Chapter Text
There were many benefits to no longer being a woman in her 20s, or even early 30s. A certain hard won self-assuredness that came with age and wisdom and general not-give-a-fuckery that was appealing in a universal way. At 38, Darcy Lewis was living proof of this. She had survived Norse Gods and Dark Elves, fumbling boyfriends, grad school, any number of apocalypses, pantless geniuses, purple idiot bastards who didn’t understand math, and Dr. Jane Foster after eating nothing but bean burritos for a week straight. In her educated opinion, Darcy could handle pretty much anything by that point in her life, so wrangling a cranky old man into temporarily coming out of retirement should be painless enough.
If only she could find the bastard.
Her chained tires scraped and clattered over the paved road that she’d been trawling up and down for the last half hour, desperately trying to find the dirt road turn off that Coulson had assured her was along this stretch of abandoned road. It didn’t help that the venerable Steve Rogers had decided to spend his retirement in the most secluded section of the Green Mountains he could find and it also happened to be the dead of winter. Who the hell even decides to move to Vermont?
“People with more money than sense,” she irritably mumbled to herself, white knuckled hands gripping the steering wheel as the back half of her SHIELD issued SUV began to slip in a direction that was utterly counterproductive. It was a fight, and her dentist would be disappointed in the condition of her molars forever afterwards, but she regained control of the vehicle in time to catch an odd flicker of light at the side of the road. She narrowed her eyes, slowed to a stop before making a careful u-turn on the two lane highway, and headed back to that barely noticeable (unless you knew to look for it, which she didn’t but thank God for her stellar observational skills) shimmer.
She tucked her tongue against her teeth and reminded herself to send Coulson a scathing email about not including in the briefing she’d been given the fact that Rogers’ place was hidden by the latest in hologram technology. There was no discernible road to be seen with the forest floor covered with at least a half foot of snow, but she turned the vehicle directly into that flickering wall, smack dab into the thick, gnarled trunk of a leafless tree. There was no impact as the SUV sliced smoothly through the illusion, and there on the other side was what could be vaguely described as a road. At the very least, it was a winding break in the close-knit trees that was wide enough for a car to pass through unscathed. Mostly.
It was easier to appreciate the landscape now that she’d found the final leg of her journey. She had to hand it to the old guy, he knew how to pick a pretty bit of scenery. The road wound through the gentle sloping at the base of one of the mountains, the earth rising up on either side of her and disappearing behind the layered, twisted branches of whatever deciduous trees were native to the area. Snow tucked into the nooks and crooks of the branches glittered prettily under the noonday sun, giving the land the nostalgic innocence of a postcard. Interspersed among the deadened trees, bright spots of evergreen burst through the monochrome of landscape, occasionally accompanied by fat, red-coated squirrels scrambling across the branches.
Darcy supposed there had to be other wildlife in the area. Coulson had warned her of black bears and the occasional moose, but if any were nearby, she didn’t see them, assuming they were either elsewhere or had fled in the wake of the guttural roar of the SUV engine.
The path veered sharply to the right only to open up to the most picturesque little cabin Darcy had ever seen. It was a single story little wonder, the timbers the soft grey of eastern hemlock, with saddle-notch corners, a gabled roof with a stone chimney jutting above it, and a porch that wrapped around the entirety of the thing. Snow lined the roof and settled into little crumbling piles atop the porch railing and an honest-to-God wooden rocking chair was situated on the eastern facing section of the porch, purveying where the trees cleared enough that a brook wound its way past the house. She was certain if she were to step out of her car, she would immediately hear the happy chatter of water rolling over rocks and flirting with the fingers of ice that edged along the banks. To complete the look, smoke unfurled in languid curls from the chimney top.
Darcy scoffed and laughed, wondering to herself at the long line of agents who had previously failed to dislodge Rogers from his retirement. The man had to be a marshmallow, living in a place like this. She could just imagine him (her brain conjuring up a more chiseled version of her grandfather) sitting in his rocking chair, sipping on mugs of coffee and doing various elderly things. Perhaps … whittling? That seemed an old fashioned, manly craft perfect for a member of America’s Greatest Generation and a retired superhero.
Chewing on her lower lip and suddenly in good spirits, Darcy inched her vehicle up to the cabin, parking in the bit of clearing out front. She braced herself for the cold outside the warm haven of the car, wrapping a worn burgundy scarf around her neck and tugging on a pair of sleek black leather gloves. The snow crunched pleasantly beneath her boots as she stretched and rounded the front of the car. As expected, she could hear the clatter of the brook nearby and it completed the charming ambiance of the property.
She half expected for Rogers to appear at the front door to politely greet her and perhaps offer her something hot to drink with a bunch of ‘ma’ams” and aw-shucks smiles. He was definitely home--she could see lights on in the frosty cabin windows and the smoking chimney was a dead giveaway. He might be retired but she’d been assured that Rogers was still in possession of his superhuman abilities so like hell had he not heard the roar of her engine. Maybe he’d fallen and couldn’t get up? Darcy snickered to herself at the fleeting image of a bespangled life alert commercial and then traipsed up the steps. She rapped her knuckles against the front door, stomping the snow off her boots while she waited. A flicker of movement drew her attention and she just barely caught the shift of sheer curtains behind the window on her left before she heard the bolt slide on the front door.
The man who opened the door was not the one she was expecting. Sure, she’d seen plenty of historical pictures of the guy from World War II, and even a few from when they brought him off the ice right after Loki had his little temper tantrum in New York. But that had been fifteen years ago. She’d barely been out of undergrad and was still interning with Jane at the time, practically a baby compared to her current maturity. She had assumed that Rogers would have looked more...mature. Which was perhaps foolish on her part because he hadn’t looked that much older than her when he was defrosted so why should she expect him to look elderly now when she certainly didn’t. Perhaps it was the fact that his dossier had listed him as being nearly 110 years old.
Rogers didn’t look a day over 45, shoulders as broad and heroic as ever beneath the red plaid flannel shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows and tails hanging over worn jeans. He’d partially ditched the clean cut look, having grown out a short beard, though his hair was still parted neatly to the side. He looked... good. Really good.
He also looked angrier than a wet hen.
“What do you want?” He spit the words out tersely, eyeing her like she was a used car salesman, not a hint of politeness to be found.
Darcy blinked and then rallied, pasting on a warm smile. “Hi, Captain Rogers, my name’s Darcy Lewis. I’m here on behalf of Director Coulson.” She jutted her hand out into the space between their bodies expectantly. Rogers glanced at her gloved fingers, his brow lowering and blue eyes turning hard.
“I’m retired,” he curtly replied, then turned on his heel, slamming the door in her face.
A little indignant noise squeaked up Darcy’s throat. She stood blinking, mouth agape, for all of thirty seconds before her temper flared and she was pounding on the front door again.
The door swung open again and Rogers stepped out onto the porch, his size intimidating and she unconsciously took a step back. He crossed his arms over his chest, face pinched in displeasure.
“Look, ma’am,” well at least she’d gotten one ma’am, “I don’t care who you are. I know why Coulson sent you and I’m telling you I don’t give a damn. I. Am. Retired. I’m not leaving my home, not for Coulson, not for all the other agents he’s sent, and I’m sure as hell not leaving for you.”
Darcy bit back on her anger with a twitch of her head and a steady breath. “Captain, I’m not asking you to do anything besides come in and speak with Coulson. No assignment, no mission, he just wants to sit down with you.”
Rogers lips tilted in a smirk. “You’re new, aren’t you?”
The comment made her bristle, all the more for the fact that it was technically correct. Rogers had been her first field assignment since switching career tracks and giving SHIELD work a shot. She’d met several career dead ends in her life, never quite finding her groove with anything to achieve the sense of success and accomplishment she craved. Being a SHIELD field agent seemed like her last shot at maybe making something of herself. All she wanted was to be good at something, be lauded for her work, find fulfillment in it, and, God willing, be paid for it. She couldn’t very well start out her last shot with a big “L.”
Rogers’ condescension mixed potently with Darcy’s inherent stubbornness to create one hell of a battle plan in her head. She was determined to bring Rogers back with her now, come hell or high water, because by God she had something to prove.
Rogers’ gaze turned wary, having caught some of the hellishness flitting behind her eyes. “If Coulson wants to just ‘talk’ as you say, he can come by anytime. Until then, you can see yourself off.” He turned, returning to his home and snapping the door closed again.
Darcy cocked her head to the side, chewing on her lower lip as she contemplated her next move. Her quarry was stubborn, that was evident enough, and content to never leave the comfort of his home. She’d just have to smoke him out, she decided. She briefly played with the idea of literally lighting his house on fire, but in the end she chose a method that wouldn’t land her with a felony charge.
With a little spitting fire burning in her belly, she marched back to the SUV and grabbed her black overnight bag, slung it over her shoulder and stomped right back to Rogers’ front door. She didn’t bother knocking, instead kicking the base of the solid wooden door like an infuriated toddler. When Rogers opened the door, nostrils flared in irritation, she didn’t give him the chance to say a word before she shoved her bag into his chest and wedged past him into the cabin, walking around like she owned the place.
“Excuse me?” Rogers asked, bewildered and still holding her bag between his heavy hands.
Darcy lifted a brow, dropping into the power stance that Danvers had once taught her and promised would make men cower. Rogers didn’t exactly cower but he didn’t grab her by the back of her coat and throw her out on her ass either. “Oh, so now you want to use manners?” was her haughty response, hands on hips, chest up, feet shoulder width apart and chin up.
Rogers dropped the bag, blue eyes going dark. “Get out.”
Darcy smiled sweetly at him. “Oh, I’d love to, just as soon as you agree to come with me.”
“That’s not happening.”
“Then I guess I’m staying,” she replied brightly. She began to turn slowly, taking in her new abode. “Nice digs, old man. You got anything to eat?” she asked, leaving the entryway and wandering through the visible entrance to the kitchen. She opened one cabinet and then another, “I am starving. Haven’t had anything since early this morning because it took me forever to find your hobbit hole, you miserable old hermit.” The last she mumbled to herself but knew he’d heard it anyway based on the indignant noise that rumbled from his chest.
At the sounds of heavy footfalls, Darcy looked up to see Rogers rounding into the kitchen. “Listen here, lady, you need to leave and you need to leave now.” He was wagging an authoritative finger at her, as if that would do a thing.
She made a soft coo of triumph and pleasure as she spied a cookie tin in one of the cabinets she’d opened. Dragging the tin to her chest, she dug her nails under the lid to pry it open, smirking up at him when she was successful. “If you want me to leave, you can put your hands on my hot, tight little body and make me.”
Rogers just stared at her, his eyes flicking down her form briefly and then in the next moment the righteous anger was draining out of him and leaving him deflated. He made a dumbfounded grunt as if he didn’t have an argument for that.
“Come on, Captain,” she goaded him. “As strong as you are, picking me up would be nothing. So why don’t you come on over here and put your hands on a small, soft, unarmed woman who doesn’t stand a chance against you and throw me out on my ass? Is that the kind of man you are? The kind that hurts helpless women?”
She could practically hear Rogers’ molars crack, a muscle ticking in his jaw as his hands fisted at his sides. “If you know anything about me, you know I’m not.”
“Oh I’m betting on it. I hope you enjoy having a new roommate, Captain. Unless you want to go ahead and head back to D.C. with me?” She bit into one of the delicate little sugar cookies in the tin, distantly noting that they appeared to be homemade and perfectly delicious.
Rogers made a noise that could be categorized as a growl and abruptly left the kitchen for the living area. “I’m not leaving,” he barked over his shoulder.
“Wonderful,” she chirped, watching as he threw himself down into a leather chair in front of the fireplace, his back to her. “You got any milk to go with these cookies?” She watched his shoulders tense towards his ears and it took everything in her not to laugh. “Nevermind, I found it,” she said through a mouthful of cookie as she opened the fridge.
The answering sound from the living room made her smile. She’d gotten Captain America to swear. At this rate, she was confident she could break him by the end of the day.
***
She did not break him by the end of the day. In an unexpected turn of events, Darcy had found the one human being on the planet that happened to be more stubborn than she was. He masterfully ignored her at every turn, despite her employing every bad roommate etiquette she could think of. She drank his milk straight from the carton, left the cookie tin out and open on his coffee table, got crumbs all over his tastefully masculine leather sofa. She left greasy fingerprints on the spines of his books that lined the small brass bookshelf against the wall. She hummed to herself incessantly, loudly and off key.
He wasn’t impervious, not by a long shot, though he did his damndest to appear that way, sitting in his chair by the fire and sedately reading a book. He couldn’t, however, hide the way a muscle ticked in his jaw every time she shifted in her seat. It was also pretty telling when he snapped his book closed and left the cabin entirely. She’d called out to him, asking if he was ready to head out to SHIELD headquarters, only to be told ‘no’ in no uncertain terms and that sometimes a man just needed “to go for a fucking walk!”
Darcy took his temper in stride and used his absence as an opportunity to fully raid his kitchen, cooking herself a lovely dinner and leaving the kitchen in shambles afterwards. She’d had a college roommate who had done the same thing, never washing a damn dish the entire time they lived together, and it had driven her up the wall. She couldn’t imagine Rogers would enjoy cleaning up someone else’s mess anymore than she had. She couldn’t wait for him to get back from his walk.
***
That Lewis woman was insane. And Coulson was a damned fool for hiring her. He might also be punishing Steve for his abject refusal to get pulled back into work. But he’d closed that chapter in his life, his heart too worn and ragged to keep going. He didn’t like to think of himself as jaded or bitter...but the simmering rage and despair that lived beneath his skin permanently now were evidence otherwise.
That woman wouldn’t change that, even if he wanted to strangle her. He’d never met someone so blatantly rude and socially tone deaf. Or regular old tone deaf; the woman could not carry a tune in a goddamn bucket. He couldn’t tell if she was naturally that obnoxious or if she was simply doing it to get under his skin. As a skilled tactician himself, he had to respect her ingenuity. He didn’t think he would have ever come up with the idea to annoy a person into submission. Well, Bucky might have said otherwise.
But Bucky was dead and it didn’t fucking matter what he would have said because he was gone.
Steve stopped his brisk pace over the land, grasping at a sapling and uprooting it in one furious tug. He swung it overhead, watching it sail with grim satisfaction as it cracked into the thicker trunk of a nearby oak. Steve let the rage bubble up, pushing back the soured pain of having lost the last of his family--again--that last time more permanent than the others as he’d seen Bucky‘s cold body go into the ground with no secret organization to save him or infinity stone to bring him back.
Steve closed his eyes against the sting of cold wind and hot, angry tears. He wished he’d thought to bring his coat before that hellion had run him off. Didn’t matter that the serum kept him toasty and prevented even the possibility of hypothermia, he still hated the cold. He’d been out of the ice for over a decade, almost two, but he still couldn’t shake that lingering dread when the temperature dropped. Perhaps he should have retired to Florida.
He shook his head, clearing out the cobwebs, and opened his eyes, searching out a now familiar tree that grew tall and proud along the trail he’d begun to wear over the years. It was a naked silver maple, its wide, gnarled trunk climbing nearly a hundred feet into the air, and the thing might be even older than he was. Steve gripped the lowest branch in both of his callused hands, swinging up until he could begin to climb up along the trunk, going ever higher until he had to stop for fear that his weight would snap the branches beneath his feet. He found a spot about two-thirds up that was perfect for him to wedge into the vee of two branches, leaning his back against the trunk to look out at the world that opened up around him.
The height brought clarity and a peace that he still didn’t quite understand. He’d grown up in a city, spent the majority of his life in cities, and he was still learning the gentle way life could be when his only company was the earth and its natural wonders. Something about being that high up--the cold wind cutting through the strands of his hair and playing at the ends of his beard, the small creatures of the woods milling around nearby, the way the valley rolled out away from him and the mountains soared up around him--it soothed the anger in him, if only for a while.
He stayed in his spot, watching the weak winter sun sink behind the mountains until the light was near gone, casting the snow covered forest into shadows purple and blue as fresh bruises. With a sigh, he clambered back down from his perch. It would do no good to spend the night in a damn tree. He wasn’t a coward and like hell was he going to let that little viper run him out from his own home. At least, not for more than a few hours.
***
She was a goddamn menace.
He was fairly certain she had used every pot and pan he owned to make herself dinner and made a miserable mess of his entire kitchen in the process. To make matters worse, she hadn’t even made enough food for him so he was forced to wash all his dishes so he could then cook his own dinner. Whatever peace the maple had given him evaporated, as ephemeral as the soap suds coating his wrists. He cursed quietly to himself throughout cleaning and cooking for himself, but abruptly stopped when his heightened hearing picked up a soft chuckle coming from the living room.
The broad was laughing at him.
He finished his meal quickly, tossing his dishes in the sink and opting to wash them in the morning. He was old, he was tired, he was irritated, and he was going to bed, damn it. He only wished a handle of whisky would have done anything to soothe him to sleep because he could certainly use a drink.
Some lingering sense of gentlemanly manners and hospitality that Sarah Rogers had beaten into him forced him to wish Agent Lewis a curt goodnight before he scampered off to hide in his bedroom. She hadn’t responded with anything other than a quirk of her eyebrow and an assessing look that made his hair stand on end. He’d left before she could open that gob of hers and say something that would almost certainly get under his skin.
Steve tossed about in his bed for he didn’t know how long. He would have liked to blame his restlessness on the 5’3” brunette menace currently doing God knows what in his living room, but the truth of the matter was that he hadn’t been able to fall asleep easily since before he went into the ice. Something about the serum seemed to keep his brain humming with a low, constant buzz--always aware, always assessing--and with the serum also giving him unnatural endurance, he didn’t have the mercy of normal human exhaustion to quiet his thoughts. More often than not, the most he could hope for was a trance-like state where the hours passed faster than during his waking hours and his dreams blended with an awareness of the room around him.
He was just on the edge of one of those trances when he felt the shift in air pressure. His eyes snapped open, instantly alert and aware of the fact that someone was tiptoeing into his bedroom. Not someone. Lewis.
Steve didn’t like the idea of bludgeoning a woman with his bedside lamp, but he didn’t discard the idea entirely. If she was there to do him harm, he’d defend himself. She looked harmless enough, creeping blindly through his pitch dark bedroom, but Natasha could look as innocent as a lamb when she chose and he knew exactly how deadly she actually was. He kept still, feigning sleep and watched as she spread her arms wide, fingers splayed and reaching out to pat at walls and furniture, passing right by the bed until she reached the doorway to his bathroom.
Oh. He hadn’t thought of that. It was the only bathroom in his house (the cabin was not built for guests after all) so it would make sense that she would have to invade his space to use it at some point. The fact that she knew the general direction of where to go evidenced his suspicion that she might have snooped around his home while he was out. It irked him to think of her rifling through the inner sanctum of his home, her lithe fingers running over his bedspread, her sharp, blue eyes absorbing the photos that lined his dresser, learning the faces of every person he’d ever loved. His heart thundered in his chest and it took his considerable control to keep his breathing slow and even.
He watched her fingers fumble along the wall until she flipped on the bathroom light and he quickly lowered his lids, watching her through his lashes. She’d changed since he’d left her, no longer wearing the crisp, black pantsuit tucked into black leather riding boots from before, replacing them with an oversized t-shirt that fell to a couple inches above her knees and a pair of thick fuzzy socks. She’d changed her hair too, freeing it from it’s neat bun so that it fell in a heavy, riotous curtain around her shoulders. The bathroom light caught around her silhouette, lighting up the ends of her dark curls and giving them a soft red undertone. She made a pretty picture, one he would have liked to capture on paper once upon a time, but he didn’t do that sort of thing much anymore. And certainly not of women who left smudges on his books.
The door closed and his room was plunged into darkness again, save for the light spilling out beneath the door. He let himself blow out a shaky breath and rolled over onto his belly, tucking his arms under his pillow. He was just on the edge of something like sleep when he felt the bed dip and a set of fingers dug into his bare side. It would have tickled if he hadn’t been so nonplussed by the words she said next.
“Budge over, Captain. You’re in the middle of the bed.”
Steve blinked and then rose slowly up onto his elbows, turning his head to stare at Agent Lewis, who was now kneeling in his bed, looking blindly down at him, and still pressing insistently at his ribcage.
His voice came out breathless, she’d caught him so off guard. “Excuse me?” Surely the woman had some boundaries.
“I’m not sleeping on the couch. It’s cold out there and I don’t know how to remake the fire and I couldn’t find any throw blankets. Scoot over.” She pressed at him with both hands this time.
That would be a no on the boundaries then.
He just gaped at her for a moment. “No,” he eventually said. Not very eloquent, but firm nonetheless.
“Yes,” she replied, just as firmly, damn her. “The bed is plenty big enough for both of us. Or, it would be if you’d move over.” Here she shoved at him again, her fingers curling in to dig at his ribs.
To his mortification, the motion forced a breathless giggle from his lips. He quickly rolled up onto his side, gripping both her hands with one of his to pry them from his ticklish ribs. “Stop that,” he grit out. “And get out.”
She shook her hands from his hold but instead of leaving, she turned her back to him and slid down into the open space he’d made when he’d rolled to his side. She curled up on her side, pulling his bedding up to her chin and tucking his pillow under her head. She shifted down into the mattress slightly, making a soft, contented noise in the back of her throat.
Steve made a choked sound, something that was part bewildered huff of laughter, half aggravated growl.
“Goodnight, Steve,” she sighed, her words threaded with smug triumph.
With a huff, he threw the blankets off his legs and crawled out the other side of the bed. He watched her sprawl a little further into the now open space, a beatific smile on her face. He rounded the bed, his bare feet hitting the floorboards with ominous thuds. Bending low, he scooped her up into his arms along with his blankets, a thrill going through him at the indignant squawk she made as he hoisted her up higher in his arms and then marched her bundled up body back out to his living room. He dropped her unceremoniously on his couch, where she bounced a bit, staring up at him wide-eyed. He dropped his fists to his hips, staring down at her.
“There, you’ve got blankets to keep you warm.” He hardened his gaze. “Now, stay.”
His words rankled her and ire flashed over her face. “I’m not a dog. You can’t speak to me like that.”
“It’s my house, honey. I can speak to you however the hell I want. Don’t like it, you’re free to go whenever you choose,” he grinned, gesturing to his front door.
He watched her plump lips pinch and eyes narrow before he turned on his heel and stomped back to his bedroom, slamming the door closed behind him. He suddenly wished he’d had the forethought to put a lock on the door when he’d had the place built, but he hadn’t intended to ever have company. He dug out another set of bedding from the linen closet in his bathroom and crawled back into bed, pleased that she seemed to be listening to his orders to stay put. He smiled smugly into his pillow. His competitive nature had turned this little tete-a-tete with Agent Lewis into some kind of game and he was inordinately pleased to have won this round.
He fell asleep with surprising ease, and slept heavily for once.
He still woke with the dawn, of course, but he felt better rested than he had in awhile. He’d slept so thoroughly, in fact, that it took him nearly a full minute to realize that Lewis’ hard head was butting up against his sternum, her knees tucked up and nudging perilously close to his flannel covered groin, and her hair was tangling in the ends of his beard. They were both curled up on their sides, facing each other, and he had one arm curled under his head but the other...his hand had settled against the dip in her waist. Her hands were thankfully demurely folded up against her chest.
He loosed a slow, longsuffering breath from his nose. The breath stirred the hair flung across his face, tickling his lips and nose and serving to kindle his ire. The hand at her waist spasmed, his fingers digging in as he roughly pushed her away. Not enough to hurt her but enough to get her the fuck away from him. The little sneak didn’t even have the decency to wake up. She merely rolled with the movement, stretching her limbs out with a sleepy purr before settling back down.
His eye started twitching of its own accord and right then, Steve Rogers decided he was no longer going to endure this woman. He was going to get even. He was gonna make her as miserable as she was making him and he was going to enjoy every single second of it.