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It was just an normal day in the Avengers tower when everything turned to chaos, thanks to the arrival of one person. Darcy and Bucky had bonded and, after two months of ogling eyes and warm smiles and Darcy getting kidnapped by an insane man intent on getting revenge on the Avengers, were finally a couple and were going strong. She was slowly introducing him to pop culture, and they were currently watching Doctor Who in all their free hours. They were making out or having sex in their free hours too but that was saved for when they were in private. Well, the sex part was, sometimes they just couldn't help kissing in front of the others.
Darcy was sitting on the couch in Bucky's lap, his hand softly stroking circles into her back. When Nick Fury and someone the Avengers believed was long dead entered the living room. Clint was stealing pop-tarts from a sleeping Dr. Banner stuffing them into his mouth as quickly as he possibly could. Much like Banner, the rest of the scientist were napping. Jane had started dribbling on Thor, who had just returned from Asgard. Silence soon erupted in shouts or anger and surprise. Everything paused when Agent Phil Coulson shouted her name. Darcy pulled away from her boyfriend and stood up. She heard a slight whine from him as she did, the loss of contact he didn't want.
"What?" She was trying to keep calm. It wasn't working. The truth was about to come out and she didn't know if she was ready for it. She glanced for a millisecond to Natasha, who nodded her head minutely.
"What are you doing with him? He's dangerous Darcy." Coulson shouted at her. Everyone was shocked, even Fury. Natasha looked at Darcy, silently making sure she was okay. Bucky was glaring a hole into Coulson and Steve kept a hand on his shoulder.
"And? So is everyone in this room when they want to be." She shot back, losing her control.
"No, I refuse to let you two date."
"You can't pull that with me." She yelled, tears on the verge of escaping.
"I'm your father! I can do damn well what I please." Everyone was silent and shocked. Darcy remembered that Natasha was the only one who knew before, but now the secret was out. She hadn't even told Bucky. Darcy couldn't believe he pulled that card on her. He had been "dead" for almost a year now. Who was he to dictate her life?
"You aren't my real dad!" It slipped out before she could even stop it. A tear slid down her cheek as she did what she was good at; running away. She grabbed her bag and her coat as she did, leaving those closest to her behind. She couldn't look at his face, but she could sense the disappointment and his heart break.
* * *
Natasha and Jane found her in the Williamsburg diner in Brooklyn an hour or so later. She chose this place because it was where she used to work. The guy who cooked was more than happy to hit on her in order to cheer her up. Or for his own personal gain. Probably the latter. Darcy sat in a booth staring into her coffee as she swirled the spoon in her cup, her fringe covered her eyes, hiding the trails of tears that escaped.
"Hey." She sighed after a few minutes since they sat across from her.
"Are you okay? Barnes is worried about you." Natasha asked softly.
"No."
Jane had obviously been holding her questions in for Darcy's sake. She just couldn't hold it in any longer. "How long have you two known each other?" She was obviously referring to Coulson.
"He's raised me since I was a baby." Darcy sighed, and decided to explain her past to her companions. "My real dad skipped out on my mom when he found out she was pregnant. She died when I was three, leaving me to Phil." Not even Natasha knew that. Darcy had an inkling Fury knew, but that was only because of Coulson.
"Did you know? In New Mexico." She asked softly, trying not to have an accusing tone of voice.
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because it wouldn't have mattered. He takes his job seriously, not even I could have saved some of your work. Or my iPod." She admitted to her friends while avoiding eye contact.
Silence followed after that, which was soon broken by Natasha's phone ringing. She took the call and signalled to Jane before hanging up. "There's a problem with one of your machines, we need to get back. Are you going to be okay?" She turned to Darcy with a concerned expression.
"Yeah, you go." She nodded a goodbye as the two left and finished up her drink. She exited the diner, but not after paying for her food and leaving a tip.
* * *
After leaving the diner, she took a cab back to Manhattan but stopped near Times Square, opting to go to her favourite place; Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop. When she was younger she would spend all the time she could in Ben & Jerry's. Ice-cream always made her feel better. When she entered the store, the waitress smiled her way and pointed over to the booth she usually sat in. She was a regular and knew her well over the time she spend there. As she approached, another person was in her spot. It seems that her happy place was shared by Phil too. She sat down across from him and let a breath out. "I'm sorry."
Phil looked up at her and smiled softly. "I'm sorry too."
"I never should have said what I did. You cared for me when he skipped out and when mom died and this is the way I treat you." She shook a little. "You're the best dad I could ever have."
Phil smiled and put his hand on her arm. "Hey, I'm not the best. I should have told you that I was alive but the job.."
"I know. The job was too important. The Avengers needed something to make them a team and you had to hide." She acknowledged.
"I still should have called or visited." He sighed.
"Well, you're here now, right?" She smiled while stealing a bite of his ice-cream.
He chuckled. "Yeah, I'm here now." He paused as the waitress approached with Darcy's favourite; chocolate and hazelnut ice-creams with fudge chips and a Hazelnut fudge core. At least she'd stop stealing his now. Looking at her eating her ice-cream he started. "So James Buchanan Barnes?"
"Yeah. Look I know who he is and everything he's done; I have a Political Science degree and I've listened to Steve's stories, but I don't care. He's good now, well he's at least trying to right his wrongs by working with the Avengers. Plus he's helped me out a lot, and I am introducing him to pop culture and teaching him all about the good parts of the 21st century."
"How did you meet? And the whole story please." Phil asked between bites.
"Uh when Steve and Sam brought him to live in the Avengers Tower, I freaked him out and he glared and I told him not to. Steve and Sam were surprised and Bucky was too I think. Then I left to wrangle the scientists since that's my job and I care. Then the day after I found him on the couch watching reality TV and I had to put a stop to that."
Phil snorted and nodded.
"So I made him watch a couple episodes of the first season of How I Met Your Mother. After he told me that I was crazy and that it wasn't entertaining, so I gave him back to Steve and I may have avoided him for a couple of weeks by baking and working."
"You still bake then."
Darcy nodded "Well, I stopped for a while," she paused, "after your death but you know me, stress baking time takes over."
"Ah, yes." He smiled sadly after hearing of her baking hiatus.
"Anyway, A few weeks after the HIMYM incident I was awoken by Jarvis and told that Stark had escaped to the labs. It was around 5am so I took my cakes down to the labs and left one by each of the scientists. Then I went to the gym to offer the rest to Steve, Sam and Nat. Bucky was also there." Darcy trailed off mentioning him.
"What did you do?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Well after Steve, Sam and Nat took their cakes, Bucky snorted at me and I yelled at him because it was the morning and I hadn't had any coffee."
"Darcy." He warned.
"Okay, before he could say something sarcastic back to me I shoved a cake in his mouth and ran." She tried to hide the grin.
"You have a death wish don't you?" He laughed.
"Maybe. It's safe to say I hid in my room for a few hours, baking until Steve and Bucky knocked on my door."
"Jarvis betrayed you and told them where you were I take it?"
"How did you know?" She smiled before continuing. "Well I tried to hide but they knew and Bucky promised he wasn't going to kill me and Steve promised that he would save me if he did try. So I let them in. Bucky was expecting an apology but he never apologised for How I Met Your Mother so I didn't. Then he told me that he watched a few more episodes of it and that he was wrong."
"So you made him watch all nine seasons of it, except for the last episode; you stopped it at the point it should have ended." Phil finished for her as she nodded in agreement. "And now you two are a thing."
"Well, I was kidnapped and stabbed by a seriously messed up dude, but Bucky saved me and stayed with me in the hospital, and admitted his feelings after. So yeah. Is that okay?" She shyly replied.
"Wait, what? You were kidnapped, and I wasn't told?" He focused in on that point. "I would have come back to life to save you if I had known?"
"Hey, it's okay. Steve, Bucky and Natasha saved me. Plus you were known to be dead and well, we couldn't contact you from the afterlife. Tony hasn't invented something for that recently." Darcy reassured him. Her leg was healed now, all that was left was a mean scar. She didn't like it, but Bucky was always happy to take her mind off of it.
"Well, I'm going to have a talk to Barnes but I see no problem with you being happy." he sighed but grinned at his daughter.
"Okay okay great!" She was happy, but she couldn't end the conversation there. "Even if you said no, it wouldn't have mattered. You know that right?"
"Yeah, I know." He smiled back before rolling his eyes.
* * *
Father and daughter returned to the tower, happy and problem free. Natasha pulled Darcy away claiming Jane needed her help while Phil took Bucky away to have the "you hurt my daughter I'll make your life a living hell" talk.
Turns out Jane didn't need her help and rather Natasha and Steve told her that if she ever hurt James that Steve would forever be disappointed in her (Which Darcy really did not want. At all. And she would never hurt James anyway.) and Natasha would perform unspeakable acts on her (Basically she would kill her in the slowest, most tortuous way possible. Another thing Darcy most definitely did not want.). But they also both knew that Darcy would never do such a thing, and that they would both kick Bucky's ass if he hurt her.
When she returned to the communal living room, Bucky was rather pale and Coulson was smirking happily to himself. She joined Bucky and hugged him, glaring at her father over his shoulder. She knew that she would never find out about what Phil had said to him to make him pale so much. Didn't mean she wasn't curious though.
Tony was the first to speak up once everyone settled. "So are none of us going to ask about their relations," He pointed to Darcy and Coulson, "and how none of us knew?" He just couldn't keep his mouth shut.
"I knew. After he died I delivered the message to her." Natasha told the group, before turning to Darcy and adding, "Per Coulson's request."
Steve nodded, "I had an inkling. The first time I met Darcy she reacted a lot like Phil did before the Chitauri Invasion." Darcy had also mentioned that her father would have had a field trip if he had met Steve under the same circumstances as she had. That was a pretty substantial clue.
Bucky shook his head. "I didn't even know who Coulson was except for the stories Steve sometimes told me."
"Barton, Banner, Thor, Jane? Any of you know?" All of them shook their heads. "Wow, I need to upgrade my skills at finding secrets."
Darcy sniggered. "You've been needing to do that since the Invasion. I'd say you missed a pretty big secret when you tried to hack S.H.I.E.L.D for all its secrets." She referenced to the whole HYDRA mess that happened a while ago. "And I'm not gonna teach you." She added before the billionaire begged. He walked away in a tantrum, while everyone else left to the places they needed to go. The scientists and Thor left for the labs. Steve and Sam made their way to the gym. After hugging Darcy, Coulson left for S.H.I.E.L.D with Fury. Barton disappeared into the ventilation system again, and left Natasha to search for him and Darcy and Bucky were left alone in the communal area. They settled in on the couch with the Donna series of Doctor Who, cuddling up to each other contently.
"You don't have any more family I have to have that talk with do you?"