Work Text:
It's not that complicated between them, which comes as a surprise to him, because it seems like these things usually are.
*
Once the Sokovia Accords have been thrown out and his innocence proved, the public relations campaign truly begins. Tony Stark is a man on a mission, and that mission is the team's reputation. There are hospitals to visit, rubble to clear, an endless stream of photographs to sign and fans, young and old, with their tiny computer-camera-phones who want him to smile.
Him. James Buchanan Barnes. He musters up a bemused grimace for them, although he doubts it ever reaches his eyes. He's not a man who smiles easily, not anymore.
Tony builds him a new arm, a better one. One that can be hidden in plain sight. Not another word is exchanged between them about Howard or Maria.
The first time he sees her, Tony is fiddling with some of the sensors in his forearm. He is sprawled out on the man's work bench, fingers of his right hand digging into his thigh to help distract from the wailing strains of Alice Cooper and the odd sensation of mechanized nerves being calibrated, when the frosted laboratory door eases open and her head appears like a body-less specter, fixed with a determined grin and meaningfully lifted eyebrows.
Tony glances up at her, shouts something Bucky cannot hear over the cacophony, and her smile splits wide open. There's a small gap between her teeth.
It's like a flame is ignited in his belly, licking at his ribs and sternum. He starts sweating slightly, there is a moment during which he does not breathe, wanting to observe her unnoticed. She says something, the beginning of which he still does not catch, and then the music cuts out, “... or I'll tell Pepper about the strawberry daiquiri incident!”
“You. Wouldn't.” Tony pauses in his work, indignation clouding up his face.
“Try me, Stark. It's dinner time, all the good little scientists have to eat. Let's go!” She's laughing at Tony, and the sound is joyous, lighthearted. Her eyes light on him. “You too, Robocop. Chow time. Move!”
“My arm ain't working right,” he mutters listlessly, even as Tony closes up the panels and removes the magnifying work-glasses he'd been wearing. He watches as Tony stands and passes the heart-shaped face, grumbling but compliant. She's still waiting for him, and two slim-fingered hands appear, one tapping at the face of an imaginary watch on the other's wrist. “Good thing you have two, huh? Tick-tock, Barnes!”
He sighs, not sure if he's exasperated or infatuated, and follows.
*
They bond over science fiction. He feels like his whole life has been an Isaac Asimov story, or as he slowly gets up to date with the genre, maybe a Kurt Vonnegut novel: the cryogenic freezing, the artificial limb, extraterrestrials, the enhancements all the people in his life seemed to have undergone. Darker elements, too: the mind control, the things they made him do. The blood-soaked nightmares.
But there are miracles happening everywhere he looks, modern marvels that no one blinks at. It still leaves him confounded sometimes, and something about the extraordinary as imagined by people who knew only ordinary, it soothes him. It makes him feel less alone, less out of step. So he goes back to the books he loved as a kid, rereading Verne and Wells, then works his way through Heinlein and Clarke, Phillip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin. He binge watches every available episode of The Twilight Zone in the course of a week, and at some point without his even fully realizing it, Darcy joins the marathon. She orders takeout for them and introduces him to the wonders of palak paneer, spicy tuna rolls and craft beer.
It's platonic at first. They sprawl out at polar ends of the couch, volleying jokes about the level of acting and special effects. She's got a beau, some jerk in England, and most of the time he's still not sure which way is up. But it's comforting, and unlike Steve, it never feels like she's longing for him to be someone he's not. He can relax when they're together, some oddball's futuristic fever dream playing out on the TV as a buffer for the awkward, tentative early moments of a friendship.
When they're finished with Rod Serling, they start on Gene Roddenberry. It takes them six months, but they watch all of it: the original Star Trek, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise.
By the time they finish, he's nursed her through several heartbreak-induced hangovers. He knows he's no prize but he thinks he's got to be better than the chumps she keeps letting disappoint her. So he asks her out on a proper date, one his mother wouldn't have shaken her head at.
She says yes before he finishes the question.
*
She drags him to a convention, once. Only once, because she doesn't fully explain what they are beforehand, and afterwards he swears them off forever. He's a little embarrassed by how much fun he has getting ready for it (Darcy helps him put together a pretty decent Geordi LaForge costume, including the uniform, the blind character's visor, everything). They watch a lot more sci-fi television when they finish Star Trek but its optimistic, Utopian vision for humanity's future is still the perfect antidote on the nights where he wakes up thrashing, violent echoes of the things he's done careening around his brain. She's always already awake, usually ready with a glass of water for him. She makes them herbal tea and they curl up together on the couch, the cushions against his back anchoring him and the woman he holds tightly to his chest settling him as they watch the crew of the USS Starship Enterprise go off on some cerebral weekly adventure.
So he's embarrassed by how much fun he has that day but he's a soft touch, he can't say no to his girl. It helps that she dresses up as Princess Leia, and when they get home later, she lets him take off the gold bikini with his teeth. That part doesn't embarrass him at all.
*
“You know, there's two kinds of people in this world. There are 1984 people and there are Brave New World people,” she says, as she leans her head on his shoulder. They're riding the D train back to Manhattan after a day spent on the beach at Coney Island, but it's a local, crawling along the elevated track somewhere in Brooklyn. The late afternoon sun filters in through the grimy windows but the subway car's air-conditioning makes Darcy, who's dressed in only her wet bathing suit and a pair of shorts, shiver and cuddle in closer.
“That's all? Only those two?” he asks, raising his arm so she can properly sidle up to him. She lays a hand on his knee, and something feathery tickles the inside of his chest at how comfortable their casual intimacy is for him.
“I mean, as far as how we're all gonna screw ourselves? Sure. Police state where we're controlled so tightly we no longer even understand what truth is, or genetically-modified dystopia where we're drugged into thinking we've found paradise. Those are our choices.”
He scoffs. “What about Demolition Man?”
She turns her face up towards his and he laughs outright at the look of chagrin, her raised eyebrow. “You are so weirdly obsessed with that movie, I can't decide if it's adorable or a cause for concern.”
“It's kinda Steve's and my biography,” he posits, stroking his chin to fully embody his role as sage philosopher.
It's Darcy who's laughing now, wheezing with delight. Finally, she collects herself. “It's so true and I'm mad at myself for not seeing it. He's a world-famous do-gooder that was frozen then thawed and went back to crime-fighting while having all sorts of fish-out-of-water adventures. Wait, does that make you a deranged, bottle blond Wesley Snipes?”
Nonchalantly as he can, he observes, “Well, that guy is a multi-murder-death-killer.”
“A superficial similarity, Bucky, and you know it. If you think that movie reminds you of your own life, wait until I show you Austin Powers. And Encino Man! Ooh boy, that's gonna be a fun one.” She throws her sunburned legs over his knees and without thinking he begins running the cool polymer-covered fingers of his metal hand over the tender, reddened flesh of her thighs.
“Is Austin Powers the one makin' fun of James Bond? I think I heard Barton make some joke about him before. What's this Encino Man, why's it remind you of me?”
She smirks at him. “It's about a cave man who gets frozen in the ice, and then he's found by some teenagers in Los Angeles in the 1990's. It's pretty ridiculous. You're gonna love it.”
He pinches the toes of her sandal-clad feet. “A cave man? Hey now, I'm not that bad.” She giggles when he starts tickling her arches, and leans up, one hand tugging lightly on his jaw to direct his mouth towards hers. He smiles at the feel of her chapped lips, her tongue licking at him until he shifts in his seat and they deepen the kiss, his hand sinking down beneath her jean shorts to cradle her ass. He isn't really offended, he knows she knows just how far he's come, but she makes it all better anyway.
She buys him the director's commentary, special edition of both movies for Christmas that year. And a Han Solo costume.