Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everyone knew that marks made on one soulmate’s skin would appear on the other’s.

From the time they were little, people would write questions on their skin—what’s your name? where do you live? how old are you? When answers started to appear, they were shown off to everyone—friends, family, neighbors. When soulmates finally united with one another, many got interlocking tattoos—half on the first partner’s skin and half on the other’s.

Steve Rogers didn’t have a soulmate.

When he was younger, he had been convinced that it was only a matter of time before the writing would appear, that his soulmate was simply younger than him and hadn’t been born yet—and then, of course, there was the delay for them to learn to read and write. All just a matter of time.

But as the years went by and his questions went unanswered, he stopped writing words on his skin and started drawing instead, sending out constellations and deconstructed bouquets and architectural renderings of Brooklyn into the unanswering ether, ignoring the neighborhood kids who mocked him for being a blank.

Too skinny, too sickly, too small. Of course little Stevie Rogers was a blank.

By the time a serum-enhanced Steve Rogers went into the ice, he had drawn all of Brooklyn, a whole botanical garden’s worth of flowers, and mythical creatures of all kinds on his skin without a single response.

The history books all agreed: Steve Rogers didn’t have a soulmate.

***

Darcy’s mother was getting increasingly concerned that her daughter was going to be some kind of cradle robber.

No matter how many times little Darcy had used a marker to write hello on the back of her hand, there was no answer.

By the time she was ten, just to change things up, Darcy started to add on a question mark: hello?

At twelve, she changed to anybody there?

Despite her mother’s assurances that her soulmate was probably just younger than her, by the time Darcy was a freshman in high school, she had given up on writing altogether. Her skin went unblemished for a whole year out of hormonal teenage spite.

But then, bored out of her mind with blankness and tired of the pitying stares of her classmates, Darcy vaulted to the other end of the spectrum. She took to carrying a pack of colored markers in her bag and wrote anything and everything at all that came to mind. She lacked any artistic talent of her own, but she allowed artsy friends to use her as a washable canvas. Darcy scribbled out appointment reminders and homework assignments on the back of her hand. She conjugated French verbs on her forearms. She scrawled jokes, quotes, doodles on her wrists.

There was never any response.

***

When Darcy became Jane’s intern she developed a habit of holding out an arm for Jane when they were out in the field and Jane needed to make a note or work through an equation. Half of Jane’s research had probably made an appearance on Darcy’s skin at some point. In the heat of New Mexico’s summers, Darcy would put a mostly-bare leg on Jane’s lap to get lines of equations on her calves, diagrams for machines and instruments on her thighs, star formations plotted on her shoulder blades. Darcy wrote out reminders for herself and shopping lists on the back of her hand. The only time Darcy went blank was when she went to sleep.

***

When Thor crash-landed to Earth with Jane’s latest hypothesis on his forearm, Darcy’s last unmarked friend was unmarked no more. (And Darcy was super thrilled for Jane, obviously.)

(Right up until Thor went back to Asgard. Was it truly better to have found and lost than to have never had him at all?)

***

When Steve Rogers awoke from the ice at 7 am Eastern time on March 3rd, he was still bare.

It wasn’t until Steve made it to his hotel that night and shrugged out of the SHIELD-issued sweatshirt he’d been given that he saw the numbers and letters scrawled all over his arms.

In the hours since he woke up from the ice, Steve’s arms had been completely covered.

On the inside of his left wrist was what looked like a shopping list:

poptarts

coffee

mac n cheese

needle-nose pliers

There were equations on the outside of both forearms that Steve couldn’t begin to fathom, written at multiple angles and almost all upside-down. The equations were written in different handwriting from the shopping list.

Steve sank down onto the bed and stared at his arms in amazement.

As it turned out, the history books were wrong. Steve Rogers did have a soulmate.

Steve Rogers also didn’t have a single writing implement at hand. The crappy pen that the hotel provided was dead, and he couldn’t get a single line of ink out on paper, much less skin. It was too late to go shopping for markers and Steve didn’t actually have any legal tender anyways—he was supposed to go back to SHIELD the next morning to pick up a debit card linked to his bank account and a valid driver’s license.

Steve spent the next several hours tracing over the words on his arms, startling when they started to get scrubbed away at just after one in the morning as his soulmate took a shower before bed.

***

Darcy and Jane were eating waffles at the diner in Puente Antiguo and arguing over the relative merits of taking a day off to watch Netflix on the lab couch or reworking Jane’s latest equations when Jane stopped talking mid-sentence and dropped her fork, staring intently at Darcy’s left wrist where it was barely peeking out from her oversized sweater.

“Jane? What’s the matter?”

Jane grabbed at Darcy’s left hand and shoved her sleeve up. The second her wrist was exposed Darcy saw the tendrils of green ink slowly appearing in smooth strokes up the inside of her forearm—vines that quickly sprouted leaves before her eyes in easy, practiced movements.

Darcy glanced up at Jane in disbelief. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

Jane nodded.

“Can you pinch me anyways to make sure I’m awake?”

Jane leaned up over the tabletop and flicked Darcy’s nose. “I don’t think you’d dream you were in this diner eating mediocre waffles for the millionth time.”

By the time they were both convinced of reality and looked back down to Darcy’s arm, a half-finished cabbage rose had appeared at the inside of Darcy’s wrist in a blush pink.

Jane’s voice was hushed as they watched shading appear in a slightly darker shade of pink at the inner edges of each petal. “I thought you said you never had any writing?”

Darcy couldn’t look away from her arm. “Nothing. Not a single word.” A few more minutes passed in silence as Darcy’s arm gained a cluster of violets with cheery yellow centers. “I suppose this means I’m not actually a cradle-robber like my mother always feared. Right?”

Jane shook her head. “I don’t know any children who can do that. Hell, I don’t think I know any adults who can do that. He’s good.”

Darcy waited until her entire forearm was covered in a bouquet of flowers—the guy must have bought a huge pack of art markers, because each petal was shaded and nuanced with a different color and Darcy could have just about cried from how beautiful it was. When nothing new appeared on her arm for a minute, Darcy rummaged through her bag until she pulled out a blue marker and turned her arm over.

nice to finally meet you, Michelangelo

You got a name, sweetheart?

Darcy Lewis. you?

Steve Rogers. It’s very nice to finally meet you, Darcy Lewis.

Chapter Text

Some things changed after Darcy discovered she had an (honest-to-goodness, bonafide, authentic) soulmate.

Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that things changed when it was revealed that said soulmate was affiliated with (and possibly worked for on an unclear level) the very same shady government agency that had (temporarily) stolen Jane’s research and still had Darcy’s iPod. Jane didn’t stop using Darcy’s skin as a notepad completely, but they were a lot more careful about what showed up on Steve’s skin. Just in case.

Which is not to say that Darcy was not above using her new position to her advantage. Namely by manipulating the hell out of one Agent Phil Coulson, confiscator of iPods and Captain America fanboy, into mailing back her iPod once and for all on pain of the Captain’s “I am extremely disappointed in you” face.

Now when Steve drew on his arm in New York, Darcy would color in bits of the picture on her arm in New Mexico. When Darcy wrote out a good morning hello, there was always a response.

Darcy Lewis was the first contact entered into Steve’s first ever cellphone (and his first text message and email).

And Steve Rogers, Darcy’s long-awaited soulmate, was the only reason she was driving to Albuquerque International Airport at three in the morning to catch a six am flight to New York. Because first of all, Darcy was a person who appreciated sleep, and going to bed at three am was one thing, but waking up at three am was a whole other (terrible, excruciating) situation.

Secondly, Darcy Lewis hated flying.

Hated it.

Darcy would drive cross-country, she would take sleeper trains, she would single-handedly bring back the passenger steamer to make transatlantic journeys a la Titanic if she could avoid shoving her (generous) hips into a tiny seat so that she could hurtle through the air in a metal phallus with wings filled with screaming children and leering businessmen.

But her soulmate (!) was in New York City, and despite Steve’s numerous insistences that he could fly out to meet her in New Mexico instead, Darcy had refused. While she was not unhappy with her little bubble of Science! with Jane in her minuscule New Mexico town, there were actually things to do and see in New York, and Steve was settling into a new loft in Brooklyn and had suggested that Darcy could help him assemble the basic amenities for a modern bachelor pad.

So Darcy Lewis was psyching herself up for the four hour non-stop flight into LaGuardia.

***

As promised, Darcy texted Steve just before take-off.

She then grabbed onto the armrests, white-knuckled and eyes closed, and counted out even breaths until the plane leveled out. She slowly uncurled her fingers from the plastic armrests and rubbed her hands over her face, starting when she saw lines appearing on the back of her hand.

Deep breaths, sweetheart. It’ll be over before you know it.

And then Steve was drawing something far more complex and involved than he normally did, and Darcy found herself distracted from her own anxiety by the puzzling flurry of details slowly materializing on her arm in a loose rectangle.

Steve kept his strokes so small, and moved around from section to section so unpredictably that it took Darcy an hour to even identify the scene on her arm. John Everett Millais’s Ophelia, the painting that Darcy had written about for an art history paper at Culver, as she had told Steve in a phone call the week before.

Darcy leaned back in her seat, a small smile on her face as she watched the slow bloom of line and color on her arm coalesce.

***

Even watching Steve delicately begin to add color to the masterpiece on her arm was not enough to keep Darcy from white-knuckling her way through the landing with her heart in her stomach and a high-pitched keen trapped in her throat.

Fuck airplanes, man.

Darcy staggered her way off the plane and regained her equilibrium on the walk towards baggage claim, although a new species of nervousness took over. Darcy knew what Steve looked like, of course, because Captain America had been a major component of her American history lessons all through school. But Steve didn’t actually know what Darcy looked like and hadn’t asked once in the past few weeks of communication.

So Darcy was nervous and she hated herself for being nervous because this was her soulmate, the person she was destined for, her perfect match. And not only that but he was Steve Rogers, Captain America, defender of the weak and protector of truth, justice, and the American way. He had been an undersized, sickly, poor kid from Brooklyn before the serum—serum which he was given because he was so absurdly good.

How on earth could any mortal being deserve that? Let alone sarcastic little Darcy Lewis from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania who had tased the Norse God of Thunder immediately upon meeting him without even the tiniest twinge of guilt.

Darcy stopped for a moment before the final turn into baggage claim to take one last deep breath.

Then she rolled up her left sleeve to make sure that Steve’s handiwork would be visible and walked around the corner.

***

Steve was nervous.

He had been sitting in the arrivals section of LaGuardia airport for hours (the entire duration of Darcy’s flight) but her flight number had just been assigned a baggage claim and people were starting to trickle into the waiting area. Which meant Darcy was only minutes behind—if he was being generous, because really she could come around that corner any second.

And Darcy was really the only person that Steve had since waking up from the ice that was really…his. She wasn’t a SHIELD agent who was assigned to him, or one of the nameless faces he was only just beginning to recognize in his neighborhood. Darcy was important and bright and funny and special and Steve had just thawed out from 70 years in ice, a science fiction tragedy with enough baggage to fill the entirety of the carousel in front of him. It was a lot to ask of anyone.

And then she was there. He knew, somehow, even before he saw the evidence on her arm, that the tiny brunette with the bright eyes was his Darcy. He stood from the chair that had been his home for the past several hours and shyly held up a hand, feeling every inch the skinny kid from Brooklyn that he no longer looked like. And then she caught his eye and flashed a shy smile and it was like all the tension went out of him.

Because Darcy had never been shy with him before—she had been blunt and direct and no-nonsense for weeks now, and here she was looking shy and hesitant because of course she was nervous too.

She came to a stop right in front of him and ducked her head, looking up at him through thick lashes (a move that Bucky used to pull all the time when he was going for harmlessly charming, although the move looked less studied on Darcy).

“Hi.”

“Hey. Did you seriously hang out here all morning so you could distract me from my tremendously irrational fear of flying?”

“Anything for my best girl, right?”

Darcy’s hands came up to cover her face and she let out a tiny groan, “Gah, you’re just way too adorable to be real.” Her hands came down. “Can I hug you now or is that weird?”

Steve spread his arms, “Hugs are always acceptable.”

Darcy pressed in against him, her head just reaching his chest. “I’m glad we agree on that, because hugs are pretty much non-negotiable.”

After a few moments Steve pulled back, but kept an arm around her shoulder. “You wanna point out which of these suitcases belongs to you, sweetheart?”

Chapter Text

Steve’s loft in Brooklyn was surprisingly nice, even if it was clear that the rent was enough to trigger his latent Catholic guilt. It was a corner unit, so he actually had windows on two walls, and although it was still comically spare, he had at least acquired a pull-out futon and a bed.

Predictably, he was insisting that Darcy take the bed.

“Steve, you are like, 7 feet tall, you won’t fit.”

“I am not actually 7 feet tall, and I am not going to ask you to sleep on a futon when you are the guest here.”

Darcy nodded and plopped down on said futon. “Of course you won’t ask me to, because you are a gentleman. Which is why I am insisting. I will sleep on the futon, and you will sleep in your king-sized bed that will actually fit you comfortably.”

Steve slumped in obvious defeat. “I walked right into that, didn’t I?”

“Yup. Now that that’s settled, I’m starving. What’s good to eat around here?”

***

Darcy was a champion at flea markets and Steve could only follow along, dumbfounded and impressed, as she alternately charmed, browbeat, and outwitted the various vendors of the Brooklyn Flea.

When he had suggested that Darcy help him find furniture for his apartment while she was in town, he had been unprepared for the sheer delight on her face. Apparently Darcy loved going to flea markets, loved to seek out hidden gems and bargains, and saw nothing strange in helping her soulmate of 3 weeks to stock his apartment.

Steve had been even less prepared for the whirlwind that was Darcy Lewis on a mission.

Three hours after arriving at the Flea, Steve now had a dining table and four chairs, a floor lamp, and an honest to God architect’s drafting table (because Darcy was adamant that Steve needed a special space to sketch, other than his arm) scheduled for delivery to his apartment.

Truth be told, it was clear that they made a good team. Darcy was good at spotting prime candidates in even the most crowded stalls at a quick glance, and Steve could evaluate the craftsmanship of each piece. Darcy was the negotiator, and Steve backed her up with the more pushy guys (all those serum-enhanced muscles had to be good for something other than splitting punching bags) or charmed all the little old ladies into giving her the best price.

After one such incident, wherein Steve’s “aw shucks” routine had worked so well that the little old lady in question had thrown in the lamp for free with the dining chairs, Darcy punched him in the stomach as they walked away.

“Steve Rogers, you manipulative little shit.”

Steve laughed and adopted his best innocent expression. “Who, me?”

She laughed and wrapped an arm around his waist, stumbling slightly. “I don’t even want to know how much more effective that routine was when you were tiny and adorable.”

“Are you saying I’m not adorable now?” Steve asked as he put an arm around her shoulders.

“Oh no, you’re plenty adorable. But you’re like, a giant now, and you look like you can take care of yourself. So the urge to feed you cookies and knit you sweaters is slightly lessened.”

“Actually my metabolism is so accelerated now that I need more food than I did when I looked half-starved.”

Darcy groaned and pressed her face into his (admirably firm and defined) abs. “Don’t tell me things like that, because now I’m constantly going to be worried about you getting sufficient nutrients. You’ll tell me if you’re hungry, right?”

Steve just laughed and steered her over to a new aisle’s worth of stalls.

***

Steve had not been kidding about the amount of food he consumed.

Darcy watched in awe as he downed two double cheeseburgers, an order of fries and an order of onion rings, a strawberry milkshake, and piece of cherry pie at the diner down the street from his place.

“I shudder to think of what might happen to this city’s food supply if you and Thor were ever in the same place.”

***

They went to both the Met and the MOMA. Steve could wax poetic about brushwork and technique for most of the works in the Met, but it was up to Darcy to explain Minimalism and Pop Art and Concept art and the other movements that had arisen after Steve went into the ice.

“So Donald Judd didn’t actually make this?” Steve gestured at the brass rectangle sticking out of the wall.

“No, there was a sheet metal company near his studio that fabricated them to his specifications. They’re all hand-hammered, I think.”

“Then why does it say that it’s by Donald Judd?”

“Because he came up with the concept, and the concept is more important than the actual execution of the work. Or so they argue.”

Steve stared at the piece for another minute before heaving a loud sigh and shaking his head. “I’m not sure I can get behind this.”

Darcy laughed and slid her arm into his. “Let’s go try the Robert Rauschenberg and see if that’s any better, old man.”

She pulled him to a stop in front of Bed and waited expectantly. “Better?"

Steve cocked his head to the side and nodded slowly. “Better.”

***

Their first kiss was a shy, tentative thing in Central Park, with Steve holding a bag of books from the Strand that Darcy had insisted he read.

***

Their second kiss was a bit more prolonged, and much less tentative.

They had been to Magnolia Bakery and were consuming their respective treats while watching the end-of-season skaters at the Rockefeller Center ice rink. Despite Darcy’s numerous insistences that the banana pudding was out of this world, the best, undeniably spectacular, Steve had opted for a piece of carrot cake.

Darcy hummed happily around another mouthful of banana pudding. “I’m telling you, Steve, you’re missing out. Best banana pudding in the world and you can’t get it anywhere else.”

Steve looked at her out of the corner of his eye, with her bright, mischievous eyes and her nose pink with cold. “That good, huh?”

Darcy shoved her spoon back into the container and nodded. “For real, Steve, it is the best.”

He moved a step closer. “Well then maybe I should have a taste…”

Darcy gave a little squeak of surprise when he swooped in to press his lips to hers, but quickly melted against him so they could exchange a series of unhurried open-mouthed kisses. When Steve finally pulled back Darcy’s eyes were glazed and her lips were swollen.

“Mmm, you were right, sweetheart. Delicious.”

She gaped like a fish for a moment before she burst out laughing. “I can’t even decide if that was sexy or just ridiculous. You’re lucky you’re my soulmate.”

Steve put his arm around her shoulder, and said, “Yes. Yes, I am.”