Work Text:
Bucky Barnes had a problem.
Actually, he had two problems.
No, to be honest, he had a goddam multitude of problems.
But at present he had two very specific, very tenacious problems named Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov, both of whom were seemingly determined to take that last shred of his sanity and toss it into the wind.
“I said no.”
“C’mon, Buck. She’s your type. Smart, feisty, gorgeous-”
“Stop,” he pleaded, almost wishing that the weight bar in his hand would just magically drop and fall onto his face. Anything to avoid this conversation again.
The sad thing was, this was nothing new: Steve’s tragic attempts to set him up with any semi-eligible woman who passed within a two-hundred yard radius had been going on for several months now.
The main reason for this drive to find a girl for Bucky was, as far as Bucky himself could see it, directly in correlation to the fact that Steve had finally grown a pair and kissed Natasha on her birthday. Now the pair of them were sickeningly in love, and, worst of all, utterly determined to see Bucky end up in the same state.
He had expected this kind of behaviour from Steve, the big sap, but Natasha Romanov? The feared Black Widow? Who knew she was such a wannabe matchmaker? Certainly not Bucky. The first time that Nat had sidled up to him and pointed out how attractive Shelly from Finance looked in her new pantsuit, Bucky had felt actual tears prick his eyes. This was it, this was how he was going to finally end up completely insane.
They were relentless; scarcely a day went by where neither of them was suggesting that he speak to some poor unsuspecting woman whose only error had been to glance his way for a few seconds. Bucky knew that he was interesting: both the tragic war-hero past and his reputation as the Winter Soldier appealed to many of the women who worked in Stark Tower. The thing was, Bucky didn’t want to be with anyone who saw him as either of those two people. They were the past, and he was doing his utmost to live in the present.
“Look, just meet her, alright? It doesn’t need to be more than a cup of coffee-”
“Jesus! Will you give it a rest?” Bucky snapped, shoving the weight back into place and sitting up on the bench. He immediately felt guilty for his outburst when Steve’s face fell slightly.
“Look, I’m sorry-”
“Sorry Buck-”
They both laughed, grinning at each other sheepishly.
“God, get a room,” Barton muttered as he strolled past, shoving earbuds in as he hopped onto the treadmill.
Bucky wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I shouldn’t’ve snapped at you, punk. I know you’re just trying to help, but the thing is…I don’t know if I’m ready.”
Steve frowned, concerned. “Bucky, I know I’ve been hounding you lately, but I just want you to be happy. You never went a Saturday night without a dame on your arm, and I just want you to have that connection again.”
Bucky smirked. “You mean sex?”
Contrary to popular belief, Steve did not blush when the word ‘sex’ was uttered, he did however, roll his eyes in a startling imitation of Natasha. “No. Well, yeah, I guess I do. But I mean all the other stuff, too. Loneliness ain’t good for us, y’know?”
Bucky nodded soberly. He did know. He’d been on his own for decades, but his mind hadn’t been his own, and it didn’t understand the concept of loneliness. His two years in Europe, after the fall of SHIELD, had been difficult. Necessary, but difficult.
“Also, Natasha is determined that you have a date for the Winter Ball. So good luck with that,” the punk grinned, taking Bucky’s place on the weight bench.
Bucky grimaced. A determined Natasha Romanov was an implacable Natasha Romanov.
How the hell was he going to get out of this situation? Maybe he could take a mission with new SHIELD right over the night of the Ball. Although… then he’d probably miss Christmas at the Tower, and he knew that Steve was excited about having his best bud around at the holidays.
A little light bulb pinged over his head. The only way to avoid Steve and Nat’s matchmaking was to find a date for himself.
He snorted.
Like that was going to happen.
🎄🎄🎄
It happened on a Tuesday morning the week before Christmas. He was ambushed in the hallway of the seventy-eighth floor as he headed for the elevator.
A blur of bright green and long brown hair wizzed down the hall towards him.
“Hide me!” The woman hissed, literally ducking behind him.
“I…what?”
“Jane overheard Danny from Accounting saying that he was going to ask me to the Winter Ball and I cannot handle rejecting that conceited douchebag today. My hair is too frizzy, and I forgot my lipliner this morning,” she huffed, running a hand through said hair. It didn’t look frizzy to Bucky, and her lips looked…well, very nice. Even without lipstick they were invitingly plump and pink.
“Who are you?”
The woman peered cautiously around him, scanning the hallway. “Hmm? Oh, I’m Darcy Lewis.”
When he looked blankly at her, she continued. “Jane Foster’s assistant. Jane Foster as in Thor’s girlfriend? We met a few months ago.”
She didn’t sound particularly offended that he didn’t remember her, but the manners with which he had been raised resurfaced. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I wasn’t…fully present, back then,” he admitted, scratching at the back of his neck.
The woman- Darcy’s- eyes tracked the movement of his bicep.
Huh. That’s interesting.
“Ma’am,” she repeated, looking slightly thunderstruck. Again, Bucky worried that he had offended her. “That’s a turn on I did not expect,” she muttered, so quietly that Bucky couldn’t parse if he was supposed to hear it or not.
Before he could ask what she meant, the woman let out a small squeak and grabbed onto his arms, directing him to stand in front of her. Bucky’s mind couldn’t focus on much beyond the feeling of her hands on his bare arms. The feedback from both the prosthetic and his real arm reminded him that he hadn’t been touched by a woman since his escape from Hydra.
“Shit! Shit! Look away, look away!” Darcy whispered frantically, peering anxiously down the hallway.
A short, solidly-built man with reddish-blond hair was loudly enquiring if anyone had seen Darcy. A cluster of women who had been chatting for the past few minutes by the water cooler all shook their heads. With a theatrical sigh, the man cast one more glance around the wide space, before continuing on his way.
Darcy let go of his arms immediately. “Thanks for the assist. Uh oh.”
Bucky grimaced. There it was: she had realised who she had been hiding behind. The terrifying Winter Soldier, everyone run and hide!
“I am going to kill Stark!” Darcy snarled with such vehemence that Bucky turned to look at her. She was smaller than he had realised, the top of her head barely reaching his chin.
Although…she had her head tilted so far back that she wasn’t actually looking up at him at all.
She was looking at…
A large sprig of some leafy plant with white berries.
Mistletoe?
Huh.
Oh.
Oh.
Mistletoe! He remembered mistletoe. Remembered what it meant. Did it still mean the same thing in 2018?
A glance at Darcy’s pink cheeks seemed to confirm it.
He had to say something, he had to put her at ease. “It’s just a silly tradition,” he managed, noting the slight disappointment flash across her beautiful face. That was unexpected. Hell, everything about this woman had been unexpected.
Darcy hitched a smile on her face. “You’re right. It doesn’t mean anything. Um, anyway, thanks again for helping me,” she had begun to back away, nervously tapping at the mobile phone clutched in her hand. Perhaps she was calling for help.
He had sat in on plenty of SI appropriate conduct seminars, and he did not want the humiliation of being accused of sexual harassment.
“I’m sorry…if I scared you. I’m…sorry.” He cringed at his own words. Jesus, maybe this was why he had refused all of Steve and Nat’s matchmaking attempts. He was clearly incapable of speaking to attractive women.
Darcy stared at him wordlessly for a moment, her lips a perfect pink ‘O’.
“Dude, you didn’t scare me. I’m just feeling frazzled today, that’s all, and the idea of Danny asking me out was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, y’know?”
He nodded, though he wasn’t sure that he did know.
Darcy was watching him, and he knew that he should say something, something interesting and engaging. Otherwise, she was going to walk away, and take his opportunity with her.
“Are you already going with someone?”
Darcy tilted her head. “To the Winter Ball?” she clarified.
Bucky winced. He wasn’t even speaking in proper sentences. “Yes. To the Winter Ball.”
“No, I just can’t stand him. Why? Are you asking me?” she teased, flashing a set of pearly white teeth. She thought he was joking.
“Yes.”
The smile dropped. Had he upset her?
“You’re not…serious, are you?” she asked, scepticism written in every line of her body.
Goddam, but this hurt more than he had expected. The sting of rejection felt more like a body slam.
“I…was being serious, yes. But I understand that you don’t -”
“Yes.”
Bucky was still in the midst of explaining himself when she uttered the word. His voice came to an abrupt stop.
“Yes?”
Darcy rolled her eyes, a dimple appearing in her cheek as she smiled at him. “Yes, I’ll go with you to the ball.”
“Really?”
She just smiled wider. “Definitely. I absolutely do not want to miss the sight of all that-” here she gestured to him “-In a tux. Merry Christmas to me, indeed.”
“I don’t have a tux,” he said, stupidly, because the way her eyes had roved over him was…unsettling. But in a good way.
Her eyebrows rose. “Well, you’d better get one. It’s Black Tie, not-at-all optional, according to Tony. Pepper insisted.”
Bucky watched her, mystified that she was actually conversing with him. That she had actually said ‘yes’ to attending the Winter Ball as his date.
“Okay. I’ll ask Steve for advice,” he said, before realising that it made him sound incapable of buying his own clothes. He wasn’t entirely inept at living in the twenty-first century, despite what most people liked to think.
A mischievous expression bloomed on Darcy’s face. “Better yet, go tux shopping with him. And take lots of pictures of the two of you together, okay?”
Bucky wasn’t really sure what that meant, but he agreed. He suspected he’d agree to anything Darcy suggested.
She grinned, tapping at her phone again. “Awesome, and then send the pics to me. I promise I won’t sell them to the tabloids, they’ll be a Christmas present just for me. What’s your number?”
This dame. She moved at a mile a minute. “Um…my number?”
She rolled her eyes, but it wasn’t cruel. “Your cell phone number. You have a cell, right?”
He pulled the StarkPhone from his sweatpants pocket. He hardly used the thing, and with Friday in the building it seemed redundant, but Steve insisted he carry it everywhere. He wasn’t going to tell Darcy that, though: she probably already thought he was pathetic.
“Unlock it,” Darcy commanded, hand outstretched like she was going to grab it.
Bucky held his thumbprint to the tiny scanner and the phone’s screen shifted. Darcy immediately plucked the device from his hands and rapidly navigated through whatever she was doing. Her phone pinged a second later, and she smiled, handing the phone back to him.
“Okay, all done! But dude, I have to say, that plain background is tragic. You need a good photo for that. Maybe one of you and Steve in your tuxes…” She shook herself lightly, clicking her phone on and off. “Crap! I have to go, like right now, or Jane will kill me! But this was fun, we should totally rendezvous in the hallway again sometime.” She began backing away, actually waving at him. “Thanks for saving me. I’ll text you later, okay. Bye, Bucky!”
And with that she was gone, disappearing round the corner in another blur of green.
Bucky stood, speechless, as other SI staff milled around him. Did…did that just happen? Did he just get a date? With a gorgeous, fast-talking dame? Goddam, would miracles never cease?
He unlocked his phone, scrolling to his scant WhatsApp. The top conversation was labelled ‘Queen Darcy.’ He smiled, clicking on her profile picture. She was wearing a vivid yellow sundress and holding an ice-cream cone, beaming at the camera. Wow. She was stunning.
And she was his date to the Winter Ball.
🎁 🎁 🎁
“No. No. No.” Natasha was flicking through the display book in the tailor’s, grimacing and tutting and generally making the sales assistants tense with fear.
The place was swanky as hell, apparently a favourite of Stark’s, and one of the few places in the city that could guarantee a custom-made tuxedo to fit Bucky’s unusual frame within just three days.
Bucky sighed, sipping on the champagne he had been handed, and allowed Nat to continue terrorising the employees. Steve was in back, getting measured, and in some sort of weird relationship politics that Bucky didn’t understand, Natasha was selecting the fabric for his suit and pocket square.
When asked, Darcy had advised Bucky to go for a plain silk black tuxedo, with a white pocket square. Simple and classic.
“You know, Amber from Reception was asking about you the other day,” Nat said, completely out of the blue. Bucky had only been half present, so it took him a few seconds to realise that she was speaking to him.
“Oh?”
“Don’t ‘oh’ me. I think you should ask her to the Ball. She’d definitely say yes,” Nat continued, still flicking through the samples.
Bucky was mildly embarrassed that they were having this conversation in front of a troupe of sales assistants. It made him sound absolutely incapable of fending for himself, and he already felt woefully out of depth in this fancy place.
At that precise moment, Steve emerged from the back room, smiling at Natasha. Perfect.
“I’m sure Amber is swell, but I already have a date for the Ball,” he replied, calmly.
You could’ve heard a pin drop. Steve, Nat, and the largely oblivious sales assistants all stared at him. It took a lot of effort not to let himself blush at the attention.
“Really?” Natasha purred, sounding a bit too much like a lioness that was about to pounce on an unsuspecting wildebeest. “Who?”
Bucky shifted on the cushy chair. “Darcy Lewis.” It came out sounding like more of a question.
“Foster’s assistant?” Steve clarified, looking damn impressed with his best friend’s pulling ability.
Nat’s eyebrow rose. “How did this happen?”
Bucky looked to the sales assistants. No way was he telling them the whole tale. “Is it time for my fitting?” He asked, hopefully.
One young woman braved Natasha’s glower to escort him into the back room.
Apparently there were heroes everywhere.
🎅🎅🎅
Bucky checked the time, drawing the gold pocket watch out with care. It had been his father’s, a wedding gift from Bucky’s maternal grandfather to his new son-in-law, and even though Ian Barnes’ last will and testament had passed the watch onto Becca’s eldest boy, Bucky had been gifted it by his nephew shortly after his arrival at Stark Tower.
The gesture had touched Bucky deeply, and he had begun a tentative relationship with Jim Barnes and his lovely family. Sometimes it was hard, when he saw Becca in Jim’s daughter, Lucy, but he always enjoyed visiting them out in Long Island. He felt blessed, to have family left who actually wanted anything to do with him.
It was seven forty five on the dot, and Bucky was as ready for this night as he could possibly be.
He was clean shaven, and his overgrown locks had been chopped to a similar length to the style he had sported in 1945, except with a more modern finish. He was fairly pleased with the results, but it felt odd not to have hair to hide behind. Nat had insisted that he couldn’t turn up to a black tie ball with long hair, and despite his protests that Thor would be doing just that, he was summarily hauled off to the barber, anyway.
As he exited the town car, he nervously swept a hand over his hair again, although there was no chance that it had moved during his journey from the Tower, given the amount of hairspray Nat had doused it in.
Darcy lived out in Flatbush, so close to where he and Steve had grown up. At this late hour it was hard to tell how much the neighbourhood had changed over the years, which was a good thing. Bucky didn’t want anything to ruin tonight, especially not his own mind.
He pressed the buzzer for Darcy’s flat, smiling when he heard her chirpy voice telling him to come on up. She was on the fourth floor, and by the time he arrived at her door, his stomach had worked itself into a tangle of knots. Sure, he and Darcy had conversed plenty over the past few days- the girl was a champion texter- but he couldn’t help but feel completely out of his depth here.
He only knocked once before the door swung open, revealing a beaming, beautiful Darcy. Her hair was sitting in an elaborate pile on her head, small pearls glinting from among the dark strands and a few errant curls gracing her slender neck. Her dress was a stunning peacock blue that nipped in at her waist and cut into a low V at her chest. The fabric fell light and shimmering to sweep the floor.
“Bucky? You coming in?”
He blinked, realising that he had been standing and staring at her like a complete idiot. “For you,” he said, handing her the lush bouquet of yellow and purple flowers that had set him back a pretty penny. Darcy grinned, taking the flowers and sticking her nose into them.
“How did you know that alstroemerias are my favourite?” she asked, leading him into the flat. His mouth went dry when he saw the back of the dress, which consisted of only two strips of fabric curving across each other, leaving her skin bare to the middle of her spine. He tried not to stare at the pale expanse of Darcy’s back as he followed her into the sitting room, instead looking around the room.
It was small and cosy, but full of vibrant throws, wall posters and tchotchkes. It suited her down to the ground. She flitted out of the room and returned with scissors and a large vase full of water.
“I’ll just trim the stems quickly, I heard that makes them live longer,” she said, efficiently arranging the flowers until she was satisfied. She turned to smile at him. “Bucky, these are so beautiful. Thank you.”
Bucky managed to smile back. “You’re welcome.”
They stared at each other for a long moment before Darcy seemed to shake herself. “Okay! Where’s my bag? We’d better get going.”
A small, jewelled bag was lying on the couch, partially concealed by a cushion. “This it?” he asked, picking it up.
“Yes! Awesome,” she opened the bag, checking through its contents. “Okay, I’m ready when you are.”
Bucky waited patiently as Darcy locked up. He would’ve offered to hold her arm as they walked down the stairs, but the staircase wasn’t wide enough. She navigated them just fine, though he suspected that she was wearing very high-heeled shoes, as she wasn’t nearly as small when he stood next to her as she had been the other day.
“You look insanely hot, by the way,” she stated, matter-of-factly as they exited the building. “I really like the haircut.”
Bucky touched his hair, again, as the driver opened the door for Darcy. She shuffled gracelessly onto the seat, smiling as Bucky settled next to her.
“Thanks. Takes a bit of getting used to,” he admitted. He looked over at the smile on her pink lips and suddenly felt like the biggest heel on the planet. “You look incredible. Sorry…I forgot to say it, you know, before,” he finished, lamely.
Darcy beamed at the compliment, patting his hand- his prosthetic- fondly. “Thanks. I’m glad you approve, because this took about three hours. And that doesn’t include prep beauty appointments early this week. My nails don’t have a single chip. It’s incredible,” she chattered, showing him the perfectly painted silver nails.
All Bucky could focus on was how slender and delicate her fingers were, nary a blister or callus in sight. Back in his day (wow, that made him sound like an old geezer), women habitually wore gloves out in public, and the moment of seeing a dame’s uncovered hands for the first time was always exciting and intimate. He knew that fashions had changed, but it still felt special.
“Nice,” he managed to say, engendering another smile from Darcy. From anyone else, he may have suspected falseness, but not from her. She wasn’t the sort to hide her emotions behind a mask of fake sincerity.
Darcy looked out the window, tapping her foot a little as the car pulled into heavy traffic leading up to Fifth. “I’m seriously so excited for this Ball!”
“Yeah?” Some things may have changed, he thought, but people still loved to dress up and go out for a good time.
“Yeah. Tony has been bitching about it since Hallowe’en. For a successful billionaire he can be a real baby,” she continued, surprising him.
“Ain’t he your boss?”
She grinned. “Uh huh. I tell him that he’s a baby all the time, but he hasn’t fired me yet. He’s too scared of Jane.”
“Why would he be scared of her?” Bucky asked, perplexed. He hadn’t come across Foster too much since his return, but he recalled that she was small and fine-boned, with none of Natasha’s cool intimidation.
“Uh, because she could totally beam him to other end of space if he pissed her off!” Darcy replied, defensive of her boss and bestie. “Jane is the only person to ever successfully create and stabilise an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. That’s why she won the Nobel.”
All Bucky could say was: “Wow.”
Darcy looked satisfied by his awe. “Yep. She’s mega brains, and I’m her badass side-kick. She even mentioned me in her acceptance speech. That was pretty cool, probably the closest I’ll ever get to being famous.”
“You wanna be famous?” According to the news, a lot of young people wanted to be famous. That’s why they posted pictures and videos of themselves online all the time.
Darcy snorted. “God, no. I can’t imagine anything worse. Not being able to get groceries or go to the cinema without some reporter or paparazzo ambushing you? People who want to be famous are crazy.”
Bucky had to agree. He had never sought fame, but it had found him nonetheless. Well, back in the ‘40s he had been more famous by association, best friend of Captain America. Now, he was notorious as the Winter Soldier, and that didn’t exactly feel too good.
Ms Potts had hired a fleet of lawyers and publicists to defend him when the press sussed out exactly who he was, and things had smoothed out surprisingly quickly. Ms Potts had told him that most of the general public were more horrified by what had been done to him than by anything done by him. Bucky didn’t care all that much about what the faceless public felt about him, but it was certainly nice to be able to go about his life without the FBI or CIA trying to get him.
“Oh, this it is! Wow, that is a lot of people,” Darcy chirped, stretching to peer out the window as the town car pulled up to the curb. A literal red carpet stretched along the side walk and up the grand staircase into the huge venue. Dozens of paparazzi and reporters pressed against the velveteen ropes lining the walkway, irritated SI bodyguards trying to fend them off as they went wild every time someone stepped out of a limo.
Bucky felt his stomach flip with anxiety. He didn’t do well in crowds, particularly crowds with flashing lights and people screaming at him for comments. He wasn’t sure he could walk those twenty feet into the building without causing a scene.
Darcy touched his arm gently. “Hey, we can find another entrance, if you like?”
He swallowed. He didn’t like the fact that his fear was so obvious, even to someone as kind as Darcy. Actually, it was embarrassing to be caught like this by a beautiful woman, so he firmly said: “No, it’s fine. Thanks.”
She looked at him sceptically for a moment as their car crept closer to the red carpet. “You sure?”
He nodded. The weight of Darcy fell against him as she pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. Her perfume was rich and dark, and it scrambled his brains almost as much as the feeling of her soft lips on his skin.
“Then let’s go out there and make all of those people feel insanely jealous,” she said, grinning mischievously as the driver opened the door at Bucky’s side.
Thanking the man, Bucky stepped out, buttoning his tux jacket and turning to offer Darcy a hand out of the car. She managed it with surprising grace, stumbling only slightly as her heel snagged on the skirt of her dress.
Darcy tossed her head back and smiled up at him, releasing his hand in order to slide her arm around his. Bucky focussed on her as they walked along the red carpet, watching raptly as she played coy with the cameras. She may not have been famous, but the paparazzi still went wild for her. No wonder, Bucky thought as he looked down at her, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Before he knew it, they were stepping out of the chaos and into a cool, marble atrium. A butler took Darcy’s wrap, and another attendant escorted them into the ballroom.
“Holy shit!” Darcy exclaimed, as they passed through the enormous glass doors. The room was like something from the Belle Epoque, full of beautifully carved wooden detailing, gilded mirrors, and chandeliers that looked about ten feet across. A Christmas tree that looked to be a slightly smaller sibling of the one at the Rockefeller Centre stood in the middle of the room, decorated with hundreds of gold lights and decorations.
They had arrived fashionably late, just under thirty minutes after the invitation time. Darcy had insisted that arriving too early was a bad idea, and Bucky had readily agreed. There were already a couple of hundred people in the room, some at the bar areas, others chatting amicably on plush lounge chairs.
It felt like stepping back in time a hundred years, and it was just about the last thing Bucky had expected from Stark, Mr Modern himself.
“Wow, this is unbelievable!” Darcy breathed, still taking in the scope of the room alongside him.
“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, staring around at the opulence in disbelief. Sure, he lived in Stark Tower, one of the most expensive buildings on the planet, but something about the décor in this room just held a sense of luxury that left Bucky amazed.
“Oh there’s Jane!” Darcy was waving vigorously at the diminutive doctor, who was wearing an outfit that looked vaguely reminiscent of a sari. As Thor was wearing something similar, Bucky could only assume that their clothes were Asgardian. He noted with a hint of envy that Thor’s get-up looked much more comfortable than a monkey suit.
Darcy grabbed his arm suddenly, attempting to drag him across to Jane and into the thick of the party. He wasn’t quite sure that he was ready for that. He gently pried her hand off his arm, holding it in his own as he asked: “Um, would you like me to get you a drink?”
Darcy looked down at their joined hands before smiling at him. “Yeah, thanks! A greyhound for me, please.”
“You got it,” he said, lifting her hand and kissing her knuckles. Darcy blushed bright red and Bucky wondered where that move had come from in his addled mind.
“Uh. Drinks. Right.” He hurried off to the bar before he ended up kissing her anywhere else. The bar was packed, and it took him several minutes just to make it up to the point where a bartender might actually take notice of him.
“Sergeant Barnes, you look most dapper this evening,” a slightly robotic voice said from Bucky’s left.
He turned to see Vision watching him with those keen red eyes of his. Bucky found the android slightly off-putting at the best of times, but seeing him in a classic tuxedo was so bizarre that he had to work hard at not laughing aloud.
“Thanks, Vision. You look very smart, too,” he returned.
Vision looked mournfully down at himself. As far as Bucky could tell, he wasn’t so much wearing a tux, but rather seemed to have transformed his body to appear as if it were wearing a tux.
“I miss the cape,” the android confessed, accepting two drinks from the wide-eyed bartender and nodding at Bucky before floating off back to Wanda.
Bucky didn’t even bother hiding his left hand as he requested two greyhounds. If the bartender could handle Vision without fainting with shock, a weaponized prosthetic wasn’t likely to get even a blink.
“Buck!”
He turned to find Steve and Nat striding towards him, the pair of them clearing a wide path of astonished and envious onlookers. They both cleaned up very well.
Natasha’s red hair was twisted sleekly away from her face, and her black evening gown was split almost to the hip on both sides, revealing a pair of the highest heels Bucky had ever seen a woman wear.
Steve’s tux was effectively the same as Bucky’s, but with one small detail different: Steve’s pocket square was a rich red, the exact shade of Natasha’s lipstick and, of course, one of the trademark colours of the Black Widow. Bucky was both bemused and surprised that the pair of them would go so far as to make a statement like that. To the casual onlooker, it probably wouldn’t register, but to anyone with a tactical mind, they may as well have had a sign on each of their foreheads.
He hoped that love hadn’t made Natasha go soft, and he really hoped that no jackass villain would figure out that Black Widow and Captain America were an item. It would be a godsend to any wannabe enemy of the Avengers.
“Here you go, man,” the bartender said, sliding two tall glasses towards him. Bucky nodded his thanks.
Steve clapped a hand on his shoulder a split second before he went to lift the two cocktails. “Hey, Buck.”
“Evening, you two,” he returned, smiling. “Nat, you look great.”
Natasha accepted the compliment as her due. “Enough sweet-talking. Where’s your date, Barnes?” she asked, raising one slender eyebrow, as if she believed he had concocted the entire tale of him and Darcy. Like he’d even try lying to Nat.
“She’s talking to Jane and Thor. I’m getting us drinks,” he replied, lifting the two glasses for his matchmakers to see.
Steve piped up: “You going to dance with her? Tony said the philharmonic orchestra starts at eight thirty.”
Bucky froze for a second. Dancing. God, he had been so worked up about coming to this thing with Darcy, and what he should wear that he had actually forgotten that it was a Winter Ball. As in, lots of dancing.
If there was one thing Bucky loved, it was dancing. He hoped to God that he remembered how. He hoped to God that Darcy liked to dance.
He found himself smiling at his oldest friend. “Can’t wait,” he said, sincerely. “Excuse me, I’m going to find Darcy.”
❄❄❄
Bucky and Darcy spent the next half hour chatting to various members of the Avengers and their plus ones. Thor had vowed to procure a ceremonial Asgardian costume for Bucky, noting that the Midgardian tuxedo looked most uncomfortable. (He didn't know the half of it. The only saving grace of the tux was the fact that Bucky could easily hide half a dozen weapons on his person.) Darcy had sipped her drink at a leisurely pace, laughing brightly along with Wanda and Jane, and casting him shy smiles that warmed the cockles of his heart every time she saw him watching her. Honestly, it was a challenge to keep his eyes off her.
At precisely eight-thirty, an attendant stepped up on a raised platform and gently tapped a microphone.
"If everyone would please make their way into the ballroom..."
The guests flowed out of the reception room in a big wave, everyone cooing and ahhing at the enormous chandelier suspended above the waxed dance floor. The philharmonic orchestra sat in a loose crescent shape at the top of the room, their instruments at the ready.
Ms Potts and Stark stepped up on the small stage. Stark's bow tie was already undone, but Ms Potts looked immaculate in a gown that seemed like it had been made of molten gold.
"Good evening, everyone. Tony and I would like to thank you for joining us at our seventh annual Winter Ball. This year we have the honour of being entertained by the incomparable philharmonic orchestra, who will begin tonight's festivities with a series of waltzes. If any of you are as rusty as I am, you'll be relieved to hear that several dancers from Juilliard have graciously offered to refresh our memories," here Ms Potts gestured to five young couples, who made their way into the centre of the huge floor space. "I hope you all have a wonderful evening," she concluded, holding her glass up in a toast.
The Juilliard dancers arranged themselves on the empty dancefloor as the conductor raised his arms. Bucky felt a thrill run through him as the magical sound of the orchestra filled the air, and the dancers moved in a perfectly synchronised waltz.
In front of him, Darcy gasped softly. Bucky leaned down to speak quietly in her ear. “Do you like to dance?” he murmured, his longing to get out on the dancefloor overriding his ever-present anxiety.
Darcy turned to look up at him, her eyes widening a bit. “Um, yeah. But, the kind of dancing I do isn’t appropriate for this,” she admitted, gesturing at the couples gliding around the dance floor. Bucky was surprised to hear a bit of nervousness in her voice. He didn’t think that Darcy seemed like the kind of woman who was ever nervous about anything, but he knew that was stupid. Everyone got nervous about something at some point in their lives.
He chuckled at her beseeching expression. “I’ll teach you. Fairly sure I remember how to dance pretty well,” he said, studying the moves of the dancers intently.
Waltzing hadn’t really been a thing in his youth- well, certainly not at the venues he frequented- everyone was caught up in the craze of swing-dancing, and ballroom was considered old-fashioned, something their parents or even grandparents did in their time.
Bucky’s Mom, however, had been a great lover of dance, and she had taught Bucky and all of his sisters how to dance ‘properly.’ Bucky had only been around ten or eleven when she started waltzing him around their small kitchen, and despite his protests that dancing ‘was for girls’, he had enjoyed it immensely. Watching the dancers sweeping around the ballroom took him back to his family’s cramped flat and the powdery scent of his mother’s perfume.
The memory hit him hard, but with the sorrow came a warm rush of happiness, too. He looked to Darcy, holding his hand out to her and smiling encouragingly.
She looked hesitant, but took his hand immediately. When he began to lead her towards the dance floor, she dug her heels in, and he glanced back to see her teeth biting into her lower lip. “Bucky, I can’t. Not here, in front of all these people,” she whispered, her expression wracked with guilt, as if she was afraid of letting him down.
“Okay. Come with me,” he said, tugging her towards the exit. They darted through the crowds of guests, Darcy laughing a little breathlessly behind him as he searched for a quiet space.
He didn’t exactly want to go hunting for spare rooms in this palatial place, so he settled for a wide hallway with smooth wooden floors.
Bucky could faintly hear the sound of the orchestra, striking up a new tune. Darcy looked sceptically around the empty space, and he was suddenly wracked with a terrible feeling that she didn’t want to be alone with him. He had been so excited at the prospect of teaching her to dance, of doing something nice for her, that he hadn’t considered how she might feel about the whole thing.
Of course, Darcy surprised him yet again. Taking his hand she spun around until she was facing him.
“Alright, old man. Show me what you got,” she demanded, grinning at him.
He found himself chuckling lightly as he got her into starting position. She listened to his instructions with an expression of deep concentration, but when he began leading her into a slowed-down version of the basic steps, she dropped her eyes and stared down at their feet. Just like he had done when his Ma taught him, all those years ago.
Bucky gently touched her chin, smiling when she looked up at him with a deep groove between her brows. “Relax, you’re a natural. Just don’t look at your feet, okay? Look at me. I’ll let you know where you need to go.”
She looked sceptical, but agreed. In a matter of minutes they were twirling around the hallway, and Darcy was smiling brightly. “This is so fun!” she cried, letting out a delighted whoop as Bucky dipped her without warning.
Her wide smile faltered slightly, and he immediately pulled her upright, worried that he had startled her.
“What is it?”
Darcy shook her head. “Nothing. Let’s get back to dancing. Actually, why don’t we go into the ballroom? I think I’m ready…” she trailed off, pulling away from him.
Bucky was stunned, completely baffled as to what had set her off.
“Darcy, did I do something wrong?”
She stopped and turned back to him. For a split second her eyes darted up above his head and he felt a terrifying sensation that something bad was hanging over his head.
What the hell was it? A bomb? A loaded rifle?
Bucky steeled himself and looked up to find…
Mistletoe.
A clump of mistletoe pinned to the ceiling above him. He looked down the rest of the hallway- no mistletoe there. Really, what were the odds that the sole sprig of mistletoe would be hanging right where they danced?
Before he could stop himself, he began to laugh. Obviously, the universe was trying to tell him something.
He held out a hand to Darcy. She took it with an uncertain smile on her face, like she couldn’t quite tell what to make of his reaction.
“It’s just a silly tradition,” she said lightly, repeating the words he had said to her a few days prior.
“It is,” Bucky agreed, tucking a curl behind her ear, “But I really want to kiss you, anyway.”
She swallowed, her beautiful blue eyes widening. “Really?” Her voice broke a little with emotion and something warm stirred in Bucky’s chest.
He leaned down, gently touching the tip of his nose to hers. “Really.”
And then, he finally kissed her.
⛄⛄⛄
On their extremely non-traditional wedding day exactly three years later, after the 'I dos' were done, Vision held a clump of mistletoe over their heads and told Bucky that he could now kiss the bride.
Darcy grinned up at him, her eyes shining as much as his own.
“It’s just a silly tradition,” she whispered, right as their lips met.