"Honestly Sincere"

Ever since she hit puberty, Darcy had insisted on seeing every production of Bye-Bye Birdie that she could get to. Community theatre groups were the best places, as long as she could get front row seats, because sometimes the guy playing Conrad Birdie would break the fourth wall and sing to women in the audience. No one had sung to Darcy yet, but she was confident that it'd happen someday. It had to; her soulmark said so.

'If you feel it in here then it's gotta be right, oh, baby!'

She'd first heard the words when her sister made her watch the movie, and they both recognised Darcy's soulmark. In later years, when nothing came of spending too much money on seeing musicals, she checked Google, and still just came up with the lyrics for 'Honestly Sincere'. So she continued to pour her hard-earned cash into the performing arts, saw enough productions to have the whole damn thing memorised, as well as memorising the movie, and continued to miss finding her soulmate.

"Just let it happen," her mother advised.

"Save your money for something else," her father added. Thanks, guys, real helpful.

Darcy wasn't going to sit around and wait for her soulmate to come to her. She was gonna go out and find him. Or her, no point in discriminating.

She even applied for the internship because there was gonna be a production of Bye-Bye Birdie in New Mexico, so she tried to kill two birds with one stone. Science credits and possible soulmate-finding. Instead, Jane hooked herself a hot god, then a big robot crushed the theatre, and bang went another chance.

"I wanna test that memory of yours," Tony said, pushing Steve into the armchair. "So we're gonna watch a few movies, see how much you can remember."

"What're you hoping to achieve?" Steve asked, raising his eyebrows as Tony switched on the TV and brought up the movies menu.

"Call it an experiment."

"Uh—"

"JARVIS is still searching for your buddy-boy. Meanwhile, you've gotta keep your faculties sharp, Grandpa."

"I wasn't much younger than your father, when I knew him," Steve said. Tony didn't react to the mention of Howard, which was… probably a good sign. Hopefully.

"I stick by it, old-timer," he said. "You're gonna watch Singin' in the Rain, because it's a classic, and you'll probably know some of the music."

"Music?"

"Yep. You're gonna watch a range of movies, starting with musicals." He strapped an arm band around Steve's left biceps. "Shit, is this stuff made of steel?" He knocked on Steve's arm, and the captain gave him a dirty look.

"Not exactly the most appropriate comment under the circumstances," he said. Tony half-winced.

"Sorry," he said. "Wasn't thinking. There." He stood back. "I'll sit through the first one with you. Hey, I even brought popcorn!"

"I know. I can smell it."

"Right. Super-senses. So." Tony plonked down beside Steve and handed him a large bag of freshly-popped popcorn, then picked up a much smaller one for himself. "This is to see how much of the dialogue you remember, plus music and dancing."

"No pressure, in other words."

"Just enjoy!"

"I can't 'just enjoy' if I'm concentrating on memorising."

"Do you ever have to concentrate to memorise something? Since the serum, I mean?"

Steve thought about it. "If I do, I don't notice it."

After watching Singin' in the Rain, Tony dragged Steve downstairs to one of the empty floors. There, he found a recreation of the scene for the title song, right down to the lamp-post.

"And it's reinforced," Tony said. "Sprinklers, JARVIS." It began to rain on the scene, and Tony handed Steve an umbrella. "Not superstitious about opening umbrellas inside, are you?"

"No," Steve said, staring at it. "Tony…"

"Get into position. JARVIS, cue the music."

"Music cued, sir. Awaiting your word, Captain Rogers."

"Jesus Christ," Steve muttered. He allowed himself the blasphemy, and strode to one end of the set. "Okay, JARVIS."

Damned if he was gonna give Tony the satisfaction of only remembering part of the routine.

Although, after he performed the whole thing flawlessly, he wondered what kind of humiliation Tony had in mind, when he turned and gave a camera the thumbs-up.

"You know I can't sing all that well," Steve said, rubbing the back of his wet neck.

"You were in tune, and didn't do a bad impression of Kelly's voice," Tony said. "You sure you never had any dance training?"

"No," Steve said softly, remembering his missed date with Peggy. "Never danced a step in my life."

"Well." Tony clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm impressed. Next, you get to do a recreation of the whole film. Kidding, kidding! You're too tall to play Debbie Reynolds, and your vocal register is too low for Lina Lamont. Still… wanna try the 'Make `Em Laugh' number?"

"Lemme dry off first."

It became a routine. At least it got Tony out of his workshop for a few hours. Tony would make Steve watch a movie musical he'd never seen, then get him to recreate one or more of the solos in the ever-changing room. Steve was worried that Tony was compiling all of the clips to release them online. 'Science experiment'? Ha. A likely story.

The latest was the night Thor's human friends joined them. Steve had never met any of them, although he'd answered Thor's phone for him once and spoken to Jane Foster while Thor mopped up the milkshake he'd spilled when the cell phone's loud ring startled him.

Tony had arranged the movie viewing earlier than usual, and then forced Steve through the indignity of performing 'How Lovely to Be a Woman' and 'One Last Kiss' from Bye-Bye Birdie before releasing Steve to get showered and dressed.

He was still humming as he went to the kitchen for a snack. His high metabolism was getting a real workout these days. Not so much today, since the routines hadn't been complicated. But hanging around with Tony Stark for a few hours each day, even though it was mostly watching a film, was enough to drain him of emotional energy, and that manifested itself as a hunger for comfort food. He was rifling through the cabinet for the cookies he'd baked after his run that morning, and found that Clint had moved them again. Probably taken half of them into his nest. Good thing nary a rat was to be seen around Stark Tower, or they'd have needed to call in the Pied Piper a long time ago.

"Clint, you're gonna be in trouble," he said, walking through to the common area, where he could hear chatter and laughter. Then he saw that the cookies had been put on a plate, and people were helping themselves, including their visitors. He caught Clint's eyes, and the archer shrugged, before signing 'Not my doing this time'.

"Yo, Rogers!" Tony called out. "I was just telling the others about your sweet dance moves." Was it a crime to strangle Tony Stark? "Wanna show `em something?"

"I'm not dancing," he said flatly.

"So don't dance. But your singing is heaps better, and we all wanna hear it."

"It only sounds better because I copy the singers!"

"Charlie Chaplin did that once," Tony said. Steve rolled his eyes. "C'mon. What about the movie we watched today? Don't tell me you weren't humming before."

"Yeah, c'mon, Steve," Natasha said. "Have you watched an Elvis film? Because I wouldn't mind seeing some of that hip action."

"Close enough today," Tony said. "C'mon, Steve. Show us your Conrad."

Steve heard a gasp, and his eyes flicked briefly to Thor's friends. The brunette wearing a beanie indoors must have been Darcy. She was staring at him. When she noticed, she immediately stuffed her face with a cookie.

"Show them one of the videos you've been taking," he said. "Don't think I'm not terrified that you'll start posting them on Youtube."

"The world needs to see how talented you are," Tony said.

"The world doesn't need to know how I'm putting my memory to use!"

"It… humanises you?"

"Steve, sing, or he'll keep bugging you," Bruce advised. Seeing the wisdom in this, he hoped that JARVIS would pull out the instrumentation.

…Until he saw the guitar that definitely wasn't in the corner of the room yesterday. He hated the sweet smile Tony gave him.

"One of these days," he threatened, and he picked it up. He heard Tony cheer, and hoped that his responding look was suitably venomous. He played the first chord… and nothing.

"It was dubbed in the film," Tony said. "JARVIS will play for you."

"Encouraging."

"Ready, Captain Rogers."

Steve took a deep breath, and was still somewhat shocked when JARVIS played the electronic chord at the same time that he strummed the strings.

"You gotta be sincere," he sang. Tony mock-swooned, but Steve ignored that in favour of copying Jesse Pearson's performance as Conrad Birdie. "You gotta be sincere. You gotta feel it here, `cause if you feel it here, well, then you're gonna be honestly sincere."

He started to have fun as the women cheered, and even Clint ogled him. Steve got to the chorus, and sang the first couple of lines to a laughing Thor, and then turned to Darcy.

"If you feel it in here then it's gotta be right, oh, baby!" He registered her shell-shocked expression, but didn't let it distract him as he moved around the room for the rest of the number, right until he finished the last 'Yeah!'

He set aside the guitar, and bowed to acknowledge the applause and whooping. He saw Darcy's bright red face and winked at her, still feeling cheeky after the flirtatious song. She bit her bottom lip, and he decided to stop teasing. No need to make her feel uncomfortable when she'd only just got here. He retreated to the kitchen to get some water and plot many painful ways to kill Tony Stark. He'd come up with a hundred and three to date. He'd passed his original goal of a hundred, so now he was going for a hundred and fifty.

Later on, after things had gotten back to normal and people were walking around and talking – and occasionally complimenting him – he sought out Darcy to apologise for making her blush like that. Not that he was exactly sorry, and pretty sure that made him a terrible person. When she saw him, she nearly jumped out of her skin. He opened his mouth, but she beat him to the punch.

And wow, was it a hell of an emotional punch.

"If I asked nicely, would you do that again for me, in private this time?" she asked. Steve dropped his water.

"What d'you want me to do, exactly?" he said.

"Sing for me. Like the way you sang my soulmark?"

Once his brain processed this – damn quickly, thank you, Erskine and Howard – he picked her up and spun her around, laughing.

"Remind me to thank Tony later," he said, pulling her close. He was well aware they'd drawn attention. She suddenly scowled.

"Do you know how many friggin' productions of Bye-Bye Birdie I've spent money on seeing for half my life?" she said. He blinked.

"I'm… sorry?" he said.

"You better be!"

"Um… let me make it up to you!"

She pursed her lips, and he tilted his head in a way he'd been told was endearing. She melted a little.

"How?" she asked. Steve looked her over, from her gorgeous green eyes down her curvy figure, lingering shamefully on her cleavage, and then met her gaze again. He allowed his smile to turn wicked as indecent thoughts clamoured for attention. Her lips parted as her cheeks turned pink again.

"Let me show you," he said. "In private."

"Uh…" She glanced at Jane, who looked as stunned as the rest of them. "I'll be with my soulmate, okay?"

"Your soulmate?" Jane said.

"Ye-agh!" She screamed as Steve scooped her up in his arms.

"You wanted me to sing to you," he said innocently.

"Asshole, put me down!"

"Sure. Once we're alone." He carried her to the elevator despite her increasingly half-hearted protests. He continued to hold her, wanting to feel her weight in his arms.

"You gonna let me walk on my own, buster?" Darcy said.

"Eventually. You might not wanna walk for awhile after I'm done with you."

"Wha—?"

"I won't take you to bed until we're married, but I understand there are other things we can do," he said, depositing her on the sofa which he'd shared with Tony so many times lately. Well, now he had someone else to watch films with. And honestly? There were other ways he'd be happy to burn off energy every night.

Better make that wedding as soon as he could convince Darcy to marry him.

Because Steve's a gentleman in this story. Sort of. And of course Darcy's going to pick the one thing to be pissed about.

Please review! In case anyone hasn't noticed, I've posted the first two chapters of the smutty-smutty bonding scenes fic. It's called 'Fate's Bonding Scenes' (creative title, I know).