Darcy only realized that she'd stopped breathing when her lungs screamed for oxygen.
Slowly, she raised her eyes to look at the man standing in front of her. "Excuse me?"
"You're not what I expected." James watched as she hugged the papers to her chest like a shield to protect her. Her eyes darted over him, taking in the baseball cap and sweatshirt he wore before meeting his gaze. She tilted her head to the side while narrowing her eyes.
"You're the guy from Avengers Tower… weeks ago." He shifted his weight (something he had to remember to do – being too still made people nervous) and jerked a nod.
"What's the prisoner's dilemma?"
"The Prisoner's Dilemma?" she frowned. "It's a game theory concept."
"Game theory?"
"It's…" she raised an eyebrow. "Why does it matter?" James didn't say anything but fixed her with a blank stare. "That doesn't intimidate me, you know. I just taught a class where half of my students looked like that."
The corner of his mouth twitched as though he was fighting a smile. She raised an eyebrow before setting the papers back down and walking back to the lectern, pulling open a drawer and retrieving a marker. When she flipped a switch on the wall, the screen rose up into the ceiling to reveal a white board. "I'll make you a deal," she said. "You tell me your name and why you didn't say anything when I saw you in the first place, and I'll tell you what the Prisoner's Dilemma is. Deal?"
Something flashed in his eyes as he gave her an appraising look. The silence between them stretched until she rolled her eyes. "Look, I don't have all day. There's another class coming in and I've got shit I need to do before I have class tonight. So are you going to tell me your name or not?"
He still didn't say anything. Darcy huffed and rolled her eyes. "Dinner."
"Dinner?" she snorted. "Your name is Dinner?"
Licking his lips, he shook his head. He'd been good at this before…a long time ago, or at least that's what Steve had told him. "No. I want an answer and to take you for dinner. For telling you my name and…why…"
"Not doing dinner, sorry, but I just met you, so no – plus, I have class until 8:00 tonight and a shit ton of work to do. But we can grab a quick cup of coffee."
He felt a sense of relief at her shooting down dinner. It had been Steve's idea; he'd wanted for him to actually give the girl a chance before walking away. 'You owe her that at least,' he'd said. It wasn't until she was looking at him over the rims of her glasses that he realized he'd lapsed into silence again.
"James…my name's James."
"Darcy Lewis," she said before uncapping the marker and drawing a two-by-two grid. But when she raised her arm to start labeling the axis, she paused and turned to face him again, frowning this time. "James? As in…are you… Bucky Barnes?"
"James," he said, his voice firmer. "I'm not him."
"But you are, though, aren't you?" she said, stepping away from the board and looking at him more closely. "I used you as a case study in one of my papers about human rights violations and international norms – "
"I'm not him. He's gone."
"Okay," Darcy said, stretching out the 'O'. When there was a sound behind him, her eyes looked past James as he slowly turned to look over his shoulder. A boy was walking down the steps of the classroom, glancing at the two of them before settling in an empty seat halfway down. Her eyes moved to meet James's again before she turned and started to erase her grid.
"But – "
"I don't need to illustrate the concept," she said shortly. He watched as she pulled on her coat and backpack, the fabric over her breasts stretching tightly as she untucked her hair. They walked side-by-side up the steps and emerged into the hallway where he followed her. "Coffee, right?"
"Yeah."
"Okay," she nodded, steering him towards the door.
"The Prisoner's Dilemma?"
There was a soft sigh, and he turned to look at her as she readjusted her glasses. "Like I said, it's a game theory concept – one that I hate, by the way, because everyone thinks if you get that one you're a god at game theory when you're just scratching the surface – but anyways. Basically you have these parties who are set up to either help or hurt each other, and it all depends on if they cooperate or not." Darcy looked over at him and saw his raised eyebrow. "You've seen Law and Order, right?"
"No."
Darcy actually stopped walking and gaped up at him. "What? You don't watch Law and Order? Everyone watches one of them! Personally, I like SVU better but I don't fault people that like the original."
A smirk tugged at the corner of James's mouth. "Don't watch much television."
"That's a crime," she sighed again, waving a hand as she started to walk again. "Anyways, you can imagine a police interrogation, right?"
Vividly, he though, remembering the interrogation he'd gone through with SHIELD after turning himself in. He grunted an answer rather than saying that, though.
"Ok, so lets imagine that you and I rob a bank because I'm a poor grad student and you need new clothes." The gentle teasing has him almost smiling again. "Because we're terrible bank robbers, we get caught."
"We wouldn't," James interrupted. "I'd make sure we didn't." When she smiled, he couldn't help but notice how pretty she was. It wasn't an overpowering, star-striking kind of beauty but the comfortable in her skin type. And the fact that she had curves for days unlike a lot of the women today was something he really appreciated.
"You'd get us out of there with your super ninja skills?"
He flexed his bionic hand, the metal hidden by a glove, and shrugged. "Something like that."
Chuckling, she waved another hand. "For argument's sake, they catch us and put us in separate interrogation rooms. And before we went all Bonnie and Clyde, we agreed not to sell each other out. But then this really hot detective comes in and tells me that I'll be able to walk out of there if I pin the whole thing on you, and a hot detective tells you the same thing about pinning it on me. So those are the best personal options. And let's say we're both idiots and crappy co-conspirators, so we cave and both get screwed over because those damn cops tricked us and we get thrown into jail. The last option is that we both stay quiet and recognize that we'd suck in jail and probably be people's bitches – " another smile crossed her lips, "and because the cops have no evidence, we walk out of there to roll in the piles of our ill-begotten money."
"Oh."
"Yeah. So…uh," she seemed to lose her steam as she ended the lesson. "Long story short? Don't sell me out and we'll both walk out of the precinct very rich. Cooperation over being a tool every time."
The conversation had kept them busy as they walked through campus to the coffee shop. He opened the door for her; a warm burst of air heavy with the scent of coffee rushing out the ruffle their hair. There was a low rumble of conversation around them, and they stood in silence while looking at the board to figure out their order, shuffling along with the queue. When the silence stretched too long, though, he saw her start to shift and fidget.
"Can I see them?"
"See what?" James asked.
"Your words." He looked at her for a moment before pulling up the sleeve of his sweater and presenting his wrist to her. She looks shyly up at him through her eyelashes before reaching out to hold his wrist between her hands, fingers stroking the scars criss-crossing his skin and the mangled, indecipherable words. Her face was pale, her pink lips rolled together, when she looked up to meet his gaze again.
"Next!"
Darcy dropped his hand in shock before hurrying to the available barista, James drifting behind her. She quickly gave her order and shook her head when the man asked if she and James' order was together.
OOO
It wasn't until they'd found an empty bench some distance away from the coffee shop that they spoke again. Darcy had her legs cross under her and was cradling the paper cup of coffee somewhat reverently as she blew to cool it down, her long hair curling in her face.
"What are you studying?" James asked. Darcy looked at him before taking a tentative sip of her drink.
"I'm working on a PhD in Political Science." James's eyebrow twitched slightly before he took a sip of his coffee.
"Oh."
"What?" she pushed.
"Nothing. Just…" he shrugged. "I didn't…"
"Didn't expect me to be smart?" Her sarcastic tone almost masked the hurt in her voice, as did the hard set of her eyebrows, but James had been trained to see past that. "Driven? Wanting to do something with my life?"
"No." Her face flushed and he realized what he said. "No wait, that's not what I meant. You're…Dr. Foster…"
"Oh," she said, nodding. "Right. You know Jane. So she probably gave you a super flattering description of me and you made the assumption that I'm an idiot because I don't understand astrophysics and – "
"No," James snapped, his eyes flashing dangerously. Darcy stopped talking, edging away from him on the bench. Her eyes shot to the bag at her feet and then glanced at her wrist.
"Well, I really have to be – "
"Wait," he sighed, reaching out to stop her before thinking better of it. She flinched slightly as his hand rested on her wrist. He could see a flicker of confusion at the glove and how his hand felt different from flesh and bone. "I'm sorry." She was quiet for a long moment, still looking slightly skittish. "You said you know about me…what I…what happened."
"A bit," she said wearily.
He gave her a humorless smile and shook back the sleeve of his hand, showing her his marked wrist again. "You're not what I expected because of this." Darcy shifted her coffee to one hand and hesitantly reached out to touch the scars with her warm fingers.
"What were they?"
"The Prisoner's Dilemma." He heard her soft inhalation and gave her a minute to collect herself before looking up. "It's not you that surprised me. It's what you said."
"Which is why you didn't say anything at the Tower," Darcy said quietly. Her blue eyes slowly moved from his wrist to meet his, and he nodded. Rolling her lips together, she looked down at her coffee while her fingers absentmindedly stroked the scars.
"I'm sorry."
Frowning, Darcy's attention snapped back to him. "Don't. Apparently we're both pretty awesome at giving the other complexes."
"Huh?"
Her hand moved to touch just under her ribs and smirked, "Having 'you're not what I expected' isn't exactly confidence inspiring when your growing up. Not that, you know," her face flushed, "having 'The Prisoner's Dilemma' isn't any better. Sorry 'bout that, by the way." Cradling her coffee again, she leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees and let her hair hang in her face.
"I probably could have picked better words," James said, smirking slightly. "Sorry about the complex."
"What's a little emotional torture as a child?" she waved off his apology. Unfolding her legs, she pulled a phone from her pocket and checked the time before sighing. "Look, I need to be upfront with you – I'm not looking to jump into this," she said, gesturing between them. "Just because we have each other's words doesn't mean that we're 'soul mates'." He nearly smiled at her one-handed air quote. "So if that's what you're looking for, I think fate saddled you with the wrong girl."
James studied her again before giving her a wry smile. "I think fate did pretty well – I'm not looking for a soul mate, now or ever."
Her eyebrows raised but she smiled. "This arrangement? I'm good with it."
"Yeah?" he asked, a bit surprised by the lack of a fight.
"Dude, Team Free Will here – not really much for being forced into anything."
Chuckling, James shook his head. "Can I get that in writing? Steve's not gonna believe me."
"Steve? Wait, you mean Captain America?"
"Yeah. He's been after me to come talk to you."
"Hang on," she said, shoving her coffee into his hand and digging through her bag for her wallet. After retrieving her coffee receipt and a pen, she quickly scribbled something and signed it with a flourish before handing it to him.
"'I, Darcy Ann Lewis, of sound mind and free will let James Barnes off the hook for any 'soul mate' responsibilities. Team free will!'" he read, cocking an eyebrow. "This might do it."
"Well, if it doesn't, give me a call and I'll tell him. We can Facetime if he still doesn't believe it's me."
"I'd need your number to do that," James smirked.
"Well, since you found out where I go to school, I don't think getting my number would be that much more difficult." With a wink, Darcy stood and swung her bag onto her shoulder before holding out a hand for her coffee. "It was nice meeting you, James Barnes."
"It was nice meeting you too, Darcy Lewis," he replied, handing her the coffee. With a wave, she turned and walked away.
OOO
It was nearly 11 o'clock, and Darcy was still working in her office when her text alert sounded, interrupting her music. Sighing, she rubbed her eyes and adjusted her ear buds before grabbing the phone.
You're right, it wasn't hard getting your number.
Laughing, Darcy opened the text and typed her response.
Ok, so I won't doubt your super ninja skills when we rob the bank.
Author's Note: Hey guys, so sorry for the delay! Real life political science-ing got in the way and cut down on my writing time. I hope this was worth the wait. As always, thanks for reading and please let me know what you think =)