Chapter 26: It's Been A Long, Long Time

Summary: Almost there.

Notes: Okay, guys. We're just about to the end now. I'll be posting a little epilogue tomorrow, but this is the last full chapter. I've had so much fun writing this installment-and I hope you guys had fun reading it! Again, thank you all for every kind comment and kudos, they mean so much to me and I love you all! Sorry, again, for the cliffhangers and for the slow responses to comments, sometimes time just gets away on me. But I love you all! Please let me know how you like. And really, now would be the time to suggest ideas if you have them, as I'm putting together a rough list of further stories for our various characters in the future, so totally throw stuff my way if there's anything specific you might enjoy reading. I'd be open to various one-shots and things like that, in between larger installments. So definitely let me know, okay? I love you all! Please enjoy this end bit! Sarah PS-Chapter title taken from the song of the same name by Kitty Kallen. Had to use it here, as I sort of think of as 'Their Song'.

((()))

There was no lunging, no gasping, and no jerking violently awake, no disorientation.

Darcy opened her eyes as though she'd taken a nice, long, invigorating nap and looked down to find Bucky looking up at her from his back in the bed, his eyes bluer than she'd ever seen them.

They stared at each other.

She opened her mouth—

Doctor Banner, JARVIS spoke up. I believe your patients have awoken.

He flinched.

Tony slip-slid into the room first, his eyes wide as he looked at them, as though he couldn't dare to trust what his eyes were seeing.

Bruce was next, catching himself up on the doorway.

Then Steve catapulted in, too, actually out of breath.

Natasha darted in.

Sam hovered in the doorway.

Pepper's voice rang out from behind him, asking for an update.

Bruce finally spoke up. "Everyone out!"

Everyone started talking at once, asking if they were alright, demanding to know what had happened, what had taken so long, if they could help.

Darcy winced, dropping down on her back, her shoulder pressed to Bucky's side as everything came back to her all at once—including a sharp pain manifesting on the right side of her torso.

Then Tony's voice rose up. "Out!" he yelled. "EVERYONE OUT! It's my lab, MY RULES!"

Stricken silent, everyone shuffled out, glowering at the two men like they'd just ruined playtime.

Steve, blushing, pulled the door shut behind them.

It was hours before they were allowed any peace. Bruce ran a full gambit of tests; Tony did the interviewing, told them she'd been out for three days, then barely let Darcy get a word in edgewise.

She lied when she told him she couldn't remember anything.

It just felt…easier. And less…like they were exposed.

She was, indeed, rather severely injured. Bruce hypothesized that though the experience had been a mental one, that pain centers were, in fact, located in the brain. Therefore—she could feel pain. He couldn't find much evidence of physical trauma, but told her to go easy until her mysterious powers healed her. It was largely gone by the time they were done.

Bucky, on the other hand, still had a sore head. When she suggested using her talents, she'd nearly jumped out of her skin at their reaction.

"No! Absolutely not. Not medically advisable. Bucky will heal like he should now."

"No more using that…thing until we know how it works, Short Stack!"

Bruce was reluctant to let him out of his sight, but Darcy was adamant.

So, with suspicious, CSI-style glances that they weren't being told the whole story, they allowed the two of them to hobble home with the understanding that they were only temporarily released.

They were silent in the elevator, Bucky leaning into Darcy's side just a little. It was disorienting to have their roles reversed, but she didn't comment.

JARVIS let them in without a word.

They stood for a long moment in the doorway, Max jumping up to greet them from the couch, making little grunting noises as he tried to reach them.

Darcy turned to him. "I—"

But he silenced her by pulling her desperately into his arms, cupping her head in his large, warm palm and pressing his face into the hollow of her neck and shoulder.

They stood like that, unmoving, for a full ten minutes. Bucky's breathing was slow and warm against her collar bone, and she felt her pulse slow and relax.

He didn't otherwise move to release her. "Why did you lie to Tony?" he finally murmured, pulling back to look down at her.

She looked up into his eyes and found anguish there. "I don't know."

"I missed you," he whispered, leaning over her.

"I missed you," she replied.

And he was kissing her, desperately, and softly, and they got lost for a long moment in their embrace. His hands were warm between her shoulder blades, and his heart beat a butterfly's pulse beneath her palms.

Max yipped.

They broke apart, breathless.

"I don't know what any of that was," he murmured.

She pressed her forehead to his. "I don't think I do either." She glanced down at the wiggling puppy. "But someone wants to meet you."

She made him sit on the couch first, clutching a very anxious dog in her arms all the while he managed to stretch out. Finally she let him go.

He bolted straight over Bucky's legs and threw himself into his arms, whining and grunting his excitement as he showered his new person with kisses.

The sound of Bucky's laughter was a balm after a long winter.

He was asleep quickly, Max curled up in the crook of his arm.

She smiled as she cleaned up a bit, warmth filling her after so long in barren iciness. Curious, how a mess could still come up, even when you weren't home. She dusted, wiped down some of the counters, then squinted into the sink, wondering who had done the dishes she'd unwittingly left there three days ago. There were fresh crumbs around Max's dish, and the water in his water tower looked new, so she had to assume that Tony had been around, looking after things.

Then she perched on the back of the couch and looked down at Bucky, his face peaceful in sleep—real sleep.

She'd done it. She'd retrieved him. She didn't really know what any of it meant, yet. But he was hers again, restored.

She reached down and brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes.

He shifted, breathing, and his eyes opened, just a crack, to look up at her.

It was the most relieved and wonderful feeling she could recall in the past few weeks.

He sighed. "Sorry. Fell asleep. Go figure."

She smiled. "You did."

"What's up?" he murmured.

"Nothing." She stood, patting Max on the head. "Just rest."

((()))

It was surprisingly slow going. Bucky had been through too much trauma even for the Super Soldier Serum to manage it in one go. He went through bouts of dizziness that had him lying on the couch with Max for hours at a time. Headaches plagued him. It was the longest they'd gone with no music playing in the background, no movies on the couch, or television.

Bruce did some scans, but concluded it was all related to the smack he'd taken on the back of the head in the blast upstate. His skull was knitting itself back up again, and Bruce was fascinated.

Darcy kept her guilty comments to herself and offered a massage that had him purring like a cat in five minutes flat.

Not being as worn out as he was, she had to work to tamp down the swell of want that rose to the surface of her skin that entire night, sure that actual steam was rising off of her. "No happy endings, mister," she teased.

He snorted. "I'm just trying not to pass out." He jerked. "Right there." He winced, adjusting so that her thumbs put pressure on the left side of his neck. He hissed, and she wasn't sure if it was good or bad.

"You want me to ease up?"

He released a sigh of laughter. "Oh, I want a lot of things right now, but I'm not likely to get them. So I'll settle for more pressure for now."

She smirked. "You're alright?"

His voice was pitched low; he'd been speaking at a softer volume since they'd clawed their way back to the land of the living together, and she wondered how much headway he was making, working through his introspection. She left him to it. "You worry about me too much. I'll be fine. It's just a concussion."

She frowned. "Yeah, no, that wasn't a concussion, Jamie. That was a cerebral contusion. You know your skull was cracked, right? Like an egg?"

He waved a hand. "Fell off a train."

She couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, yeah, that's right," she snarked, rolling her eyes. "I forgot."

Unexpectedly, tears sprang to her eyes. She increased the pressure in her thumbs, pushing past it, and blinking them away before she could give herself up.

"You okay?"

Damn him.

Lying was pointless. "Not sure yet."

But he didn't say anything more.

They took Max for a few slow walks through Central Park, the leash relaxed in Bucky's hand and Darcy's hand through his elbow. The park was full, children playing, people laughing as they fed the ducks, teenagers running back and forth on the winding path.

Life went on around them, ordinary and villain-less. Safe.

Max further affirmed her suspicion that he'd been left behind as someone's pet, for he walked well on the leash, didn't pull, his 'heel' was on point, and he only darted after one goose that stubbornly wouldn't move off the path. It hissed at him and he slunk around it, giving it the puppy side-eye.

Bucky chuckled.

Darcy told him about her trip to the courthouse, then regaled him with the tale of how Max the Dog came to be theirs.

Unlike Tony's ruffled feathers response, when she detailed her apparent admirer and his subsequent ass-kicking, he burst out laughing. It had been so long since he'd laughed, she couldn't manage to wipe the grin off her face for a full five minutes.

She thought it was funny, really, that when she was a kid, she'd have pointed to any Disney movie if someone had asked her for her idea of a prince. But now she found that this guy she clung to was really nothing like them. He was charming, yes. He was handsome, sure. He was brave, and determined, he was sweet and thoughtful, supportive and warm. But he didn't always swoop in to protect her. Sometimes it was as simple as the fact that he wasn't able. He was frequently off on missions—or, as this time would have it—incapacitated. Sometimes, he deemed her capable of defending herself.

And after everything she'd been through, she didn't think she'd have been capable of accepting anything less.

He knew she could stand up for herself; he expected her to be able to come to her own defense, for the simple reason, she was sure, that he wouldn't always be standing at her shoulder.

He wouldn't have bothered training her if he didn't want her to be able to hold her own. Somewhere, deep down, she wondered if her spitfire attitude had been part of her attraction. After all, girls back in The War weren't exactly throwing punches—Peggy Carter excluded, of course.

She wondered if the whole 'modern woman' thing had worked in her favor or if something else had drawn him in.

She almost asked him.

Then he looked over at her and smiled his sweet, eye-crinkling smile.

And she didn't bother.

They went home, had dinner, put Max in his little doggie bed, and went to sleep. She curled up on her side and pressed her forehead to his shoulder, finally warm.

Their stay-cation continued for about a week.

Darcy went in for a limited amount of hours with Tony, who insisted on getting by without her until further notice, and Bucky was out of commission until his headaches stopped. Bruce ran more tests, and Bucky's dizzy spells faded, but the headaches persisted, though duller in strength. It frustrated him, sitting in the apartment or in Tony's lab while Darcy worked. When he wasn't on missions, his primary function was combat training for some of the lower level agents, or even some of the team. It seemed he really spent quite a good chunk of time sparring with Sam and Steve, sometimes Thor, and their combined strengths kept each other sharp.

But he couldn't do that now.

He huddled in the corner on a spare stool and read Fahrenheit 451 while Tony messed with the 3-D printer and Darcy muttered annoyances at his failure to file anything appropriately—or even anything at all.

They spent their evenings snuggled on the couch, now, with a movie on low while Bucky struggled to keep his eyes open. Darcy would've been worried had Bruce not told her this was likely to happen.

Max settled in nicely, and he'd even claimed a patch of grass on the corner outside the Tower all for his own use. He was particularly good at cuddling up to Bucky under a blanket, sighing when he was comfortable, and refusing to move until Darcy was relegated to picking him up and setting him in his little dog bed.

And all the while, neither of them mentioned what had happened while they'd both been asleep.

Darcy was fairly positive—given his question of her honesty with Tony—that he remembered everything that had happened in their shared dreamscape. He'd taken to giving her long looks, and she wasn't sure just what the emotion was that she found in his eyes when she turned and caught him looking.

Herself, she suffered from strange dreams, dreams where she still wandered through Bucky's mind, as well as her own, old memories, things she'd forgotten, memories that couldn't be hers, memories of their beginning, way back, in Central Park.

She hadn't really thought it possible, but something else seemed to happen: they grew closer.

This baffled her a bit. They'd always been good at closing ranks against those critical on the team—and those in the real world—but this was something else. This was something you could only gain from swimming around in someone else's head, from drowning in their blood and their memories until you weren't sure which were still your own and which belonged to another life entirely.

They didn't speak as much, but there seemed to be another level of understanding and intention layered into their interactions. Twice, he sat down beside her after she thought about how nice it would be to snuggle up against him with her book. Once, mid-week, she crossed the room to him before even thinking about it, so used to peeling off his clothes that she forgot that she couldn't quell her want in him for now, while he was under the weather. But he merely set a hand on her arm, holding her eye contact for an interminably long moment.

And all her tension had melted away, satisfied.

And they were both fully clothed.

She stared down at his fingers wrapped around her wrist, and blinked, wondering what—when they finally got back to it—the actual sex would be like.

She cooked, for once, cursing her way through grilled chicken, but Bucky said it was perfectly edible.

He put a Sam Cooke record on and surprised her on her way past the couch, scooping her into his arms. They danced in the middle of the living room to 'Bring It on Home to Me', the light in the room fading until they were swaying in a pool of neon light from the building next door.

Max started snoring on the couch, and they left him there, cozy, and went to bed, leaving the door cracked so he could find them if he needed to. Darcy shut the drapes so that they were in total darkness, and they pressed against each other in bed.

She was just starting to drift when he spoke, his voice low and soft, and he asked it again. "Why did you lie to Tony?"

She sighed. "I don't know. It felt…too vulnerable to tell him…what happened…whatever it was that happened." She looked up into his face.

They shared a long look that spoke volumes as to what truly had happened. Neither of them spoke, but they didn't need to. It felt, to Darcy, like everything had come full circle, and that the loose knot they'd been tangled in had finally smoothed itself out and pulled taut, drawing everything shut.

They never spoke of it again.

((()))

"Are you two, uh…okay?"

Darcy looked up from the memo she was typing to find Tony giving her a narrow-eyed look. She blinked. "…What?"

He didn't budge. "You two lovebirds. You okay?"

She blinked again, cocking her head at him. "Yeah. Why?"

He shrugged, glancing awkwardly down at the thingamabob on his desk that he'd been fiddling with. "I dunno. You…haven't mentioned him much lately."

She blinked again, giving him a look. "You mean since he woke up from his coma two weeks ago?"

He nodded. "Well…yeah."

She snorted. "Did you want a play-by-play of every migraine he's had? I burned our steaks last night and he had to make pasta at the last minute. Or were you looking for a record of all the amazing sex we've been having?" She smirked. It was a total lie—he had yet to lay a finger on her. "'Cause last night, wow, lemme tell you—"

"Okay." He cut her off, hands up. "Fine. I give. Never mind."

She grinned.

They made it another five minutes.

"It's just, really, something seems off. You've been pretty quiet. You guys are…okay?"

She smiled, warmth blossoming in her chest at not only Tony's concern, but her own answer. "We're fine. We're really good. Great, actually." It was funny, what could happen when sex was off the table. They'd settled into what she could only call 'domestic bliss'. Not that she would without rolling her eyes. "Why?"

Tony shrugged. "I dunno. Haven't seen him much lately."

She nodded. "Well, he's been anxious to get back into it. You know how his type is—can't stand waiting around." She pushed her keyboard away. "We just got married. We're supposed to be really good—isn't that the point?"

He shrugged again. "Hell if I know. It's just…usually you talk about…it. More."

She snorted. "Mister Stark, are you accusing me of lying?" And she fixed him with a flirtatious look that she hoped threw him off the scent. She had no intention of telling anyone what had happened to them in that shared space—not even Tony. That had all been…extremely personal, and she was pulling her Wife Card. Total secrecy, they'd never get it out of her.

He huffed and sat back in his chair, picking up the do-dad again and frowning at it. "You still haven't mentioned how you…" He drifted off.

She raised a brow, meeting it head-on. "And I won't be."

He blinked up at her again. "What do you mean? Why not?"

She shrugged. "I'm not really sure what happened, Tony. But I do know that none of it merits a medical mention. And it got me my man back. That's all I'm concerned with."

He nodded, his eyes drifting around the space before landing and sticking on his desk again.

She narrowed her own eyes now, suspicious. "Speaking of lying…"

He visibly tensed. "Don't know what you're talking about, Lewis."

She smirked. "You can't call me that anymore, Boss Man. Name's not Lewis."

He huffed again.

"Out with it, Stark."

"Hill found Killian."

She blinked at him stupidly, surprised that she could still be surprised. "Hill did?"

He hemmed, then hawed. "Well. Steve and I implied that if she didn't treat him as Directive Number One, there was…somewhere she could go."

She smirked. "And?"

He heaved a sigh, and tossed the contraption aside, clearly frustrated. "And he was ready to throw us off the scent. Clint got there just in time to see him high-tail it outta there. He's in the wind—again."

"So that's where Clint's been…"

He nodded. "Really wants blood for all this Hawaii shit." He shrugged. "Think he's got a soft spot for you."

She smiled. "Aw. Don't I feel special?"

Tony surprised her, and gave her the most intense look she thought she'd seen from him in a while. "Hey. You're ours, Short Stack. No one else's."

She swallowed, staring at his reaction with wide eyes, unable to move for a moment as they studied each other.

He broke first, looking down at his desk, expression uncharacteristically open and vulnerable. "When you…were taken…I…"

She waited.

"Darcy, I…"

Her full name. Why did neither of the men in her life ever use her full name unless things were super serious? "Don't you dare tell me you blame yourself," she ordered. "You and Bucky both need a slap concerning your self-hatred."

Tony flinched; actually flinched. "He was going after me—"

She pulled a face. "By kidnapping and torturing—"

"Someone close to me!" he burst, finally looking up at her, his expression earnest. "I don't know how he knew, but he knew I had…squishy, paternal…feelings…and-and he-ran with it!"

It came out all in a stuttering rush. If there was one thing that Tony Stark didn't often do, it was stutter.

"I don't know how he figured it out. But he took you because he knew it would hurt me, Short Stack, and he hoped he could use you to get to me, and to further his fucking experiments, and to gain control of The Winter Soldier, and he did it right under my nose." He gestured wildly, starting to pace around the room, one way, then the other, the length of the lab.

"I think Jamie's pacing is rubbing off on you," she snarked, watching him.

"And it kills me that JARVIS tried to warn me, but I just assumed the car in the drive was from Deb, or something, they came over to clean or something, and it was that fucker the whole time! He had you strapped to a fucking chair, Darce! A chair! Sticking you with needles, and Buck out on the beach, totally warped by that fucking machine—"

"Tony."

"And I could've put on a suit and been down there in no time, but I was here, with my head in that fucking drone—"

She sighed. "Tony—"

"And something could've seriously happened to you—you could've died, Darcy!"

She flinched and swallowed reflexively, but didn't say what she was thinking—that she had died, there, for just a moment. She wasn't sure how, but she was sure of it. While Tony continued to pace, she allowed herself to wallow in that memory, telling Bucky about the hollow moment she'd drifted through, somehow sure she wasn't part of the waking world anymore. The press of his body on her, his solid weight holding her tethered while she confessed, driving a stake through his heart. He hadn't moved. He'd barely breathed, his chest still against her belly in that hotel bed. She hadn't had the strength, then, to meet his eyes.

Something deep in her tightened, pulling taut like a bowstring, and it was suddenly so difficult to breathe, she had to set a hand to her desk and focus, Tony's pacing a distraction in the room.

She'd never been the type of girl to swoon, never been the type to be reliant on a man, content—determined—to get through her shit on her own, like a big girl.

But in that moment, she needed Bucky so badly her throat started to cramp, and she had to swallow the urge to cry twice to avoid alarming Tony any further.

She wasn't sure where this was coming from—hadn't she processed enough of the residual shit from their misadventure to be over this by now?

Tony huffed again, finally pausing at her desk to look at her.

It took everything in her not to flinch under his sharp gaze.

"Short Stack, I—"

Her Daft Punk ringtone saved her as her phone went off, lighting up on her desk, a photo identifying who it was.

Bucky.

To avoid giving away her shaking hands, she snatched at it quickly and slid down off her stool and around Tony, ignoring his pleading gaze as she slipped from the room and into the hall.

She leaned against the wall for a short moment, gathering herself, before she slid her finger across the screen. "Hey," she breathed, letting her eyes slip shut. "What's up, Hot Stuff?"

"What's wrong?" he asked, straight up, no chaser, his voice low, but with a hard edge to it that made her flinch again; clearly he was in Protective Husband Mode.

What the fuck had happened to them in that dream?!

She knew she'd taken a second too long to answer—he could read her like a book, he always had. "Nothing. Why?"

Now he was caught out, hesitating, and she could hear the sounds of sparring going on in the background.

"Ah! God, Tash!" Steve complained.

"I dunno. I…" Bucky paused. "I just…got a funny feeling…"

She focused on the sound of his voice, pressing back against the wall and trying to breathe in and out. "A feeling?"

Another pause.

"C'mon, Rogers—you won't break me. Let's be honest—you would've by now," Natasha teased.

"Just…" Bucky sighed, clearly frustrated. "Let's be honest, things have been…weird. And Steve and Nat were demonstrating a move for Maximoff, and I got the weirdest feeling."

Breathe in. Breathe out. He's right on the other end of the line. Right on the other end of the line. Right on the other end of the line, Darcy—get your shit together. "What kind of feeling?"

He took a deep breath. "I dunno. That you…you were…" He huffed. It was going around. "I don't know, Darce, it felt like a tugging, like you were…I don't know what it was, it was like an alarm bell going off in my head."

She swallowed. Seriously, what the fuck had happened to them?

She had to call Strange as soon as she could.

His voice softened intolerably, and again, that welling feeling of needing him. Physical yearning. "Are you alright?"

God, he could be so tender and soft, it was like he was actually trying to make her knees go weak. "I'm fine. Tony was…asking me…what happened."

She didn't need to elaborate—that was becoming clearer and clearer.

"And what did you tell him?"

She rolled her eyes, glad to latch onto sarcasm instead of this lurching desire. "That I didn't fucking know what happened, baby. I don't know what that was—what the fuck was that?!"

There. One of them had finally said it.

He sighed heavily, and she could picture him tugging a hand through his shaggy, tousled hair. "I dunno. But it's freaking me out a little bit."

She exhaled a laugh. "That makes two of us."

"I mean, not really in a bad way. But…" He swallowed so hard, it was audible. "You're sure you're alright? I've got goosebumps, and that itchy feeling I get when you're in trouble."

She found herself smirking and was beyond grateful to him. "I'm okay. Now." And she was surprised to find she was. The shaking had subsided. "I'll see you later?"

Another deep sigh, what sounded like what might be relief. "'Course."

"Okay."

"I love you," he murmured.

Warmth saturated her. "Me too."

And, at least slightly fortified, she went back in to face her would-be father.

((()))

"So he grilled you about it?" he said later that night, spearing more salad with his fork.

Darcy rolled her eyes and reached for the Caesar dressing. "For, like, a half hour."

Bucky chuckled, shaking his head. "Yeah, you got off easy with Nate, but now you're getting the Daddy Treatment."

She sighed, but couldn't help but feel soft and fuzzy about it. "Yeah. I know. The big, stupid jerk."

Bucky snorted as he speared his last tomato. "Stop. You love it."

She screwed the top of the bottle shut and pushed back her chair, plucking her wine glass up with her other hand and tipping back a sip of Moscato. "Can't say I don't."

He turned on the tap and started the dishes from their salad; they'd opted for a lighter dinner—or, rather, Darcy had. She was tired of burning things. It irked her. She'd lived on her own long enough. She was no four-star chef, but she knew how to cook well enough to get by. But since things had settled down, she'd found herself too jumpy in the aftermath to do anything with any sort of command and focus. She sighed and replaced the dressing in the fridge.

"What did you tell him?" he asked over the rush of the water.

"Very little," she replied, bumping the fridge shut with her hip and going back for the rest of the dishes. "There's not much to tell, really. I mean, what's he wanna hear, that we wandered around like Alice in Wonderland for what felt like forever before waking up like it had all been a bad dream? He'd laugh." She set the forks and his empty wine glass in the sink, then finished her own and added it, setting it on the edge for washing.

Bucky shrugged, lathering the sponge. No matter how many times she reminded him that the dishwasher could do a rather commendable job doing this for him, he seemed to enjoy doing the task himself. "Well, this is Tony Stark we're talking about—he might surprise you."

She sighed again. "Yeah. You're probably right. But…"

He looked up. "What?"

She stared, caught in his azure gaze. It was absurd, really, she thought, the things that could flip your mood, the things that could trip you up and make you look twice. He stood there, doing the most mundane task known to man, his hands wrist-deep in hot, soapy water, looking at her, like, like everything in him was focused on her words, his eyes as deep a blue as his button up shirt, undone over his t-shirt and half-popped at the collar, obscuring part of his sharp, handsome jaw line. His hair had feathered over his face, shuttering part of his cheek and eye like slats in drapes, catching up in his long, dark lashes.

And she couldn't speak. She could barely think, standing there, staring at him, totally snared in his unconscious, masculine…beauty. There was no other word for it, and it occurred to her that people used it too much to refer only to feminine things.

"You're wonderful—did you know that?"

It was out of her mouth before she could recall it, and she felt her face go hot under his gaze.

He took a half step back from the sink, his hands—long fingers full of soap—cupping the counter edge as he cocked his head at her and gave her a wry look. "You know, it never occurred to me." He winked.

She took a step toward him. "I'm serious."

He shut off the tap. "What brought this on? If the fact that I'm doing the dishes turns you on, I'm gonna have to revisit my seduction techniques," he joked, completely aware that this wasn't the issue. "Is it the foreplay? Is it too long? It really seems like you enjoy that part—I mean, what woman wouldn't? But I can—"

She reached up and kissed him.

He pivoted toward her, letting slip a small, sexy sound of surprise from his throat.

She would've said, later, that it sounded hopelessly cheesy, but she couldn't deny the tug—the physical pull—in her heart as their mouths met.

She thought idly of what Strange had said, that they were unique, that she had a unique understanding, now, a sixth sense for what a promise truly meant.

She also thought it was sad that they had to be so unique. It certainly seemed like people nowadays had no time—or desire—to connect to anyone else, not in any truly meaningful way. She wouldn't sever herself from Bucky for anything in the world.

Feeling a little foolish, she went to pull back, but he moved to wrap his arms around her, leaving wet handprints on the small of her back, making her t-shirt warm and damp. He pulled her flush against him, and she felt the thrum of his heartbeat against her collarbone, solid and steady.

He moved to deepen the kiss, sliding his hands up her back and knotting one in her hair, the smile on his mouth evident in the curve of his lips.

She couldn't have stopped the soft moan from slipping out if she'd tried, tugging on his collar to pull him down closer to her.

His hands were steady as he slid them up under her t-shirt, gentle on her skin, and she shivered as his callused fingers traced her scars. Softly, he pulled the piece of clothing off over her head and let it drop to the floor.

She tugged on his buttons as his mouth ventured south, trailing a line down, over her jaw, then the hollow of her throat, and she leaned back, throwing the shirt down to join hers, sighing. "I missed you," she whispered, tightening her fingers in his hair. "So much." She pulled his t-shirt off and tossed it away, moving immediately on to his jeans, popping the button, and her heart skipped at the hiss of the zipper. "I missed you so much."

He was silent, but for the soft little hitch in his breathing as she slipped a hand beneath and touched him. Still without speaking, he picked her up and set her calves around his hips as he moved off, down the hall.

Max snored in the corner as they passed.

He stretched her out on the bed and slid her leggings off, palming her thighs and bringing other garments with them, his mouth trailing along after, and everything in her tightened, painfully as she shimmied out of her bra.

When he'd set his own clothes aside, set his weight on her and slipped inside, she could've cried at the satisfaction. "Oh, God, it feels like forever," she moaned softly, curling a leg around his waist.

It was gentle and quiet.

And Darcy could swear she was feeling everything from within and without, and she had the strangest feeling they were having another one of those moments where they were half lost in the other's head again.

Not that she minded. It was a heady sensation, feeling everything in surround sound, and she gasped, clinging to him and digging her nails into his shoulder blades as his rhythm hitched and increased, and she curled her hips, meeting him for each stroke.

They came at the same time in a blinding blaze of white, Darcy's vision sharpening at the serum-enhanced adrenaline rush and she felt herself blush as the flood of endorphins brought tears to her eyes, slipping free and into her hairline as she clutched him.

The room went dim around them as he settled his head on her belly.

It took her a few moments to realize the harsh gasping was coming from her and that a man who was largely incapable of becoming winded was experiencing a heartbeat so intense that she could feel it pounding out a tattoo against her thigh.

It took a long, long time for the glow to fade and for her ears to stop rushing with her sluicing blood.

"That was different," she finally said, and her voice was rough.

Boneless, he didn't move. "You don't say."

((()))

She drummed her fingers nervously on her desk, eyeing the doorway with trepidation, her nails clacking in rhythm as she listened to the dial tone. Tony had left early to pick up a part he needed for evil Drone 13, and he'd told her to hold down the fort, but she wouldn't put it past him to randomly show up—or anyone else for that matter. For a group of secretive super-people, they sure could be nosy and bothersome, and she didn't want this conversation overheard.

She still hadn't spoken with Jane since her monstrous attempt at an apology almost a month prior. Darcy and Maria were still playing a passive-aggressive game of pretending the other didn't exist. Wanda, whom she hadn't seen in weeks, seemed to have chosen sides as well.

Once again, her and her big mouth were surrounded by a gang of well-meaning, if often awkward, boys.

Well. At least she still had Natasha. Tasha seemed to fit in more with the guys too, for that matter. So she decided not to be bothered by the whole thing and wash her hands of it. The problem wasn't hers and never would be so there was no use in—to use an overdone phrase—crying over spilt milk.

The other line continued to ring and she bit her lip, nervous that the number she'd been given had merely been handed over to placate her rather than for actual use.

"Darcy," a voice suddenly greeted on the other end. "I was wondering if you'd call. I heard you…woke up."

Her heart fluttered in relief at the sound of Strange's low rumble. "Hi. Yeah."

A pause. "Everything worked itself out, then?"

She swallowed. "Yeah. I was…just starting to wonder if you were out."

His smile was clear in his voice. "Just walked in. Was checking on a few wards, nothing more."

She nodded.

"…Was there…something you needed?"

"Um…" She chewed on her lip again, getting up to pace before she caught herself, rolled her eyes at Bucky's behavior rubbing off on her, then forced herself to sit again, and not fidget. "Actually, yeah, I had…a question."

"Go on."

She took a breath. "Are there…any…like, freaky side-effects that I should expect from…whatever that was…that you suggested I do?" She sighed and rolled her eyes. Lame, Darcy.

But he didn't laugh. "What, exactly, did you do?"

She sighed, frustrated and feeling foolish.

"Darcy, I may no longer, technically, be a doctor, but I'm not going to go and tell Tony Stark all about your secrets, okay? I gave you the advice, so you can trust me."

Her racing heart calmed a little and she nodded for a moment before she remembered that he couldn't actually see her. "Right. Right."

"So what happened?"

She swallowed, then began. She told him all about falling asleep and waking up in his head, in a dream-space of sorts, where they kept meeting and parting, over and over. Bucky had mentioned to her the things in her memory he had seen and heard, and she told Stephen Strange all of it—that she'd seen things, that she'd met people, figments of Bucky's memory, as well as different versions of him. He listened raptly, seemingly fascinated, barely replying with mm-hmms and ah-hahs as she went on.

Finally, she finished, shaking slightly at the force of finally having it all out on the table. "I keep having these…dreams…these nightmares, and I'm not in my own head, Strange—they're not my memories," she finally spilled, shivering, though the room was quite warm. "I woke up in a cold sweat the other day."

He didn't seem alarmed in the slightest. "What did Bucky say?"

She let out a shaky breath. "I haven't told him about it. He's finally processing all that shit out of his system, I won't add to it. But he's been acting weird too. I was stressed out yesterday, and Tony, he…" She hesitated again, before diving in. "He was railing about all of this being his fault, and that I almost died, and I…I had a…"

"Bit of a flashback?" he filled in, his voice surprisingly soft.

She huffed. "Yes. And Bucky called—like right away—and demanded to know if I was alright, like he could feel it." She hesitated, then decided to just screw it. "The…" She lowered her voice. "The sex was…was weird, like I was in his head."

He was quiet for a moment.

She sighed, pulling her free hand through her hair. "Well?"

She heard him hesitate. "Darcy…it may be nothing. It may just be residual bleed-off from the connection you formed."

"But what even was that, though?"

"Merely a neural link, nothing sinister."

"That I was able to accomplish with my freaky new voodoo powers?!"

He chuckled softly. "Yes. Exactly."

She growled out her frustration. "So now I can do Vulcan mind melds?!"

Another laugh. "Sort of. You seem to have a predisposition for altering someone's life force."

She rolled her eyes. "And?!"

He sighed. "I'm sorry, Darcy, but we're really in uncharted territory here. You may just have to…wade in and see what happens."

She groaned, letting her forehead drop down onto her desk.

"I'm sorry."

"Is it dangerous? Or…is it fucking with things? I mean, am I…even me anymore? I feel like…I feel like I'm in his head and he's in mine."

He spoke slowly. "That may be the case, now. Darcy, there is no precedent for this, no roadmap. I have regrettably little to offer you. My suggestion was just that: a suggestion. I was shooting from the hip, in effect, and I wasn't entirely sure it would work, let alone how it would work. I'm sorry if I misled you or…freaked you out."

She sighed.

"But, that being said, I wouldn't worry too much. It sounds like it just…heightened what you already had between you, nothing more. After all, a bond is only as strong as the devotion you feed it. The two of you seem very tightly bound, so I would…try and use it to my advantage. Okay?"

((()))

With Strange's words still rolling around in her mind, Darcy woke around two out of a dead sleep, snapping into sharp awareness out of nowhere. For a moment, she stared at the ceiling, taking inventory of everything in the room, cataloguing every sound in the apartment.

The steady hiss of the vent as it blew cool air into the room per the thermostat.

The low drone of traffic far, far below on Park Avenue, just a barely audible hum through the thick, high rise windows.

The soft padding noise of Max, tapping the wall with one paw as he slept, twitching in some dreamland.

Bucky's slow, soft breathing beside her, his hand on her hip.

She glanced over at him. For someone who had been forced into such frenzied action for so long, he'd certainly learned how to relax. Around her and a select, trusted few, he could melt into a boneless puddle and not move if the mood struck him.

She wasn't sure what had woken her; there'd been no discernible sound in the room, nothing that should've been able to draw her out of deep sleep, especially since she always slept so well after a night of spectacular sex.

But her skin was prickling and her sixth sense was humming warmly in the back of her mind. She sat up, frowning around at the dark room.

Bucky shifted beside her, sighing in his sleep as he settled deeper into the pillow, his hand sliding over her thigh. The urge to nestle in against him again and go back to sleep was nearly unbearable. But something kept her from doing so.

Moving gingerly to avoid waking him, she slid down from the high bed and onto the icy cold hardwood floor, glancing around as she straightened her tiny nightgown. It was a thin-strapped, snug little thing that fell just above her knees—a sexy, low-key option for summer nights that was beyond comfortable. She slid on her silk robe, leaving it open as she yawned in the dark room. Quietly, she padded down the hall and peered around the doorway into the living room.

Nothing. In fact, her senses felt cooler in here.

Frowning and wondering if she was imagining it, she turned and backtracked.

No. No, Bucky had trained her to trust her instincts and he'd tell her to listen hard now, for any thrum, any vibration to the line. Like a spider at the center of a web.

With thoughts of Natasha's alter ego in her head, she went back into the bedroom and looked at him for a long moment with unashamed longing. The bed was warm. He was warm. And he smelled good, like the vanilla soap she'd splurged on the week before at Sephora, but with that musky male…something to cut the sweetness.

And she'd told Tony the truth. Things had been so good between them—not that they'd ever been bad—since the whole mess in Bruce's lab. She hadn't thought they could be any closer, but she'd been wrong, and she was getting that old feeling again, that no matter which direction she stepped in, something might snap the tentative strings of repair in their life.

Sighing hard, she forced herself to turn and survey the rest of the room.

Totally still. But something felt…distinctly wrong.

Eyes narrowed, she moved across to the balcony and slid the door just wide enough to step out without letting in a breeze that would wake her sleeping soldier. The New York noise was louder out here, even with the extreme height at which Avengers Tower stood, and she took a deep breath of the clearer air as the sounds of rushing traffic and drunken yelling drifted, muffled, upwards.

Well, maybe not so clear. She cleared her throat against the smog and rolled her eyes.

New York.

But the feeling was stronger out here. She cocked her head and felt around, using that sixth sense to nudge at the air around her. She found it warm and crackling with…an 'other' energy.

One that felt eerily familiar.

She cocked her head the other way and let her gaze slide through her lashes at the figure standing in shadow along the far edge of their balcony. "Nice night for a bit of high rise scaling, hm? Or did your personal helicopter drop off your dead weight?"

Aldrich Killian gifted her with a feral grin and stepped into a sliver of dim light. "Dead weight?"

She narrowly avoided letting herself pull the proverbial move of crossing her arms over her chest in a stereotypical show of self-defense. She had nothing to prove to this maniac—and it wasn't as though he'd already seen her in tiny pajamas. "That's what you'll be soon enough if I shout the alarm."

But Aldrich chuckled, his damnably attractive mouth a slice of macabre humor in the darkness. "Oh, but you won't tattle on me, will you?"

She leaned against the balcony ledge, letting the hard stone cut through her thin layers and press a cool edge against her skin, keeping her alert. "Why not?"

Killian narrowed his eyes and took a step closer, showing her little. "Because for all your talk, you're not so sure your Boy Toy can take me."

Was that what he thought?

She snorted. "Oh? Well, that's news to me. I thought the last time you squared off your Lava Man powers were useless against him—and there was that other thing. What was it?" She snapped her fingers. "Oh. Yeah. The whole thing where he almost killed you."

He sneered. "Did his newfound morality keep him from getting further blood on his hands?"

"Nah." She waved a hand. "It was merely a question of time. He wanted to bring you in for questioning." And she presented him with her own feral grin. "I'm pretty sure he wanted to be the one to do the questioning." She cocked her head again and gave him her best sweet smile. "Why do you think he'd want to do that?"

Killian chuckled. "He should thank me. I made you. He wouldn't want to force me to unmake you, now would he?"

She snarled, tired of the silly, passive-aggressive banter. "Cut the crap, Aldrich. You know I can see through your shit. Now why are you here? I was sleeping so well until you dragged your stink through here."

He threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, come on—you know how much fun you are?! I had to come razz you about the upstate facility! You're my only source of witty banter, Ms. Lewis—or is that Mrs. Barnes, now? I forget."

She glared at him. "Jokes on you—the tracker is dead."

Bruce and Tony had done extensive tests after everything had died down. They were positive, and they'd assured her that she wasn't in danger of making anything go kablooey anymore. They weren't sure what to look to—her new powers, the force of the blast itself knocking the signal off the tiny piece of technology, or whatever had happened between them when they'd been unconscious.

Either way, she was relieved.

"And no one else. In fact, the only thing you succeeded in doing was drawing us all closer together. Is that what you intended?"

He grinned, but didn't take the bait. "Mrs. Barnes. It has a nice ring to it. And now, if he's Killed in Action, you get it all! Or, wait." He gestured. "Killed in Action—again." He chuckled. "Sometimes I get confused. Is he officially alive or did Fury pull some strings? Did he get to keep his Social Security Number?"

She rolled her eyes. "You're hilarious, Killian."

He shrugged demurely. "I try."

She had no illusions—patience had never been a strong suit with her, and at the moment, hers was growing paper thin. "What do you want?" she snapped, biting out the words. "You just won't go away. You show up in the middle of paradise, blow the place wide, tie me to a chair, make me blow shit up! What the fuck do you want?!"

She was almost surprised to find herself out of breath, her hands crackling at her sides, rage pooling in her belly for all that he'd done, all that he'd put her through—her and Bucky both. He had the audacity to show himself here, like it was all some joke?!

Killian's smile slowly melted, his eyes on her fingers as they snapped with electricity. He swallowed. "What, exactly, did I make you, hm?"

She snarled. "I'm sure you'd love to find out, but you might find I'm a little harder to catch now. If you hadn't noticed the trail of dead we left down Route 66." She took a step toward him, her eyes growing hot with anger. "You didn't come for anything, did you? You didn't come for any other reason than to see how far down you'd brought me. That gets you off, doesn't it?" She sneered at him as his face colored. "Admit it, Killian. You came to see what sort of mess I'd become, it turns you on to see how frightened you can make someone, now. That shit with Tony a few years ago never really ended for you, did it? It's something you can't shake now, this need you have to alter others, to remake them so that they have no choice but to rely on you. You had no control over your life before. You were just a creep, begging at Tony's ankles like a Toy Poodle. And when he was asshole—which, admittedly, he was—you snapped."

He flinched, stepping back as she continued to slowly advance.

She continued, blind with building rage. "You snapped. You took control back, but you went too far, didn't you Aldrich?" She grinned, closing the distance between them. "He knocked you back down a peg. And you. Can't. Stand it. You have to do something to make yourself an equal again, to make yourself a big player, hm? So you feel like you still have pieces to move around the board. Well, you don't." She finally stopped, glaring up into his face, rage crackling in her veins. "You're pathetic. And you might've made me your little experiment. But now you've lost control of me. Like Frankenstein and his monster, hm?"

He swallowed, his apprehension and growing fear clear on his face.

She smiled, gesturing back inside. "You're afraid of him. And you should be. But here you are, right now, in the middle of the night, realizing that you should be afraid of me too." Not thinking, she reached out and snatched his throat into her grip. Her hand was too small to take up his whole neck, but she found it didn't much matter, as she felt her grip increase enough to make up for it, putting pressure on just the right spot.

His eyes went wide as he stared down at her, frozen in fear.

Something was coming over her, slowly, like smoldering embers catching fire in her veins, and she saw red as she looked up at him. She didn't feel a thing, and yet she felt it all—every second of torture and suffering, every moment of pain and fear under his care, the deep-set, bone-deep seduction of the siren song for vengeance. So close. Right there if she just reached out and snatched it up. Her veins weren't filled with blood anymore, they were filled with molten fury and she clenched down on her hand, shoving him back against the guardrail with everything she had, feeling the hard cartilage of his windpipe constricting beneath her palm as the rail shook.

He started struggling, then, his hand coming up, molten and orange, to clamp down on her wrist and exert his own pressure. But she didn't feel a thing.

She tugged at the essence deep down, where she kept it shoved in a little pocket, where it was becoming easier and easier to call it, and pooled it in her mind, using it to edge him out, to increase her strength over him, and she smiled as his struggles turned to thrashing that was largely useless.

Triumph.

But then something even stranger happened—

((()))

"Make sure you keep pressure," Bucky instructed, taking up her wrist in his metal hand and tugging her forward into him, pushing her fingers more tightly against his windpipe.

She blushed, glad they were alone in the weight room. "Yeah, pressure, sure—but let's be honest, Jamie. My hand's way too small to do any damage against a baddie."

Bucky smiled, easing off and standing. "You're different now, Darce. You've got serum in your blood. You can hold your own better than you think you can."

She rolled her eyes, glancing at the clock. "And you can teach me a proper chokehold before dinner?"

He flicked a hand at her. "We're ordering out anyway, right? We've got a honeymoon to plan, after all."

His grin nearly undid her, but she focused on undoing the tape around her knuckles. "Is this gonna be a thing?"

He checked the hooks on the punching bag and seemed satisfied that she hadn't damaged anything. "What are you talking about?"

She chuckled, teasing him wryly. "Is it gonna be a thing, where the fact that I'm slightly more capable of killing someone than I was before is a huge turn-on for you?"

To her surprise, he rebuffed the joke. "A turn-on?"

She shrugged. "Well. I mean, I'm in the wrong business, here, otherwise. And, I mean, I think I've already come pretty close to taking someone out a few times already. Would it be a thing for you if I actually did?"

He cocked his head and studied her. "I'd rather you didn't."

And he seemed suddenly so earnest that she could only stare at him for a moment. "Seriously?"

He shrugged, looking down at his hands, suddenly awkward. "Darcy. It's no easy thing. Just because they're an enemy, just because they might be part of a plot to blow up the earth, it…it doesn't make it easy. It should. And it sounds like it ought to be. But…it's not."

She frowned. "What isn't?"

He finally looked up at her, and his eyes were a bright, sea blue. "Taking a life."

She stared at him, his solemn tone striking a tiny fissure in her.

"The fact that they're a 'bad guy' doesn't change anything. It should. In a fair world, it would. But it doesn't change the fact that you've ended someone. You've cut them off, you've decided that they shouldn't live anymore—you've taken the only thing anyone truly owns—their life."

She swallowed, his words hanging heavy between them, and when she spoke, she found her voice husky with feeling and the knowledge that he would know this better than most of the people in this building. "And?"

He sighed out a deep breath. "And I don't want that for you. No matter what you might tell yourself, you still killed someone and you can't take it back. That's not an easy thing to carry around, and I don't want you to have to carry it. You think you're strong enough, and Darcy, I have no doubt of how strong you are. You're the strongest person I think I've ever met."

She scoffed.

"But that sort of knowledge, that sense of ownership, it's heavy. It weighs a ton, and you can't put it down." He stared hard into her eyes across the distance between them across the training mat. "Trust me."

She nodded, a little dazed as he closed that distance and took up her hands, studying the pressure points and marks left by the wrapping on her fingers. He ran the pad of his human thumb over a red hatch mark and sighed. "The idea of you killing someone doesn't turn me on. I may be an assassin, but I'm not sick. I don't want that for you."

She swallowed. "What if it's him or me?"

"Then cross that bridge when you come to it. And brace yourself. It's vicious, more vicious than I can put words to, Darcy. And there's always another choice."

She snorted. "Yeah, okay, so I can just release the baddie and let him go free to kill other people?"

He nodded. "I know, it's hard to rectify. But his killing isn't something you can control. That's not on your conscience, Darcy. There's always another choice. It might not be an easy one. But there's always one there."

((()))

The memory smacked her, hard, and square in the throat, making her gasp back, releasing her grip on Aldrich Killian.

He doubled over, coughing and gagging, clawing at his throat as he finally managed to pull air back into his lungs, the raw sound overtaking the noise of the streets below.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, her hand shaking and hot where she'd pressed it to his throat.

She'd promised. Or she might as well have.

But.

But this man, this man in front of her was a monster. She couldn't possibly let him go, not for what he'd done to her, or to Bucky, or Tony, or what he might do to the next few unfortunate souls. She couldn't possibly leave him to level some building and kill every single person inside, he couldn't be allowed to go free.

Bucky's voice was heavy with feeling in her head, insisting that she'd never be able to live with herself either way.

Before she could really think about it, she lunged at him, her hands crackling with energy as they closed around his collar—

Which he slipped straight out of, leaving her standing there with his thin jacket.

He laughed as he darted straight over the ledge of the balcony.

Jaw dropping open, she bent to look over the edge—

But he was gone.