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When Bucky walked in, the room was in chaos and the lemony scent of all purpose cleaner was in the air. “Darce? What’s going on?”
Darcy’s voice came from behind the couch, which was about three feet from where it usually was. “You said you wanted spring cleaning. That the place was getting messy, and I had too much junk in the closet, so I’m doing it.”
“I didn’t mean you had to do it all now, or by yourself, or even that you had to do anything.” Bucky had returned tired from a mission the day before, and may have been slightly frustrated last night at not being able to find his favorite sweatshirt in the closet. Which lead to the mention that it wouldn’t kill them, to do some spring cleaning. That she did have a lot of stuff in the closet and since it was spring. He hadn’t meant to sound snappy, or like he was annoyed with her, he had just been tired, and the closet chaos had not meshed well with his mental chaos at the time.
The cats seemed fairly undisturbed by the mess, having curled up on the couch to nap, despite the couch being askew. Maybe Darcy had taken the comments personally. She knew she was a little bit of a pack rat, when given the chance. She held onto things, sentiment and all. And in the past year, living at the Tower, and being with Bucky, she had probably fallen into collecting more stuff again. She felt settled, finally, after a few years of basically living in a nomadic state with Jane. Which even then, Jane had complained about her having too much stuff for the trailer. “Well, I might as well do it.”
The frustration, and the slight tremble, were clear in her voice, as Bucky weaved around the maze of furniture, almost nothing was where it was supposed to be. Only the TV, and he suspected that was because it was mounted on the wall. Peeking behind the couch, he saw Darcy had a mass of things from the closet circled around her. Blankets, boxes, clothes, shoes, other assorted items like a few hats and bags, an umbrella, extra hangers, a folding chair. He felt bad, she had obviously spent all day just going through things and moving things around cleaning. He knelt on the couch, leaning over the back. “I’m sorry, Doll. I didn’t mean to sound harsh last night.”
“No, I’m sure you’re right, I have too much stuff. Jane used to complain about that, and my roommate in college, and my mom.” Darcy sniffed, but she wasn’t crying. She could feel the sensation behind her eyes, and she may have done so a couple times earlier, but she wasn’t going to again.
“Darcy, I don’t mind your stuff. I was just frustrated not finding my sweatshirt after a long, stressful day. I really wasn’t blaming you, I promise.” His voice soft as he reached out his flesh hand to softly trail his fingers through her hair.
Darcy looked up, her head tilting slightly toward his touch, which made him cradle her cheek in his hand. “I don’t want the clutter to add stress. You have more than enough stress from work.”
Despite leaning into his hand, her gaze still dropped to the floor as she spoke. Bucky tried to nudge her, to lift her eyes, but she wasn’t budging. Her hair was sliding into her face again, but he didn’t need to see, to know, a tear had been shed, because he felt the drop hit his finger. He pulled his hand away only long enough to climb over the back of the couch and kneel down in front of her, his hand returning to her cheek as his metal hand softly curled at her shoulder. “I’m okay. I mean, stress gets everyone, but I can deal with it now. I might have a bad night, like last night, where I get stupidly frustrated about a sweatshirt, but don’t ever think that if I’ve said or done something insensitive in that moment, that you can’t let me know. If it feels like I’ve said something that upsets you, that strikes too personal, tell me that. I don’t want to ever hurt you, in any way.”
“I’m sorry for overreacting, and now I made a mess. I did find your sweatshirt in the stack of clean clothes in the laundry room, though.” Her voice was little more than a mumble.
“Hey, you’re allowed to have something upset you, I’m just sorry it did. And I was overreacting last night. But I promise, even then, I was not upset with you, and this isn’t your thing to clean up. What can I do to help?” Bucky figured if she told him what to put where, he could move things around and help her arrange them however it was she’d been intending faster than her doing it by herself.
“If you want to just make some dinner, I can sort and organize this.” Darcy shook her head softly, feeling a bit heavy inside still.
“I can make dinner, but I can do other things too.” Bucky didn’t move, other than to brush his thumb along her cheek.
“I made the mess, I can sort it out.” She tried to lift her gaze, but it went a little low and to the side of Bucky’s face, looking at the piles of things all around.
“I know you can, but please, let me help you. If anyone made this mess, it was me, not you. Maybe you should sit down and let me clean the rest up.”
Darcy’s eyes finally met his. “But I haven’t decided what I can get rid of yet.”
“Then we don’t get rid of anything. I’ll just try to put things back in a more organized way. And it got less organized because I just toss things in there, I know that. So it’s really all my fault.” Bucky was trying to pull her closer.
“It’s not your fault, Bucky.” Darcy’s arms slid around Bucky’s body as he wrapped himself around her, holding her tight. She kissed his cheek, feeling him get needy seemed to flip her mode from anxious and frustrated with herself to needing to care for him. They didn’t have very many disagreements, nothing ever escalated to an actual fight, because as soon as she seemed to express any kind of real distress, Bucky would go into fix mode, trying to make it better. Which usually also made him get a little needy and clingy, wanting to know she still loved him. He was much better than he’d been a year or so ago, but in moments of tension with her particularly, he sometimes panicked, and probably did not react like most average people would have. Him getting needy and worried, wanting to fix it then usually made her want to assure him she loved him, and take care of him, and usually whatever the issue was got quickly resolved through talking about it.
“Well, it’s definitely not yours. Seriously, sit and relax, I’ll finish cleaning up and make dinner, okay? Let me finish the cleaning, and take care of you.” He had pulled her into his lap, and while he was telling her to go relax, he also still had his face in her shoulder.
“Bucky, I love you. Maybe we should eat, and then we can deal with the mess.” He lifted his head and smiled softly when Darcy spoke, and said she loved him. He nodded, and she nodded in response.
“Dinner would be good, and then I can,” Bucky stopped when Darcy raised her eyebrow, “we can deal with cleaning up. But maybe you could sit and just tell me what to do to clean things up.”
Darcy smiled a little more, even faintly laughed a moment, “maybe we can do it that way. First food.”
Bucky nearly pushed Darcy up to her feet, then stood up himself. Pulling her close again for a moment. “I love you, Darcy.”
The first few squabbles, he had said he was sorry so many times after, even if he’d really done nothing wrong. It had taken her a little while to break him of excessive apologizing when it wasn’t warranted. His healing was still a work in progress, and he was just glad she seemed to have the patience to put up with his missteps. She brushed her fingers over his cheek and gently pulled his face close for a soft kiss.