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i.
There’s a homeless man that sits huddled in the corner by the stairs leading into Darcy’s building. He wears three layers and an army jacket that’s seen better days. His hair is long, scraggly, and every time she sees him, she’s reminded of the lumberjack aesthetic that loses a little something when the only viewable part of his face are his haunted blue eyes. He watches her. Technically, he watches everyone. She wonders if he sleeps, he’s always coiled tight with tension, keeping an eye on people as they walk past, expecting... something. A fight. Derision. She’s not sure which.
The street she lives on isn’t busy, it’s one of the reasons she picked it. The way the buildings stand together, it tends to block out a lot of the city noise. She thinks that’s one of the reasons he stays, because over a couple weeks when there’s construction going on and the noise increases, she doesn’t see him. As soon as the noise level returns to normal though, he appears back in his same spot, pressed into the corner, hunched and watching.
She never says anything to him. She’s not exactly sure what she could say. He doesn’t talk to her either, so she takes it as a sign that he just wants to be left alone. Sometimes just seeing him makes her heart lurch in her chest and an angry little part of her soul rage against the shitty conditions veterans have to live through without proper support. She writes a few angry blogs about it, yells into the ether, and is disappointed that somehow, every day, the world is never magically better.
Her routine is simple. She’s up at five-thirty, takes a jog at six, home by seven, showers and eats her weight in Frosted Wheaties, and then plugs her iPod in and starts the trek to Jane’s new lab. It’s not the Baxter building or Avengers Tower, but it works for what she needs. Jane’s mostly been working on putting her data into a readable format, something she can share with her fellow eggheads. She says share but she really means ‘rub in their smug faces.’
She’s just passing a coffee vendor, the smell is heavenly, when she finds her feet slowing. It’s dumb. There’s a pretty good chance he won’t even take it. But she stops anyway, buys a large black coffee and a glazed donut. Clearly the breakfast of champions.
When she gets back to her place, she’s regretting jogging the last bit because the coffee’s spilled over and burned the back of her hand a little. She wastes a napkin trying to dab it away.
He’s tucked in the corner, eyes narrowed and suspicious when she pauses near him.
She opens her mouth to say something, but she’s not sure what. She could keep going, just climb the stairs and drink the coffee herself. She doesn’t even like donuts, but she can make an exception. She stops at the gate; there’s gnarled bushes and loose trash across the ground. He’s sitting on a collection of newspapers, whether to act as a barrier between him and the ground or to sop up some of the water, she’s not sure.
“I’m more of a tea person myself,” she says, and winces at her opening. Still, she puts the coffee on the ground a few feet from him, and places the donut on top. “It’s not much, but, it’s yours if you want it.”
She lingers a moment, twists her hands around, and then takes a step back, leaves through the gate and circles around to the stairs. She’s half-way up when he croaks a, “Why?” back at her.
She pauses, turns to see him staring up at her, his brow furrowed. “It’s cold. Coffee helps. Besides, there’s that whole be kind to your neighbor thing. You’ve been here long enough, you qualify. Sadly, I don’t know where you’d find a welcome basket around here. I’m still figuring out the subway system most days.”
He stares at the coffee cup and hesitantly reaches for the donut. He has fingerless gloves on, they’re dirty and just barely holding on. He snatches up the donut like he thinks it might be torn out of his hand at any moment, takes a large bite and doesn’t seem to mind or notice that bits are stuck to his beard.
She half-smiles, if only to hide the lurch of pity in her belly. “Enjoy,” she says, and then keeps walking up the stairs.
She’s not sure, but she thinks he might say thanks. It’s quiet, nearly swept away on the wind. Nearly.
ii.
Darcy’s always been a stress knitter. It’s her grandma’s fault. She can also blame her grandma for stress shooting, stress baking, and stress snarking. Her grandmother was a layered lady who never met a hostile situation she couldn’t pretend wasn’t happening without careful ignorance. Elanah Lewis kept a gun on her at all times for as long as Darcy had known her. It was an ugly, giant piece of work, and one of the main reasons Darcy preferred her taser. But Elanah loved it; spent her weekends at the range, making sure she could always shoot straight, even when her joints were swollen from arthritis. She’d taught Darcy to shoot from the time she was seven years old, broke her of the flinch that followed, even though the noise rattled her to her bones. Darcy much preferred knitting, baking, and snarking, frankly. But on bad days, yeah, she’d visit a range and take it out on a target.
In any case, after her new neighbor accepted her offer of coffee and a donut, she decided to press their limited association. She knit him gloves. With fingers, because fingerless gloves defeated the purpose, in her opinion. But giving them to him provided an issue, as she wasn’t completely sure if he’d accept her charity. So instead, she stress knit more and, before she knew it, she’d made him a hat and a scarf, all of which was a bright, vivid red, because the man was far too fond of black.
It took her a few weeks, not just to knit in between work, but to gather her courage. Every few days, she’d bring him a coffee. Sometimes from her pot inside when money was low, and a spare muffin from her supply. They only ever came in packages of six and she never ate them all anyway. Her mom always said to freeze what she wasn’t eating, but she never remembered that until it was too late. So, he got her leftover muffins and coffee. If he wasn’t complaining, neither was she.
It’s an early morning in October when she steps outside for her run, does a little jump on the stoop, swings side to side as the chilly breeze runs past her. She looks over the edge to make sure he’s there and then walks down, careful to hold onto the rail since the ground is slippery.
He jumps a little when the gate creaks as she opens it.
“Just me,” she tells him, and she might be imagining it, but he does seem a little less tense at seeing her. “So this is where I pretend I made these gloves but they’re too big for me, when in actuality I just made them for you.” She thrusts them forward at him. “There’s a scarf and a hat too. It’s getting colder out, so...”
He eyes the pile of knitted fabric in her hands. “Don’t need your charity,” he mutters.
“It’s not charity.” She rolls her eyes. “And don’t be such a grouch. It’s a gift. People accept gifts all the time. My mom sent me a care package last week with six cans of tomato soup. I hate tomato soup. But I said thank you, because that’s what you do when someone gives you shit out of the kindness of their heart.” She drops the fabric, and grins when he catches it automatically. “And look, these gloves have fingers, because fingers get cold too.”
He snorts, draws the red fabric in close to him and examines it. “You made these?”
“I’m a lady of many amazing talents,” she boasts, shrugging. “I’m also cold though, so I’m going to go for my run.” She points. “Put ‘em on. I wasn’t kidding. It’s chilly out.” Walking through the gate, she offers him a wave before she goes.
“You didn’t have to,” he tells her.
She turns on her heel. “Hey, what’d I tell you...?”
He rolls his eyes, but mutters, “Thanks.”
“That’s right, appreciate my awesome benevolence.” With that, she took off, content that it all had gone better than expected.
When she gets back to her apartment an hour later, he’s wearing it, the bright red a sharp contrast to everything else. Her smile doesn’t fade for the rest of the day.
iii.
"So? Do I ever get a name? I can’t call you Neighbor forever.”
He’s ventured out of his corner to sit on the steps beside her, but his eyes are still just as paranoid, wandering the block, searching for something she can’t begin to understand. He doesn’t answer right away, just lifts the old thermos of tomato soup up and sips at it. Turns out, he does like tomato soup, so she’s decided to give him all the soup, if only to get it out of her apartment.
“Call me James,” he tells her.
“Nice to meet you James, I’m Darcy.” She holds a hand out for him to shake and, while he hesitates, he eventually extends his own to take hers. His grip is soft, like he thinks he might hurt her if he holds on any tighter. He’s wearing the gloves she made him, and she absently decides that she should make him a spare and wash these for him sometime.
“Darcy,” he repeats, nods to himself, and then repeats it twice more under his breath. She wonders if he forgets things, a mind like a sieve, a symptom of PTSD maybe. He never seems surprised to see her or like he doesn’t know who she is though; at least, she doesn’t think he has. It’s hard to tell through all that hair.
“Been in New York long?” she wonders.
He shakes his head. “When I was younger. Not... Not for a while though.”
“Yeah? What made you come back?”
He snorts, says, “Nostalgia,” like it’s a joke, one she can’t understand the humor behind.
So she hums. “I moved here last year. Me and Janey, that’s my boss. I’m pretty sure she wanted to move here because of her boyfriend, or that’s part of it at least. Just be closer to him. He’s not around a lot though. Traveling. And her work keeps her pretty busy.”
“What kinda work?”
“Star stuff. She’s an astrophysicist.”
“Sounds fancy.”
She snorts a laugh. “‘Sounds’ being an apt word. I don’t know if I’d call Jane fancy. Sometimes she forgets to shower all week. She wears Poptart crumbs like jewelry.” She smiles fondly. “But it’s cool. Whatever works to keep her genius break going at full force.”
“You like that kind of thing? The stars?”
Darcy tips her head back, looks up at the sky. The sun is only just setting, but even if it were later, there’s too much pollution or lights to see much of anything. “I don’t know. It’s kind of interesting. The idea that the universe is so big that we don’t really know what all’s out there. Interesting, but also a little terrifying.”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You into stars or anything?”
He frowns, shakes his head. “Used to like science. Engineering.” His brow furrows. “You ever wonder why cars don’t fly?”
She grins. “I know, right? All our advancements in technology and nothing on the flying car front. Ridiculous. You know, if they put less funding into war and funneled it into creating things, we’d be so much better off. We could be living like the Jetsons right now.”
He stares at her, and she can’t tell through the beard, but his eyes say he’s amused.
He looks away quickly though. “Not a fan of war?”
“Not really.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know. It’s difficult, right, because sometimes you see really awful things happening and you think, man, I’d do anything to make that stop. But then ‘anything’ is really extreme and you have to wonder if it does any good or if it just makes a bad situation worse. Plus, there’s that whole, why are we going to war? Is it for the reasons they’re telling us or some other reason? Like money or oil or whatever.” She runs a hand back through her hair. “Shady government, you know? Not a fan of that.”
“Yeah,” he rasps. “Me either.”
They’re quiet for a long moment then. He finishes off the soup and puts the cap back on the thermos. “Thanks for this.”
“Sure. You’re doing me a favor. I didn’t know what to do with all that stuff. There’s only so many things you can add tomato soup too before you get sick of it.”
He snorts, scrubs his fingers over his beard. “You know where to find me if your ma sends more.” He stands and she watches him go, walking down the stairs and circling around to his corner.
“You’re going to be okay?” she wonders, leaning over the edge to see him. “It’s getting colder out.”
“I’ll be fine,” he assures her, takes a seat and pulls his jacket closed. He tips his head back to see her, and for a moment she stares into blue eyes and thinks... I wish the world was better to you.
But then he looks away. So she shakes it off and make hers way inside. The world is the same the next day and the day after that, and she wishes she’d stop hoping for something different.
iv.
There’s a frantic knock at her door and Darcy takes a step back from her stove. “All right, okay, hold your horses.” She crosses the floor on fuzzy slippers and pauses as she’s unlocking the chain. “Uh, who is it?” she asks.
“It’s James,” he says and she frowns.
The chain comes off and she opens the door to look out at him in confusion. “How’d you get inside?”
“There someone outside, looking for me. I... I didn’t know where else to go.”
She opens the door wider. “Who is it?”
“I-- It’s hard to explain.” He shifts his feet and turns his head, looks down the hall with a panicked expression on his face. When he turns back to her, he’s scared. “Please, Darcy, I... I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need it.”
Grandma Elanah would have a heart attack. Then she’d wake up just to smack Darcy over the head for being stupid. But Darcy opens her door and steps out of the way. “Come on. You can hide in here.”
He doesn’t hesitate, just hurries inside and starts searching around for any where to duck and stay low.
She closes and locks the door behind him. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“Somebody I used to know, he’s looking for me. I... I’m not ready for that. I just... I need more time.”
“Okay, well can’t you just tell him that?”
“You don’t know him. He-- He’s stubborn.” He wraps his arms around himself and Darcy watches, concern stirring in her stomach.
“You’re shaking.”
“If he comes to the door, I need you to tell him you don’t know me, you never saw me. Please.”
“This guy... Is he dangerous?”
“No. No, he’s... He’s not. He just-- He’s pushy, that’s all. He-- I guess he’s worried. But--”
“But you’re not ready.” Darcy stares at him searchingly, can still feel her grandmother yelling in her ear not to do something so plainly reckless. But she nods anyway. “Okay. Go down the hall, be quiet.”
He stares at her a long moment, stunned or thankful, she’s not quite sure, and then he’s moving.
Darcy goes back to her dinner, cooking away on the stove. Her heart is beating a little too fast and her hands are shaking, but she takes a few deep breaths, focuses on what she’s doing, and hopes that this person, whoever he is, will skip her apartment, or won’t bother searching the building at all. It takes ten of the longest minutes of her life, but a knock can eventually be heard.
She pauses, hesitates, and then makes her way over slowly, eyeing the door like it’s a bomb and desperately wishing it had a peephole. “Who is it?”
“Uh, it-- I’m sorry to bother you. I’m just looking for someone that was last seen in this neighborhood. I was hoping you could tell me if you’ve seen him. I-- I have pictures.”
Darcy reaches for the door, wonders just how dumb she should play the moment, and then flips the lock. She opens the door but keeps the chain on and eyes the man on the other side. He’s tall, blond, with wide shoulders and the kind of face she wouldn’t be surprised to see on magazine covers.
“Ma’am,” he greets, nodding his chin at her. “Sorry to drop by like this. But, it’s a serious matter and--”
“Have you see this guy?” A woman, average height with red hair, lifts up a flyer with two side by side comparisons of the same person. He looks younger on the left side, clean shaven with a crooked grin, short, styled hair, and bright blue eyes. The other one, he’s scruffier, with long hair and sad eyes. She’s never seen his face quite that clearly, and it dawns on her that James is seriously handsome under all that hair.
Darcy looks at both pictures, back and forth, and then shakes her head. “No. Sorry.”
“Take another look,” the woman insists. “Neighbors say they’ve seen him outside, huddled up in the corner sometimes.”
Shaking her head, Darcy scoffs. “No. Look, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but the guy that’s outside looks nothing like that. He’s way older, brown eyes.” She grins. “I think I’d remember if a guy that looked like him was hanging around my building.”
The woman stares at her, seems to gauge every inch of her face, and then nods. “If you’re sure.”
“I am.” Darcy looks to the guy then. “If you’re done, my dinner’s burning.”
“Of course. Sorry to interrupt,” he tells her, his brow a little furrowed.
“Yeah, sure. Have a good night.” She closes the door with a snap, turns the deadbolt, and then takes a deep, shaky breath. She listens to their retreating footsteps and then pushes off the door and walks back to the stove to continue cooking.
It’s another five minutes before James ventures out.
“They’re gone?” she asks.
“Heard the SUV pull away.” He edges toward the window to look down at the road below. “They think you were lying?”
“They looked suspicious, but I think that might just be how they always look.” She serves the food out over two plates, her hands still trembling a little. “Are you in trouble?” she wonders quietly.
He turns back to her, stares at her searchingly, and then says, “Not from them.”
Glowering at him, she huffs, “That’s not a no.”
His smile is small and sad. “No, it isn’t.”
She nods and then motions to the plate. “Least you can do is eat.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“I made too much anyway,” she defends, before grabbing her own plate and carrying it to her dining table.
He lingers by the window, but eventually grabs up his plate and follows after her. The meal is quiet and subdued, little more than passing the salt back and forth. Until, finally, she says, “So, gorgeous redhead’s got a picture of you...” She looks up to meet his eyes. “You should see a barber sometime. It’s a small tragedy you’re hiding a face like that.”
He snorts, and the tension breaks. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She nods seriously. “You and your buddies are pushing the limits on freakishly attractive.”
Shaking his head, he laughs under his breath. “This is good,” he tells her, waving a piece of cauliflower on his fork.
“Sure, butter me up for the next time you need to hide in my apartment,” she jokes. Well, half-jokes.
He winces, drops his gaze. “’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...” His lips fold up and he swallows tightly. “I just couldn’t.”
She doesn’t get it, not really. She doesn’t know his story well enough to understand everything that’s going on. But... she trusts him. She’s not sure why, but she does. “Okay. Well... You know where I live if you ever need to duck and cover again.”
He eyes her searchingly, and then nods, very slowly. She hopes he knows she means it.
v.
"Darcy Lewis?”
She’s carrying groceries when her voice is called, and turns to see a familiar blonde jogging toward her. He’s just as ridiculously handsome as she remembers. And gentlemanly too, as he catches one of her bags before it slips.
“Thanks,” she mutters and then frowns at him. “Do I know you?”
“Oh, uh. We met, about a week ago, at your apartment... I was looking for someone, a friend of mine.”
“Right.” She glances away. “I don’t remember giving you my name.”
“It must’ve been on the list out front, by the comm.”
She hums, her mouth curling faintly. “Yeah. Maybe. Or maybe I’m listed as D. Lewis, and ‘Darcy’ is a pretty good guess.”
He clenches his teeth. “Look, I’m not trying to bother you...”
“Sure, you’re just tracking me down in public. That’s super normal.” She rolls her eyes. “I’d like my bag, please.”
He sighs, and hands it over.
She juggles things around so she can carry it herself. “I’m going to put this really simply... I don’t know you and I’d appreciate it if you stayed away from me.” She picks up her steps then, hurries ahead and feels relieved when he doesn’t immediately follow.
“I just want to help him,” he shouts after her, and she’ll admit his voice sounds desperate. “I’m his best friend. I just want to know he’s okay.”
Darcy keeps walking, because she doesn’t know him. No matter how worried he sounds. But she knows James. And he’s not ready yet.
vi.
When she told her mother she was moving to New York, the only advice she was given was to be careful, it’s a big city, there are a lot of crazies out there. Darcy clearly didn’t take that advice to heart.
James visits more often; she finds him sitting on the fire escape outside her bedroom window sometimes, his head tipped back as he stares at the sky.
“What’re you looking for?”
“Stars,” he tells her. “Wanna see what you see.”
“Jane’s got tech for that. Sees a lot better than our eyes every could.” She climbs onto the ledge of her window, wraps a blanket around herself to keep out the chill. “There are shelters, you know? Places you’ll be safe and warm.”
“Those places aren’t safe,” he says, frowning. “Not for anyone.”
She feels weary sometimes, with how much the world disappoints her. Even the good things turn bad. “You can stay here. You shouldn’t be outside, not when it’s this cold out.”
“Why do you care?”
He doesn’t ask it maliciously, just curiously, like he doesn’t quite understand. Truth be told, she doesn’t either.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “I just saw you there, every day, and... When you weren’t there, I got worried. Thought maybe something happened to you.”
“You invite all the homeless people you meet to stay at your place?”
“No... I don’t befriend all of them.”
“That what we are?” he wonders. “We’re friends?”
“I think so.” She shrugs. “Why? You got too many, need to thin out the herd?”
His mouth twitches and he ducks his head as he laughs under his breath. “Think I got a shortage actually.”
She hums. “Well. You’re stuck with me, so...”
He nods, turns his eyes toward her. “Not going anywhere?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You’re good people, Darce.”
“That’s not what my grandmother used to say.” She grins. “She’d say, ‘Screw good. You know what good gets you? Used up.’”
“Smart lady.”
“Could be. She wasn’t right about everything, but she was right about a lot. What do you call that?”
“Life. Make your mistakes, learn from ‘em, or you don’t, and you repeat ‘em.”
She eyes him thoughtfully. “You make a lot of mistakes?”
He turns to her, mouth set in a line. “Yeah. I did.” He lets out a sigh, rubs a hand over his mouth. “Thinkin’ I might know a way to make up for ‘em though.”
“A safe way?”
He smiles to himself, shrugs. “What’s safe?”
Darcy rolls her eyes. “If you have to ask...”
He licks his lips, looks back up to the sky. “Might be gone for a while, but... I’m gonna be okay.”
Her stomach tightens then. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” He nods, looking more certain then. “It’s my choice this time.”
Darcy reaches for him, takes his hand in hers and squeezes. “You know where I am if you change your mind.”
His eyes meet her and he holds on a little tighter. “Yeah. I know.”
vii.
He’s not there the next day. Not on her fire escape or in the corner. A week passes and then another and another. Her worry climbs. She knows he said it was his choice, that he wanted to do it, but she can’t help but feel like maybe something went wrong. She has no way of contacting him. No way to find out if he’s okay. And the longer he spends away, the more worried she gets.
Nearly a whole month passes before the redhead shows up at her apartment.
“Remember me?”
Darcy frowns. “Should I?”
She grins. “You’re good. Convincing. I can see why he picked you”
Her brow arches. “He who?”
“You can stop pretending. I know you know James.” She waves a folder then. “Darcy Lewis, intern to Jane Foster. You’re friends with Thor, right? His ‘Lightening Sister’... He holds you in high regard.”
“Is this where you make some big ultimatum and I crack under the pressure?” Darcy crosses her arms over her chest, feigns disinterest.
“No ultimatum. Just thought you might like to see something.” She walks into the apartment, breezes past Darcy like she owns the place.
“Please. Come in,” Darcy snarks under her breath before closing the door.
The woman takes a look around, not bothering to hide the fact that she’s snooping, and then turns to face Darcy. “James is fine. He’s safe.”
“Great. I’ll take your word for it. It was nice meeting you.”
She smirks, and Darcy hides a little shiver that runs down her back.
“I figured you wouldn’t believe me, so I brought proof.” She plucks a few photos from a folder and holds them up. “You remember Steve?” Her finger taps the picture. “Maybe Thor’s told you about him? Steve Rogers... Captain America... Ringing any high school history bells?”
Darcy takes a step forward, her brow furrowed. “Captain America,” she repeats, and then takes in the redhead, squints at her a moment. “Black Widow.”
“Ta da,” Natasha says blandly.
“And James...”
“Bucky Barnes, Cap’s best friend from the 40′s. Or, if you saw any of the footage when SHIELD was brought down in Washington, you might know him better as the Winter Soldier...” Her expression loses it’s good humor and her eyes narrow on Darcy.
Darcy plucks the pictures from Natasha’s fingers and looks through them. They’re candid, and she’s pretty sure James isn’t completely aware they’re being taken. His hair is pulled back, beard still as grizzly as ever, but his face is a little more recognizable. He looks... Not as paranoid as he had before. Not quite happy, mostly tired, but better, at least.
“I read some of the files. Jane was worried her research might’ve been leaked... The files for the Winter Soldier have nobody listed as a definite match. There were suspects but no proof.”
“HYDRA had him under their control, we didn’t know it was Barnes until Washington. By the time the files were out there, that information hadn’t been added.”
“You’re sure...?”
“He was brainwashed, held captive for seventy years, it’s a long story. I’m sure he’d prefer to tell it himself.” She shrugs, takes the pictures back and puts them in her folder. “Anyway, I just thought you should know.”
“Know what, exactly?” She frowns at Natasha. “Are you trying to scare me off or let me know he’s okay? What’s your angle in this?”
“Maybe it’s both.” Natasha steps up to her, a brow raised. “Are you scared?”
Is she? She’s not sure. In all the time she’s known James, she was never afraid of him. For him, maybe. But not of him. He’d been a grumpy vet that took cover by her stairs, and then a friend, someone who just needed help. And now... What was he now? He was okay, by the looks of it. But pictures can be doctored.
“Can he leave? If he wanted to?” she wonders.
“He could. He could break out if he felt like it. He’s... encouraged not to. He has a lot he needs to work on to get himself right.”
“Because of the brainwashing?”
“That’s part of it.”
Darcy frowns, hugs an arm around her waist. “But you think he’s okay?”
“He’s coping.”
“That’s not the same thing.” She rolls her eyes. “Is he happy, sad, angry, frustrated, what?”
“He’s probably all of that. And more.” Natasha tucks the file under her arm and marches past her toward the door. “He’s staying at Avengers Tower for the time being.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Darcy turns to face her. “Because I work for Jane, because Thor vouches for me, what?”
“Because he asked about you.” Natasha turns back, the door half open. “He thought if we could find him that HYDRA might too... He wanted to know you were safe. I thought you’d want to know the same about him.”
Darcy’s not sure what to say to that. That she’s grateful, relieved to learn he’s okay, that she’s a little suspicious of Natasha’s motives for sharing it with her. Her gaze falls to the floor as she considers everything she’s been told. When she looks up again, Natasha is gone and her door is closed. Darcy walks toward it, slides the chain into place and turns the deadbolt. Suddenly exhausted, she falls back against the door and lets out a heavy breath.
Life just got a whole lot stranger, and considering how weird it already was, that’s saying something.
viii.
It’s seven in the morning and Darcy is pretty sure that wearing layers, despite the cold, was a terrible idea. She feels sweaty and gross and in desperate need of a hot shower and to change change into something more comfortable.
She’s pulling her ear buds out when she gets to the end of her stairs and finds James sitting on them. For a second, all they do is stare at each other, and then the song on her iPod switches and the noise seems to bring her back into the moment.
“You shaved,” she says.
His mouth hitches up. “Yeah, well, friend of mine once told me it was a crime to hide a face like mine.”
She laughs, scuffs her shoe on the ground. “Yeah? Sounds like a smart friend.”
“She is.” He licks his lips, takes a deep breath and then lets it out on a sigh.
Darcy climbs the stairs and takes a seat beside him, shivering at the feeling of cold cement. “You look better.”
“I am. Mostly. It’s not perfect, but...” He shrugs, stares down at his hands.
“Are those my gloves?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Pretty sure they’re mine.”
She smothers a grin and reaches over, touches his hand through the wool. “They look a little worse for wear.”
“I don’t know. Think I can get a bit more out of ‘em.”
She scoffs. “I can knit you more, you know.”
“Yeah?”
Her fingers tuck against his palm. “Yeah.”
They sit there for a long moment, just holding onto each other, and then he breaks the silence. “You know who I am?”
“I know who you were,” she admits, with a faint nod. “I know who I think you are... And I’d like to know who you want to be.”
He takes a deep breath, and it comes out shaky. “I’ve done things in the past... Things I’m not... Things I’d never...”
She squeezes his hand. “Okay.”
He’s a little incredulous and a lot uncertain. “Okay?”
She nods, shifts a little closer until their shoulders bump. “That’s the thing about life. You either learn from your mistakes or you repeat them.” She looks up at him. “You plan on repeating them?”
He swallows thickly and shakes his head.
“Good. So... Okay.”
His teeth grind a moment and it takes him a second, but eventually, he rasps out, “Okay.”
Darcy smiles then, just a faint uptick of her lips. “So, new beginning deserve a new introduction, right?” She gives his hand a shake. “I’m Darcy Lewis, it’s nice to meet you.”
He sits up a little taller. “Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes... My friend’s call me Bucky.”
With a hum, she folds her fingers between his. “Is that what we are? Friends?”
He meets her eyes, and she doesn’t see tragedy haunting them, not completely. There’s something else, something serious and hopeful. “For now,” he says, like a promise, or maybe just a blind hope.
Darcy nods, her chest feeling warm and light. She gives his hand a tug. "Coffee?”
“I’d like that.”
Her grandma isn’t so loud now; oh, she’d curse up a storm, say that boy was trouble and not worth the effort. But, like she said, her grandma wasn’t always right. And maybe this was just one of those rare times she would’ve got it wrong. Darcy’s willing to find out.