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Steve’s parting words of “See you around, Darcy” seemed to be prophetic. Over the next two days it felt like every time she turned around there was Steve.
Most of their conversations were short lived. Steve was on his way out to go run. Darcy was on her way out to go thrifting for new jeans. He was leaving the community kitchen with a cup of coffee and a sketch pad to go catch the late afternoon light in the park. She was dashing past him in the hall to go down to Jane’s lab because Jane rang her, frantically convinced she’d left some important piece of equipment on.
If she was being honest with herself, Darcy would admit she was perhaps avoiding Steve just a little bit. She’d replayed their conversation over and over, eventually almost convincing herself that she’d badly over stepped the lines of tenuous friendship. Her more logical mind pointed out that if he hadn’t wanted someone to unburden himself to, he could have just kept his mouth shut. Or told her it was none of her business. She wasn’t sure which side of herself she should listen to. Never mind she kept remembering how her hand had felt in his. Or the solid comfort of his body when she’d hugged him. And why had she thought THAT was a bright idea? Really she had to get over her bad habits of doing or speaking without thinking.
Steve on the other hand had been trying to search her out. He felt a bit like he’d found a kindred spirit and wanted to know if he’d just been imagining it or if the seeds of friendship he’d seen in their conversation would germinate and bear fruit. He was disappointed that their paths kept crossing, but that they always seemed to be going in opposite directions. He thought about inviting her out somewhere, but wasn’t sure how she would interpret it. Would she turn him down because she thought he was asking her out on a date? Or would she be offended if he asked her to a movie, strictly as friends so she wouldn’t feel pressured? But if Steve was going to be entirely honest with himself, he wasn’t sure he wanted just her friendship. He realized he’d been taken with Darcy’s frankness and wit. And he kept wondering if her dark hair was as soft as it looked. More privately he remembered the softness of her body, pressed against him when she’d spontaneously hugged him.
So they danced around each other a bit.
On their third evening as the only residents of the tower Darcy came upstairs to the community kitchen to make dinner. She had a little kitchenette in her apartment downstairs but the siren song of a fully equipped kitchen was calling her. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but she coveted the food processor in the community kitchen.
As she stepped off the elevator she saw Steve sitting on the couch, dressed in his ubiquitous khakis and button down shirt, reading. He looked up and smiled. “Hey, Darcy. How’s it going?”
She crossed the room and perched on the arm of the couch furthest from him. “Oh, hey Steve. Not bad. Just came up to make dinner. Nothing fancy, probably just some pasta and salad. You want some?” The invitation to eat with her had slipped out unexpectedly. When she saw him sitting there she’d intended to find some way to gracefully excuse herself and go back down to her apartment and heat a pot pie in the microwave.
He beamed happily at her. “Sure! I was just starting to get hungry and I was trying to decide if I should make something or go get take out again.”
Her eyes widened with surprise, “You cook?!” was her incredulous question. “Oh god. Just buy a muzzle for me. I can’t believe I just said that. Remember what I said about my mouth not being connected to my brain? Yeah. It’s a problem. Probably terminal. Right then. I’m going to just die of embarrassment now. Please tell Jane she can have my iPod.” her voice trailed off as she buried her face in her hands. She could feel the flush spreading down her face.
She heard Steve chuckle and put the book down. “It’s alright. I’m not mortally offended. It’s not as though men cooking in the thirties and forties was all that common. But when you’re a single guy and dirt poor cooking for yourself is cheaper than anything else.”
She spoke, her voice faintly muffled by her hands. “You mock my pain.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I’m not. You’re hardly the first person to be shocked by me cooking. I’m pretty sure the time Natasha caught me making pancakes she spent five minutes just staring at me. It was pretty creepy.” he shook his head ruefully. “It took me another ten minutes to convince her they weren’t poisonous when I offered her a plate. I don’t think she’s had much experience with men who can cook.”
Darcy dropped her hands and looked up at Steve, the corners of her mouth quirking up. “The correct response to ‘You mock my pain.’ is ‘Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.’”
Steve leaned back against the couch, stretching his arms above his head. “Why do I have the feeling that’s a quote from a modern thing?”
She looked at him aghast. “You mean no one has made you watch ‘The Princess Bride’? This is a travesty! You’re missing out on a modern cinematic masterpiece! That’s it. We’re going to make dinner and I’m going to make you watch the movie. It’s great, you’ll love it.”
Steve looked skeptical. His experience with modern films had been hit or miss. Movies seemed to have become a lot more violent and explicit while he was frozen. He didn’t care for the excessively violent movies, his experiences in the war had been enough violence for three lifetimes and now as an Avenger he saw even more. He didn’t care for it in his entertainment. And the sex in movies, well Steve wasn’t nearly as innocent as Tony seemed to think he was. Spending most of a year touring with a bunch of USO girls had been... an enlightening experience to be sure. But sex still seemed like something that should be private and so much sexuality up on the big screen made him uncomfortable and entirely certain he was about to get caught by one of the nuns at the orphanage and whacked with a ruler.
Darcy caught the look on his face and smiled reassuringly. “Trust me? And if it isn’t to your taste we can watch something that is. I’m sure Jarvis can help us pick a better movie if you don’t like ‘The Princess Bride.’ Pinky swear.” and she leaned forward, pinky finger extended.
Steve hooked his pinky finger with hers and they shook fingers. “Huh, I guess somethings never change.” he remarked.
Darcy got up and walked to the kitchen, blithely expecting Steve to follow her. “Yeah? You had pinky promises when you were kids with Bucky?”
He levered himself up off the couch and trailed after her to the kitchen. “We did. It was usually how we promised to not rat eachother out if we’d gotten into some kinda scrape.” He leaned a hip against the counter and watched her rummage through the cupboards.
She opened the pantry looking for a can of tomato sauce and made a face seeing the can on a high shelf. “Can you be tall for me? I need that can of diced tomatoes and the can of tomato paste beside it. And if there’s a can of mushrooms up there would you grab it too? I swear Tony must make Thor put away the groceries, because that’s the only explanation I have for why everything I want is all the way up there.” she gestured to the shelf in question.
He fetched down the requested tins as she gathered pasta and pots to cook in.
“Jarvis?” she said.
“Yes, Miss Lewis?”
“Can you please keep track of the ingredients we’re using and add them to this weeks grocery list? Especially if we use the last of anything.”
“Of course Miss Lewis.”
“Thanks Jarvis. And will you please put on my jazz playlist over the speakers in here? Low volume please?”
“You’re more than welcome Miss Lewis.”
The quiet strains of an upbeat jazz melody began playing in the kitchen as she set out ingredients. “I think this is going to be a pretty simple sauce. Just sausage, onion, and mushroom. Is that okay? And is there anything you’re allergic to?”
Steve looked at her in surprise. “That’s a simple sauce?”
Darcy began chopping an onion and replied, “My heritage is about a quarter Italian. We specialize in sauces that take hours. I can have this done in twenty minutes. And you didn’t answer my question. Will I kill you if I feed you mushrooms?”
“No, you won’t. I don’t think I’m even capable of being allergic to a bee sting since the serum. People are allergic to mushrooms?”
Finding her eyes watering from the onion and her hair in her face Darcy rinsed her hands quickly and raked her hair back into a quick ponytail with the elastic in her pocket. “People are allergic to all kinds of things these days. There are a lot of theories about it actually. I’m not sure what I believe. I’m just glad I’m not allergic to any foods. That would just be tragic.”
She turned back to the cutting board to find Steve deftly dicing the rest of the onion. He smirked at her surprised expression. “I told you I can cook. Cooking means chopping.”
She raised her hands in mock surrender before turning to heat a pan to cook the onion and sausage.
They cooked in a companionable silence, Darcy taking control of the sauce while Steve took care of cooking the pasta.
Darcy raised an eyebrow at the volume of pasta Steve put in the boiling water. He shrugged as if in reply and explained, “I have to eat about three times what anyone else does to keep my metabolism going.”
She nodded, stirring the pot of sauce. “I’d wondered about that. I mean I’ve seen you and Thor eat pizza. I’ve never seen food disappear that fast. Not even at college.”
They lapsed back into relative quiet, listening to the music.
A few minutes later Steve poured the water off the pasta as Darcy shut off the heat under the sauce. “I’ll grab bowls and forks for us.” As she turned to get dishes she spoke again, “Hey Jarvis, can you please kill the music and cue up ‘The Princess Bride’ for us on the TV? We’ll eat in the living room. Also is there a bottle of red wine we could open that isn’t stupidly expensive and won’t get me fired for drinking it?”
The music cut and the TV sprang to life. “Miss Lewis, I believe that if you open the door to the wine cabinet under the bar you should find a reasonably drinkable merlot that is not generally considered excessively expensive.”
Darcy smiled happily and placed the bowls on the counter beside Steve. “Thanks Jarvis.
“Steve, serve us up plates and take them to the couch, I’ll bring the wine and glasses.”
Steve nodded at her and began dishing up food while she went to investigate the wine cabinet. She conferred again with Jarvis to determine exactly which bottle of merlot he’d intended her to open before joining Steve back at the couch.
She opened the wine and poured two glasses before scooping up the remote from the table. “Ready for the movie?” At Steve’s nod she pressed play and asked Jarvis to dim the lights to fifty percent.
An hour and a half later the bottle of wine was half empty and credits were beginning to roll. Jarvis politely brought the lights back up to full without being asked.
Darcy stood up and stretched, standing as tall as she could on tip-toe. She turned and looked at Steve, still sitting on the couch. “So, what did you think? You didn’t ask me to turn it off, but I’m hoping you didn’t sit through it just to be nice to me.”
Steve grinned and Darcy felt her heart turn over in her chest. “That was great! I really liked it. Thank you! I think I’m going to have to ask you first about movies before I watch them.”
“Darcy Lewis, movie screener for super heroes. I really think that’s a niche market I’m not going to be able to exploit much you know?” She took a deep breath, and Steve tried not to notice the interesting things it did to the shape of her sweater. “I wanted to thank you actually.”
“Huh, wha?” was his less than elegant reply.
She crossed her arms tightly over her belly. “For watching that with me. I haven’t watched it a long time. Having someone new to share it with made watching it again less painful.”
An expression of concern clouded Steve’s face. “That’s a fun movie. Why would it be painful?”
She sighed, clearly torn, before she sat back down on the sofa and tucked her knees to her chest. “Because it was my favorite movie to watch with my parents.”
“Was?” Steve’s voice gentle as he turned to face her. “What happened?”
“The February after I left for college there was an explosion and a fire. Our house burned to the ground. My parents didn’t make it out. The investigation found a flaw in the gas line that went to the oven.” she made helpless gesture with her hands as her words trailed off. “Everything I had was gone. I didn’t find out for a few days because they had trouble finding records for their next of kin since all the important papers burned up in the fire. I knew there was something wrong because I hadn’t heard from my mom in a few days and she used to call every other day or so just to check in.”
“My god. That’s horrible. I don’t know what to say. You don’t have any brothers or sisters?” he reached out and took one of her hands.
She let him cradle her hand in his as she shook her head, “No, no brothers or sisters. I was a late in life baby for my parents. Mom had always been told she wasn’t going to be able to even have children. She and my dad had been hippies in the seventies, they met and got married when they were twenty and twenty-two. They were about to celebrate their twentieth anniversary when she went to the doctor. She thought she had the flu, but thought it was weird because she didn’t have a fever. She said she fainted when the doctor told her she was eight weeks pregnant. Here they were a couple of middle aged hippie high school teachers getting ready to have their first baby at forty.” She smiled sadly at the memory. It was a story she’d heard often growing up from both her parents.
“‘The Princess Bride’ was our favorite movie. Mom said it was because it was a fairy tale and if there was one thing that she’d learned by having me, it was fairy tales could be true. Dad said it was because mom used to look like Buttercup, but with brown hair. And if mom was Buttercup it meant that he could be the Dread Pirate Roberts and rescue her from the ROUS’s. She said the day she needed rescuing would be a cold day in hell. Which is probably true since I don’t think my mom ever would have waited to be rescued.”
Steve squeezed her hand. “Your parents sound like really interesting folks.”
“They were... unique. And maybe a bit eccentric. But I don’t know if you can actually qualify as eccentric if you aren’t Tony Stark levels of rich. I do know they loved me. A lot. They weren’t perfect, but they always made sure I knew that they wanted me and that they loved me.”
“Is this what you meant the other night when you said you knew it wasn’t easy to lose your entire world?” he asked, slowly rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand.
She reclaimed her hand and took off her glasses, turning them over thoughtfully, “It is, but compared to what you lost; I just feel like I’m being a whining little whiner who whines because she was orphaned at eighteen. It’s not as though I didn’t have friends. Family was pretty limited though, I just have one grandmother who doesn’t really approve of me. She thinks I’m too ‘wild’ and not ‘disciplined’ enough. There was money enough for me to finish college, even with changing my major a half dozen times.”
He looked at her intently, his blue eyes bright, “You aren’t being a whining anything. Comparing what happened to me and what happened to you is apples and oranges. As awful as losing Bucky was, we were at war. No matter how careful we were, I had to accept that there would be a chance that me, or any of my men wouldn’t be coming home. You had no reason to ever think your home and your family would be gone when you came home.”
Darcy was about to reply when Jarvis interrupted. “Captain Rogers, Miss Lewis; I thought you would like to know that Mister Stark, Miss Potts, and Doctor Banner will be returning to the tower in approximately fifteen minutes. Agents Romanoff and Barton are also inbound and should arrive within the hour.”
Steve looked annoyed and ran his hand through his hair. “Well there goes the neighborhood.”
Darcy startled him with a little bark of laughter as she unfolded herself from the couch and gathered their dirty bowls. “Oh cheer up, Tony isn’t that bad most of the time. He’s only ever really a jerk when he thinks he can get a reaction of of you. That’s a general ‘you’ by the way, not you specifically.”
He grimaced, pulling the corners of his mouth down. “Oh I know, I just get sick of him and Clint sometimes when they’re on my case about something I’d have no way of knowing because I was on ice. Or they try to make me the butt of their jokes because of it. It’s been nice not having to worry about that.”
He joined her in the kitchen with their dirty glasses and the half full bottle of wine. They worked quickly side by side to put the kitchen to rights.
As he finished wiping the counter he spoke, “Darcy?”
He couldn’t see her face, but her voice held a touch of hesitation, “Yes?”
“Thank you for sharing that movie with me. And thank you for telling me about your parents. If there are any other movies you’d like someone to watch with you. I hope you’ll think of me?”
She turned to face him and he decided that her eyes weren’t strictly brown. Brown was too boring. They were rich chocolate color and when she’d taken off her glasses he’d seen lighter, almost golden flecks in her irises. She seemed more shaken than she had earlier talking about her parents, he couldn’t understand why. “I will. Thank you for listening. I... I don’t talk about my parents often. I try not to wallow. They’ve been gone almost six years and I still catch myself at the end of a bad day thinking ‘I’ll call mom. Mom will make me feel better.’ or something amazing happens and I want to tell my dad. And for just a second I forget that I can’t just call. And then it all comes crashing down again. This whole year has been one long series of events I can’t tell them about. It’s been hard. I think making friends with you is helping it be a little less hard. So the next time Tony or Clint starts giving you hell about something you don’t get because it’s stupid pop-culture, give me a call. You save the world all the damn time. Maybe I can save you from feeling lost.”
Darcy darted in for a quick hug, barely giving Steve a moment to settle his arms around her in return before she withdrew. “I think I need some quiet time to myself. And if there’s one thing Tony Stark isn’t, it’s quiet.”
“Sure, you have a good night.” Steve tried to quell his disappointment. She said she thought of him as a friend. He wasn’t a hundred percent up on modern dating practices, but he was pretty sure that was a polite brush off. “And Darcy, if you ever want to just tell someone about your folks, I’m happy to listen.”
Her smile was a little tired and wan around the edges. “Thanks Steve, I’ll keep that in mind.”
She slipped past him, walked to the elevator and was gone before he could think of anything more to say.
He went to the sofa and sat, letting his head loll back with a soft thump on the cushions. “Ninety years old and you still can’t ask a girl out to dinner Rogers. Smooth. Real smooth.”