Thanks, Steve

Sam/Bucky/Darcy

FalconWinterShock

Theme song:

Bon Jovi – I'll Be There For You

A gift for cinnaatheart, for the Darcyland Galentine's Gift Exchange. I hope you enjoy!

"I might know a guy," Sam told Steve, glancing thoughtfully over at Barnes. "He's an engineer. You remember that ant-guy I was telling you about?"

"The one who kicked your ass?" Steve gave him a slight sideways grin.

"Yeah, yeah, that AI is an untrustworthy little bitch for blabbing on me. But I think he could help. I'll call him."

"You said he was based in San Francisco, though, didn't you? Would he come up here?"

"He might. He owes me one."

Steve glanced over at Bucky, who was slumping exhaustedly against the huge vice. "Call him. We need that arm checked out, make sure there's no trackers in it."

"There's definitely trackers in it," Bucky said wearily. "Why do you think I clamped the fucker in this thing? All this steel masks the signal. They won't be far away, though. They'll be looking for me."

"We need to move, then," Steve said, eyeing the arm. "I wonder if I could use the shield to block the trackers...?"

"Now you're thinking," Sam said, impressed. "If we put him in the back of the SUV, laid the shield over his arm…"

They grinned at each other. Steve headed out to get the car, since he had the keys in his pocket, and Sam looked at Bucky.

"When we let you out of there, you ain't gonna go crazy and try to kill me, are you?" he asked hopefully.

Bucky stiffened, his eyes rolling back, head jolting. He clenched his teeth for a moment before drawing in a long, hissing breath.

"No, I won't hurt you," he said quietly at last.

"What?" Sam startled, hand moving to clasp the opposite forearm.

"So it is you." Bucky smiled, a slight grimace. "I was programmed to kill anyone who spoke those words to me."

"Holy mother of God," Sam said under his breath, still staring incredulously. "And… you're not gonna do that?"

"Nope. Broke the programming. You, and the other one - you're safe from me."

Sam touched his stomach. "Is our third a potty mouth to you, too?"

That made Bucky laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, she's a mouthy one, huh? Looking forward to meeting her. Just as much as I was looking forward to meeting you."

The door at the end of the workshop rumbled open then, Steve silhouetted in the light. "Time to move, guys."

Of course, there was the slight problem that they had nowhere to go. Stark's resources, which they normally relied on so heavily, were denied them. Sam knew a fair few Air Force folks but didn't dare risk it, in case they felt that Bucky should be turned in to the authorities. It was Steve who came up with a solution, eventually.

"Lewis," he passed his phone across to Sam, who was sitting in the back by Bucky, keeping the shield carefully held over Bucky's arm. "Look up Darcy Lewis. She lives around here somewhere. We can hole up at her place for a bit. I know she's anti-Registration."

"And who exactly is Darcy Lewis?" Sam asked, finding the number and pressing Dial.

"She's Jane Foster's ex-intern. Good people. I talked with her a lot when I first woke up. She put a lot of things on that list of mine to help me catch up to living in this century."

The phone rang out. Steve frowned, disappointed. "Call Dr. Foster. She'll tell us where Darcy lives. We can try and get hold of Darcy again later."

Jane Foster was indeed happy to help, providing Darcy's address. She said she hadn't spoken to her friend in a few days but she was sure Darcy would help them. There was a definite subtext that Sam interpreted as meaning that they wouldn't be the first folks Lewis had helped evade the authorities. He really didn't want to know, so he just thanked Dr Foster and hung up.

Bucky was leaning against Sam's leg, his eyes closed, though Sam suspected he wasn't sleeping. Gently, he began to stroke Bucky's hair, humming softly to him as Steve drove them through the night.

Scott Lang met them at Darcy's apartment building on the outskirts of Seattle. He took one look at Steve and his eyes widened.

"Captain America! Huge fan. Huge. I've been dying to meet you. I'm sorry about that whole break-in thing," he babbled, all in one breath, looking over at Sam. "We really needed that widget. Saving the world. You know how it is."

"Only too well," Sam said dryly. "I just hope it was worth it."

"Oh, definitely! Definitely. Killed the bad guy, rescued lots of people, got the girl. Kinda, anyway."

"I know how that is too," Sam said, barely keeping the grin from his face. Steve was outright laughing under his breath.

"Yes. Well." Scott looked across at Bucky. "And this is the infamous Winter Soldier. Mr Barnes."

"Just Bucky," Steve said when Bucky looked pained.

"You've got a problem, I understand…"

"Not here," Sam said. "Come on, let's get inside." He kept his arm firmly around Bucky, both of them holding the shield so that it was held up like a strange metal umbrella over his shoulder. Praying that would be enough to shield them from the satellites that the trackers in the arm would have to connect to.

They hadn't been able to get through to Darcy, and there was no answer when Steve knocked firmly on her apartment door. They all looked at each other in consternation. They really hadn't planned for this.

"Oh well," Scott said a little glumly, "time for me to resume my breaking and entering career, I suppose."

It was really quite startling to see him suddenly vanish from in front of their eyes, shrinking down so small they could hardly see him, before sprinting under the apartment door. A moment later they heard his voice.

"Hang on, there's an alarm - I'll just disable it…"

The door opened mere seconds after that, Scott gesturing them in with a smile.

"We're really going to have to talk about what exactly you use those skills for normally," Steve said as they walked past.

Scott gulped. "Or not…?"

His skills came in damned handy, though, Sam had to concede, when he had Bucky's arm open in under a minute flat and was delicately disconnecting three tiny little devices not many seconds later, all with the shield held just over his head.

"Looks good," Scott mumbled, "but I'm gonna go small and check the whole thing out, just to be sure?" he glanced up at Bucky, who nodded acquiescence.

Sam breathed a sigh of relief when Scott popped back out again and gave them the all-clear. Steve propped the shield against the wall as Scott carefully began to close the arm back up again.

"It's done?" Sam asked quietly, and Scott nodded.

"Yeah, I disabled the trackers completely. And from the looks of them, they wouldn't have been transmitting anyway, not long-range. Two of them were short-range only, and the third was GPS, but it was powered down. Battery run out, I think."

"So they can't track us here," Steve said, with a soft sigh of relief.

"Nope; your friend's place should hopefully still be here when she gets back." Scott sat back on his heels and smiled at Bucky. "You're all good, buddy."

"Thank you," Bucky said. He looked so tired and weak, Sam just wanted to snuggle him up in a blanket and feed him soup.

Which was a thought…

"I might see if there's some food in the kitchen we could scrounge," he suggested. "Otherwise, Scott could maybe go out for takeout? You're the least recognisable of us…"

"Well, it helps to keep the mask on," Scott grinned, "when one is superheroing."

"Or, you know, being the size of an ant," Sam cracked back, heading into the kitchen - well, kitchenette, really. He hoped the size of the room wasn't an indicator of the quality of the foodstuffs he might find therein. Opening the fridge, he cocked his head.

"Huh." There was fresh food there, milk, lettuce, tomatoes… "I don't think your friend Lewis is out of town, Steve."

"Why not?" Steve came to look in the fridge. "Oh - you might be right. Well - hopefully she won't be too mad when she gets home."

The sound of a key in the lock made them both startle and look towards the door.

"Uh-oh," Scott said cheerfully. Sam shot him a glare. Really, Ant-Man could be quite inappropriate sometimes…

The door swung open to reveal a small brunette wearing a thick coat and scarf, woolly hat and glasses. Huge blue eyes widened behind the glass as she saw Scott, suited and slightly alien-looking, standing right in front of her, but she didn't waste time screaming. She just whipped a Taser out of her pocket and fired.

Scott instinctively hit the buttons on his gloves and vanished down to ant-size, startling a scream from Darcy - and the Taser's pins hit the man directly behind him right in the chest.

Sam went down with a strangled cry, thrashing on the floor, and Darcy yelled again as Steve leapt forward, stooping to yank the pins from Sam's chest.

"Oh my God, Steve, and he's the Falcon - oh, no," she dropped the Taser and bent over Sam anxiously.

"I'm so sorry, fuck, I didn't mean it!"

Sam's eyes were already wide as he choked and jerked; they couldn't go any wider. Darcy stared down at him, trying to steady his head - until a solidly muscled form crashed into her, shoving her up against the wall, a metal hand clamping on her throat.

"You hurt him!" Bucky growled fiercely.

Darcy made a shocked, strangled sound, and Steve grabbed Bucky, jerking him backwards.

"Let go of her, Buck!"

"Holy fuck, you?" Darcy choked out, staring at Bucky. "Really?"

He stared back at her, his own blue eyes going very wide. His hands clenched slowly, and then he just as slowly made them unclench.

"Really, doll," he said in a soft, slow drawl, looking her up and down appraisingly before he knelt beside Sam, who was still twitching on the floor. "And you just zapped our third into a twitching, drooling mess."

"Fuck my life," Darcy said succinctly, dropping to her knees beside Sam and making Steve shake his head.

"Darcy, you really do have a terrible potty mouth."

"Yeah, well, suck it up." Gingerly, she touched Sam's hand. "I really am so, so sorry."

"It's OK." He managed something vaguely like a smile, his fingers clenching on hers. Bucky took his other hand and squeezed it lightly.

"It's all gonna be okay, buddy."

"Feel like - I should - be sayin' that to you," Sam choked out. "You just met us both today, after all."

"Yeah. Been a pretty big day," Bucky understated, smiling, making Darcy stare at him in amazement for how handsome he was when he smiled. Blue eyes flickered up to hers and Bucky said "Wouldn't change today for anythin'."

"Think I could have done without the being Tasered part," Sam groaned, trying to push himself up. Bucky grasped his shoulders steadyingly as Darcy buried her face in her hands and groaned.

"I am never, ever going to live this down, am I?"

She felt Sam's hand touch her hair then; he tugged lightly on one of her hands, bringing it away from her face to make her look at him.

"You're already forgiven, beautiful," he said gently, "but no. You're right. It'll never be forgotten."

"Could be worse," Scott, almost forgotten by all of them in the background, said brightly. "She could have shot you with an actual gun. You know. With bullets."

They all turned to stare at him. He started backing slowly towards the door. "I should be getting back, actually. You know how it is. Stuff to do, people to save…"

The door slammed behind him.

Darcy looked back at Sam.

"I suppose he's right," she admitted. "Jane met Thor when she ran over him with her truck, after all."

Sam grinned. "I've heard that story. Thor tells it a lot."

"I haven't and I really think I'd like to," Bucky put in, grinning, "so why don't you come and sit with me on the couch, doll, and tell me all about you, while Sam and Stevie get to makin' some food for all of us?"

"Sounds good," Darcy admitted, and as Sam scrambled to his feet, aided by Steve and Bucky, she got up too and took off her hat and scarf, unbuttoned her coat. "It's been a long few days. Even worse since I lost my phone."

"Which is why we couldn't get hold of you," Steve realised, but Sam and Bucky were just staring, riveted, at the figure revealed as Darcy took her heavy coat off.

"Holy hot damn," Sam said reverently.

"Damn right," Bucky agreed with a broad grin, and the pair of them glanced at each other only momentarily before stepping forward to bracket Darcy, Bucky taking her discarded outerwear and laying them on the back of the couch.

"You are so gorgeous," Sam told Darcy, his hand coming up to smooth down her ruffled hair. She blushed pink, gazing up at him, then at Bucky.

"Coming from either of you two, that's just too incredible to be real," she murmured breathily.

"He's right, you're stunning," Bucky agreed with Sam. "Like one of the pinup girls all the guys used to swoon over back in the day."

Steve, in the kitchen, chuckled. "I thought Darcy reminded me of Rita Hayworth when I first met her," he put in.

"Nah," Bucky shook his head. "More Ava Gardner," one hand described a curvaceous silhouette in the air, making Steve let out a scandalised chuckle and Darcy laugh aloud.

"I think I can live with being put in that company."

"Siren of the silver screen," Sam was grinning, too, one hand stealing around Darcy's waist. "They're right, beautiful. You do have a pinup girl figure."

"And you have a very heroic figure," Darcy eyed the breadth of his shoulders appreciatively. "Thanks, Steve!" she called then.

"What for?"

"Breaking into my apartment to bring me two hot superhero soulmates!"

Steve grinned at her. "I would say any time, but… hopefully it'll just be the once!"

I'm so sorry about Scott. He completely and utterly attempted to steal the show.

(I have the feeling he'll be doing that in Civil War, too. But then I think we'll need one or two light-hearted moments to distract us from all the FEELZ!)

And yes, before you lot even ask, I've added this one to the list to get a Sexytimes sequel. Though as usual, if someone thinks they'd like to have a crack at extending it, they're welcome to get in touch!

On a VERY serious note, I have to advise you all that this is the last upload that I will be making to this site. I don't intend to take my works down for another month or so, but I WILL be taking them down. For those of you who don't know, many works (including all of mine) were cloned from FFN this week and uploaded to several mirror sites who then used fanwriter's work to sell advertising etc. Plus the mirrorsites were in several cases hosts for dangerous viruses.

FFN haven't so much as tweeted about this to warn people who might not be aware, and nor have I seen any efforts by anyone other than fanwriters to get the other sites taken down.

I'm not prepared to let this stand. All my works already exist at Ao3 (archiveofourown dot net, for those of you who don't know) under the same username – as well as several works which are Ao3 only! That site is much more user-friendly and has an interface which allows images. View this work there and you'll get to see the manips I made to go with each Short, for example!

Thank you to all those who have followed me on FFN from the beginning of my Marvel adventures. You mean the world to me, and I'm sorry to have to take this step, but I hope to see all of you on Ao3 and at my Tumblr (ozhawkauthor) sometime soon!