Work Text:
After the invasion of New York they'd seen Thor on the news. Jane had gotten on the first flight back to United States and through a series of remarkably lucky events they’d managed to get to Stark Tower. Where Jane had proceeded to be an immovable object until Tony Stark himself came downstairs himself to find out why there was an astrophysicist and her assistant quite literally camped out in the lobby. As soon as he learned she was Thor’s Jane and she was researching a way to repair the bifrost he offered a job on the spot. Insisting that if she didn’t come work for him SHIELD would try to hire her. Six months of sleepless nights, endless coffee, and more Poptarts than Darcy could count they’d finally done it and repaired the Earth side of the bifrost. Thor had arrived moments later.
Several months after the repair of the bifrost Jane was still employed by Tony. He claimed it was because he refused to let one of the most brilliant minds in astrophysics work for SHIELD. Jane rather thought it was more to do with Tony’s desire to make sure his team was taken care of, and taking care of Thor meant taking care of Jane. Which by extension also meant taking care of Darcy. When confronted by this Tony denied everything.
Which is how Darcy found herself by herself in the recently renamed Stark, now Avengers, Tower.
Late winter in New York was cold with a side of frostbite. Darcy was tired of being cold, and with all of the Avengers and their significant others elsewhere for the next few days she decided it was time to make herself at home in the kitchen on the community floor and bake something warm. She told herself the fact that she felt lonely and just a bit abandoned had nothing to do with her desire for chocolate.
Putting the pan of brownies in the oven she turned to the dirty dishes with a sigh. Brownies from scratch were always better, but it also made more dirty dishes. She pulled her iPod out of her pocket scrolled down and decided her “Cheer up Dumbass” playlist was what she needed while she while she cleaned up. Turning the volume up she began cleaning. Which is why when Steve stepped off the elevator on to the community floor she didn’t hear him.
Darcy spun around in her dancing to “Papa Loves Mambo” to see Steve on the other side of the kitchen island blinking rather owlishly in bemusement.
Yelping in startlement she dropped the metal bowl in her hands. It clanged, bell-like to the floor. “Oh holy shit you SCARED me! Didn’t your mother teach you it’s rude to sneak up on people?” she scooped the bowl up off the floor and dropped it in the sink.
Steve blushed a bit, hunching his shoulders up. “I... Er.. I’m sorry. I didn’t realized you didn’t hear me come in.”
Darcy reached down and thumbed off her music. “I thought everyone was gone. Or you never would have caught me dancing like that.”
The blush on Steve’s face crept down his neck “You dance really well.”
“Thanks. But that’s less dancing and more artistic flailing. And still doesn’t answer the question of what on earth you’re doing here. I really thought everyone was away.” She held out a hand and started ticking off team members. “Jane and Thor went off on a ‘Meet the parents’ tour to Maine and then Asgard. I’m honestly not who I should feel more sorry for, Jane or Thor. Tony finally convinced Pepper that they deserved a week somewhere warm. I think it’s mostly an excuse for Tony to get Pepper in a bikini. Clint and Natasha said they had some top secret SHIELD mission. I’m not convinced that they aren’t on vacation too because it’s cold and nasty here. Bruce went walkabout with Tony and Pepper on the grounds that they could drop him off somewhere warm and unpopulated because he’s been feeling sort of hemmed in by being in the city. And last I heard you’d gone touring on your motorcycle.” she finished.
Steve nodded and came around the island before hopping up on the counter “Yeah about that, I’ve realized over the past week; that after being stuck in ice for several decades I’ve developed an aversion to being cold for very long.”
Darcy shuddered as she rinsed the bowl out. “I totally didn’t think of that.”
Steve shrugged and changed the topic “What are you baking?”
“Brownies.” her voice hitched a little “I... I used to make them with my mom when the weather got cold because nothing in the world was as good as one of her brownies, still warm, with a glass of milk. They’re in the oven now.” she turned to open the dishwasher.
He breathed in deeply and smiled a little sadly “Smells good. I’m still not used to how easy it is to get butter and sugar. Or chocolate for that matter. It’s weird the things you miss for no good reason you know?”
Darcy turned and looked up at him. “Would you get down from there? You’re already too tall for me to talk to without getting a crick in my neck. Go sit in a chair like a normal human and if you keep me company for a bit you’ll get a brownie out of it.”
Steve slid down amiably and fetched a chair from the table to sit in. In return Darcy jumped up on the counter and grinned. “See that’s better. Now we’re almost the same height.”
“You aren’t THAT short you know. You’re probably taller than I was before the serum.” he said as he settled himself in the chair.
Darcy tilted her head to the right and began braiding the ends of her hair. “So, what else do you miss for ‘No good reason’? I mean I wouldn’t have expected sugar and butter rationing to be something worth missing.”
An expression she couldn’t really read crossed Steve’s face “I don’t miss the rationing that was always a hassle. It’s more that I think I miss how it made certain things special. I’m not sure if that makes sense.”
She pushed her glasses up her nose as she thought about it. “Yeah, I think it does. When there are things you don’t get to have very often it makes those times you DO get it special. What else do you miss? And if I’m being rude just tell me to shove off. I know I can be pushy when I’m curious. But the reason I’m always asking people things is because I’m fascinated by how other people experience the world. I’m really not trying to be an asshole.”
Steve grimace a bit at her language. “I’ll tell you if you’re being rude, but you’re not. Honestly I think you’re the only person who’s asked me about the 40’s who doesn’t treat me like I’m going to suddenly start throwing things or have a mental breakdown.”
“Ugh. I’d think people treating me like that would make me MORE likely to start throwing things, not less.”
He pulled a face and crossed his arms over his chest before tilting his head back and addressing his next statement toward the ceiling. “You’d think so. But so far nobody else seems to have cottoned on.”
Darcy was a little surprised that Steve had noticed her efforts to treat him just like another person on the team. She was also surprised at how easily the conversation seemed to flow. She’d met all of Thor’s teammates but she spent most of the time down in the labs with Jane being Jane’s assistant, keeping Jane fed, watered, and organized. Jane who would occasionally tolerate Tony and adored science geek out sessions with Bruce. Darcy hadn’t had many opportunities to get to know the others. It seemed like life in Avengers Tower was mostly periods of great boredom followed by periods of frantic explosions and saving the world. Darcy wasn’t entirely sure where she fit in aside from Jane’s assistant and Thor’s sometimes guide to Midgardian customs.
Tony, oddly seemed to respect Darcy. Or maybe he just respected her taser. Bruce appreciated her tendency to always turn up with tea. Pepper thought her ability to wrangle all three geniuses in to regular meals, bathing, and sleep was nothing short of miraculous; and SHE used to work for Tony. Clint was friendly and a bit of a smart ass, but their paths didn’t cross more than once or twice a week usually. Natasha was quiet and joyfully snarky when the occasion called for it, but much like Clint didn’t seem to be around that often. Steve was around more than Natasha or Clint and of all of the Avengers seemed the most like a normal human being. If anyone in a group of super heroes could be considered ‘normal’.
“Well then, they’re stupid.” she said decisively.
She was rewarded with a “Hah! Don’t let Tony hear you say that.”
Tossing her hair back over her shoulder she retorted “Well ‘Mr. I Can Afford to Feed the God of Thunder and Captain America’ isn’t here right now. And Jarvis won’t rat me out. Will you Jarvis?”
“No Miss Lewis. Your secret is safe with me.” came the dry British voice.
“Thanks J-man.” she was about to say something else to Steve when the timer on the counter began beeping. She hopped down, grabbed a butter knife, and a pot holder before she opened the oven. Poking the brownies experimentally she critically eyed the knife as she pulled it out. “They need another ten minutes. I wasn’t sure how exact this oven was.” She slid the pan and rack back in the oven and shut the door. Setting the timer for another ten minutes she turned back to Steve, who appeared to be continuing his contemplation of the ceiling. “Penny for your thoughts there?”
He brought his gaze down and looked at Darcy thoughtfully. “I’m not sure they’re worth that much.” She smiled at him encouragingly. “I was thinking about your question. The things I miss for no good reason. I miss the old serial radio shows. I used to love listening to them with Bucky when we were kids.”
“What was your favorite one?”
“The Shadow. Hands down that was our favorite. I used to draw scenes from the show when we listened to it. Lights Out was another we’d listen to.”
Darcy was toying with her hair again. “I don’t know that one. I know about The Shadow though. The public radio station where I grew up used to play old episodes Thursday nights. My dad and I listened to them. Hang on a sec, did you get to hear the Orson Wells ‘War of the Worlds’ broadcast? That would have been in ‘38.”
Steve’s face lit up “Oh man! Yeah! I remember that. I spent all night drawing aliens. And Bucky’s little sisters kept crying. They thought it was real!”
“Poor kids” Darcy said sympathetically. “What else do you miss?”
Steve’s face fell suddenly and his shoulders slouched “I miss my friends.”
Darcy suddenly felt awkward and incredibly rude. But at the same time wondered if any of Steve’s teammates had ever asked him about the people he knew before his time in the ice or if everyone just assumed if he wanted them to know, he’d tell them. Taking a gamble she asked “Will you tell me about them?”
His expression was every bit as startled as hers had been when he’d surprised her earlier. “I don’t think anyone has ever asked me to do that.”
Suddenly afraid she’d horribly misstepped she blurted “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Steve shook his head, which made her heart sink, before he spoke and then her heart soared “It’s okay. I just realized that I haven’t been saying anything about the people I knew before because I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me. And because I didn’t think anyone would really care that much. I mean, lets face it; my friends and the Howling Commandos are pretty much ancient history to everyone else here.”
The timer began beeping again and it took all of Darcy’s self control to not throw it to the ground and stomp it to death. She snatched up the pot holder, opened the oven, and deftly grabbed the pan of brownies and put them on the stovetop to cool. She looked at the pan for a moment before turning back to face Steve, her eyebrows pulled together. “Just because it’s history to us doesn’t mean it’s history to you. You went under the ice what only a week after you lost your best friend?”
“About that, yeah.”
“And you’ve been defrosted about a year now?”
Steve quirked an eyebrow at her in amusement and nodded.
“So for you it’s not history. As far as your feelings are concerned you lost your entire world in the past 14 months! Trust me when I say that shit ain’t easy.” Steve looked surprised at the vehemence in Darcy’s voice. She took a deep breath. “Please, I’d like to hear about your friends. If you’d like to tell me that is.”
Steve stood and walked over to the bar that Tony kept stocked with absurdly expensive liquor and poured himself a finger of scotch, neat, and took a slow sip “It doesn’t get me drunk, but the taste still reminds me of a bar in England. I always meant to go back and buy a round for the bar if we ever ended the war.”
“Pour me one too?” she said as she crossed the room to him. “It’s not exactly standard to drink scotch with brownies, but the nice thing about being an adult is you can make your own rules.”
He poured her drink and handed it to her, their fingers brushing for a moment. “That’s true enough.”
By a mutually unspoken agreement they sat on the sofa. Darcy tucked her hands deep in the sleeves of her sweater and cradled her glass. She looked at Steve expectantly, waiting for him to begin.
“I guess you know Bucky was my best friend. He was everything I wish I could be before the serum. Handsome, funny, strong, tall, and good with girls. When we were kids he took care of me. Saved me from more than a few beatings from bigger kids. He stole for me once.” Steve’s voice was soft as he recalled the memory. “I used to get sick a lot. Every little cold ended up in my chest and I’d cough and cough. Once it got bad. Really bad. And there wasn’t money enough for the medicine. So he stole a tin of coffee beans from the store, and some other things I think, and sold them to get the money. It was the sickest I’d ever been and I’m still pretty convinced he saved my life. Of course I felt guilty about it for ages because he’d stolen something.” he took another slow sip of scotch. “I envied him so much when we got older. But he was still my best friend.”
Darcy’s voice broke his reverie “Of course he was. You loved him.” Seeing Steve’s shocked expression she clarified “Not like in love, love. But the love you have for a close friend or brother. Though if it was in love, love, that’s fine too.” she took a quick gulp of her drink and spent a moment trying not to cough.
“I... Yeah, I loved him like a brother. I don’t think I’ve ever just said it like that, you know? Anyway, I could tell you all kinds of stories about me and Bucky as kids. The scrapes we’d get in to. The scrapes he’d get me out of. Honestly I didn’t even have many friends until after the serum.” Steve abruptly switched topics. “Tony’s a lot like Howard. Howard was too smart for his own good. Always mouthing off with everyone around him half afraid to call him on his malarky because he was so smart and rich. I didn’t like Howard at first either. I thought he was arrogant. It took me awhile to realize half the arrogance was an act the other half of it was purely the fact he didn’t think like anyone else around him.”
Darcy cocked her head to the left and rolled her tumbler between. her hands. “Why do you think the arrogance was an act?”
“Howard was used to people not wanting him for who he was, but for what he could do for them or how they could take advantage of him. So he made himself seem like an ass to keep as many people at arms length as he could. It worked a peach too. Most people never even bothered to look past the exterior.” Steve shrugged. “As much as Tony doesn’t want to be anything like his father, he’s more like his old man than he realizes.”
Darcy stood up and placed her glass on the coffee table. “Yeah I can see that. Keep talking to me. I think the brownies are probably cool enough we can have them.” She padded back across the room.
Steve leaned back into the cushions of the sofa and continued his story. “And then there were my men.”
“The Howling Commandos?”
“Yeah, though I guess it’s weird to call them my friends. Technically they were under my command. But we were such an oddball team they felt more like friends than men I had to boss around or yell at to get things done. We worked well together. We trusted each other.”
Darcy had her back to Steve as she reached up to get plates, her shirt and sweater rising up in interesting ways, displaying a thin line of pale skin above her jeans. “Isn’t that what being a team means?”
Steve tried to grab his wayward thoughts. He knew next to nothing about Darcy except that she worked for Doctor Foster and Thor seemed to respect the small, myopic, brunette. Something to do with her keeping lightning in a box and using to to subdue Thor when he first came to Earth. The only thing he could say with any certainty about Darcy was that she didn’t allow anyone to push her around.
He sipped his whiskey and cleared his throat, trying to cover his momentary silence. “That’s part of being a team sure. But there was something else. I can’t put my finger on it.” He watched Darcy as she carefully cut out portions for each of them, put a fork on each plate, and returned to the sofa.
She handed him his plate with the warning, “Careful, it’s still pretty hot.” She took up her fork and carved off a little corner of the brownie and took a bite. “Is there anyone else you really miss?”
Steve occupied himself for a minute by putting his glass down and taking an exaggeratedly careful forkful of the hot dessert. Finally he said, “Peggy. I miss Peggy Carter.”
Darcy paused, her fork halfway to her mouth, “Your girl?”
Steve shook his head “No? Yes?” plaintively he said “Maybe? I really don’t know. She was with the Brits. She was gorgeous. Smart. Tough as nails and a damn good shot. I didn’t really believe at first that she could be interested in me. And by the time she’d convinced me to take her dancing I was in a plane, over the ocean, trying to save a city. And well, we know how THAT ended.” he sounded surprisingly bitter, even to himself.
Darcy set her plate on the table and reached for her scotch, sipping it, before she asked “Did you love her?”
Steve raked his free hand through his hair, making it stick up in several directions at once. “No. I don’t think I knew her well enough to love her. We’d hardly had three private conversations the entire time I knew her and the one time she kissed me was in front of my commanding officer. But I do think that if we’d both survived the war, I would have liked to have found out if I could have. I think if we’d had a little time more I would have.”
Darcy nodded “It’s almost worse that way isn’t it? Because you have no way of knowing. If you’d dated and it hadn’t worked you’d have known that you liked her fine but weren’t for each other and if it had worked out you’d have won the war, gotten married, and had babies that grew up looking like greek gods.” she slapped her hand over her mouth. “I am SO sorry. I say things sometimes and I swear it’s like my mouth has run away without my brain. It’s embarrassing.”
Steve looked at Darcy, the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. “It’s okay.. You don’t have to apologize. It’s actually nice to hear someone else say that. Hell, I’ve thought it often enough.” he finished off his brownie and picked his glass back up. “Thank you.”
Darcy’s mouth was full so she settled for a muffled sound of inquiry.
“For listening. I don’t think I’ve really talked about my friends from before. I wasn’t letting myself miss them because I didn’t think I should.”
Darcy finished her mouthful, “Steve my man, that is some macho bullshit. Miss your friends. You should. They were your friends. The only thing is that you shouldn’t let missing your friends over-shadow your new team or new friendships. Keep it balanced.”
He finished off his drink. “You give remarkably good advice, you know that?”
Her mouth twisted up in a wry smile. “Let’s just say that I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of good advice over the years and it’s given me a unique perspective. Also I think my business card says ‘Professional Scientist Wrangler and Cat Herder’. Or it would if I could convince Tony I needed business cards.”
Steve laughed and Darcy decided if there was anything she could do to make him laugh more she would. He had a wonderful laugh. He stood up and stretched. “I just tossed my bag on the floor in my room. I should go unpack.” He reached down and offered her a hand up, he marveled for a moment how small her hand was in his as he pulled her to her feet. “Thank you Darcy.”
Unexpectedly shy Darcy looked down “Thank you for trusting me.”
“You’re a very easy person to talk to. It wasn’t hard.” Steve collected their plates and glasses and carried them to the kitchen placing them in the sink.
“I’m going to wrap up the rest of the brownies and put them in the fridge. Feel free to help yourself if you’re going to be around.” she said with a smile.
“You’ll regret that. I’ll eat them all.”
Rolling her eyes she chuckled “Then I’ll make more. Hardly the end of the world Rogers”
“Steve, please call me Steve.” he corrected.
Awkwardly he turned to go, Darcy reached out and grabbed his hand and before he could respond she’d wrapped her arms around his waist and was hugging him. “Steve. Just think about what I said yeah?” He hugged her back carefully before she released him. He felt surprisingly bereft, but smiled down at her.
“I will. I promise. See you around Darcy.” and he walked to the elevator and headed down to his rooms.
Darcy stood in the kitchen and watched him go. She sat down in the chair he’d so recently occupied, looked up at the ceiling and contemplated the light fixture before sighing, “Oh Lewis, you are so fucked.”