat diamond, okay?"
He slouched further, which seemed a bit of a feat, seeing as he was still keeping pace with her. When she'd taken Tony's job offer, he'd warned her about his pace through press conferences and the assorted miscellaneous gatherings. Darcy, naturally buoyant and looking for a breezy time, had absolutely no problem keeping up with him. Sometimes, the press had a hard time keeping up with her…One online article had even deemed her Stark's Hoofing Handler. Tony had been miffed it compared her to a certain cloven animal. "Well, why you gotta be like that?"
She finally paused halfway to Fifty-Ninth. "Dude, I just told you I was taken. And, quite frankly, your Belieber act is starting to grate a little, alright? I do not need this in my life right now."
For a moment, she was worried she'd spoken too harshly—Lord knew, sometimes she had a shitty filter.
But he took the opposite approach. "I know what you need in your life right now."
Growling under her breath, she started away again. "You have got to be kidding me."
He bounded right after. "You think I look like The Biebs?"
She turned to face Fifty-Ninth and waited for the light. "Not a compliment, dude."
"So you like the blond babes, huh?"
She shrugged, plowing ahead at the signal. "Usually, old men catch my eye…"
He jerked to a stop in the middle of fifty-ninth and Park. "What?"
She snickered, but kept walking, leaving him behind.
Still gaping, he jumped and lunged after her with a screech of tires and a loud, prolonged honk, followed by foreign curses flung out a window in what sounded like Arabic.
She chuckled. "Don't piss off cab drivers…" she muttered under her breath.
"Well, I can show you a better time than some old fogey," he said when he finally caught up to her at the opposite corner.
She smirked, her mind skittering over that first night with him, breathless and alive—and oh, so satisfied. Of the boneless variety. "I sincerely doubt it."
But he surprised her and slid his arm across her shoulders. "Bet I could change your mind," he whispered, his breath in her ear reeking of stale cigarette smoke.
She cringed away, picking up the pace. Just a few more blocks to Midtown. "You realize you're becoming a fiction trope, right?"
He did not drop his arm. "Huh?"
She sighed. "And you're not too bright, either."
That encouraged him to drop it. "Okay, now you're starting to be mean."
"Because you can't take a hint. Do I need to foist the Stark Industries lawyers on you, or what?" Even as she said it, she knew Tony would call them in a heartbeat if this guy so much as looked at her cross-eyed. For a guy who claimed he was missing any paternal genes, he sure was awfully paternal.
God, she loved him. Him and his goofy, yellow-tinted glasses and his pressed Armani suits and his obscure jokes that the press always blinked stupidly at.
"Stark? Like, Tony Stark? Like, Iron Man, Tony Stark?"
She shook her head. "Boy, you catch on real quick, don'tcha?"
He stared. "So…are you, like, part of the Avengers, like, team, or something?! That is so hot."
"My husband would love to hear you say that." Enter Bucky, cringing in her mind's eye.
He stuck out a hand. "Wait, lemme guess! Captain America?!"
She snorted out a bright burst of laughter, her first in a while. "Hah! The irony of that is hilarious."
He squinted a frown. "Why?"
"Because his actual wife could kill you with her pinky finger."
Contrarily, his face lit up. "Really?!"
She could finally see the courthouse ahead, people milling around in front of the entrance, the glint of light against the pavement where it refracted off the copper and brass of the revolving doors. She picked up the pace even further, her heels click-clacking, an image of Bucky flashing through her mind as he watched her cross the hardwood floor of their kitchen in the morning. He'd sit in front of the windows, there, in the sunlight for his yoga and meditation, but he'd inevitably get distracted when she came out—freshly showered, her face on, her hair in a curtain down her back—for her coffee. She'd look over at him to find him watching her, one eyebrow raised, his eyes on her calves and those Jimmy Choos, a little smirk curling one corner of his mouth.
And she'd wink, grab her coffee, and leave, shouting that she loved him over her shoulder and that Tony had a meeting across town that afternoon and that, knowing traffic, he'd be on his own for dinner.
And she'd come in late, after eight usually, carrying those same heels, her hair long-since tossed into a ponytail, to find him at the stove. She'd stand in the doorway, blinking in surprise.
And he'd return the wink, pop the cork on a bottle of wine, and they'd eat.
She wondered how long he could continue to surprise her.
"Wait!" Justin Bieber was back, chasing after. "Seriously—you wanna get dinner later?"
She stopped—again—the entrance to an alley behind her, nice cool air wafting from the shadows against her back to dry the sweat rolling beneath her bra hook. "Look." She held out her left hand. "You see this ring? This ring is almost like dimorphism in other species. It's meant to communicate that I'm not looking for a mate because I already have one. Do you understand?" She made sure to speak slowly so as not to have to repeat herself.
All that did was entice him closer and he sidled up, trapping her between him and the brick of the walk-up behind her. "I dunno what 'dimorphism' means, babe, but we can still have fun. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Right?" And he folded his hand around her forearm, smiling.
Heat beginning to glow in her chest, she smiled and folded her own hand around the offending wrist. "But I'll know. And what I don't do to you, he'll certainly finish—his fist is one you don't want it your face."
A low growling sound hummed behind her and they both jumped—his grip, of course, not swayed in the least—to look behind, into the mouth of the alley.
A small dog was perched on a cardboard box, weather-beaten and mildewed from the elements. He was young, likely still a puppy, judging by his floppy ears. But he looked less than thrilled at their display.
"C'mon. Let's just go have some fun, huh?" He tugged on her arm.
But she clung on tight to his wrist, calling up whatever thing was living inside her, until her hands were bright. "You don't seem to understand English, Junior. This girl ain't helpless, and though it might sound like a total trope, my husband will hunt you down and do vicious things to you if you so much as bruise me—he is not Captain America, and I think you'll find he's a lot scarier."
The idiot smirked condescendingly. "Oh? Is Hawkeye gonna shoot my eye out?"
She grinned. "Oh, he probably would, if I asked him to—but not before the Winter Soldier got to you."
He paled, making it clear that there were still whisperings of the DC debacle online.
The dog continued to growl.
She cocked her head and gave him a considering look. "How long do you think it would take him to pull all your limbs off, one by one?"
He swallowed. "The—"
"I'd wager…less than ten seconds."
He spluttered. "But you can't just threaten peop—"
But she shook her head. "Oh, that wasn't a threat, not really. Just a warning." And with a last yank at her power, she felt her hands tremble with heat.
With a tingling zap, he was thrown back and away, and landed on his ass on the New York pavement.
The dog barked, leaping off his cardboard box and standing guard at the mouth of the alley like a Beefeater.
A few people still tooling around the courthouse entrance stopped to watch, mouths open. Darcy scanned for recording phones and found none. After all, it had happened fairly quickly.
"You saw that!" her friend shouted at them, gesturing wildly at her. "She—she harassed me! Lady, I don't know what you are, but you're a freak!"
With a few amused chuckles, those bystanders went right back to their lives.
Darcy smiled. "Oh, I know. I live in a building full of them. It was only a matter of time, really."
"You stay away from me!"
Sighing and rolling her eyes, she click-clacked away on her heels, slipping into the courthouse without a backward glance and shaking out the sensation in her hands as she went. "Idiot."
Conversely, the woman at the counter was nice. They both shared a knowing look and mirrored each other's eye rolls at the woman behind her on her phone, telling the entire lobby about her well-endowed new boyfriend, while she drew up the forms Darcy would need. "Good for you, honey," she said, shaking her head.
Darcy looked at her. "I'm sorry?"
Her printer beeped. "Changing your name. Good for you, girl. So many of the ladies nowadays, they don't like doing it, think it takes away their identity." She waved a hand at the window between them. "And I ain't arguing that, you know? Not really. But I always thought it was romantic, you know? My Warren, I'd have sooner divorced that man than keep my own name, you know what I'm saying?"
Darcy, getting a bit uncomfortable, shrugged. "Well. I've got no pride about mine, really, so I figure I might as well. Unexpected advantage, really, I guess. I wasn't really thinking about it at first—but I hate my father, so why not take this opportunity to get rid of his name, right?"
The woman started laughing—guffawing, really—and slapped a hand down on the counter. "That's right, honey. You tell that bastard. You say, "Look, pops! I found a real man—take down a few notes", amIright?"
The woman behind her in line was still going on about her boyfriend with his huge package.
"That's sorta how it shook out, yeah."
The woman—'Roberta', said her name tag—slid the forms under the window. "You have a good day, sweetie. You tell that hunk I said 'hi'."
Darcy smiled and took the papers from the slit beneath the window. "I will. Thanks."
"You're welcome, honey! NEXT!"
Shaking her head, Darcy folded the sheets and slid them into her Kate Spade—another splurge when she'd seen Tony's first paycheck—and went through the revolving door, back out onto the melting New York sidewalk.
She glanced around, but saw no sign of her boy-band friend. So, with a sigh of relief, she started back the way she'd come.
But as she passed the mouth of that alley, there came a sound of rustling paper and a soft whine. She stopped in her tracks. "I can't bring you back to the Tower…"
The dog was back on top of the box, looking at her with its head cocked. German Shepherd, Darcy thought, with large, chocolatey eyes and huge ears, one standing straight up, the other flopped lazily over on itself.
Her heart tugged. She'd always loved dogs.
"I seriously can't. The Boss Man doesn't want any animals in the building—it's, like, Rule Number Eight, dude, I can't even have a hedgehog…Who doesn't like hedgehogs, right?"
He cocked his head the other way.
He had no collar.
His fur was shaggy and matted, and he looked like he was limping off one paw, the left one held folded above the ground.
A stray. Just looking at his cute little face was painful.
She'd taken in a stray one single time before. He'd had wounded eyes, too. Was just a little rough around the edges. Looking just a little lost…
It had been the best decision she'd ever made in her entire life.
She sighed. "God damn it, already." And she patted her thigh. "C'mon! C'mon, sweetie!"
Looking, she could swear, like the happiest dog in the world, he hopped down off the box and came trotting over to her without a trace of hesitation. She scratched at his head to find that fur super soft beneath the frayed bits. "Maybe Tony won't kill me. You gotta kill him with kindness, though, okay, dude?! You gotta be super cute."
He gave a soft little bark of agreement.
Not quite certain she wanted to risk what might be climbing through his flattened fur, she stuffed him neatly in her bag and took off.
Her feet were killing her something fierce by the time she reached the Tower, and she breezed in, glancing around the lobby to check for suspicious people—or Tony. She ducked into the elevator and hit the button for their floor. "We'll get you a bath, first thing—but you're gonna have to make do with some old Herbal Essences in the bath tub, okay?" Good thing she'd kept some of the old dog-grooming stuff from their last pooch, when she was a kid.
Miss Darcy—
"Ugh, God, JARVIS, gimme ten business days, okay, and you can call me something else, since you absolutely have to follow court records!" she snapped, frazzled.
There was a distinct pause. Then—
Miss Darcy, you are aware that Mr. Stark does not approve of domesticated dogs in the building proper, are you not?
She took a deep, deep breath. "Yeah, well, he's gonna make an exception." She shifted to hold him tighter as he squirmed, but he whined when she pressed on that right paw, confirming that there was something wrong with it. "I'm sorry!"
She threw herself—almost literally—across the hall and into their apartment, the dog crying softly in her arms, praying not to run into Tony the entire time.
She slammed the door behind her and stood there a moment, staring around, knocked breathless all over again at the aching familiarity of their empty suite. Totally empty. He always got up when she came in, if he beat her home, like a gentleman, taking her coat before she could even catch her breath, kissing her cheek and calling her 'Babe'. If it was reversed, he always set down whatever he was carrying—files for an op, his gym bag—and crossed to where she was curled up on the couch to kiss her, his expression softening into warmth. He always gravitated toward her, came into her orbit, like she was a balm after a hard, chilly day.
But she was alone.
In fact, his duffel was still packed on the carpet beside the couch, where Tony had set it last week and where it had remained, Darcy too terrified to unpack it. She knew it would have his smell all over it, clean soap, the metallic tint of gunpowder in her nostrils. That, and, part of her was scared that unpacking it might break whatever spell was at work, that putting all his things back would make it all real, would trigger the endgame.
She swallowed, thickly, and set the puppy on the hardwood, where he wobbled, looking uncertainly around the space. Then she tossed her bag on the recliner and finally—finally—peeled off the cursed Jimmy Choos, first off one throbbing foot, then the other, where they had become practically adhered.
The memory of last New Year's Eve flitted through her head, Bucky finally taking off her heels, clucking his tongue at the bruise on her ankle. The little cozy tent they made with the white cotton sheets, tucked away, in their own world, just the two of them.
She cleared her throat to expel the cramping tears there, and focused on the task at hand.
Dog.
She'd brought a dog home.
Oh, God, Tony was going to kill her. Like, actually murder her.
It wasn't that he didn't like animals—he just didn't like their potential mess. He was a snob that way—if someone was going to make a total mess of the place, it was going to be him, damn it.
Miss Darcy—
"Shut up, JARVIS," she snapped again, glaring at the ceiling. "Seriously."
The puppy took a step, wobbled, then took another, and promptly face-planted on the hardwood, his left paw sliding out from under him. His back legs scrambled, and he wind-milled on the floor for a moment, whimpering.
She crouched down by him. "Oh, puppy, it's okay." She scooped him up and turned him to face her, baby-talk already making her buoyant. "You put on a good show with our nasty playboy earlier, didn't you? But you're all hurt-y inside."
He whimpered again, staring at her with wide eyes.
"Just like someone else I know." She bopped him softly on the nose. "He's hurt-y inside too—but he's less fuzzy than you are."
His tongue poked out and he kissed her on the nose.
She smiled. "Should we get you a bath, little dude?"
He started wiggling and huffing, his little mouth open in an enthusiastic smile.
Warmth spread through her chest. "Okay, then. First a bath. Then we'll introduce you to Grandpa Tony and force him to fall in love with you, okay?" She looked him over more thoroughly, then sighed. "Then a vet appointment, a trip to the barber…" She did a double-take. "Gotta get you fixed too. Sorry, but snip-snip. It's only responsible, right?"
He continued to wiggle in response as she wandered down the hall to the master bath.
"We'll have to take a trip to the pet store, too, little guy." She set him down on the tiled floor and bent over the tub, turning the knobs until it was a nice, warm temperature. "And then—"
She turned to find him growling at a ribbon that was sticking up from the blue throw rug she kept in front of the vanity, his gravelly voice high and not threatening in the least.
A giggle escaped before she could stop it, and she stared at him in awe at the fact that he'd unwittingly drawn it out of her, the first in days. "C'mon, goofball. Bath time."
They made rather a mess, between his splashing and shaking, and her with the detachable shower head, but soon, he was clean. She called the nearest vet and made an appointment in a slot the next day that someone had cancelled, and plunked him in her bag again, heading off to the store.
She had a good time picking out bowls and a collar, a little plushy bed, some training pads and other assorted doggy things.
She'd take any distraction where she could get it.
But she tripped up on a name.
She stared at him the entire evening long. And he stared back from the other end of the couch, blinking at her and holding up his leg.
Finally, he hobbled the distance of two expansive cushions and settled into her lap, nuzzling her thigh. Her heart throbbed and she gathered him close in her arms, not bothering trying to push the tears down again. It was pointless, and she figured if she cried so much the salty waves washed her away, it might not be such a bad thing. She squeezed him closer.
He whimpered softly, and tugged on his left leg.
Very gently, she turned it over. But there was nothing to be seen. No markings, no cuts, no lacerations. She frowned. "Hm. Did you break it, honey?"
He began to cry at her attention to it.
She sighed, thinking hard, but didn't let it go. "What are the odds this works?" she asked him aloud, though she wasn't sure why.
She gathered him even closer, closed her left hand gently around his leg, and closed her eyes. She found it easily this time, recharged as it seemed to be, at her very core, that small place deep, deep in there where she usually hardly dared. It was usually the place where she stuffed all her doubt: doubt about herself and her abilities, doubt about Jamie and the Winter Soldier, doubt about Jane. Hatred lived there, too—the pure, unadulterated kind that most people pretended wasn't there in them. Frustration over her parents, particularly her father. And there, the deepest, darkest well—the tiny place where she kept everything she felt for Bucky. That place scared her sometimes, mostly because no matter how she searched it, she had yet to find the bottom. It made her feel almost intolerably vulnerable.
But she had no real clue, yet, how the something inside her really worked, and so she did the only thing she could think to do—she tugged. She pulled gently on the whatever-it-was, plucking at it like a thin hem on an old t-shirt of Bucky's that she often slept in, well-worn until it was buttery against her skin, the musky, masculine smell of him lingering on the cotton just enough to put her to sleep.
And it responded easily this time, welling up like blood in a shallow cut, pooling in her belly and responding by pulling—hard—on her heart, or the space where she thought her heart used to be.
It raced beneath her sternum, though, pumping sharply until its own echo rushed up to meet that of the small, helpless creature in her arms.
The rhythms joined until they were one and the same, the sensation increasing, suction in her chest like a vacuum, until it was a harsh, ragged pain, and with a burst of effort, she let go, gasping loudly in the silent living room, the ceiling spinning above her as she and the dog collapsed backward from each other.
Catching her ragged breath, she jerked upright.
The puppy blinked at her, eyes wide, then stood and hopped down off the couch, no problem at all, landing easily on all fours.
He turned in a quick, tight circle, then again, yipping at her happily and gifting her with a wide-mouthed puppy smile.
She found herself lost somewhere between awe and fear.
What had she just done?
And what did it mean? What else could she do?
After all, what had Bruce said to her a couple weeks ago? That he didn't know what she'd done, but she'd restored Bucky. Somehow. Some way. Even though it had almost killed her.
All she knew was that when Steve had set down his best friend, Darcy had detected no pulse. No heartbeat. He'd been still as stone, ominously so.
As far as Darcy understood it, he'd been at least a little bit…dead.
She flinched, just thinking the word.
But he wasn't now.
Because of whatever she'd done.
Bring back the dead.
((()))
"Don't. Freak. Out," she called as she peeked around the corner to Tony's lab the next afternoon.
There was a short pause. "What did you do?"
Very slowly, she hefted Max—as she'd taken to calling him—into the doorway, staying hidden herself, for the moment.
Another short pause. Then—
"No."
She huffed, hauling them both into the room and over to her workstation. "Boss Man—"
"Don't call me Boss Man. It won't work," Tony quipped from behind his computer, eyeing up the dog in her arms like it had personally offended him. "You know what I said—If somebody's makin' a mess in my building, it—"
"Better be you," she finished, rolling her eyes. "Yes. I know. But I was out yesterday, and—"
"Out?" he interrupted, scowling. "Why were you out?"
She paused and gave him a look. "I'm suddenly not allowed off the premises?"
He slumped, rolling his eyes. "I don't think it's smart while there are crazy scientists after you."
She narrowed her eyes at him, Max squirming in her lap. "Speaking as one of them, Tony?"
He just gave her a look. "Why were you out?"
"I had to go to the courthouse, and—"
"The courthouse?" he interrupted again. "For what?"
She sighed. "I'm not gonna finish this story, am I? I needed the paperwork for a name change. I'm not walking around with 'Lewis' as a tag when 'Barnes' is perfectly nice, thank-you-very-much."
His face softened. "Short Stack…"
But she barreled right past the squishy feelings. "So I walked uptown. And this asshole kept trailing after me, thought he was really something."
His eyes flickered in that telltale look of ruffled feathers and he opened his mouth again.
But she cut him off this time. "And I landed him on his ass. But this little dude"—she held him up as he wiggled—"was there to provide backup." She sighed. "And he looked so sad and he's so skinny, so I brought him home. I mean, his leg was broken and everything, I think."
Unfortunately, he latched right onto it. "'Was'?"
She looked down at him in her lap, feeling her cheeks flush with heat, and swallowed.
Tony wasn't stupid—far from it. He sighed and stood, crossing his arms over his chest. "So I can assume that whatever mojo you're working is cross-species capable, then?"
Suddenly, there came a racket from the next office over and Bruce appeared in the adjoining doorway, breathless, his hair mussed and his glasses just a little bit crooked. "You healed something non-human?!"
Tony gestured like Vanna White. "Behold: Stray Mutt, miraculously healed."
"His name is Max," Darcy offered, weakly. She wasn't sure why she'd landed on Max—after all, it was just so unoriginal. But it had slipped out the night before—when he had absolutely refused to sleep in his doggy bed and had let out little huffing barks until she hauled him up onto the bed with her—and he'd seemed responsive to it, using her chest like a springboard and nuzzling into her neck.
It was weird. She figured he had been someone's pet—just long enough, and just old enough to grasp some training—and had slept straight through the night, gotten up with her that morning, done his business on the pad, ate like a champ, and sat watching her get ready.
Talk about luck. She remembered how hard it was, training a new dog; the one she'd had as a child had been a handful.
She wondered if he'd take to Bucky. Some dogs were weird like that around men; and Bucky was definitely of the Alpha Male variety.
Bruce stared. "What was wrong?"
She sighed. "Well, I was heading uptown—"
"I heard that part, Darce, it's okay," he interrupted her. "What happened after that?"
"Well, he kept whining, but I couldn't see anything on his paw. No lacerations, it wasn't real swollen or anything. So I figured it must be broken, you know?"
He nodded.
"So I just…" She shrugged. "I just…took it in my hand, and…" She drifted awkwardly off.
But he pressed, reaching up to straighten his glasses. "And?"
She shrugged again, feeling that heat in her cheeks. "I…I dunno!" she folded, gesturing. "I don't know what I did! I don't know what I did to you!" She gestured to Tony. "And I don't…I don't why it…didn't work with—"
"Didn't work?!" he interrupted again, this time reaching up to take his glasses off. "You don't think what you did worked?!"
She let herself be cowed slightly, exhausted, though the night before, snuggled up to the warm dog, she'd slept better—if marginally so—than she had in weeks. "Well. He's just…lying there."
"Alive," he finished for her, giving her an incredulous look.
"But, why—"
"Darcy, super soldier, or not, you understand that Bucky should be dead, right?!"
She flinched, hard.
Tony sighed, holding out his hands. "Okay. Okay, let's all back up for a minute. We're in uncharted territory, here, okay. So let's just…breathe."
It wasn't every day that Tony Stark played peacekeeper.
Bruce took a step back, looking down. "Sorry. I…got a little...passionate."
She nodded, hugging Max close.
The dog snuffled against her shoulder and tucked his nose between her arm and body.
Bruce tried again. "Darcy. I treated his injuries. I looked at his scans, and his scar tissue and…even someone with the serum would be killed by the blow he received. He must've been struck from behind, and by a pretty massive boulder of concrete. You couldn't see it at the time, but his skull was…" His voice softened and he leaned on the doorjamb. "Darcy…Darcy, when Steve brought him to you, there's no doubt…he was dead."
She studied Max's fur determinedly. "I know," she said, unable to project anything above a whisper, and trying desperately not to get lost—yet again—in the deep mire of that endless moment. She still woke up gasping at night, her mouth dry, her hands shaking, her heart racing, the image of him, gray and dead in her mind's eye. The longest, darkest moment of her life. It still stuck to her like swamp muck, pulling her down, and in those weak moments, crying in the shower, she wondered what she would've done if…if she wasn't a fucking necromancer.
"So whatever you did…even if you don't understand it…you saved his life, Darcy."
With a yip, Max wriggled and jumped down, out of her lap, slip-sliding on the floor and treadmill-ing until he'd breezed past Bruce and cut across into the medical lab.
She lunged up out of her chair. "Max?! Hey!" She did her best impression of Tom Cruise as she slid through the doorway on her slip-on flats—
And stopped dead at the sight before her.
Bucky was still there, and still unconscious.
But Max had curled up at his side on the bed and had lain his head down on his metal shoulder. As she stared, he looked up at her with wide eyes and cuddled closer.
The two guys appeared at her back.
"Guess that answers that question," she muttered out loud. He'd taken to Bucky as though he'd known he was there. Sometimes, dogs were creepy intuitive.
Tony heaved a deep, resigned sigh. "Alright, fine. The dog stays."
Even Bruce found his humor. "Well, that wasn't much of a fight you put up."
Tony gestured. "Well, for fuck's sake. Look at that. How can I say no?"
"Easy," he countered. "You make a 'no' sound with your mouth."
Max interrupted their bickering with a whimper. He nudged Bucky's jaw with his nose and pawed at his shoulder.
"It appears he's fond of his new papa," Tony muttered.
It was all Darcy could do to keep her feet under her. "I thought I was stronger than this," she whispered.
"What do you mean, Short Stack?"
She took a deep, shaky breath. "I just…I don't know how much longer I can do this. I'm not…I'm not as strong as I thought."
Bruce sighed. "Darce—"
"He says I'm the strongest person he's ever met. But he's wrong." She set a hand on the doorjamb and leaned there, unable to keep up any longer.
"Mm, I hardly think a guy like him is capable of being wrong about something like that…" Tony hedged.
Bruce nodded. "Darcy, I think half your problem is the fact that you feel forced to put on a stern face for everyone else's benefit."
"And is it any wonder, with the Mean Girls wandering around?!"
Tony settled his warm hand on her shoulder. "Darce, no one expects Lady Olenna from fucking Westeros. You're human—"
"No, I'm not!" she snapped. "Or did you forget?! I'm something else now, remember?" She gestured. "If he ever wakes up, we'll be a matching set!"
Max hopped down from the bed, but no one noticed.
"No matter which way you wanna twist this, it's my fault he's in here!" she railed.
"Darcy, if it's anyone's fault, it's mine. I was an asshole to Killian and now we're all paying for it—"
"He's so busy blaming himself for everything, and I'm not allowed to do the same?!"
"Darcy, no one thinks—"
"Thinks what, Bruce?! That I'm an idiot? Or is it a traitorous whore? Is it suddenly 1979? Are we all afraid he's been sent to learn nuclear secrets?! I forget—"
"Is…this a bad time?"
They all shut up simultaneously, turning to find a tall, regal looking fellow out in the hallway, Max sniffing at his ankles and giving him the beady eye.
Stephen Strange was a handsome man—that much the papers hadn't exaggerated on, Darcy could see. His van dyke rivaled Tony's, though, right now, it was much more meticulously groomed. He was tall—about Bucky's height, in fact—with a narrow face, sharp facial features, and icy blue eyes. His hair was chocolate brown and shorn on the sides, with a nice little lift in the middle. His temples had grayed, though, and Darcy wondered if his escapades the previous few months had prematurely aged him, or if—if the rumors were true—his level up to sorcerer had cost him physically.
He stood erect in his wraparound coat and his red cape—collar popped—swirled gently around him in an errie, non-existent breeze.
With an awkward smile at Darcy, he leaned down and offered his palm to Max, who sniffed it warily, nosed it, then licked it, and gave a sweet little bark. Then he got up on his hind legs to illicit a lift in the air.
Strange complied, smiling as he scooped up the dog and held him close in the crook of his arm. "Friendly dog." He glanced at the tags on his collar, fresh from the vet. "Max, hm? Hello, Max."
"Nice of you to come, Strange," Tony said, his smile not quite bleaching the frustration from his eyes as he held out his hand.
But Strange's gaze lit on Darcy and stayed there, even as they shook, and his eyes were soft and full of something like sympathy. "Of course."
Darcy bristled, but didn't speak. She didn't want to be rude; this was just…awful timing and when she felt vulnerable, she tended to lash out. Better to keep her mouth shut.
He didn't offer words of comfort, for which she was glad and found him already wiser than she was. He set Max down. "Anything to help my fellow…team members?"
Bruce shrugged. "Guess we are going to have to band together someday, right? What are the odds we all keep skating by in our little gangs?"
Darcy snorted and turned back to Bucky's bed, where Max was struggling to climb up again, his feet dangling as he grunted softly. She plucked him off and into her arms and sat down in the chair again, feeling small and lost. Max licked her nose and gave her what she could swear was a bolstering look. She sighed.
"What—what did you need this afternoon?" Bruce asked, coming fully into the room and pulling up the sleeves on his white coat.
But Strange shook his head. "Nothing, actually. Just these." He held up his hands—scarred with angry, red lines all down the tarsals and metatarsals.
She tried not to cringe.
He placed himself at the foot of the bed and studied the Winter Soldier, his eyes focused and sharp. "So this is him, hm?"
No one spoke.
"Prognosis?"
"Uhhh…" Bruce stumbled again. "There…isn't one."
Strange smirked and plucked the offered file from Tony's hand. Then he perched at the end of the bed beside Bucky's legs, and frowned as he read through the record, nodding, then shaking his head, then nodding again, making little noises of assent. "Interesting," he finally said.
They all blinked at each other.
"This TMS. Is Agent Romanoff absolutely certain it was a device for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation?"
Tony shrugged. "She said it was labelled 'TMS'. She's not a neurosurgeon, but she usually knows exactly what she's talking about."
Strange nodded, then went back to the file. "Well. It might be that the effect of a low constant pulse just…fixed him. It's an inconstant medical tool, to say the least, and there's really no knowing how it'll affect one person to the next. Not to mention the fact that he's…a unique case."
Again, they all blinked at each other.
Strange set the file back down. "What I mean to say is that it may have had the simple effect of bringing his sluggish memories to the surface. It's difficult to say, but it may also be responsible for his current state."
Darcy stared at him. "That's it? It wasn't something I did?"
It was out before she'd even made the conscious decision to speak and they all stared at her in surprise for a moment.
Strange sighed. "Well. I can't make that promise, unfortunately. I don't…know enough about…what you can do."
She snorted. "That makes two of us."
His gaze softened. "That being said, I'd put my money—and it, admittedly, isn't much these days—on the TMS having some hand in this. It may be that you…brought him back from the brink, Miss Lewis, and his system is…lost somewhere in between." He shrugged. "Difficult to say, really. It's not like we can do mass studies on super soldiers."
He followed Bruce across into his office, where they studied the brain scans and MRIs.
She tried to block out the low hum of their conversation in the next room as she stared at Bucky's still form. "Any chance you can buff out this star while he's unconscious?"
Tony didn't laugh at her weak attempt at humor. "Vibranium? Eh. Dunno if it'd be worth the effort. Easier if he could…take it off."
She winced.
Silence enveloped them.
Darcy tried hard not to think.
And failed.
"I never thanked you. For…asking Strange to come and…consult. So…thank you."
Tony shrugged one shoulder and gave her a soft look. "No need, kiddo."
Her throat cramped. "Does it make me awful that I…" She swallowed, hard. "That I can't bring myself to touch him?" Her throat all but coiled shut.
Tony's expression softened further.
"I can't do it. I can barely look at him like this…"
Tony scooted his chair over closer to her.
"He looks so…wrong. I can't…" She tried to take a deep breath, but failed, burying her fingers in Max's thick fur. "I can't. I can't do it. I keep thinking that…that that's not my Jamie. That's some…imposter. I forgot…"
Tony lifted his arm around her shoulders. "Forgot what?" And his voice was so soft.
A betraying tear slipped down her face. "Super soldiers aren't invincible. You can knock them down, if you try hard enough."
He reached out and brushed the tear away with the back of his knuckle.
"And I dropped a building on him."
Tony didn't offer words of comfort; not only had he used all the ones that he had stored up, but he knew it wouldn't do any good. He wouldn't want to hear them, himself. "He went back for me," left his mouth instead. "They both did."
She sniffled quietly, but didn't speak.
"I've been…trying not to think about it, but…" He looked down into his lap. "If I'd gotten to my suit, or if…if I'd just followed you, maybe…" He sighed. "Guess it's all if's and then's, though, isn't it?"
She tipped into his side and stayed there. "He'd tell you to shut up."
Tony snorted. "Yeah. I know." He sighed. "You know, you're always welcome upstairs. Okay? Pep would flip if she stopped for a minute and realized you were in your place all alone."
"Again," she added.
Another deep sigh. "Again."
"I'm not, anymore."
Max started pawing across Darcy's lap and climbed into Tony's. "Yeah. The mutt."
"The vet said he's a German Shepard mix of some sort."
He got up on his hind legs, balancing carefully, and peered into Tony's face, his nose nudging the inventor's glasses. A frown turned his mouth down, then up, just a little, tiny bit. "Those are my glasses, not your personal canvas for your nose art, mutt."
Max licked his nose.
Tony sighed and curled his free arm around the dog. "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"Sorry about him. I…I couldn't just leave him."
He turned his head and gave her a level look, even as Max licked his ear. "Well. You've got a thing for bringing home strays. Who am I to argue?"
They shared a long look, both of them aware he wasn't really talking about the dog.
But Darcy gasped, her gaze flicking to Bucky—
Who was fisting his metal hand again, slowly, the plates whining softly in the quiet of the room. "Bruce!" she called, jumping up out of her chair.
The two men darted through the doorway, and stopped to stare as Bucky unclenched his fist a moment later—
And fell still again.
Strange—frowning in concentration—wasted no time. Before anyone could speak, he gently moved Darcy aside and took her place near his head.
Then he looked up at them all as he took a deep breath. "Just FYI—this might look a little…weird."
