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Darcy was wearing the same dress she wore on their fifth date. It was one of his favorites; the way it hugged her curves and brought out the flush of her cheeks. And the shoes, tall and black; he could still vividly remember how those felt digging into his ass as he fucked her against the wall, her fingers gripping tight to his hair, pulling hard as she came.
A muscle ticked in his jaw as his eyes ventured away from her and landed on the man across from her.
Bucky didn’t want him to know what that felt like. What it sounded like when her breath hitched as he sunk inside her. That furrow between her brows right before she came. The sting of her nails dragging down his back and digging into his skin. And her voice. The way she said his name, sleepy and thick in the mornings; light and cheerful when he visited her in the labs; husky and tempting each night. Those little touches. Brushing stray hair out of his eyes; pinching his cheek when she was teasing him; chucking him under the chin when he was grumpy; kissing his cheek goodbye; squeezing his hand hello; her chin on his shoulder; her nose rubbing against his neck; her ear pressed to his chest; her arms around his waist.
God, he missed her.
He knew it was his fault, but it still hurt.
He ducked his eyes when she shifted in her seat, a second before her head turned, searching for the eyes she felt watching her.
This was wrong. Steve had told him not to do it. He should give her space. She deserved space. He should respect that. Keep his distance, keep his head down, let her move on.
But then Natasha mentioned she had a date. And yeah, hell, he knew Nat only said it to get him worked up, to make him act. It was a game; a test. He should’ve ignored her, shrugged, said ‘good for her’ and acted like it didn’t sting. Instead, he stayed quiet, waited for her to tell him more, to answer the questions that burned on his tongue but went unspoken.
Darcy’s date’s name was Allen. He was 30. A lawyer she’d been introduced to through Pepper Potts. He was good; on the straight and narrow, everything above board. Allen took an instant liking to Darcy, asked her out on the spot, and this was their second date.
Second. As in the first one went well enough that she was willing to see him again.
It made Bucky’s gut twist.
On his and Darcy’s first date, they went to the pictures, saw something from the 40’s that he couldn’t remember but Steve assured him he’d seen. He couldn’t remember much of what happened his second go-around either, not when her perfume was so damn pretty, like flowers opening up; tiny, pale petals spreading, their scent caught on a breeze, sweet and faint, just out of reach. And her laugh kept making him smile; full and deep from her belly. He watched her watch the movie; her face was so animated, so open and sincere. They shared caramel popcorn and she drank all of her soda and most of his. Halfway through the movie, she reached for his hand and twined their fingers together. He remembered, he would never forget, thinking that this was it, right here, the hand he didn’t want to let go of.
They had their second date the very next morning; coffee and danishes over conversation that made him laugh and grin, foreign and familiar at the same time. He could hardly take his eyes off her, every movement and sound filed away in his head. Only it wasn’t the Winter Soldier taking it all in and considering what threat level she was or how to use it to his advantage. It was just Bucky, enjoying her, every single thing about her.
Eight and a half months. That was how long he lasted before he ruined it. And it was stupid. God, it was so fucking stupid. But how was he ever supposed to last? He looked at her sometimes. He looked at her and all he saw was someone so beautiful and light and untouched by everything he’d seen and done. Somebody who never had blood on their hands. Who didn’t know what it was like to look into someone’s eyes as he killed them. Somebody who understood that the world wasn’t black and white but saw grey instead of red.
Sometimes he convinced himself she could handle it. Handle him. That maybe one day she wouldn’t completely understand who he’d been and what he’d done, that it wouldn’t sink in and the disgust and fear wouldn’t be all she could feel when she looked at him. He fell asleep with her tangled around him, arms and legs and hair, leaving him happy and content and hopeful, and then the nightmares would come and he would wake up, terrified and ready to kill, with a startled, half asleep Darcy, unaware of who she shared her bed with.
He feared the day she would know him wholly and that love he saw in her eyes when she saw him would fade away completely, replaced with the knowledge that he was a mistake, that he was someone she should avoid and fear and never sacrifice herself for.
So he put an end to it before she had the chance to.
He walked away with her crying behind him, confused and angry and asking him ‘why?’
He never answered.
Two months. That was all it took before somebody stepped up to love her like she deserved.
Allen.
He hated him on principle alone.
JARVIS told him Allen wasn’t a threat, not against them, anyway. Not in the way that JARVIS had been programmed to look for. A threat to security or the Avengers, Allen was not. But a threat to Bucky, a threat to that happiness he’d once had with Darcy, he was definitely that.
The problem was that this was not a threat he had any right to defend against. She deserved to be happy. She deserved to move on. She deserved to be with someone who wasn’t broken and battered and still fighting off demons that would probably always be there. She deserved that, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
He just needed to see it. He needed to see her smile and laugh. He needed to see that look on her face, the one she got on their first date, the one that told him she liked him, wanted him, as much as he liked and wanted her. He needed to see her reach for Allen’s hand, let their fingers entwine, and not let go.
Only she didn’t.
Bucky tracked her from Stark Tower to the restaurant. She met Allen with a smile at the table. Not a kiss on the cheek or a hand squeezing his forearm like she could leave her imprint on him. She simply smiled and sat down. They shared lighthearted conversation and she made Allen laugh, deep and genuine, but not once did Darcy have one of her throw-her-head-back laughs. She didn’t grin like Bucky was used to. She didn’t lose herself in a giggling fit or struggle to stop smiling. She was polite and relaxed and friendly, but this wasn’t the same woman Bucky was used to seeing on their dates.
From what he could tell, it wasn’t Allen. Allen was smart and down to earth. He shared her love of social media and had even quoted a few of her favorite memes. Bucky was terrible at remembering those and he wasn’t overly fond of social media. He was fonder of distracting Darcy from Twitter or Tumblr or whatever other site she was on. Slipping the laptop or the tablet out of her hands as he kissed down her neck, teeth nipping at her skin and nose nuzzling her, promising a different kind of fun. Usually, they ended up dancing to one of her many playlists, moving around his living room, wrapped around each other, laughing quietly, like the rest of the world was too close, threatening to interrupt their bubble, and they had to whisper and murmur to keep it out, to keep their moment to themselves. Sometimes he thought she brought her tablet out just to get him to dance with her.
It was half-way through dinner that Darcy got a call and motioned to Allen that she was stepping outside. She patted his shoulder as she made her way outside, leaving Allen to continue picking at his pasta. It was more the instinct to keep an eye on her in a less populated place that had Bucky following than anything else. The restaurant was nice, but it was late, and Darcy always took her calls outside because she hated it when people answered their phones in restaurants, interrupting those around them.
Bucky considered standing in the doorway, where he could keep an eye on her but was far enough away that when she turned to come inside, he had enough of a lead to stay out of sight.
She shot that idea out of the water.
"I swear to God, if you don’t get out here and talk to me like a normal human being, I will taser you."
He ground his teeth, but stepped out to see her standing on the sidewalk, her hands on her hips, fingers tapping, and her eyebrows hiked, looking entirely unimpressed.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, her voice shaky with stress.
He glanced away. “Got hungry. Heard good things about this place,” he muttered.
“Don’t." She took a step forward, full of warning, which should have been laughable. He was the Winter Soldier. He had killed people with his bare hands. She was five inches shorter than him, frequently skipped any kind of physical exercise, and the only weapon she liked to use was her taser. "Don’t lie to me.”
He swallowed thickly, dropping his gaze to the ground, and kicked at a stray gum wrapper. “Followed you.”
"Yeah, I noticed," she snapped. "Why? What are you doing here? Allen is a friend of Pepper’s. He’s perfectly harmless!"
Bucky frowned, his brow furrowed, and his shoulders hunched. “Just wanted to make sure.”
She didn’t answer right away, and he slowly raised his eyes until they met hers. Her lips were pressed in a line, but her chin was trembling, and her eyes were bloodshot.
"You don’t get to do that," she told him, haltingly. "You walked away. You wanted it to be over.”
He glared at her. “So I don’t get to worry?”
“No!" It burst from her, furious and emotional. "No, you don’t. You chose this. Do you get that?” She tossed a hand out toward the restaurant. “I’m here, I’m on this date, because you decided that we shouldn’t be together. So this is me, not together. This is me and Allen. And maybe next week it’ll be me and someone else. But it sure as hell won’t be me and someone and you parked at a table somewhere, glaring at us. That is not how this works.”
"So enlighten me," he growled, stepping toward her. "How does it work, huh, Darcy?"
She stared up at him, not the least bit concerned about his sparked temper. “You walk away,” she told him quietly. “You don’t ask about me or where I am or who I’m with. You don’t follow me. You don’t follow my dates or ask JARVIS who they are or what they do or anything. You go back to your life pre-Darcy and I figure out life post-Bucky. That is how this works.”
He swallowed tightly and shook his head faintly. “I can’t do that.”
"Well, try.”
He chewed on his lip, his fingers curling up into his palms. “I can’t not ask about you… I can’t… I need to look out for you.”
"No, you don’t."
"I do," he argued.
“James,” she stressed, staring up at him meaningfully. “It’s not your job… I’m not your business anymore. I’m not yours anymore.”
He flinched, closing his eyes briefly before he turned his gaze away.
"We tried. It didn’t work. You wanted out. So be out.” She shook her head. “Okay?” But she didn’t wait for an answer, she moved past him back toward the restaurant.
He should have let her go. He should have kept his mouth shut. But instead, he said, “Wasn’t that it didn’t work…”
He heard her heels pause on the cement and he swallowed, his throat dry and burning. “It worked. It worked better than anything I can remember. And I know… that’s not saying much. My memory’s like Swiss cheese. But fuck, Darcy…” He turned to face her, staring at her back, his hands squeezed into fists so tight, they ached. “It worked. We worked. It was never about that.”
She didn’t reply right away, but he could see the slight tremble of her body. “Then why?” she whispered, so quiet he almost didn’t hear her. But then she turned, staring at him, confused. "You broke us up James. Why?”
He stared at her a long moment, his fists slowly unfurling, his fingers tapping at his legs. “‘Cause you deserved better than me,” he answered. “‘Cause I was— I am screwed up. I’ve done things. Awful, fucked up things. And I know Steve says it wasn’t me. That I was just following orders. That I didn’t even know what I was doing half the time. But I did those things… I killed those people…” His lips trembled. “I’m not a hero, Darcy. I’m the monster. And you… You are so good and so fucking innocent compared to me. But when you looked at me, you made it feel like… Like I was better than I was… Like I was a good man. And I wanted to believe that. I wanted to be that. But I’m not. And one day you were gonna figure that out…” He swallowed, licking his dry lips, and shook his head, a tear slipping down his cheek. “I figured if I just got out, if I walked away, then I wouldn’t have to see that. Having you look at me like I was nothing, that was better than having you see look at me like I was everything you hate in this world.”
She stared at him, her expression unreadable.
"Yeah, well…" He reached up, rubbing at his eyes and raking a hand over his mouth. "Was worth a try, right?” He shrugged, casting his gaze away, taking a few steps, ready to slink back to the tower and bury his sorrows in a bottle of vodka.
“Why did you come here tonight?” she asked, quietly.
“I told you. I just needed to make sure you were okay.”
Shaking her head, she turned to look at him. “You needed to see if I was happy with him.”
He ground his teeth together, chewing on his lip. And finally asked what he’d been wondering all night, “Are you?”
There was a long pause, thick with tension, and he wondered what he wanted her answer to be. Could he move on and accept it if she said yes? He would have to. Darcy’s life was her own, it always was; he was just a supporting character in it. And if she said no… What then? Maybe Allen was just a rebound. Maybe she would finish out dinner and let him take her home for a nightcap, bury her own sorrows in sex. Maybe that was all they would be; a few encounters to help her get it out of her system before she moved on and found the right guy for her. Someone better than the Bucky’s and Allen’s of the world.
“I could be,” she said. “He’s a good guy. He’s nice and funny and smart. I like talking to him.”
He could hear the ‘but’ in her voice, but he didn’t ask for her to elaborate. She did that on her own.
“But he wouldn’t visit me at work just to spend it dancing. He wouldn’t spend hours on Google, trying to brush up on his pop culture so he’d know what made me laugh. He wouldn’t call me ‘doll’ unironically. He wouldn’t get me...
“And it’s so— It’s just stupid that you think I would look at you any other way than I always did. Like I didn’t eat up every bit of information on you I could. Like I didn’t know every name of every person you sniped. Like I didn’t ask Steve about who you used to be and who you became and decide that they didn’t matter, because the you I was with is all that mattered to me.
“Because I wasn’t dating 1940’s Bucky or the Winter Soldier, not really. Those were your past, they were parts of you, and that makes them important, that makes me love them, but the person I loved was who I woke up with every morning. And I loved you through every bad night, every shitty nightmare, every step forward and every two steps back.
“So don’t you dare tell me that I would’ve run away from you, because you’re the one who ran. You’re the one who turned coward in the end, not me. And if you think I would’ve stopped loving you, even for a second, then you don’t know me at all.”
Wiping at her own tears now, she shook her head. “So screw you, Bucky. Screw you.” Turning on her heel, she started back for the restaurant.
In all those history books, in all that stock footage, in every detailed report made on him, coward was never mentioned. Nobody ever said he turned tail and ran. Nobody ever said he got scared and couldn’t step up to the plate. He always met whatever enemy faced him and he destroyed it. So what about this was different? What was so damn terrifying that he’d run away?
And it was laughable really, when he thought about it. That he ran away because he was scared of losing her. He lost her so he wouldn’t lose her… He was an idiot. A complete numskull.
He caught her by the door, his fingers folding around her forearm and turning her to face him.
She stared up at him, her eyes burning with exasperation and exhaustion and he knew she just wanted to go home, to get into her favorite pajamas and lose herself in one of her playlists, letting the music soothe her frayed nerves and the tears pressing to get out. He turned her, her back resting against a wall, and he cupped her chin in the curve of his thumb and forefinger, the rest of his fingers fanned over her damp cheek.
“I fucked up,” he rasped thickly.
She closed her eyes, her lashes spiked and wet, a few tears escaping down her face, and let out a shuddering sigh.
“It wasn’t you. It was me. It was always me.” He slid his hand up and over, his palm molding to her cheek, the tips of his fingers reaching for her soft hair. “Darcy, I… I was scared. I know that’s not an excuse. It’s a really shitty fucking reason. But my life has been really good about screwing me over, so when I met you, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was waiting for something to go wrong and when it didn’t, I made it happen. That’s on me.”
He shook his head, sliding his hand down to her neck, his thumb bumping her earring; the gold handguns he bought her for their six month anniversary. Half-smiling, he caught it between his fingers, and stared at it a moment, his brow slowly furrowing. Guns. He gave her a gift that said entirely too much about who he was and she wore them like they were a testament to something beautiful instead of something dark and awful. And maybe that said a lot about them, each of them, together and apart.
He always assumed she didn’t know him, that she couldn’t know him completely, or she wouldn’t love him. But maybe she always had. Maybe she knew him better than he ever thought and hating him never even crossed her mind. It was him that held them back, him who made assumptions about her and whether she could love someone as broken as him. But she’d loved him all along and never faltered in it. Even on his worst nights, she never pulled away or second-guessed their relationship. She’d been solid and ready and prepared to do whatever she could to help him, even if it meant taking a step back and letting someone else come in to be a better-equipped sounding board.
And when it was over, she still loved him. He could chalk that up to Darcy just being Darcy; she loved deeply and she didn’t let much get in her way. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was like that moment when she reached for his hand, when their fingers braided together and he knew that hers was the hand he wanted to be holding for the rest of his life. Maybe, like him, she’d figured that out, and letting go hadn’t been an option, not until he shook her hand loose and forced her to.
“I don’t want you to go back to Allen. I don’t want you to see somebody else next week. And it’s got nothing to do with whether or not Allen’s a good guy. He could be another Steve and I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass. Even though I’m a coward and I ran away instead of talking to you. Even though you’re worth a lot more than I can ever give you. I’m still asking you to give me another chance. And if you don’t want me, if you don’t wanna put up with this, I’ll understand that. I’ll walk away. It’ll be hard and I’ll miss you. God, Darcy, I’ll miss you so fucking much. But I just… I want you to be happy. I want you to be loved. And I can do that. I can work my ass off for the rest of my life just trying to make you laugh. If you’ll let me… I’ll love you every day of your life.”
She opened her eyes then, looking up at him searchingly. “No more running?”
“Not from you.”
Swallowing tightly, she licked her lips. “You only get one more chance.” She pointed at him meaningfully. “I mean it, if you walk away again, I won’t chase you down and I won’t let you chase me either.”
Slowly, he started to grin.
“Don’t give me that look, I’m serious. You’re still in the dog house, Barnes. I can’t believe you. Two months!” Her brows hiked. “And now I have to go tell Allen that I can’t see him anymore because the guy creeping on our date was my ex.”
“Ex-ex,” he corrected.
Darcy rolled her eyes. “Really? You think I should lead with that?”
His lips twitched.
“This isn’t funny. It’s ridiculous that it took me dating someone else for you to get your act together.”
“It wasn’t you dating someone else…” he muttered. “I’ve been regretting it since I walked away. I just… I’m shit with words, Darce, you know that, and I didn’t know how to tell you…”
“What? That you have a really fucked up history. Newsflash, Buckster, it’s all over the interwebs. Steve made it public knowledge ages ago. Your damage was well known long before I agreed to date you.” She snorted. “You think I walked into this blind? Both Steve and Natasha tried to talk me out of it because they thought I was getting in over my head. I figured you knew me better than that, but apparently you didn’t.”
“I do now,” he said, rubbing his thumb over her cheek. “You want a better apology, I can do that, but if I hit my knees out here, we’re gonna get arrested for public indecency.”
Darcy bit her lip to hide her grin. “You’re a pig.”
He chuckled, leaning in to press a kiss to her cheek. “I’m your pig.”
Rolling her eyes, she hooked her hand around his elbow and squeezed. “I still need to go talk to Allen… And then we’re going back to the Tower and talking about this more.”
He nodded, sobering again.
She slid out from between him and the wall, but paused, turning back to him and reaching up on her tip toes, her lips slanting over his, soft and light. She sighed against his mouth. “Don’t go anywhere,” she murmured, and then she slipped away, going back inside to finish things with Allen.
Bucky stepped back out onto the sidewalk, his hands tucked in the pockets of his jeans as he paced a little. This hadn’t been what he planned for, but that didn’t mean it was unwelcome. If anything, it was a lot better than pining after her and missing what they had. There was no guarantee they would work out. He had a lot he still needed to work on and he’d already burned her once, she could be a little less open the second time around, in case he cut and ran again. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. He wanted them to be together. He wanted her back in his life. And if that meant getting over his own insecurities, then he would do it. Whatever it took, he would do it.
He looked up when the door swung open and she walked out, tugging on her jacket and swiping her hair out from the collar. She smiled at him, bright and warm, and then she held a hand out for him. He swallowed tightly as he took her it, their fingers sliding between each other’s, tight and perfect and right.
They walked back to the tower, their hands swinging between them, and he looked at her, lit up in the glow of the street lamps, smiling and lovely. She turned to look at him, just as radiant as she was on their first date, and even though he thought it the first time, he must not have believed himself. But he did now. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
This was going to be the woman he loved for the rest of his life.
He held onto her hand a little tighter and she squeezed back. He grinned then, his chest feeling light, his heart floating around inside.
“What?” she asked, bouncing a little on her heels.
He shook his head. “Missed you.”
Leaning over, she bumped his shoulder with hers. “Lesson learned then, huh?”
“Yeah.” He chuckled under his breath.
Lesson learned.