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He’s an enthusiastic members of Tuesdays are for Drinking, despite always be the designated driver/drunk catcher, because it’s the best chance of seeing Miss Lewis. Darcy, Steve corrects himself, she’s told him that she doesn’t like formal. Just Darcy. She makes him wish he knew how to flirt or be anything other than straight-forward with women. Decades past fourteen and he’s never gotten past adolescent fumbling, even with his second puberty.
Darcy comes when Jane does, straight from her own job, still dressed in sweaters that are too big and jeans that are possibly too low. She’s such a contrast to the other women in the bar, who wear less than the chorus girls, and really, he doesn’t mind the show. But there’s something to be said for the slow reveal, reveling in the new exploration of skin and sight.
“I guess there’s that,” She says, playing darts with Clint and losing horribly, “but I’m just more comfortable like this.” She lines up her sight and throws the darts quickly. She dances a little when they actually stay in the board, but she hardly scores any points, “But it’s also my grandmother’s wicked voice telling me that classy women only show off one part at a time.”
Clint looks her up and down, “And what part are you supposed to but showing off?”
Darcy glances at Natasha, who nods at Darcy. She smacks him in the arm just as he’s releasing his dart. It misses, but only barely.
“It isn’t obvious?” Steve says without thinking, so maybe he’s loosened up enough, “Her hair. It looks beautiful today.” And it does, brushing her back in soft waves and framing her face. He’s half a mind to sketch her pulling a lock back behind her eat, but every time he tries, it quickly becomes too intimate to complete.
Darcy squeals and bounds from darts to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss his cheek. “See, Steve thinks I’m classy.”
“Steve hasn’t seen you trying to cook bacon at three in morning.” Jane counters from the corner of the booth, looking up from the notebook she’s writing in. Darcy lets go of Steve, bunching up her sleeves and telling Jane that those are fighting words. Jane looks up at Darcy, at her now bare arms and scowls, “Are those bruises on your elbows?”
Darcy isn’t part of SHIELD. She’s got a job with the city government, a desk job coordinating disaster response. She doesn’t fight or really do much that would get her hurt. Her face darkens and she tugs her sleeves back down, “Would you believe I ran into a wall?” She grouses, unhappy with the way everyone is looking at her now. Steve looks away, looks at Jane instead. “No, really Jane, it’s okay. Remember I had that trip last week? My friends guest room has the bed pressed up against the wall and couldn’t move it. Hit my arm against the wall, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.” Jane relaxes by inches, but only into a different sort of worry. His quick sideways glance at Darcy catches her mouthing the words “Drop it” at Jane, pointed and vulnerable.
“Classy is a continuum,” He says to diffuse the tension, “I’m sure we can find a place for early morning bacon.”
Darcy settles into the booth next to Steve, ignoring Clint’s whining about her abandoning their game. Natasha rolls her eyes and picks off where Darcy left off. Clint will still win, but it’ll be a much closer game Darcy watches with a far-off amusement, but she quiet even while she sits very close, close enough that their thighs touch, and when she looks up and smiles at him, she’ll pull her hair back behind her ear. It’s just as shy and intimate as he draws.
When she gets up to grab another beer, her sweater rides up, revealing smooth skin like cream, and a fading ugly series of bruises at her upper hip. They don’t have the look of someone grabbing her, not a fight, but an impact, nonetheless, and he needs to know, protectiveness rising in him.
“Do you know what those are from? Something to worry about?” He asks Jane.
Jane looks at him, looks to just moments ago and how close Darcy sat and sighs, “It’s complicated and, well yes but no, or maybe more no and yes.” She smirks, just a hint of the impishness that Thor will rave on about, “She did drag me here tonight, despite how I needed to work. That’s a good thing, and I think she wanted to see you.”
Steve is sure he has the dopiest grin now, “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jane nods.
Darcy is chattier when she returns, with water instead of beer. She decided one last shot and settling her tab was a better idea. The three of them talk about work, and Darcy dishes out gossip from the city, because she’s the only one without extensive non-disclosure agreements. Technically, she shouldn’t even be at the bar with Avengers, but who is going to deny Darcy anything? And in return, Jane keeps her updated with the people that she knows, and when Clint and Natasha sit back down, there’s a soft patter of bickering.
His people are alright. Mostly. Darcy’s close enough still that he can look at her in parts. There’s small cuts on her face and her hands, her fingernails cut shorter than most women’s, filed perfectly smooth and painted green.
Darcy looks at her phone, “Pumpkin time. I’m going to head out.”
“Want us to drink you back?” Natasha asks.
“Nah, I’m just up the street.”
Jane kicks Steve in the shin. It doesn’t hurt, “I’ll drive these lugs back,” she says, “Steve, walk with her?”
Steve’s up even before Jane really finishes the sentence, offers his arm. Darcy takes it, mocking grandness with a bit of a curtsey.
It’s a comfortable silence as they walk. They usually choose an out of the way place for them to hold their Tuesdays, and it’s a nearly empty street right now. It’s cool, not cold enough to chill Steve on the inside, but enough that Darcy slips her hand behind his jacket and against his back and he ends up resting his arm over her shoulder.
But she winces at the weight and he has to find a different angle to hold his arm at, “I’m sorry,” she says, “Rough night?” She says hopefully.
Steve’s not going to buy that for an instant, “What happened?” And he’s being unfair, using his commanding voice.
She swallows and looks up at him, a little defeated, “Come up, then. Not going into this on the street.”
Her apartment is small, just a studio really. But she has nice furniture, even if it’s secondhand. Darcy’s gone on about decorating her place, and how she can actually afford something better, but she’d rather pay off her student loans before the ten years and out of public service. She took on the loans, she wants to pay them off herself, “You get a responsibility and you need to finish it,” she said before, “Or you manage it the best you can, whatever your ability it. I can pay, so I will.”
It’s something he really likes about her, that for all her sarcasm and impulsiveness, she’s got a real head on her shoulders, and a sly thoughtfulness. But she putters around her little studio, making sure he’s comfortable, deflecting, deflecting, deflecting, until he has to pull her down on the couch, “If it’s too uncomfortable…”
“No, no, I…I would have to tell you at some point. Why not at the start?” Darcy says, all big eyes and wide mouth and distraction from the words she’s trying to say, “I was being truthful to Jane, it really is from running into a wall. I’m a cliche.”
“Is someone hurting you?”
“Only myself,” she says back, tired and flippant, “Not really even on purpose. That was long ago, and those scars have mostly faded. But yeah, just me. I don’t really do well when sleeping against a wall sometimes. I attack walls with my body, and nobody wins, ya know? Jane knows because she saw, watched it happen in her RV. It’s never been intentional. But when I was at my friends house, and had to sleep there, and it wasn’t a good day…” she levels her gaze and every bit of bravado and confidence is gone, stripped, “Brains are funny places. They act up without reason, and even when you know the steps to take to make them better they’ll still surprise you by being irrational.”
“I woke up decades after I died, I can understand being a little clouded in the head.” He says, trying for gentle and understanding.
“Sometimes I wonder what’s worse, having a reason to be depressed, or not having one at all? But I think my subconscious likes to play things out, and well, luckily my friend woke me up after she heard me hit the wall a few times, but was enough to get my side pretty banged up.”
He thinks to her fingernails, the thin lines, mostly healed and reaches out to pull a piece of hair back behind her ear. His hand grazes one of the lines, “And these?”
“Still me. Warning sign of impending weird. Sometimes I wear gloves, not often, only when it’s really bad.” Some warmth comes back but still all nerves and rough edges, “I don’t want to scare you off. But this is the truth of me, I’m a bag of crazy sometimes. Not all the time, just sometimes.”
She’s also beautiful and smart, cheerful and exuberant, a dizzy glow of modern and just the sort of forward he likes, so he takes her hand and gives a shoulder for her to rest her head. She’s got more courage than he does, maybe, to lay it all bare when there’s so much he can’t even give name to.
He leans his head down against hers, finds a way to hold her close, and tries to think of a way to say thank you, to say I can try to understand, and settles for proximity.