Chapter Text
One
A familiar icon appeared on the notification bar of Steve’s phone as he let himself back into his apartment. He dropped his keys onto the hook by the door and kicked out of his running shoes, setting the phone down when he tilted his head to one side and listened. The sound of a hair dryer from the bathroom had him slip it back into his pocket as he made his way through the living room and into the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of coffee and listened with one ear to the sound of Sharon’s methodical morning routine.
She had already set up her to-go mug with its single shot of cream beside her usual banana and power bar. As soon as she finished drying her hair, he could set a watch by the fact that it would take her seven-and-a-half minutes to do her make-up, another six to get dressed, putting her back into the kitchen to drop her sealed mug and breakfast into her bag at exactly five twenty-five. Just enough time to brush her lips to his on her way to her jacket and be slipping into her shoes at five twenty-eight.
“Ethiopian tonight?” she called on her way to the door, right on schedule, sixteen minutes later.
“Sure,” Steve agreed. “Have a good day.”
“You too!”
The door shut at five twenty-nine.
Steve took out his phone and checked a few emails before his curiosity won out and, with nothing earth-shattering or schedule-rearranging needing his attention, he swiped down his notification and tapped on the newest.
A message from a friend.
He smiled as soon as he read the first line. Hi friend, she began as she always did. Have I told you about Edna? His friend had messaged him at 4am. When he hadn’t responded, she had continued a few minutes later. Edna is my dog. She’s a golden retriever, three years old. I adopted her after she failed out of therapy-dog school. Steve felt his heart swell at the thought of a therapy-dog drop-out. She’s really smart and incredibly gentle, but she’s an attention whore and can’t be trusted to sit still if there’s someone around who looks like they might give her treats or a head scritch. I love getting up early, especially on mornings like this.
She changed topics frequently when she sent him these notes; Steve had come to expect and appreciate it.
It’s just starting to get cold at night, so the air is a little crisp and the whole world smells like the first day of school. Like fresh excitement and new possibilities. What’s better than New York in the fall? Seriously, tell me. I’ll wait. Well, of course I’ll wait, because our entire relationship is text-based and once I send this to you, I just get to hope that you appreciate my rambling and send me something back. But before you do, do me a favor and step outside, wherever you are and take a deep breath of this absolutely perfect morning. Hold it in your lungs and swallow all the possibilities floating around and pretend it’s a gift. From me.
Steve read her message again. He finished his coffee and tapped out a reply before he set his phone down and got ready for the rest of his day. His smile took a long time to fade.
A mile south, in a house on a different Brooklyn street, Darcy Lewis bit her lip, trying to stifle a smile just as wide as she read the response to her early-morning message.
“What are you smiling at?”
Darcy set her phone aside as Grant came around the corner of the kitchen and helped himself to the coffee in the pot. “Nothing,” she said easily. “Just something online.”
He didn’t push for details—which was fine, she didn’t really want to give him any—and busied himself with rummaging through her pantry. “Don’t you have any…granola or oatmeal or…” he looked over his shoulder. “I don’t know, anything a grown-up might want to eat for breakfast?”
“Breakfast-on-the-go is not my thing,” she said, sipping her coffee. “Eating on the subway makes me sick. But I think there’re some granola bars in there,” she waved a vague hand toward the cabinet to his right.
He checked there and retrieved a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch milk-and-cereal bars. “These?” He asked with a skeptical look. “These are not granola bars. These are…” he looked at the nutrition facts. “Sugar, mixed with more sugar and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.”
Darcy rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s the chef’s day off,” she quipped. “Guess you’ll have to go hungry.”
He crossed the remainder of the kitchen and kissed her. “You want a ride in?” he asked when they parted.
She shook her head. “I’ve got a call to be on at seven, I’m just going to take it here and go in after.” She tilted her chin up and pursed her lips to beckon for another kiss. “But I’ll see you tonight.”
Grant kissed her again and tapped the tip of her nose. “You will,” he assured her and threw down a cup of black coffee in a gulp on his way out of the kitchen.
“Oh! Hey!” she called after him before the urge to look at her phone again could win out. He stopped near the front door. Edna had gotten up from her pillow and was standing beside him, gratefully accepting his distracted petting while he slid into his shoes. “Pepper’s party—you’re coming with me? It’s in two weeks—have to say officially yes or no today.” His broad shoulders sagged with a heavy sigh as his head dropped back. Darcy held up a finger. “Don’t make me go by myself,” she pleaded.
“It’s black tie,” he reminded, as if that were all the reason in the world not to go.
“You look great in black tie.”
“I might have to work.”
“A perfectly valid reason for a last-minute cancellation,” she agreed. “But not enough for me to RSVP for only one. Come on,” she begged. “I really don’t want to go alone.”
“You dad hates me.”
She waved the words away. “He…doesn’t care enough to hate you.” There was a long, heavy pause from Grant before she let her bottom lip jut out. “Please?”
Beside him, Edna let out a long, well-timed whimper and turned her big brown eyes up at him. Begging for more dedicated head-scratching, but winning Darcy’s argument for her in the process. Grant sighed and shook his head with a smile. “Okay, yes, fine,” he laughed and gave Edna’s silky blonde ears a tousle. “I’ll go, just stop—both of you—”
Feeling relieved, Darcy crossed the living room and pushed herself up onto her tiptoes to kiss him again. “Thank you,” she said genuinely. “I’ll wear something—”
“Slutty,” he finished for her with a smirk.
She grinned back. “It will be so slutty.”
He traded her another quick kiss. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Darcy waited for him to close the door behind him and the sound of his motorcycle pulling away from its space in front of her house. She returned to the kitchen for her phone and her cup of coffee with Edna’s nails and tags clicking behind her. The phone, the coffee, and the dog came with her onto the side patio before stretched her feet up onto the opposite chair of her bistro set. It was just chilly enough to need the oversized cardigan she’d thrown on. Perfect early-fall weather.
With a quick look at the clock—she still had half an hour before she had to conference in with Maria—Darcy opened her discord app for the third time that morning and tapped on her on-going conversation with kilroyshere18.
I think I prefer this form of communication, he had said in response to the message she’d sent him a few hours earlier. I’m putting it on-par with a telegram. She grinned reading it a second time. When I was a kid, I assumed it was a peak experience to receive a telegram. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed to find that there were faster, more convenient ways to send messages once I reached adulthood. Darcy sipped her coffee to swallow back her urge to giggle. You and I must have had very different experiences around the first day of school because the only thing I ever looked forward to in September were new school supplies and wondering who would beat me up first. But I prefer the way you think. So, until I figure out if there’s a way to send a telegram in this day and age to a woman whose name and address I do not know, accept this instead: Dear Friend [STOP] Imagine I’ve sent you a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils and some new scotch tape to accompany all those fresh possibilities a morning like this stirs up [STOP] I like getting messages from you [STOP] Darcy felt her cheeks turn pink and had to bite back another smile at his last line. No, wait, don’t [STOP]
---
Natasha spent most of the day watching him when she thought he wasn’t looking. It wasn’t until after a debrief of her and Sam’s most recent mission to Kyiv and two back-to-back training sessions with their newest recruits that he finally caught her and raised his eyebrows. “What, Romanoff?”
She bobbed her shoulders innocently. “You tell me,” she countered, following him out the door and into the early afternoon sunlight. “You’re the one with the stupid smile on your face.”
“I don’t have a stupid—” he stopped for a second and took a full inhale of fresh air. “It really is a beautiful day, isn’t it?”
Natasha’s face folded in confusion as he kept walking. She chased him and caught up easily; she said nothing as they made their way to Center Drive and turned into Central Park. Sam and Bucky were already there, holding down one chess table and with Bucky’s leather jacket tossed on one of the chairs immediately to their right. They both looked up, Bucky’s eyebrows lifted with surprise. “You joining us?” he asked her as Steve pulled out the empty chair and took a seat.
She shook her head. “I thought I might get a clue about what’s got Steve looking so…”
“I’m not looking so anything,” Steve insisted lightly, not looking up from the chess board where he was setting out a row of heavy black pawns.
It was Bucky’s turn to study him. “No, you are,” he agreed, his brow furrowed. “You look…”
“Happy,” Natasha decided out loud, crossing her arms.
“Weirdly happy,” Bucky echoed.
To Steve’s right, Sam laughed and shook his head. “It’s not weird,” he argued on Steve’s behalf and glanced over. “The man’s just happy and in love,” he shrugged. “Nothin’ wrong with that.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “I’m not in love,” he grumbled before he stopped himself. “No, wait,” he shook his head. “No, I am.” He felt a flash of guilt that he only made worse when he coughed and added, “I’m in love with Sharon.”
“You’re living with Sharon,” Bucky reminded.
“Right,” Steve agreed with a swift single nod. “I’m living with Sharon.” When he looked up, his three friends were looking at him curiously. “What?”
“You’ve been living with Sharon for like, six months,” Sam recapped unnecessarily, now looking as curious as the other two. “This is still a new look.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “It’s not…” He didn’t have anything to feel guilty about, he reminded himself. There was no reason for him to feel like he’d been unfaithful to Sharon—he hadn’t. They were just messages. Messages between friends. Harmless messages between friends. Unless someone had changed the rules, he was still completely in the clear. He dropped his hand with a heavy exhale. “It’s not infidelity if it’s just online, right?”
A glance was exchanged. “Depends on what you’re doing online,” Sam said slowly.
“Nothing,” he said, a little too quickly. “Just—y’know. Talking.” He frowned. “Texting, I guess. I guess it’s more like texting.”
“Texting or sexting?” Natasha asked.
He gave her a look. “Do I seem like someone who does a lot of sexting?”
“Who’s sexting?” Their conference was interrupted by the arrival of Steve’s chess partner, former Howling Commando, Isadore Cohen. Of the three senior citizens at the tables that day, Izzy was the only one who looked his age. He was ninety-eight and walked with the help of an aluminum four-prong cane; his blue eyes still sparkled with all the sharpness and intelligence of his youth and he still wore his thick hair combed back with pomade, although these days it was shockingly silver where once it had been jet black. He took a seat with some effort and swung his legs around to face the table. “Are you on the Tinder, Steve?”
Natasha snorted and Steve felt a smile cross his face as he shook his head. “No,” he assured them all. “I’m not.”
“Good,” Izzy waved a hand. “You’re too sweet for the meshugas that goes on there.”
“Izzy,” Natasha tilted her head to one side. “Why do you know what meshugas happens on Tinder?”
He shrugged and Steve felt a moment’s reprieve from his own guilt and worry that he was cheating on Sharon without realizing. “I wound up there by accident,” the old man admitted. “I was looking for a deal on some firewood,” he shook his head as Sam started laughing. “Didn’t find it, I’ll tell ya that much.” Izzy looked back at Steve with a twinkle in his eye. “Anyway, I thought you had a girl, Rogers?”
“He does,” Bucky said.
Just as Steve said, “I do.”
“But maybe more than one,” Sam added.
Izzy looked impressed. “You old tomcat—”
“I do not have more than one,” Steve insisted. “It’s just Sharon,” he held up his hands defensively. “Forget I said anything. Nothing else is going on—don’t worry about it.”
“Well if you are looking for a new gal,” Izzy went on, ignoring Steve’s plea. “Get one who knows her way around a black-and-white.” He shook his head again. “Sharon’s a sweetheart but those cookies she brought to the house last time—”
“Iz,” Steve warned lightly.
“What? I’m not saying kick her to the curb for it,” Izzy defended himself. “Just if you’re already in the market—”
“I’m not in the market,” Steve cut him off. “Can we just—” he motioned to the two chess boards set for the quartet’s weekly game.
“Yeah, yeah,” Izzy muttered good-naturedly. “Don’t worry about it; I heard ya.”
Steve raised his eyes to Natasha. “Are you staying?”
She shook her head. “I’ve gotta meet with Hill about our new hire.”
He felt his brow crease. “What new hire?”
“She’s admin,” Nat waved him off. “Not your area.”
He blinked. “Does she have a name?”
“She does,” Natasha said evenly. “But you don’t need to worry about it.”
They looked at each other for a long moment before Izzy cleared his throat. “Awful lotta not worryin’ going on today.” He looked across to Sam. “Wilson? Sarge? You got anything you don’t want us worryin’ about?”
Sam laughed and broke the connection between Steve and Natasha. “Not a thing, Izzy.”
“I’m good,” Bucky chimed in.
Izzy’s smile was full of crooked teeth. “Good man.”
----
Darcy stared at the piles of paperwork in front of her—NDAs, tax forms, conduct agreements, contracts—and crossed her eyes. “This feels like way too much,” she said and dropped her head into her arms on top of everything.
“The paperwork?” Jane asked from across the table. “Or the job itself?”
She sat back up. “I should turn it down,” she said. “Right? I’m not really qualified for this,” she argued with herself for the tenth time. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“What are you talking about?” Jane scoffed. “Of course you’re qualified! You’re going to be great.”
“But there’s still the fact that this job is cursed.”
“It’s not cursed.”
“Six liaisons in three years? That’s a curse.”
“They just hadn’t found the right person yet,” Jane said kindly. “And now they have. You’re going to be amazing.”
She didn’t feel convinced as she looked over the ocean of documents again. The words all blurred together, and she covered her face. “I should have looked at these earlier,” she groaned. “Now my head is all fuzzy. I’m too distracted.”
“Distracted by what?”
Darcy pressed her lips together in thought behind her hands. “Just…” she shook her head. “Stupid…stuff.”
Jane had raised a single, curious eyebrow when she pulled her hands away. “Specifically?” Specifically, Darcy’s thoughts danced back to the message she’d received that morning. The increasingly sweet and flirty messages she was exchanging with her online pen-pal. She felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips. Jane’s eyes went wide. “Oh my God,” she said suddenly. “Did Grant propose?”
Darcy’s smile dropped away. “What? Propose?” she repeated. “Are you insane?”
Jane’s other eyebrow joined the first in a jump toward her hairline. “I…thought you liked Grant?”
She blinked, chasing away her own brief and unnecessary outrage. “I do! Of course I do. I love Grant,” she said firmly. She’d been with Grant for a year and a half. She’d better love Grant. “Grant is…great.” Jane looked unconvinced, so she went on. “Grant’s amazing. Grant…makes firearms nervous.” Jane smiled at that and Darcy relaxed a little. She shrugged. “Seriously. What’s not to love?”
“So…what’s the distraction if it’s not Grant-related and it’s not job-related,” Jane’s fingers crawled across Darcy’s mountain of paperwork and slid it all to the side. “You’re not getting those back until you tell me what’s up.” She offered her best serious look. “I’m still your boss for another two weeks.”
Darcy covered her face again and resettled her shoulders. She blew out a heavy breath. “Okay. It’s nothing, really. I’ve just been…” she pursed her lips and chose her words carefully. “Well, okay, I have this…friend.”
“What kind of friend?”
“Just a friend,” she attempted innocence. “I met him online.”
“So, a male friend,” Jane noted before she looked expectant. “And is this male friend the reason for those cute little smiles you try to hide sometimes when you look at your phone?”
Darcy bit her lip. “Maybe sometimes,” she lied. Nearly all the time, lately. The days she got a response from Kilroy were always her favorite—she couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t made her smile. “We’ve been talking for a few months,” she admitted, wondering if she should feel guilty that her online pen-pal was responsible for more smiles than her real-life boyfriend some days.
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know,” Darcy said. “We don’t talk about anything personal.”
Jane’s face folded in familiar lines of curiosity. “So…what do you talk about?”
“Just…” she shrugged. “I don’t know. Just everything else. Movies and music and how much we both love Brooklyn—”
“Okay, so he’s from Brooklyn,” Jane cut in, making Darcy wary that she was unintentionally inviting a scientist to her totally-harmless-online-flirty-friendship. “What else do you know about him?”
Darcy rolled her shoulder again. “I don’t know,” she said again. “I know he likes old movies…and that he’s an amazing artist—”
“How do you know that?” Jane asked and went on before Darcy could answer. “And where online did you meet him?”
She felt her cheeks turn pink. “It’s…kind of…” she scrunched her nose. “Embarrassing.”
That eyebrow lifted again. “Darcy, you’ve read my Star Trek spec scripts,” Jane reminded seriously. “How much more embarrassing could it be?”
“Those were some quality storylines that any director would be thrilled to get their hands on!” Darcy insisted supportively. “I still think you should send them out.”
Jane offered a small smile. “Don’t change the subject.”
She paused. “Promise you won’t laugh?”
Jane held up three fingers pressed together. “Scout’s honor.”
She held off thoughtfully for another long moment before she finally gave in. “Okay, so you know how I got way too into Overwatch last summer?”
Her question was met with a heavy sigh. “Yes.”
“So I started using Discord to talk to other people while we played—it’s this platform that’s kind of like…” she frowned. “I don’t know I guess like chatrooms?”
“I know what Discord is,” Jane assured her. “I use it to talk to my old Culver friends.”
“Oh, good,” Darcy didn’t know why, but she liked knowing that Jane had other friends she still kept in contact with. “I don’t play Overwatch so much anymore, but one of my friends invited me to her server for…” she stopped and coughed.
“Oh, come on,” Jane rolled her eyes. “How lame could it be?”
“How lame do you consider the West Wing fandom?”
To Darcy’s surprise, Jane seemed to actually consider this. “Not too bad,” she decided after a moment. “Maybe a 4.”
Darcy didn’t ask what the scale was before she continued. “Anyway, I was hanging out in there, and I started talking to this guy he—” she stopped again and bit back a smile. “He posted some of his art—fanart and regular stuff. He’s amazing,” she repeated, hoping that didn’t sound like too much of a gush. Kilroy’s stuff was amazing, but Darcy didn’t quite feel like owning up to the only reason she’d seen it was because he illustrated a scene from a CJ Cregg/Danny Concannon fanfic she’d written. She loved Jane, but there were some things Darcy had planned on taking to the grave. “Seriously, I’d be surprised if he’s not a professional. Anyway,” she went on. “We started talking more and more and then we switched over to private messages a few months ago—”
“But you don’t know anything personal?”
She shook her head again. “Nope. Like I said, we only talk about harmless…meaningless…” Her smile became harder to smother. “Bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils,” she muttered, glancing down with another blush.
Jane coughed. “Excuse me?”
“It’s…nothing,” Darcy insisted. “Right? I mean, it’s not like I’m doing anything wrong. Right?”
Her questions were met with a blink. “Does it feel wrong?”
“No,” Darcy said quickly. “It’s just…” she shrugged a third time. “It’s nothing. It’s harmless.”
And it was harmless. This wasn’t like in seventh grade when Derek Weismann’s father had left his mother for a twenty-four-year-old woman in Vancouver after meeting her in a chatroom and having well-documented cyber-sex over AIM for six months.
This was nothing like that. This was just friends. Friends talking and making each other smile.
Jane dropped her chin onto the edge of her hand and studied Darcy again. “Well, it’s not nothing,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s actually kind of romantic.”
Her blush deepened. “No, it isn’t…”
“No, in a harmless kind of way,” Jane agreed. “It is. I mean, he could be anyone,” she said, as though the idea may have never occurred to Darcy. “It could be—”
The door to Jane’s lab opened and Cameron Klein shuffled in, nearly tripping on an extension cord, and narrowly avoiding spilling coffee down his shirt.
Jane looked at Darcy and widened her eyes as she dropped her voice to a whisper. “It could be Cameron.”
“It’s not Cameron,” Darcy said flatly.
“What’s not Cameron?” The man in question set his messenger bag on top of Darcy’s paperwork and sat down beside her. He looked from one woman to the other. “What did I do?”
Jane folded her hands in front of her face, pressed her lips against her steepled fingers in thought. “What are your thoughts on The West Wing?”
He looked confused as Darcy reached over and helped herself to a sip from his latte. “Uh…I know my dad really likes it.”
Feeling oddly relieved, Darcy returned his coffee to him and smiled. “Great answer, Klein. How’re the guns?”
“The guns are good,” Cameron said, looking pleased with a change in topic.
Jane frowned. “What are you doing with the guns? I thought you were in transport?”
“Didn’t you tell everyone?” Darcy asked her friend, fighting the urge to admonish. “Cam got a promotion,” she informed Jane. “He’s the new—whaddyacallit—” She snapped her fingers when his new title escaped her. “Gun librarian.”
“Amory supervisor,” he corrected quietly. “And it’s not that big of a deal.”
“Congratulations!” Jane exclaimed. “They’re just promoting people all over the place.”
“Where’d they promote you?” he asked.
Darcy rolled her eyes. “She’s head of her own department,” she reminded. “She can’t go any higher without going off-world.”
“Her own department of four people,” Jane reminded modestly. She looked back to Cameron. “I was talking about Darcy. She’s the new PR liaison for the Avengers.”
Cameron’s thick eyebrows rose toward his riotous curls. “Isn’t that job cursed?”
Darcy dropped her head into her arms again.
---
Darcy would be the first one to admit that things with her father were complicated. Actually, she’d likely be the only one to admit that things were complicated because Tony Stark liked to think that things with his oldest daughter were coming along just fine.
And maybe they were, she considered diplomatically as she finished her make-up that Saturday morning and her phone pinged with a text from the man in question, telling her he was on his way over.
She’d only had a dad for a little over a year, after all. She wasn’t sure what was considered normal and uncomplicated. Although she had her suspicions that finding out, by accident, that the father you’d always been told didn’t exist was actually the billionaire and legitimate superhero who happened to run part of the organization with which you’d been working for the last five years was not entirely normal.
At least, if the movies, books, tv-shows, and all the real-life father-daughter relationships she’d seen were to be believed.
They probably weren’t normal, and they still weren’t wholly comfortable with each other, but that was bound to get better, she reminded herself. Especially if they were going to be working together.
But wholly comfortable or not, there were some significant perks to finding out you actually did have a father after all. And the best of these perks threw herself into a tight hug of Darcy’s legs a little over half an hour later.
Morgan Stark was five when she found out she had a sister twenty-seven years her senior. And now, having had a year to get to know each other, Morgan proudly introduced her big sister Darcy as her “favoritest person” to anyone who would listen.
“Hey you,” Darcy exclaimed, hoisting her up so they were at eye level. “I heard that you started first grade a few weeks ago,” she said as Morgan fit easily against her hip. “Is that true?”
Morgan nodded with a bright grin that crinkled her eyes and showed off gaps where her bottom baby teeth had already started to fall out. “At real school,” she said proudly. “All day.”
“All day?” Darcy repeated, pretending to be confused. “Are you sure you’re big enough for all day school?”
“Uh-huh,” Morgan nodded again.
“Really?” she tickled the little girl’s sides, unable to help from laughing with her while Morgan squirmed and wriggled like a puppy. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!” Morgan squealed. “I’m super sure!”
“Oh, okay, then,” Darcy relinquished her tickling. “If you’re super sure.” She looked up, noticing that Tony had stepped out of the car at the same time as Morgan, but was lingering at the foot of her stoop. “Hey,” she said with a friendly smile.
“Hey,” he echoed. “I just figured I’d offer to stick around if…y’know…” he shrugged before he nodded to the little girl in her arms. “She can be a lot to handle on your own,” he added, as if Darcy had never spent any time with Morgan alone before.
She raised an eyebrow. “We’re fine,” she promised. “Unless you…” she studied him for a quick second. “I mean, unless you don’t have anything else to do—”
“No,” he shook his head and let out an awkward laugh. “I’ve got plenty. I just,” he shrugged second time. “Y’know. Figured I’d offer.”
Not wholly comfortable, Darcy reminded herself. If she was feeling generous, she’d extend an invitation to Tony to join her and Morgan on their sister date and keep him from this awkward lingering he was doing, clearly looking for some indication of what he was supposed to want to do in this situation.
But Darcy really liked the time she got to spend with Morgan, just the two of them. She didn’t want to spend what was supposed to be a fun day off with background anxiety around her relationship with her father.
Still. She didn’t want to shut him down entirely. She looked at Morgan. “What do you think, Morgie?” she asked, ready to do whatever the youngest Stark suggested. “Can Dad tag along on our sister date?”
To her relief, Morgan pouted her lips in careful consideration before she turned to Tony. “Take the day off, Daddy,” she said, waving a hand at him and sounding much older than six. “Darcy takes good care of me.”
Tony laughed. “I know she does,” he said and jogged the three steps up from the sidewalk to ruffle Morgan’s hair. He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Be good, Squirt.” He looked from Morgan to Darcy and offered another smile. “Thanks for doing this.”
“It’s my pleasure,” she said.
And it was.
They started out with lunch: cheeseburgers and a split order of crispy, curly French fries, followed by a visit to the library in time to catch the Storybook Lady’s rendition of A Unicorn Named Sparkle by Amy Young. Once the story was over and Morgan had demonstrated to Darcy how well she could read by reading every book on unicorns in the children’s section before she was talked into taking out something on a few other topics, they stepped back out into the bright afternoon sunshine and set sights on where they wanted to go next.
“So, we have to be back at my house by five so Dad can pick you up,” Darcy glanced at her watch. “Which means we have time to go see a movie or…” she drew the word out and looked down at Morgan to find her sister staring across the street. She followed her gaze, surprised to see a little carnival set up in Brooklyn Bridge Park with midway games, treats, rides, and some kind of gigantic inflatable obstacle course for kids to run.
Morgan’s eyes sparkled when she looked up at Darcy. “Can we go?” she asked excitedly.
Darcy grinned back. “Heck yeah we can!”
The carnival was a fundraiser for the Catholic Charities of Brooklyn, raising money for their immigrant and refugee assistance and support programs. A cause Darcy was only too happy to hand over some money for, wondering while she grabbed a brochure if they’d mind a Jewish girl sneaking in to volunteer at their next event.
After about an hour of wandering, playing carny games and crunching on sweet and salty kettle corn, when Morgan had nearly convinced her sister to board the rickety tilt-a-whirl, she spotted a booth that derailed her attention and had her dragging Darcy down the midway. They stopped at the end of the aisle where a little boy was sitting quietly while a man leaned in and put the finishing touches on an intricate face-painting.
Darcy looked down at Morgan. “There’s no line,” she stated. “How about we do this instead of the tilt-a-whirl?” Less likely to end with her puking over the side of a carnival car, she thought mildly.
Morgan beamed. “Since there’s no line, do you think he could paint me two unicorns? One on each?” she pointed to the dimples in both her round cheeks.
“I think we can certainly ask him.”
“Alright, Jamal, my friend,” the artist was saying as the little boy’s mother dropped a ten-dollar bill into the large jar by his stool. “All finished. You wanna check it out?”
The child nodded and hopped down to admire his impressive new tiger stripes and whiskers. “Cool!” he exclaimed before he roared at his own reflection.
The man who’d painted his face laughed and Darcy looked over at the sound—warm, relaxed, pleasant—that stirred something like a flutter in her stomach. She swallowed hard and wished she’d worn sunglasses to hide the way her eyes nearly doubled in size. Oh hello, her mind purred without permission at the sight of muscular, broad shouldered man in a red henley that was at least one size too small. He had a bright smile and blue eyes beneath a faded Yankee’s cap, an unfairly sexy five o’clock shadow and a jaw so square, Darcy thought it might cut glass.
She watched, definitely not noticing that wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, while he traded high-fives with the tiger-painted Jamal and thanked his mother for bringing him to the fair. There was something familiar about him, she decided, though she couldn’t quite place his face. He certainly had the build for super heroics, she considered. It was possible she’d seen him at the tower and just didn’t remember his name. And it wasn’t like she worked with heavy hitters anyway, she reminded herself. Not until next week.
Her stomach gave an anxious twist that melted when the man raised his eyes and met hers. She felt a rush of warmth take place of her nerves and she smiled. Beside her, Morgan’s grip on her hand tightened she tucked herself in a little closer to Darcy’s leg, suddenly shy. “The little lady was wondering if you could paint her a pair of unicorns.”
“I’d be happy to,” the artist said, aiming that smile at Morgan now. He motioned to the empty stool in front of him. “Want to come have a seat?” She only had to hesitate for a moment before he got up from his folding chair. “Or how about we let Mom take a seat and you can sit on her lap?”
Morgan liked that idea, pulling Darcy forward as she opened her mouth to correct him—not that it mattered, she reminded herself. It definitely didn’t matter—but Morgan got there first. “That’s not my mommy,” she said when Darcy sat in the chair and she climbed into her lap. “This is my sister.”
“Oh, my mistake,” he said, catching Darcy’s eye with another smile that made her stomach flip again. He looked back to Morgan. “And what is your name, m’lady?”
She giggled but didn’t look away again. “Morgan. And she’s Darcy,” she paused for dramatic effect before adding, “she’s my favoritest.”
Darcy tucked her chin and kissed the top of Morgan’s head. “You’re my favoritest too, Wiggle Worm,” she said quietly before she locked her arms around Morgan’s mid-section and held her still.
The artist held out a hand to shake Morgan’s hand, then Darcy’s. “I’m Steve,” he said warmly. His hand was large and a little rough, it squeezed hers tightly and completely enveloped Morgan’s. “And you, Morgan, have some decisions to make about what color unicorns you’d like today.”
She wanted one blue with sparkles, and one purple and orange, like her favorite My Little Pony. Steve obliged and mixed up some paints on a fresh paper plate that he used as a palette. “So, what brings you girls to the carnival today?” he asked when he turned back around and grabbed a few clean paintbrushes.
“It’s sister-date day!” Morgan chirped. “No Mommy, no Daddy, just me and Darcy.”
“Well that sounds like fun,” he said, sounding genuine, even to Darcy.
“Wanna hear what we did?”
“Sure,” he agreed easily. “But I’m going to need you to sit very still while I’m painting, can you do that?”
“Not if I’m talking,” Morgan admitted with a bounce of her little shoulders. “So, I’ll shush, and Darcy can tell you what we did.”
Darcy blinked, not expecting to have been called into service. She cleared her throat. “Uh, well, we went to lunch, and then to the library—”
Steve nodded as he set to work on Morgan’s right cheek. “Get any good books?”
“Yes,” she said decisively. “Some excellent Junie B. Jones adventures and the first of the Bailey School Kids.”
“Anything for you, Morgan?” Steve asked, making Morgan giggle before he glanced up and gave Darcy another grin.
She willed her cheeks not to burn as she bit back another smile when Morgan waited for Steve to refill his blue paintbrush before she spoke. “A Princess…um…” she looked up at Darcy, the outline of a horse on her cheek. “What was it?”
“A Little Princess,” Darcy reminded, and gently tipped her head back down as Steve returned his attention to her. “We’re starting a book club,” she added needlessly.
“We read her favorites and my favorites,” Morgan said with pride.
Steve grinned again. “Well, if you’re starting with A Little Princess, you’re on the right track.” Darcy’s face must have revealed her surprise because he laughed lightly. “I read it when I was in school.”
“But it’s for girls!” Morgan declared.
Steve’s brow creased in concern. “Says who?”
It was the brow that did it. Furrowed in such a way that it matched the frown that tugged at his lips. She’d seen that look before. In a million photos and video clips of battles and vintage PR campaigns.
Steve.
Steve Rogers.
She was sitting in front of Captain-goddamn-America, watching him paint her little sister’s face. Darcy wanted to drive her hand into her forehead and apologize for not recognizing him. She should introduce herself, she thought. They’d be working together soon enough. Shouldn’t she start things off on a good, honest note?
“I don’t know,” Morgan said, interrupting her revelation. “I guess no one.”
“Books are for everyone,” Steve laughed and held up the plate with the globs of paint. “And that is a very good book. What colors for your first horn?”
Morgan selected a shockingly bright shade of magenta and Darcy decided against saying anything. Steve was not here in Captain America capacity. He was in civilian clothes, unshaven and with a ballcap pulled down to cover most of his face and his trademark blonde hair. It didn’t take a genius to see he wasn’t trying to stand out.
There was a whole giant manual she’d been tasked with memorizing about public appearances where The Avengers were concerned. Protocols and security measures and a huge list of people who were supposed to be alerted. Teams on standby. A whole big thing.
In a week, she’d be responsible for knowing and enforcing all that. Coordinating charity functions and press appearances, making Earth’s Mightiest Heroes into a relatable, loveable brand and not the larger-than-life figures who trashed a city every other week and flew off to the next crisis without a glance back.
But that was next week.
Right now, she was just Darcy Lewis, standard-issue office grunt, and he had no idea who she was. Or, if he did—or if he knew who Morgan was—he was doing an excellent job of pretending otherwise.
She smothered another smile when he held up the mirror and Morgan squealed with delight at the sight of her first finished painting. If Cap wanted to volunteer for a church and paint faces on his day off without anyone realizing it, Darcy could let him keep his anonymity. He’d earned at least that much.
By the time a purple and orange unicorn decorated Morgan’s other cheek, the little girl’s shyness had completely worn off. She and Steve had compared notes on which food carts had the best hot dogs on Pier 35, which animals were best to visit at the zoo (Steve was partial to the otters, Morgan loved monkeys, Darcy preferred the polar bears) Morgan had suggested her favorite Junie B. book, and Steve told them that the best slice of chocolate pie in Brooklyn could be found on Tuesdays at a diner called Pop’s.
“I gotta say,” Steve said as he put the final, sparkly touch on Morgan’s left cheek, “you two might be the most interesting sisters I’ve met today.”
Morgan beamed. “Isn’t it funny how old my sister is?”
“Hey!” Darcy pinched her hip as Steve smothered a laugh.
“I meant older than me,” Morgan corrected herself, waiting until Steve lowered his paintbrush before she looked up at Darcy. “Most sisters are only a few years bigger.”
“She has a point,” Steve pointed out diplomatically.
“Yeah,” Darcy slid Morgan off her lap and stood up. “Only one of us was a surprise,” she quipped. “And you’ll never guess which one.” She reached for her wallet to pay him, but Morgan tugged on her hand again. “What is it, Squirt?”
“Can you have Steve paint something on your face?” she asked sweetly.
Darcy let out an unexpectedly flustered laugh. “Uh—we’ve gotta get home, Morgie. Dad’s going to be by to pick you up at five. We don’t want to make him wait.”
“Just something quick,” she begged. “Please? I want to match.”
“I don’t mind,” Steve said, quicker than she expected. He glanced around at the fair’s crowds beginning to dwindle. “I think you two were my last customers of the day.”
“Uh—” Morgan tugged her hand again. Darcy sighed. “Okay,” she relented lightly. “Just something small.”
Steve smiled and picked up the brush he’d been using for Morgan. He stepped in closer to Darcy and she caught an inhale of something piney and spicy coming from his clothes. Stop it… she warned herself. “Any requests?” he asked, his voice a little lower than it had been.
She shook her head. “Dealer’s choice,” she said and resisted the urge to clear her throat. The brush was cold when it touched her skin. From the corner of her eye, she watched Steve narrow his eyes in a brief moment of concentration before she felt the smooth bristles and paint glide over her cheek. She pressed her lips together. It kind of tickled.
After what felt like just a moment and a few color swaps later, he stopped and stepped back. He turned to Morgan. “What do you think, Morgan?” he asked. “Does that meet your approval?”
Morgan beamed. “Uh-huh,” she exclaimed. “Darcy, look at how pretty we are!”
Smiling, Darcy let her sister drag her over to the mirror where she could admire the heart that Steve had drawn on her cheek, blue and purple with a little twinkle that made it appear to sparkle without any of Morgan’s glitter. “Beautiful,” she said with a nod of approval. She met Steve’s eyes in the mirror. “Thanks,” she said, reaching again for her money. “This was fun.”
“Thank you,” he said as she dropped her cash in his donation jar. “I had fun too.”
She made herself look away first and turned back to Morgan. “Okay, little lady, you have your stuff?” Morgan held up her canvas library bag with a little effort and nodded. “Alright, got the kid, got the books, got my bag,” she did a quick glance around Steve’s stall and looked back at him. “Thanks again!”
“Anytime,” he said easily. He mirrored Morgan’s wave. “Bye Morgan!”
“Bye Steve!” she said cheerfully. “You paint the best faces!”
“I certainly did today,” he laughed before he looked back at Darcy. “It was nice meeting you.”
She felt her stomach swoop into a little unpleasant twist of guilt at having not told him the truth about who she was—about knowing who he was—and covered it with a smile. “You, too.”