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Barnes hated her. Darcy was sure of it. As she watched the elevator door close on the scowling soldier, she wondered once again what it was she had done to earn his ire.
Later that night, Darcy turned the corner of the kitchen and found the super-soldier staring down at the coffeemaker as if it had done him wrong. She planned to back out slowly. But then he glanced up, and she froze, caught in his icy blue gaze, sure she was about to die. Then she saw the broken cup on the floor, the splattered coffee, and the scattered black grounds, and something clicked.
Darcy glanced up at the ceiling and growled, “Tony fixed the coffee machine again, didn’t he?”
Barnes continued to stare at her, his posture still rigid, but he raised an eyebrow. To which Darcy cast a grim smirk his direction. “Friday? Did Tony fix the coffee machine?”
“Sir, made some adjustments to the heating element. I believe he also increased the pressure. It might have caused some problems with the speed at which the coffee was expelled from the machine.”
With a heavy sigh, Darcy bent to pick up the broken coffee cup. “Right. So, by fixing it, he actually broke it.”
“It would appear so.”
Darcy waved Barnes away from the cupboard and pulled the basket and filter out of the machine to empty the grounds. She frowned at the melted pieces. “Great. Friday, can you please order a new machine for the kitchen? Also, where is the closest functioning coffee machine? If I’m going to be awake at this hour, I need coffee.” She turned to Barnes and raised an eyebrow. “And you? You want coffee, right?”
Barnes stared down at her, his face no longer blank, but he had the barest crease between his eyes. Darcy was too tired to figure out what his deal was. She just recognized another person in need of coffee when she saw them. If he wanted some, he was welcome to join her; he just better not get in her way.
After a prolonged silence, he huffed. “Yeah.”
“There is a coffee maker in the Avengers conference room, one floor down. While there is coffee available, if you have a particular preference, I suggest you choose from the kitchen’s assortment. Also, I recommend you bring your preferred cream and sugar, as the conference room has not been restocked.”
“Good to know,” Darcy said as she opened a cupboard and collected supplies. “I’m making an executive decision. At this hour of the night—or morning, as the case may be. We’re drinking Italian roast. Strong enough to put hair on your chest.” She stopped and looked Barnes up and down. “Which you don’t need. But you get my point.”
Turning away from the soldier, Darcy ducked her head into the refrigerator. “And we need cream. As strong as Italian roast is, we’ll need it. Do you want syrup? I’m a traditional white sugar girl myself, but a good caramel syrup has its purposes.”
Darcy went about adding ingredients to the tray she found and when she still hadn’t gotten an answer, she turned and directed a demanding look at Barnes. After a moment, he gruffly said, “Sugar.”
Satisfied, Darcy nodded, and balancing the tray on her hip, turned toward the door. “Ok. So we’re armed. Let’s go. Friday directions?”
Fifteen minutes later, Darcy left Barnes sitting in the dark conference room nursing a good Italian roast, topped off with an inch of half and half and enough sugar it surprised her his spoon didn’t stand upright in the cup. The man had barely said two words while they were together, but his shoulders weren’t up by his ears any longer and his usual menacing stare had dialed back to an angry pout.
Sixteen hours later, after Darcy put Jane to bed, she wandered into the kitchen, looking for something to eat. She didn’t know when she had eaten last, but she knew from experience going to bed hungry was a ticket to waking up with a migraine. As they were on their way to breaking physics, she didn’t have time to spend her day hiding from the light and killing anyone who made a sound. Hence, sacrificing sleep time for food.
She was standing numbly in front of the open refrigerator door when an arm reached in and picked up a carton of eggs. A gravelly voice said, “Sit down.”
Darcy jerked backward and squinted up to meet Barnes’s dark stormy eyes. He gestured to the kitchen island. “I’m making eggs. And toast. Sit down.”
Darcy slowly backed away until her legs hit the edge of a stool. She raised herself upon it, not taking her tired eyes off the super-soldier who was apparently apt at making breakfast. Within minutes she had two fried eggs, over easy and two pieces of buttered toast set before her with a warm cup of milk and honey. She raised an eyebrow as Barnes set the last before her.
He glared and then shrugged. “You need to sleep.”
They ate silently, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Social niceties were beyond her right then and Darcy got the feeling Barnes didn’t want to talk either. When she finished the last bite of her toast and took her last swallow of milk, Barnes cleared his throat. Darcy looked over at him, not knowing what to expect, still too tired to be as cautious as she might have been on any other day.
“Last night…. You made coffee…. Thanks.”
“Sure. You looked like you could use some,” Darcy replied. She gestured to the table. “Thanks for this. I don’t remember the last time someone made me breakfast.”
Barnes looked down at his hands. “You looked like you needed some help.”
With a tired laugh, Darcy gathered their dirty dishes. “I need all the help I can get.”
Darcy made quick work of the breakfast dishes and then went to bed with a grateful good night. Tired as she was, she thought little about Barnes making her breakfast. It was simply an unlooked-for kindness sorely needed after being awake for far too long.
The following days blurred together as Jane ran equations and grumbled over the impossibilities of wormhole travel. As ever, Darcy was at her side, plying her with pop tarts and coffee and forcing her to get some sleep when she was on her last legs. Occasionally she came across Barnes and if his scowl wasn’t as prominent, she only marked it in passing too busy to delve into the reason. It wasn’t until she was once again standing before the open door of the refrigerator, its cold air wafting over her, shaking her from her stupor, that he came to her attention.
A gentle hand grasped her elbow and carefully pulled her away from the refrigerator. “Sit down.”
Darcy’s thoughts were too sluggish to argue, and she allowed herself to be guided over to a stool. Bleary-eyed, she watched as Barnes gathered the ingredients to make breakfast and, tired as she was, she left him to it.
Barnes was silent as he worked and within minutes presented Darcy with two eggs, over easy, two slices of buttered toast, and once again a warm milk with honey. She gratefully accepted his offering without a word, but after a few bites, she looked over at him and said, “I don’t know what you’re doing up at this hour–but thank you.”
Barnes shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. “You needed it.”
“True. And I appreciate it,” Darcy replied, finishing her eggs. Within moments she had cleared her plate, gathered the dishes, and put the kitchen to rights. She offered Barnes a quiet good night and headed to her bed.
A pattern of sorts developed. There were days Darcy would see Barnes in passing, where he had a deep scowl again. Inevitably she would later find him up late making coffee. On those nights, she pulled out the Italian roast and ordered him into a chair. He followed her direction and silently accepted the coffee she gave him, heavily doctored with cream and sugar. On other nights when she had been awake for days, Barnes would again make her breakfast.
Along the way, Barnes became Bucky. He quietly told her one night over coffee that she could call him that. The gesture settled a small fear that still lingered, that he hated her. She had sort of concluded his standard scowl wasn’t directed at her specifically, but confirmation that he thought of her as something like a friend was nice. Darcy simply nodded and repeated his name and left him to his coffee. There was no need to converse further.
They never spoke about their middle-of-the-night meetings. Darcy considered asking Bucky why he was up late all the time but decided against it as she could guess, given what little she knew of his past. It also wasn’t any of her business. Instead, she made him coffee and hoped that in some small way, it helped. All she really knew was she took comfort from someone caring enough to look after her in the middle of the night and she was glad to return such kindness where she could.