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He hadn’t expected her call. He learned he hoped to hear from her again the second his phone began to vibrate in his pocket, and he took it out, frowning down at it.
“I need to take this,” he said, without asking permission to leave. He was only announcing it because that’s what normal people tended to do.
He knew nothing about this situation was normal anymore. They were in Sharon’s hideout in Madripoor, with Zemo. When Bucky got up from the couch, he felt eyes watch him leave as he slipped out onto a balcony.
“Try to stay out of sight,” Sam called, and Bucky gave a short sigh.
He knew how to stick to the shadows; it was annoying to be reminded of that. He also was stuck on Sharon’s last little jibe, calling him Steve’s pet psychopath. He supposed what bothered him most was how she didn’t seem totally unhinged. She was making sense.
He managed to answer the call before it went to Voicemail, putting the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“What time is it over there?” Darcy asked. “Midnight?”
“Where do you think I am?” he threw back.
He leaned against the wall, eyes traveling around as he listened to the background sounds where she was. She was probably still stuck in New York State somewhere, following the protocol to a degree. Outwardly appearing to be co-operating with her mandated therapy.
“This is the part where you lie to me and say you’re nowhere near Madripoor-”
“Darcy-”
“- because I have a pretty strong feeling it was you I saw in that video at the club, breaking bones and throwing people around.”
He didn’t feel like there was a right way to approach this. He thought by now reality would definitely catch up with her. She was attempting the impossible task of forming a friendship with him. He could hear street sounds, car horns beeping and foot traffic surrounding her.
“What time is it over there?” he murmured, and Darcy chuckled.
“One o’clock. I’m sipping an ice coffee on the terrace of this dope bed and breakfast. I’d ask you to join me, but you’re tied up at the minute.”
“One o’clock, that’s a little early in the day to be hacking and checking up on my situation,” he said.
His mind had snagged a little on her offer. She couldn’t be serious. She was only pretending to flirt because he was so far away. If they were in the same city, he doubted she’d tease him like that. Or maybe she was always just talk. She was witty, in a way that really got under his skin.
“Oh, I got the alert on my system at ten this morning. I’ve been boiling ever since,” Darcy countered. “But, what do I know? Also – weird, but I saw Baron Zemo’s escaped prison. Totally coconuts.”
“Uh, yeah –”
“So then, me seeing this guy who looks a lot like Baron fucking Zemo in the same video of you beating these dudes with your vibranium arm, that was very interesting.”
There was a pause and Bucky closed his eyes, having already got the third degree from Sam multiple times over this for the last day and a half.
“What is this?” he said.
He knew his tone was different. He wasn’t apologetic. He wasn’t even going to explain his choices. He felt like she was too far gone, and for good reason. It was better if she was angry and frustrated, and scared for him. It was better that she was so far away. If she had offered he come by, and sit with her on that terrace, he’d say yes.
And that wasn’t wise at all.
“What is what?” Darcy retorted.
“Why are you calling me, when you already know I’m outta reach? Why are you sticking your nose in this?” he said.
He sensed she was mulling this over.
“Don’t say it,” she murmured.
“What?”
“Nothing, I wasn’t talking to you,” she said. “Listen. I – I’m invested. I get caught up in these scenarios. I know this is my choice. No gun to my head, I swear. My choice.”
Bucky bit his lip. “What weren’t you gonna say?”
“Nothing that was worth hearing,” she said.
Bucky could let his mind wonder about this until the end of time. He could push her away completely, by hanging up and tossing his phone away, her number lost forever. He could walk away and never see her again. He knew then that he’d hoped for that, too, stupidly.
He’d wanted to see her little scowl up close again, to match his own.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said, drawing in a breath.
“Okay, what is it?”
He exhaled. “I tell you some things, and you tell me what you think isn’t worth me hearing.”
“Like what, exactly?” Darcy said. “I thought you said your brain is broken.”
Bucky felt his lips quirk, recalling how dramatic he’d been. It wasn’t out of character. He licked his lips, considering his next words.
“I have a list, of people I wronged as the Winter Soldier,” he said. “It’s in a notebook, and I’m working through it to make amends. It’s part of my treatment. And I have three rules.”
Without missing a beat, Darcy asked:
“What are the rules?”
“Number one, can’t do anything illegal-”
Darcy blew a raspberry, and Bucky pressed his lips together to stop himself from snorting in surprise. He went silent, waiting for the all clear before he added:
“Rule number two – no-one can get hurt.”
Darcy cleared her throat. “That seems like it should be the other way around, I don’t understand-”
“I didn’t come up with the order,” Bucky retorted. “Listen. I’m sticking with the second rule, this time.”
“What do you mean?”
“What was the thing that wasn’t worth hearing, Darcy?” he said, abruptly deflecting.
He heard her process it, the sharp left turn he took, and she made a short nervous titter.
“What’s rule number three?”
“I asked you first,” he said.
“Bullshit,” Darcy said, but she was laughing, and Bucky knew he was quietly smiling in the dark, hearing that sound. “I’m pleading the fifth, anyway.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal,” he said. “Tell me.”
“It’s not… it’s not cute, it doesn’t come across in anyway that isn’t… stupid,” she whispered, sounding tired. “You’ll think I’m nuts.”
For the first time, Bucky felt his stomach flutter.
“I think there’s some saying about stones and glass houses I could put there,” he murmured. He swallowed. “I can’t tell you the plan. Not if it means not breaking rule number two.”
“I don’t think you can avoid that, Bucky,” she said. “Regardless of the outcome.”
“Because you’re my friend,” he said.
He heard her swallow.
“Yeah.”
He thought of Sharon, her life in ruins after she chose to help them last time. He didn’t want Darcy to go through all that, to need someone to pardon her at the end of all this. Except he hadn’t asked her to help, she’d wanted that all by herself.
“I meant to tell you, you should be thriving right now,” he heard her murmur, bringing him back to the present.
“Yeah, how so?” he retorted.
“It’s a time of real crisis, and when you were in the Howling Commandos, the world was falling apart then.”
Bucky hadn’t thought that ever stopped, not in relative peacetime. HYDRA would attest to that, his list in Steve’s notebook would do the same.
“I know about the forties, okay? It was a very weird time,” she added. “What the hell were you people trying to pull?”
“And you’re no different?” Bucky said.
“What? You can’t-”
“Donald Trump,” Bucky said.
It’s all he had to say. Darcy lowered her voice.
“Alright,” she muttered.
She began to giggle and he couldn’t help the smile that formed once more. Bucky moved a little to check inside, to see if he could catch Sam eavesdropping, or even Zemo spying, but they only seemed to be in their own worlds.
“I’m not gonna stick with the rules,” Bucky admitted.
“You haven’t so far,” Darcy murmured.
“Why’d you need to plead the fifth?”
“You should know that I’m never like this, I tend to overshare, I babble,” she said, her voice accelerating as if to prove her point. “There is no way I’m gonna come out of this unscathed, I guess-”
“Did you mean that, about the terrace?” he cut in.
It took her a few seconds to understand his meaning and she took a deep breath.
“Well, yeah,” she said. “Obviously.”
Obviously? Bucky felt himself frown. What did that fucking mean?
“I like you,” she said.
“I like you, too,” he said.
“But it’s never gonna happen,” she added. “Like, not in a million years. Our worlds do not… intersect, like, not even a little. Apart from the…”
“Mental illness?” he supplied.
“Oh, totally. Thank you,” she said.
He tried to ignore the way his heartbeat had picked up speed, the hope that had begun to grow there. He bit his lip.
“You should go,” she murmured. “I just… I just wanted to check you were alive.”
“I’m thriving,” he grunted.
He knew it was all useless, trying to not think of her, trying to keep his heart out of everything. HYDRA wasn’t able to carve that out of him, fully. His humanity was really a pain in the ass sometimes. He wished he was the robot Sam joked he was. At least then he’d not feel the swooping sensation every time Darcy crossed his mind.
“Who was responsible for that hate crime on the Falcon, by the way?”
“Be specific,” Bucky said.
“The… outfit I saw on the dark web,” Darcy said.
“Zemo.”
“I don’t know how we’re on the same planet,” Darcy said. “I don’t know how we’re both alive on this planet, the world how it is. It’s too fucking weird. My brain’s gonna explode.”
“Don’t do that,” Bucky said. “Not yet.”
“Okay, I’ll try to stop that,” she murmured. “And you owe me still. Your life story.”
He’d forgotten about that demand.
“I hope you don’t find out how it ends,” he said, after he paused for a little too long. “And I hope I don’t find out yours, okay?”
“I’m gonna be okay, Bucky,” Darcy said. “But I’m going to nag you as long as you pick up the phone.”
He closed his eyes, knowing that he always would. For some inexplicable reason.
“Yeah.”