Chapter Text
The story of James Barnes and Darcy Lewis is long and complicated and amazing.
They met when he was recovering and she was becoming the SI Vice-Head Bitch, under Pepper, who was the Head Bitch herself. They just talked sometimes, or hit on each other without it going anywhere. They both knew they affected the other - the look in Bucky's eyes when Darcy called him soldier, the way Darcy shifted when she caught Bucky staring or when he blatantly felt her up said it all - but they did nothing about it. Wasn't a good time, couldn't hold a relationship with their situations, any variation thereof.
But there was a betting pool. Everything from first kiss to how many kids they'd have to who would die first and how the other would react - all were bet on. Darcy was kind of mortified, but Bucky just seemed vaguely amused and kind of ticked off about it.
Bucky had always seemed pretty chill to everyone who hadn't seen him in action, which meant that the ticked off part was kind of new. It didn't scare her - she dealt with Jane, Tony and Bruce all day everyday - but it was unexpected.
She encountered the anger a lot, after they found out about the betting, and again, she wasn't scared. It was more sad to her, that he could act that well to hide how he felt. She knew all about what had happened to him when he was with HYDRA, and she'd been angry about it, and 20 years later, she would still be. She knew that he thought he knew showing feelings would get him in trouble, like I'm gonna beat your ass for showing that you don't like insert here trouble, which was just sad.
So, she made it her goal to make him comfortable where he was, with the people he lived with, doing things that were expected of him but not doing it the way that he didn't like or didn't actually want to do, but did anyway because he didn't want to leave the Avengers. (He had enough sense to know that if he wasn't in a good place with the Avengers, then he needed to leave - but he didn't want to, which broke everyone's heart the first time he had said it aloud to all of them. Seriously, he'd said it, his voice had broke and everyone had just melted, even Nat and Bruce and Tony and - gah.)
He took her efforts with an ease she didn't think he really had, and tried to discourage her daily. She stuck to her guns, and he became more and more confused with every passing day that she sought him out and asked what he wanted to do until she had to go back to the Explosive Trio.
When they first kissed, Darcy had been fantasizing about it for at least a millennium and had gone over just about every scenario in which it could happen. They way it did - Bucky saving her from AIM/HYDRA/random goons (they'd all mixed up and formed some allegiance together) and then kissing her when he was forcing her into an ambulance - had never crossed her mind.
Their first date at a fancy restaurant had been interrupted by Doom Bots (all caps) coming in through the windows, so their second first date was just movies in bed. They watched some old movies, and some Disney movies and by the time they got around to Harry Potter, they were both passed out.
Their relationship progressed. Darcy and Bucky juggled emotionally charged moments, amazing sex and normal, everyday relationship stuff like coffee dates and long talks. Darcy said she loved Bucky long before him, but when he did, it was a freaking speech, and Darcy rewarded him greatly.
He'd proposed to her just a few days before he and the others went missing.
Darcy thought life was completely unfair. Then she found out she was pregnant.
The Avengers went on a mission in 2016 and never came back.
The Avengers were searched for everywhere. All over the world, they were looked for, and there wasn't so much as a metal finger or bullet or arrow to explain their disappearance.
The Avengers left behind people, people who expected them back within the week. When a month had passed by, and not even JARVIS could find one damn bit of anything, Darcy was puking her guts up every morning and Jane found she couldn't work with her SCIENCE! buddies gone, they called off the biggest searches and started their own.
Carol Danvers, James Rhodes, Sam Wilson and Kate Bishop, honorary Avengers, undertook the biggest search, while the rest - namely, Betty, Jane, Pepper and Darcy - all tried to establish communication with them.
It didn't work.
The Avengers were gone for a whopping four months - time spent crying and stress eating and unending searches - when Darcy walked into the common room, said "Barnes knocked me up," and then started sobbing into Sam's shoulder.
The Avengers were gone for eight months when Darcy had the baby, who she wanted to name James Steve Barnes, but named Edward James Lewis because Carol and Kate and Sam insisted she give him his own name.
When the Asgardians came down to Midgard, Darcy had gone to live with her parents, Kate had graduated high school, and Pepper had made another million dollars. Jane explained the situation with Sam, who was the only emotionally-smart person to ever live in the tower, and the Asgardians had aided in their searches.
Little did they know, the Avengers were alive and kicking. Literally.
When Tony Hill was "born," he kicked Maria Hill, his new mother, right in the face. When Clint Coulson was "born," he struggled in Phil Coulson's arms. When Natasha May had been "born," she had looked Melinda May in the eye, and started screaming. When Thor Fitz, Bruce Triplet and Steve Fitz were "born," they were much, much calmer (Thor was older than the other two, so he had reason), but also nearly broke Antoine Triplet and Leo Fitz's noses (Bruce went with Antoine, Thor and Steve went with Fitz). When Bucky Carter was "born," he was silent, not breathing, even when Sharon Carter gave him CPR. He only started breathing when Phil Coulson poked him in his stomach, hard.
The first double memories any of them would remember having was Thor's memory, who remembered a dark haired boy with a silver tongue and tall, royal halls.
The first time any of them would remember fighting as the Avengers together, would be Bruce's memory, where he saw giant, hulking alien whales in the sky, and flashes of red - hair, cape, shield, suit.
The de-aged Avengers met in pairs. Thor and Steve were brothers, and they met Bucky when they were just a year old, but Bucky, who was teased about his arm, stuck to Steve like he'd been glued there, and didn't try to get to know Thor very much at all. Tony and Bruce met when they were four, in a garage where the owners let them tinker with things if they were careful. Clint and Natasha met and were immediately friends.
Then, Steve, Thor and Bucky met Natasha and Clint, and the group expanded to Tony and Bruce when they were all around the age of ten.
They grew up together, and knew each other's biggest secrets. Even if they mostly stuck to their main little groups, they were a group and could deal with anything the others threw at them. Like memories of fucking models (Tony), memories of dying (Steve, Nat and Clint), memories of mystery people beating the shit out of the remember-er (Bucky, Steve, Nat, Clint and Bruce) and also memories of killing people (Clint, Bucky and Nat).
They thought it was - not normal, per se, but a fact of life that they had double memories and stuck together at times only because of that (aka, Tony would dig and dig and dig and Steve would get mad and they would all hate each other for a day at most, but then forgive each other because they didn't know how to deal with the memories). They thought they'd live with them forever.
They were wrong.
Sharon Carter had never agreed to becoming a mother. Maria Hill and Melinda May hadn't, either. And it wasn't like Phil Coulson, Antoine Triplett and Leo Fitz had just wanted to be a father, either.
But they'd all had to.
When they had been "approached," if you could call being kidnapped at the same time as the Avengers being approached, they had been given two options. Pretend that the Avengers are your children, or get killed in the long, slow and painful way everyone fears. Sharon Carter had agreed, if only because she knew Steve, and she had some idea of Natasha, Clint, Sam and even Bucky.
They weren't told who they would be parenting. They were told exactly zip about anything. The people who had taken them had just handed off babies to them, and Sharon just happened to get Bucky. Then, they were given the only information they would get - you will all live in a town east of D.C., in houses we have paid off. You will make lives for yourself. You will raise these heroes as you want. You will not abandon them. You will let things play out naturally (which Sharon didn't like, because the whole de-aged permanently thing was not natural).
And that was it. They got nothing else. She didn't feel too bad for herself.
She felt bad for Fitz, though, who had both Thor and Steve, and Maria Hill, who got Tony.
Sharon had looked at Bucky, with a miniature metal arm and scars too big for his tiny little body and gasping lungs, and got with the program. She could do it. She could definitely do it. She could raise him in a good house, with enough food and happiness to try and reverse all the bad that had happened to him.
Maria Hill had similar thoughts. It was no secret Tony Stark had been neglected as a child. At least, not in what had been SHIELD for 70 years. His file had distinctly said: neglected as child. Avoid topic subject.
And, from the times Maria had interacted with Tony, she knew he compensated for that neglect by making people notice him. She had a few ideas on how she would change that for him the second time he grew up. And why not? Everyone deserved to paid attention to, especially by parental figures. Tony had done a lot of good in the world - she could pay some of it back.
On the other side of the room, Leo Fitz was juggling two babies. Except, one was a year old, and the other was at least a few months. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with the God of Thunder and Captain America, but he would be able to get through it, right?
He had a hard time convincing himself.
Antoine Triplett watched Fitz coo to the blonde boys he had, and slowly rocked the baby in his own arms. It was Bruce Banner - a survivor of child abuse, the man who outran the US army for years, the man who saved Tony Stark's life in the Battle of New York.
Antoine had just rolled with the punches. He had a plan in place. Bruce would know he was adopted, but loved. Bruce would be free to do what he wanted so long as he was safe. Bruce would be friends with anyone he wanted.
Antoine would do it. Someone had to pay back these heroes, and he would gladly do it.
He had a feeling all of the new parents in the room felt the same way.