Chapter Text
The Strange and Expensive Courtship of Darcy Lewis
Darcy Lewis had always been good at acquiring things. When she had been a four year old in the crowded children’s home in Ohio, she had always managed to obtain a bag of plain M&M’s for the newest arrivals who had lost their parents or gotten ‘ returned to sender ’ from foster care. Once school began, if you wanted a stick of gum, a tampon, a deck of cards...you went to see Darcy Lewis. Her friends had told her she was like the thirteen year old version of Mary Poppins, with her well worn, duct-tape repaired backpack. If someone had a request, she’d dig around and inevitably come up with what was needed.
Darcy brought this invaluable skill into high school, college and beyond. It was on her internship with Jane, after SHIELD had taken everything the brilliant astrophysicist had worked on out from under her, that her particular skill set had been witnessed by one very important person (in his own mind at least).
“They took---they took my particle accelerating transmogrification sublimator!” Jane stomped her feet angrily.
“Now you’re just making names up,” Darcy accused with as much forced cheer as she could. She could see tears forming in her boss/friend’s eyes and she sighed. Jane was an angry crier The angrier she got, the more tears would leak out of her eyes.
The slightly shorter intern opened the door to the Winnebago and reached up, pulling out a travel pack of kleenex and a half drunk bottle of Jack Daniels. Jane sniffled in vitriol but took what Darcy gave her, wiping at her eyes, then the snot running from her nose before taking a long pull off of the bottle.
“What are we gonna do?” Jane lamented before taking another pull off the bottle.
“Don’t worry Janie, we’ll figure something out,” Darcy insisted.
The tissues and the alcohol were nothing, really. Before SHIELD pulled him back to base, he saw her procure out of nearly thin air, a pizza, a set of blankets, another bottle of clear liquid for the older man with the ladies, and most impressively, a laptop.
Clint Barton had been surprised. She must have had it hidden somewhere so well that a crew of two dozen SHIELD operatives hadn’t found it even when they had been given the pillage order. Nothing that the little trio of unfortunate scientists (both hard and soft) could have used to do any actual work was to be left behind.
Clint had admired her grit and talent so much from afar that he didn’t even bother telling Coulson when he returned to base. He didn’t get the chance to do much about it, as events quickly escalated, but after the dust had settled and the big blond dude had rainbow hopped into the sky, Clint watched from afar as the little intern kept on obtaining those important little things that her astrophysicist needed.
He couldn’t wait to tell Tash about the little lady who seemed to have a natural talent for acquisition.
Natasha knew her by reputation. Weeks later, she stood shoulder to shoulder with a deeply depressed Clint, staring at a headstone that had the name Phillip Coulson. She heard a light footfall about fifteen feet away and turned to look at whoever had stumbled upon the two of them. Clint barely looked but huffed out in surprise.
“You can’t try to dig out the body to get your ipod,” he said simply. Phil had complained about how much Darcy had called in the last few weeks about the ipod full of eclectic and seemingly random music.
Natasha immediately knew who the girl was then. She gave a respectful nod as Darcy dug into a well worn, tattered bag and pulled out a little toy, a little soldier play figure decked out in red, white and blue. She placed it next to a bouquet of sunflowers and patted the toy soldier on the head.
“Vintage?” Natasha wondered.
“Yep,” Darcy nodded.
“How’d you get it?” Clint shook his head in disbelief. He’d teased Phil plenty about his Captain America paraphernalia obsession and the bucket loads of money he must have spent on it. “Kid, that thing must have cost a fortune.”
“Nah, not if you know where to look,” Darcy promised.
Natasha surveyed the girl carefully before stating in a pleasant enough tone, “I’m in the mood for a fastnacht.”
“Powdered sugar or honey?” Darcy wondered, the answer of obvious importance to her.
“There is no other way to eat them but with honey,” Natasha answered confidently.
“Excellent,” Darcy smiled.
Fastnachts were delivered to Natasha’s hotel room that very night, no less than five hours later by room service, warm and with a little pot of honey right next to them, ready to be poured over. Natasha smiled and made one call that would change Darcy’s life forever.
When Pepper Potts offered you a job personally, you took it.
It came with conditions. Darcy would still be able to assist Jane in day to day living. She would just have to spend a few hours a week doing this other little thing on the side that Pepper Potts asked her to do. It helped that it was something she was super good at.
Buying stuff.
For the Avengers.
Bruce Banner needed tea that hadn’t actually been produced in the last two years. So Darcy found it for him and bought it.
Steve Rogers needed a specific lantern that had been used during World War Two by allied forces for his cabin in the woods that he was spending a few months at after the Chitauri attack. So Darcy had it delivered to him by a Stark-drone three hours after he had requested it.
Clint’s post Loki-recovery hinged on having a complete set of Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. Darcy made it happen.
Soon, it wasn’t only the hard to find items. After London and returning back to Stark Tower with Thor and Jane, Darcy began acquiring more things. Furniture for all of the newly renovated Avengers’ living spaces. Enough popcorn to satisfy Thor and Barton on movie night. That really disgusting black licorice hard candy that Tony had to have when he was in a brainstorming mood. Holiday gifts for all of the staff at Avengers’ Towers. An apartment and furniture for Steve Rogers when he finally settled and landed in DC.
Darcy was a professional shopper now and she loved every minute of it.
An interesting thing happened two weeks after Steve moved into his apartment in DC. Darcy received her first ever phone call from the First Avenger only three weeks after having met him for a consultation on what he’d like in his new apartment.
“Captain America?” Darcy questioned as she picked up the phone.
“Hi Miss Lewis!” came the rushed and too bright greeting. “Please uhm---please call me Steve.”
“Hi, Steve,” Darcy answered back warily. “What can I do for you?”
“I broke my alarm clock you got me, and uhm, Natasha said that, well, you could find a stronger one for me?” Steve’s words were still rushed and half mumbled, but Darcy got the gist of it.
“Sure can do, Steve,” Darcy nodded, pulling up her trusty old laptop and quickly finding a stronger alternative. “It’s on its way.”
“Wow, thanks so much! So---uhm. How are you?” Steve wondered.
“Peachy keen, jelly bean,” Darcy promised. “How are you settling in? Is Dread Pirate Fury keeping you busy?”
Steve huffed out a small laugh. “Yeah, yes. I’ve been plenty busy. And I’m settling in fine. The apartment is really nice. You did a really great job of finding what was absolutely perfect for me.”
“It’s my superpower,” Darcy whispered to him, getting another laugh.
“LEWIS HELP! I NEED SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR PEPPER! I WAS AN ASSHOLE!”
Steve snorted with laughter that time at Tony’s panicked shouting he could hear over the phone.
“Okay, let me know if I can do anything else for you, Steve. Have a good night!” Darcy chirped before hanging up the phone.
“Good night, Darcy.”
Steve Rogers was turning out to be one of the most difficult nuts to crack, acquisition wise. First the alarm clock. Then somehow the microwave broke. Then the coffee table. Then his ceiling fan had smacked him in the head and Darcy was tasked with finding one that wouldn’t clip his giant, patriotic dome. She’d added his contact in her phone as the destructicon and laughed when the name would pop up every other day for the next three months, depending on missions.
“What’d you break this time, Steve?” Darcy wondered cheerfully enough.
“Hey, I’m not that clumsy,” Steve defended himself, the sheepish grin audible over the phone.
“You broke your coffee maker two days ago by pressing the button too hard,” Darcy reminded him. “I had to reinforce the new one in Tony’s lab while he was busy.”
“Busy but not in his lab?” Steve wondered.
“I may have distracted him by sending Pepper her favorite Belgian chocolates in his name,” Darcy shrugged. She sat down on a cushy armchair in the Tower’s common room, reaching for her cup of coffee and blowing on it before taking a sip. “So what can I do for you today, Steve?”
“Uhm, coffee?” Steve wondered.
“I’m drinking some right now...the real good stuff,” Darcy laughed.
“I’m drinking some too,” Steve admitted.
“But you need...more?” Darcy wondered.
Steve sighed heavily.
“Steve?” Darcy wondered.
“Uhm, there was this coffee that this bar in England had back in the 40’s. It was like motor oil, really. But I had a sort of craving for it the other day and Natasha said that if anyone could find it, then you could,” Steve said quickly, his words rushed and mashed to the point of incoherence once more.
“Hmmm...that’s a tough one,” Darcy admitted.
“Nevermind, just, if you’re busy---”
“Steve, I didn’t say no. I said it would be tough and a challenge and I’m the kind of girl who can appreciate tough and a challenge,” Darcy admitted. “So let me gather some samples, and I’ll send them to you.”
“Oryoucouldcomeandvisitme,” the words were so rushed that Darcy really didn’t understand them. He sighed again, as if he were annoyed with himself and said, “Or I could come up to New York. Stark had said he was working on some kind of new magnetized gauntlet system for my shield.”
“Oh, sure, yeah, we’ll see what your schedule looks like when I’ve gathered suitable motor oil supplies,” Darcy nodded. “So really, how is DC? Is Natasha and the Strike team of douche lords being nice to you?”
“Yeah, it’s not so bad,” Steve chuckled. “Although your description of the Strike team is pretty accurate.”
“Not exactly the kind of guys you want to spend your down time with,” Darcy nodded, taking another sip of her coffee. “Next time you see Rollins, ask him how his elbow is feeling.”
“I think there’s a story there, Darcy,” Steve’s smile could be heard over the phone.
“Why yes, yes, there is a story involving me and Jane in London, and him keeping my poor baby intern locked up in a holding cell for over forty-eight hours. Let’s just say, with the state of Rollins’ elbow, he’s not gonna be playing tennis any more.”
When Darcy had finally ferreted out five different kinds of coffee, along with instructions on how to prepare it to motor oil consistency, it was three weeks later, and she had signed out one of the company cars (not the Porsche, Tony, but thanks anyway) and made the harrowing trip down to DC, stopping off somewhere in Pennsylvania for shoo-fly pie and an overnight stay. No one on the East Coast had proper driving etiquette, really and she didn’t feel like making the five hour trip in one go. And this way she got to pick up a few more things for Steve’s apartment, namely the very old fashioned coffee mugs from an antique market in Pennsylvania. She arrived at Steve’s apartment, mid-morning the next day, hoping to surprise him.
She had not been expecting the burning wrecks of three helicarriers in the bay along with a city in shambles and Steve’s apartment cordoned off with police tape.
She looked down at the phone she had silenced during the drive down and saw she had seventy missed calls and over a hundred new text messages.
“Darcy?” Pepper questioned when the phone finally picked up.
“Uhm, hey, what happened? I just took a trip to Amish country and now I’m here at Steve’s apartment and---oh god, that’s blood. Is Steve alright? Where is he?” Darcy could feel the panic tingling in her chest.
“He’s alright, well...he’s lucky. He’s in the hospital,” Pepper explained.
“But---I brought him coffee,” Darcy squeaked out. Clint had always told Darcy that Steve was damned near invincible. It must have taken a lot for him to be put in the hospital.
“Our security detail is focused there, I need for you to go to the hospital, just in case. You’re going to be looking for a man named Sam Wilson,” Pepper said in a tone that left no room for argument. “Now, Darcy.”
Sam had liked Darcy instantly when he had mentioned that an iphone dock would be useful while they waited for Steve to wake up. She’d gotten him one in less than five minutes. They took turns sitting by Steve’s bedside, the man who had just met him and the woman he had talked to on the phone every other day for the last three months and only met in person twice.
Sam gave her the rundown on what had happened, including the fact that Bucky Barnes wasn’t quite as dead as everyone had thought him to be. She’d left Sam an hour before Steve started to wake, mumbling On Your Left . The super serum worked wonders, because Steve was sitting up and talking easily when Darcy returned and stood in the doorway.
“Darcy?” Steve questioned, looking at her with impossibly wide, surprised eyes.
“I wanted it to be a surprise...I found your coffee,” Darcy revealed.
“Are you alright?” his eyes were darting over her from head to foot repeatedly, scanning for any kind of injury.
“I’m okay, I got here way after,” she promised. “Are you alright?”
“I’m okay,” Steve said automatically.
Sam had been watching their interaction with interest and he realized for one split second that he had a chance with the Black Widow if Steve was halfway in love with the short, curvy brunette standing in the doorway. He’d been worried that Steve and Natasha may have been a thing, but apparently, the little cartoon hearts beaming out of Steve’s eyes at Darcy quashed that theory. The hearts were soon accompanied by Steve’s jaw dropping and his actual heart beating out of his chest like that wolf from old school cartoons, complete with requisite sound effects as Darcy turned into the hallway and pulled up Captain America’s shield.
“You lost this?” Darcy wondered.
“How’d you---” Sam wondered.
“She’s got a special skill set,” Steve repeated what Natasha had told him when he had gone to his friend for help in getting settled into DC. “A very special skill set.”
“I wrestled a pelican for this,” Darcy joked.
“Huh,” Sam nodded, getting up and going for the door as Darcy stepped inside fully. “I’m going to go home and shower. It’s your turn to watch the invalid, Lewis.”
“Thanks, Sam,” Darcy put the shield down and waved off Steve’s friend. She walked slowly towards Steve’s bed and gave him a small, tentative smile. “So---are you really okay?”
“I’m---I think,” Steve furrowed his brow. “Bucky’s alive.”
“So I hear,” Darcy nodded. They hadn’t talked much about Bucky in their many conversations. Just that he used to be the most important person in Steve’s life. And Darcy strongly suspected that their relationship went a few levels past platonic friendship just from hearing the way Steve talked about him. “Steve, what can I do for you---to make this better for you?”
“Can you find him?” Steve asked suddenly, his eyes full of tears that hadn’t found their way out with Sam. He reached out and grabbed her hand as she offered it to him. “You’re so good at finding things---can you find him for me?”
“He’s not really something I can look up on ebay or the black market,” Darcy whispered. She squeezed his hand, “But I promise you, I will do everything in my power to help you.”
“He’d a loved you,” Steve said softly, his words suddenly sounding drowsy and mumbled. “S’gonna love you. Gonna give me hell about draggin’ mah feet.”
Darcy gave him a puzzled look as he drifted off once more, still gripping her hand in his. She tried to pull the chair closer to the bed so she could sit, but couldn’t manage the distance. Instead, she sat herself on his bed, her free hand running through his hair as she looked down at him with about a million questions and absolutely no answers.
We’re in Istanbul and Sam wants deep dish pizza...help .
Where can I find and or steal this painting from, someone wants it in exchange for information.
I need something to explode a really heavy metal door apart and I need for it not to be traced back to me, how do I do that?
Steve texted Darcy from the road with Sam for the next three months. And it wasn’t always requests for her to put her skill set to good use. But when it came to the emotional stuff, she’d get a call from an unknown number and answer it, no matter what time of the day it was and what she was doing. When Steve was dead tired and ready to give up on the search for Bucky, he only wanted to hear her voice and have her tell him about the silly gossip from around Avenger’s tower.
It was one of those calls from an unknown number one night in September that had Darcy abandoning a tray full of hot cookies in Thor’s thankfully indestructible hands before diving for her phone and picking up after the second ring.
“Hey!” she said breathlessly. “I thought you were on a plane and wouldn’t be able to talk for six hours. Not that I’m complaining, it’s always good to hear from you.”
Silence greeted her and Darcy furrowed her brow. “Steve?”
“Tell him to stop chasing me.”
“Uhm...who is this?” Darcy wondered, spinning in a circle before finally looking to one of JARVIS’ security cameras and finger spelling some words in the sign language that Clint had taught her one rainy Sunday afternoon. Find out where the call is coming from .
“You know who I am, doll,” the gravelly voice accused. “Tell him---tell him to stop.”
“I can’t do that, Sergeant Barnes,” Darcy said softly. Thor’s eyes widened and his hand reached out to call for Mjolnir.
“Bucky,” he said gruffly.
“Bucky,” she repeated. “Steve wouldn’t listen to me anyway---he, I’m just an assistant who buys him stuff that he needs.”
“That’s a load of bull,” Bucky accused.
“How did you get my number?” Darcy wondered.
“You’re the only one he calls,” Bucky revealed. “Tell him that he should leave me alone if he knows what’s good for him.”
“Bucky,” Darcy said softly. “Steve wants to help you.”
“There’s no help for me, tell him to come home to you and stop dragging his feet,” Bucky ordered before terminating the call.
“JARVIS?” Darcy called out.
“Sergeant Barnes seems to be using a call displacer,” JARVIS announced. “Luckily, his outdated Hydra tech can be broken. It will take approximately seven more minutes for me to lock down the location of the call.”
Mjolnir busted through one of Tony’s supposedly shatter-proof glass windows and into Thor’s hands. He saw that Darcy’s hands were shaking and gave her a hopeful smile.
“We shall bring him home,” Thor promised. “Your man will be pleased with the other piece of your triad being returned.”
“Huh?” Darcy looked at Thor strangely.
“You are destined for a happy triad match, Lady Darcy,” Thor told her with a big smile. “Fandral could sense it from the minute he first met you, he had hoped to steal you away himself, but knew it was not meant to be.”
“Uhm, okay, big guy,” Darcy nodded, not anywhere near convinced of anything that had come out of his mouth. She ran to the closet and grabbed blindly for a jacket warm enough for her to zip through the night sky with Thor and her fingers grasped the buttery soft leather of Steve’s brown bomber. She slid it on and pushed the sleeves up before jamming her feet into sneakers. She grabbed her phone and a weapon from her hidey hole in the lowest cabinet next to the refrigerator (it was there thanks to Natasha’s orders, you never knew when you would have to resort to violence in order to protect your food when you lived with Avengers). Thor had managed to pop his mission comm unit into his ear and about a dozen of the cookies into his mouth that Darcy had been baking with him.
“Coordinates are being relayed to all available Avengers as well as Captain Rogers. I will direct you, Prince Thor,” JARVIS announced.
Thor had taken her flying once before, and it had been quite nice. Tonight was different though. The air was cooler and getting even worse as they zipped up the Atlantic coast towards Maine. She was clinging to her friend, trying to absorb some of that overly abundant body heat as she shivered in Steve’s jacket.
Thor began his descent, and Darcy could see the small cabin just barely lit up in the woods, the smell of old, dry wood burning filling her nostrils as Thor urged her to take cover by pressing her head into his chest. He crash landed through the cabin feet first, and Darcy earned one small scratch against her cheek for her troubles before she felt Mjolnir whip beside her ear and land with a clatter against a metal palm, bringing Bucky down to the floor and pinning him there.
“Friend, we come in peace,” Thor promised.
“Most people don’t toss hammers at a guy peacefully,” Bucky said sourly. He glared openly at Darcy and said, “I told you to keep him away and you come rushing in? You an idiot or something?”
“Yeah,” Darcy shrugged. “I’m a Hufflepuff. We’re really exceptional finders. And you’re the white whale of good finds.”
“What the hell is this thing?” Bucky demanded as he struggled to get out from under the hammer.
“That’s Mew-mew, be nice,” Darcy said with surprising cheerfulness. She gave him a sideways, appraising look. He looked rough and tired. The stubble had gone just one shade past sexy into almost lumberjack territory, and there were dark shadows underneath his bright blue eyes. “You don’t have to do this alone, Bucky.”
“I could hurt you,” he looked away, full of disgust with himself. “I hurt all those people, all of his friends. Don’t want to hurt you. You’re important to him.”
“Lady Darcy is protected, first and foremost by her own formidable and prodigious skill,” Thor promised.
Darcy walked over to the lone coffee table in the ruined cabin and picked up the phone that Bucky was using. Not even password protected.
“You’re really confident that you wouldn’t get caught, huh?” Darcy swiped through his phone and came upon what she had suspected. There was a program that was giving him everything Steve got, including incoming and outgoing calls. He’d read everything and heard everything Steve had been saying to her. “You’re a nosy one.”
Before Bucky could reply, there were two things that happened very quickly. The sound of a quinjet was roaring above them and Darcy’s (and Bucky’s) phone began ringing with an incoming call from Steve. Darcy answered with both phones before tossing Bucky’s to his free hand.
“Hi Steve,” Darcy greeted happily.
“Darcy? What is JARVIS talking about? You found him, and went after him? Are you okay? Where are you? Are you---please, are you okay?!?” Steve’s voice was getting louder and more desperate with every word.
“I”m peachy. Thor and I are in Maine visiting a friend, say hi friend,” Darcy ordered cheerfully.
“Wha---”
“Stevie.”
Bucky’s soft muttering of the name had Steve choking on his own word, painfully inhaling in shock.
“He’s been spying on you, like a spying spy that spies,” Darcy tattled.
“Buck, are you alright? Please, keep it together, we’re going to be there in about an hour. Darcy and Thor are friends, they’re gonna help you,” Steve promised.
“Head back to the tower,” Clint’s voice broke into the conversation suddenly.
“Dude, why can everyone hack into your phone?” Darcy wondered.
“Stark gave it to him, didn’t tell him he built in the backdoor to listen in,” Clint explained nonchalantly. “We’re coming in. Thor, you got the transport of our guest?”
“Yes, of course,” Thor promised. He reached down for Mjolnir and pulled it off of Bucky before extending an arm to help up the good Captain’s man.
When Bucky reached out with a metal hand and grabbed Thor by the shoulder, yanking him and throwing him across the room, Thor had the very real urge to throttle him, whether he was the final piece of Darcy and Steve’s triad or not. He watched for a split second while Bucky advanced on Darcy, all snarling anger.
“He’s looking alive there,” Clint announced for those that couldn’t see into the Thor sized hole in the cabin’s roof.
“Bucky, no!” Steve shouted.
“He always did like the brunettes,” Bucky said softly, advancing on Darcy slowly. “I can’t go back with you, doll. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“That makes two of us,” Darcy nodded. She pulled her taser out of Steve’s jacket and let loose, sending Bucky twitching to the ground. “That was a Thor-sized charge. He should be out for maybe ten minutes if we’re lucky.”
He was out for longer than ten minutes. Apparently the jolt to the system was what he needed to finally sleep for the first time in weeks, and he remained sleeping on their trip back to Avenger’s tower and was still sleeping when Steve arrived to the private medical facility that Bucky had been taken to. Darcy was curled up against Natasha’s thigh, catching a quick nap when Steve ran up to them outside of Bucky’s room.
“What were you thinking?” Steve demanded in a whisper, dropping to his knees in front of where Darcy slept. He went to reach for her, but found that he couldn’t make himself disturb her sleep. He gave a smirking Natasha a rueful look and said, “She could have been killed.”
“She wasn’t,” Natasha shrugged. “And you have your Bucky back now. I would advise you thank her properly for her greatest acquisition yet.”
“Yeah...I will,” Steve nodded. “I will.”
He traced her jaw with his index finger lightly before getting up and going for Bucky’s room. Bucky had been out for five hours at that point, but his eyelids began to flutter the moment Steve walked into the room.
“Bucky,” Steve said softly.
“Get the name of that truck that hit me?” Bucky rasped out. “Your girl plays dirty. And she’s a brave little shit.”
“Yeah,” Steve nodded, voice soft and full of feeling.
“Yeah,” Bucky sighed. He finally looked up at Steve with mournful eyes and his voice was strained when he managed to softly say, “M’sorry.”
“Don’t,” Steve rushed across the room and dropped to his knees again, this time by Bucky’s bedside. “We all know what they did now, the whole world does. It’s not your fault.”
“To-may-toe, to-mah-toe,” Bucky whispered. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly when Steve’s hand pushed his hair back and then let his palm drift over his cheek. “It’s all still in my head. They have safeguards. I gotta stay away from them.”
“We’ll find people to help,” Steve insisted. “Money’s not an object here, don’t know if anyone’s told you, but you’re the world’s longest held Prisoner of War, your back pay is higher than mine.”
Another three months passed in the blink of an eye. Steve had devoted just as much time to helping Bucky as he had spent searching for Bucky. Shrinks. Neurologists. Expert Prosthetics Designers. Mutants with any kind of telepathic abilities. It was a non-stop mission to get Bucky well and whole again. One morning, close to Christmas, Steve woke to see Bucky sitting next to him, staring down at him while he slept.
They hadn’t shared a proper bed since 1942 and Bucky hadn’t watched Steve sleep since the morning before he fell from the train. Steve woke up like a cat, stretching and yawning and making all sorts of delicious noises before his eyes would flutter open. He did just that and then continued to blink at Bucky curiously.
“Why haven’t you called your girl?” Bucky demanded.
“I don’t have a---Darcy? She’s---she’s not my girl,” Steve stammered.
“Bullshit,” Bucky said plainly. “You’re mucking it up. Haven’t talked to her in weeks.”
“I’ve been busy,” Steve reminded him. “With you. Darcy knows that. She’s been helping us find the the gears to fix up your arm.”
“You know what I mean,” Bucky gave him an unimpressed look.
“I don’t,” Steve shook his head.
“You don’t got to give her up for me,” Bucky insisted.
“I’m not giving anything up,” Steve argued. Bucky’s put upon frown was the same it had been back in 1941. When Steve would blatantly lie to him about feeling sick. The only problem with Bucky being the closest to whole he was ever going to get was the fact that he could now read Steve better than anyone. “Before I found out about you, yeah, I was trying to work up the courage to ask her for a date. But things are different now, and she doesn’t need---”
“I may be nearly a hundred years old, but even I know you can’t go around deciding what a lady needs without consulting her first,” Bucky cut him off. “Your ma woulda smacked your head and then my ma woulda given you the stink eye and then every one of my sisters woulda yelled at you till they were blue in the face.”
“Yeah, they woulda,” Steve nodded. “Do you know what you’re asking for here, Buck?”
“A sweet dame to cuddle between the two of us?” Bucky smiled, slow and easy, like the Bucky of 1944, when they got two full weeks of leave in Paris and spent almost all of their hazard pay on finding fun time girls to cuddle and not just cuddle between the two of them. “I like her. She’s got moxie. And she’s pretty as a picture and has curves that I want to walk my fingers over more than a few times.”
“Don’t know if she’s keen on that sort of thing,” Steve bit at his bottom lip in worry. “She’s been busy lately too, you know. Foster has her travelling three days out of the week on lectures.”
Bucky leaned in and pulled Steve’s lip away from his teeth before descending and soothing the pinched bottom lip with a soft kiss. Steve could feel his stomach drop out to the floor at the exquisite feeling of Bucky’s chaste and loving kiss. His mind was in overdrive, wondering if everything he could ever want was right at the tips of his fingers, ready for the taking.
“How were you fixing on asking her?” Bucky wondered when he pulled away. “How’d you get sweet on her?”
“I---she buys things, she’s got a knack for finding things that you need,” Steve smiled. “So I kept...needing things. So I had a reason to talk to her.”
“Huh, interesting approach,” Bucky nodded. He got out of the bed and went to Steve’s bedside table, metal fist coming out and busting the lamp that Darcy had found at a flea market for Steve nearly nine months ago. “We need a new lamp.”