Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Team bonding.” In Avengers Tower, few words are more dreaded.

Not that they don’t need it. Put half a dozen high-performing type-A personalities on one team, and even 112 floors of Stark Tower aren’t enough to contain them. And since their relationship with SHIELD fell apart, things have only gotten more tense. There’s been a fair amount of violence and property damage.

Hence, team bonding.

Bucky isn’t sure of the whole story behind Steve’s new team. Some days, he isn’t sure of the whole story behind him. Things are hazy. Memories claw up out of the fog, startling and crushing him in flashes of blood and pain. The greatest comfort is that if he goes crazy—rogue—he’s surrounded by people who can and will put him down.

It’s been almost six months since D.C. Since the helicarriers and the Potomac. Steve (mission/enemy/operative/friend?) barely took time to get his wounds patched before tracking Bucky out of D.C. and across most of Virginia. The crazed pursuit had activated the Winter Soldier programming again, and they’d spent hours beating the shit out of each other in a Fredericksburg junkyard before the relentless onslaught of memories brought the Soldier to his knees. They’d been hugging each other, crying like idiots, when Iron Man and the Quinjet arrived.

Tony Stark didn’t want Bucky in the tower. Fair. Bucky (James/Sergeant/Asset/Zimniy Soldat) is a liability. But Stark is a Stark: he can’t resist a problem. From the way Clint Barton tells it, Steve slapped a copy of Bucky’s file on Stark’s workbench and said “What’s the matter, you aren’t up to the challenge?”

Now Bucky exists in an awkward state of semi-acceptance. He has good days and bad days. He’s got free run of the higher floors in the Tower, and he spends his time resting, training, and piecing himself back together.

Since he arrived, there’s been half a dozen team bonding sessions. They don’t usually go well.

Combat training is one thing. Steve is the on-the-ground commander for the Avengers, and he gets them all together to do regular runs through obstacle courses and switch up pairings for three-on-three brawls. The arrival of Sam Wilson adds a wildcard, too, which pleases Steve. Another flier shakes up their battle dynamics.

But “team bonding” is any time they try to make all of the separate personalities mesh on the level of human beings rather than highly skilled engines of destruction. It’s a work in progress.

Paintball is a bust: Clint and Natasha keep sweeping everyone, and Stark bitches about not getting to use his targeting software. Thor suggests a hunting expedition, but there’s no animal on Earth that can pose a challenge for the resident demigod, and the magic space bridge isn’t in good enough condition yet for day trips to Asgard. Volunteering is a mixed bag—the Avengers are helpful on disaster cleanup, but it’s not exactly bonding when they end up scattered over a wide site and focusing on different tasks. Not to mention that any activity which would stress out Dr. Banner is a no-go.

Stark’s dame tries to help out. She’s a hell of a lady—a tall, slim redhead by the name of Pepper Potts. She smiles and speaks kindly to them, but Bucky recognizes a grade-A ballbuster when he sees one and maintains a respectful distance. Ms. Potts arranges team dinners and makes a point of including other people, like Bucky, as well as a number of the assistants and support personnel. That helps.

Still, there’s something that’s missing. There’s a wavelength they ain’t all on. Bucky isn’t one of them, but even his fractured focus can pick it up.

There was a shared wavelength with the Howlies. He always knew what Dernier and Dugan and Morita were gonna do. He knew that if Jones went missing in a French or Italian city, you checked what was left of the tea rooms and lounges—anywhere the classy girls were gonna be, if the area was clear enough to have the luxury of classiness. He knew that Falsworth always pulled a little to the right when he was throwing a grenade and that Steve had a blind spot on his back left side which made him a nightmare for a sniper trying to keep him alive.

Didn’t have to be an official Howlie to be on the wavelength, neither. He also knew that if you needed extra ammo, you just asked Agent Carter, ‘cause she kept squirreling away odds and ends. More’n once he’d been overwatching on a hill or rooftop when Carter would settle down next to him, spot for him for ten minutes, and then produce a couple clips of 30.06 from a hidden pocket somewhere. And he’d known without asking that she was looking after “her boys,” her way.

(She’d always been a sharp customer. Two days after the Azzano rescue, she’d found him in the mess tent—he was eating everything in sight, but hell, all the survivors were—and looked down at him with those cool eyes, saying “You’re recovering surprisingly quickly, sergeant. I have no doubt it will continue.” Then she’d been on her merry way. Looking back on it, Bucky bets she knew.)

But the Avengers haven’t found that wavelength. Not yet. Not off the battlefield, anyway. They click together well enough under pressure, but there’s still an element of familiarity they’re missing. The various attempts at team bonding aren’t really cutting it.

Clint is the one that comes up with the new angle.

* * *

“Hey, Barnes!”

Bucky automatically catches the heavy object thrown at his head without looking up from his copy of The Three Musketeers. The Winter Soldier twitches in the back of his mind, and the plates of his arm whir as they prepare to reconfigure, but he’s already got his hands on the object and it’s registering as Not a Threat.

It’s another book. Big, flat, hardcover. On the front, a woman dressed in furs is posed to attack, her hands glowing blue. Most of the cover is dominated by a monstrous giant in a skull helmet, looming over the woman. The glossy lettering at the top reads D&D PLAYER’S HANDBOOK.

Clint has a stack of identical books. He throws another one at Thor, who doesn’t even flinch when the book bounces off his chest.

“I do not think this weapon is as potent as your others,” Thor says, bemused. “Your aim, however, is still praiseworthy.”

“Damn straight,” Clint says with a grin. “Listen, I’m starting a D&D campaign. I talked Rogers and Stark into it, so we’re making it a team bonding thing.”

Thor’s brow furrows. “I do not know what Dee Endee is, but our team bonding has not gone well in the past. Are you certain of this, friend Barton?”

“Worth a shot. And I’m bored as shit and want to kill Stark, so this might give me a chance.” Clint resettles the pile of books. “Hey, Barnes, you in?”

Bucky reluctantly puts down The Three Musketeers. “Got no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s a game. Dungeons and Dragons. We make up characters and have a pretend adventure. Fight monsters, collect treasure, rescue damsels in distress.”

“Sounds like kid stuff.”

“Well, half of us are mentally twelve.” Clint shrugs. “You don’t have to play, but Cap will whine if you don’t.”

Bucky turns the handbook over. Its back cover copy promises ancient ruins, deadly dungeons, legendary treasures, and uncharted lands. Kinda reminds him of the paperbacks he collected in high school. All it’s missing is a slinky dame and a gangster.

(He really misses dime novels. They were fun. He had a great collection before the war—stuff that’s now going for $150 a copy on eBay. Jesus.)

“I’m not on your team,” he reminds Clint.

“But Cap will still whine.”

Bucky frowns, and Clint sighs.

“Look, you don’t have to do anything. But it’s a chance for some good, clean, stupid fun. No pressure. Take a look at the book and think about it, OK? We’re having our first session tomorrow evening. In the lounge on eighty.”

He slopes off with his pile of books. Thor gives his own Player’s Handbook a bemused glance before settling down and returning his attention to the nature special on TV. Thor’s the kind of guy who takes things as they come.

Bucky flicks through the glossy pages. Wizards, demons, giant spiders, halflings (which just look like hobbits to him—did Professor Tolkien invent this?), goblins, magic robots, bird people, and a dizzying array of lists and statistics. It reminds him of the range books he and other snipers would keep, with notes for taking shots in every possible condition and weather. And it calls for more dice than Las Vegas.

In the annals of Avengers team bonding, though, it’s probably still a better idea than Banner’s proposed meditation retreat.

* * *

Dealing with the Avengers is one thing. He isn’t sure about them. Dealing with the staff? Very different.

Bucky has been a prisoner, a science experiment, an assassin, and a fugitive. But before all that, he was a sergeant. And any NCO knows the importance of getting along with your support personnel. They’re the ones who keep you alive and get you home.

The support staff in the Tower isn’t the same as in the army. More spread out, for one thing, and the food is a lot better. But the principle remains the same. They’re not on the front lines, but they’re the ones that’ll keep your operation going. Get on their good side.

Easier said than done when you’re the guy who killed JFK. Four of the cafeteria workers on the 28^th floor are from Boston, and they’ve formed a tiny Irish Catholic mafia in the bakery department. He’s pretty sure they’re planning to have him rubbed out.

The lab staff, on the other hand, don’t seem to care too much about JFK. Most of them are pallid—irrespective of actual skin tone—and oddly tunnel-visioned, with focus on their specific area of study and to hell with everything else. There’s the chem lab, the gear lab, the astro lab, the bio lab, the cybernetics lab, and medical. Half of each lab works on Stark-affiliated R&D, as well as their own various pet projects and grant research; the other half is dedicated to Avengers and SHIELD remnant support. When a crazy spaceman tries to blow up a town, they’re the ones analyzing the scorch marks left over.

Some of them give his arm covetous looks and try to strike up conversations about the super-soldier serum, but most are too focused on their own specialties to care about one more meathead with a gun. Only the bio and chem labs have any real interest in him, and there’d been a couple of pretty rough moments where Bucky saw someone in a lab coat coming at him with rubber gloves on and had an episode. He doesn’t like the bio and chem guys.

Fortunately, NDAs mostly keep them in line, and the few rogue elements have gotten the memo that he’s not gonna cooperate. Now they play the “That’s fine, I didn’t want to look at your lousy bloodwork ANYWAY” game.

But the astro lab? The astro lab actually seems to like him.

There’s only three of them in there right now. The astro lab is a pretty new addition—a small crew that Stark recently seduced with the power of a guaranteed budget and health insurance. They have some connection to Thor that no one has ever explained to him.

Most importantly, though, they aren’t a threat.

He can’t explain it. He definitely needs more data. But Bucky and the Winter Soldier are both convinced that the two frazzled-looking scientists and their sarcastic assistant just aren’t dangerous.

It’s an odd feeling. A good one, though.

The astro lab is a series of wide open-plan office space up on the 108^th floor. One big bank of monitors flickers endlessly, recording data from the bristling array of telescopes and sensors installed on the roof. Several floor-to-ceiling bookcases are crammed with reference texts, bundled printouts, academic journals, star maps, and the occasional misplaced box of snacks. Rolling whiteboards are covered with sprawling equations. In the middle of the chaos there’s a small cluster of desks for the scientists, Selvig and Foster, and the assistant, Lewis.

The constant background hum of machinery sets his teeth on edge, reminding him of the chair, but the astro lab isn’t anything like HYDRA’s facilities. It smells like paper and take-out pizza. Post-It notes in a variety of bright colors and random shapes line the whiteboards and pock the monitor bank. There’s a cactus with “A Souvenir from New Mexico” painted on its pot, and a bobbleheaded alien labeled “Roswell” for some reason. Instead of white coats, Foster and Selvig wear jeans and flannels—although Selvig has been going through a kilt phase for some reason no one can adequately explain.

Most of the time, the scientists don’t even notice he’s there.

Foster and Selvig live in a world of equations. They talk about galaxies, quasars, and clustered gravitational effects. There’s some mechanical engineering involved, a bit of chemistry, a whole heap of mathematics, and no biology. Just numbers and distant cosmic forces.

Here, he can sit in the corner and no one will bother him about his arm or his past or tell him to leave. Here, he is not the kind of science experiment that they care about.

Darcy Lewis notices him, though. She’s their lab manager. A smart cookie. She wears bright lipstick and canvas sneakers, and her hands have tell-tale callus marks on the heel of the palm and the fingertips from helping maintain Foster’s equipment. The bright blue eyes behind her thick-framed glasses are knowing.

The first time he visited, she cornered him right away.

* * *

“Let me guess,” she said. “Another complaint?”

Bucky blinked.

“I already told Gear Lab that if they want the spectrophotometer back, they can apologize.” She stuck a ballpoint pen behind her ear and gave him a flat, unimpressed look. “It’s their fault for blowing those fuses in the first place. Sending security goons after us won’t do anything, no matter how hot they are.”

Bucky was confused. Some of it must have shown on his face, because the girl straightened up.

“Oh. You’re not security, are you?”

He shook his head.

“Sorry. Gear Lab is a giant pile of dicks and they keep finding ways to mess with Jane and Erik.” The girl rolled her eyes and held out her hand. “Darcy Lewis. Friend or foe?”

Bucky didn’t take her hand. “Do you mean you or me?”

“Either. I’m friendly … Unless, again, the aforementioned Jane-and-Erik messing with. Which you shouldn’t do. How about you?”

“ … Friend.”

“OK, cool. Are you gonna leave me hanging?”

Slowly, Bucky shook the girl’s hand.

“A+ for basic social interaction, dude.” The girl grinned. She had an impish smile and a little gap between her front teeth. She could probably whistle really well if she wanted to. “Any particular reason you’re lurking around?”

“Not really. I think I got lost.”

“New to the Tower?”

He nodded.

“Join the club. We’re all lost. You know, most guys just get a convertible or a bass boat when they hit the midlife crisis, but Stark had to really go over the top. Pull up a chair, weary traveler, and catch your breath before you start on the trek back down the mountain.” She toed a rolling office chair towards him.

Then she just … turned away. Put her back to him like she had no fear.

“Hey, Janey!” she hollered. “Lunchtime! Whatcha want?”

“Mexican!” came an answering call from somewhere within the maze of machinery.

“Not a chance!” Darcy said. “We’ve officially tried every Mexican place within a ten-block radius and they’re all artisan suckage!”

“No they’re not!”

Darcy shot Bucky a glance and rolled her eyes again. “They totally are. Fucking hipsters,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Tony managed to build his tower in the only stretch of New York without any actual authentic Mexican restaurants. Bastard. Hey! Janey! How about Thai?”

“We had Thai yesterday!”

The lunch negotiation went on for another five minutes. Both women completely ignored the killer in their midst. Eventually, Bucky stole a book about the history of astronomy from their packed shelves and slipped out.

* * *

It was the start of a strange but comfortable relationship with the astro lab.

Jane Foster, on the rare occasions when she notices his presence, is a petite brunette with the slightly distant eyes of a visionary and a habit of forgetting where she dropped whatever she was working on five seconds ago. Erik Selvig is a balding Swede who guesses Bucky’s identity right from the start and makes occasional pointed-yet-sympathetic comments about how difficult it is to recover from brainwashing. Both accept his presence, simply because he’s good at moving heavy objects and doesn’t make a lot of noise.

Darcy Lewis is unfazed when she learns Bucky’s name. “I have an illegal Stark-type taser and you have a metal arm. Not exactly scared here.” She claims she likes having him around purely because his glaring wards off Gear Lab. Also, Tony Stark’s “random” unannounced drop-ins (and attempts to prod Foster’s homemade machinery) are a lot less likely when Bucky is in the labs. Stark still hates him. Fair.

When Bucky leaves the common room that afternoon carrying his new Player’s Handbook, he thinks about going down to the astro lab. But as much as he’s comfortable there, he still doesn’t talk to them much, and he’s not sure what they’ll think if he asks for their input on a child’s game about wizards.

(Lewis wouldn’t laugh at him. Probably. But the thought of her mocking him still causes an unhappy ache in his chest.)

* * *

He shares an apartment with Steve these days. It’s nothing like their old apartment back in Brooklyn: for one thing, it’s more like a house all on one story. Multiple bedroom suites, multiple bathrooms, a fancy kitchen, the works.

Working together, him and Steve have ripped out most of the intrusive high tech (who needs a computer in the damn bathroom?) and gotten the place good and comfortable. There’s Steve’s sketches framed on the walls, lots of sunlight, big clean beds no one has to share, no bedbugs or roaches, and plenty of spare blankets for the nights when the cryo or the Arctic seem to be biting again. They can make coffee or cocoa any time they want, day or night. No rationing, no budgets. Red meat every day and 24/7 hot water.

It’s sure as shit better’n any place Bucky ever thought he’d end up.

When he gets home, Steve is already in the living room, studying his own Player’s Handbook. There’s a frown on his face.

“What do you think, Buck?” he says, looking up.

“I think the Dodgers got lousy the minute they moved to LA.”

“Well, yeah,” Steve says, in the same tone you’d use to note that the sky is blue. “But what about this game thing? Clint seems pretty keen on it.”

Bucky flops down on the other end of the couch. “I think your team is still a mess, Stevie. Lotta other stuff didn’t work, so why’n’t try a game?”

“Clint wants us to make characters that aren’t like ourselves. Make us think outside the box.” Steve shrugs. There’s still a hint of a frown, but it’s less annoyed and more contemplative. “I’ve heard worse ideas.”

“So why’re you asking me?”

“’Cause you’re smart, Buck. Believe it or not, I trust your judgment.” Steve gives him a wry grin. “I know, I’m scared too.”

“Punk.” Bucky snorts and sinks deeper into the couch, letting the Player’s Handbook flop open on his lap.

“Jerk,” Steve says fondly. “C’mon, help me figure this out. I’m not going into this knowing less than Tony.”

* * *

The next day, the team gathers in the lounge after dinner. Thor has declined to play—he’s sprawled on one of the couches with a half-asleep Dr. Foster, who’s mumbling something about cosmic rays and braiding his hair, and that explains the astro lab’s mysterious Thor connection—but the other Avengers are there, plus Sam and Bucky. Clint is already set up at the end of the long table with piles of papers, a bag of funny-shaped dice, and a cardboard screen covered in dragons.

“All right,” he tells them when they’re all seated. “This is Session Zero. We’ll talk through the scenario, look at your characters, and figure out where we want to start. Tony’s given us—”

“Loaned—“

“All right, fine, Tony loaned us the use of JARVIS’s built-in graphics and rendering functions, so you can use your StarkPads to create character images. Once you’ve got those, send them to the shared server for the lounge and we’ll display them on the battle grid.”

A holographic map springs to life above the table. A single token glows at one end of it: a purple-cowled figure labeled “DM.”

“This is the nerdiest thing that has ever happened in my presence,” Stark says despondently. “I went to MIT at fourteen. I build robots for fun. But this? This is too nerdy. It’s sadly nerdy. I can feel my hygiene getting worse.”

“To be fair, we’ve already fought a wizard,” Banner points out. “This is practically tactical planning.”

Stark cocks an eyebrow. “Et tu, Brucie? College must’ve been a wild time for you. Let me guess. Late 80s anime, first-edition Magic cards, maybe a Goth girlfriend from the local VtM chapter?”

“I didn’t understand anything about that sentence.” Banner removes his glasses and cleans the lenses on the hem of his t-shirt, looking vaguely baffled.

“But Tony did,” Natasha adds with a sly smile. “How much time were you spending in the World of Darkness, Stark?”

Bucky doesn’t understand anything about that either, so he lets the arguing go on without him for a while. He’s got the StarkPad graphics program up and is already working on his character portrait. Pretty nifty program, too: it starts with blank figures and you can choose their features and all kinds of clothes and weapons to add to ‘em. A futuristic version of Becca’s paper dolls.

He keeps an ear on the rest while he works, which isn’t hard. Several of the team have made characters that are suspiciously like themselves, and the arguments are getting loud. Clint tries, yet again, to explain what he’s thinking.

“Look, we’re trying to build new skills, right? Get to know how we’ll react in different situations. If we just did the same shit we were all good at, I’d be out there beating you all at paintball again!”

Barton can only say that because Bucky hasn’t been allowed to join any paintball sessions yet. The shrinks say it’ll be triggering. Eh, the kid can have his illusions for now.

Clint points to Tony’s proposed character, something called a Warforged Artificer. “This is what I’m talking about. This is just Iron Man in medieval times, and we all know what Iron Man’s gonna do already. Tony, I’d better not see any armor-heavy builds. Use some fucking imagination! Tasha, you know I love you, but play something that isn’t about dexterity and sneakiness. Bruce … Actually, you’re already two different people, so play whatever. Maybe stay away from barbarians.”

Clint pauses when he gets to Sam and Bucky. “Wilson, since you were pararescue, I’m gonna say no clerics or winged races for you. And try not to lean too heavy on fighter builds either. Barnes—“

“Already got it.” Bucky slides his character sheet across the table. “This OK?”

A silence falls. Clint grins and takes the sheet.

“Holy shit, Barnes, this is good. I can work with this.” Clint disappears behind the DM screen and starts scribbling on something.

Tony leans over to take a peek. “An elf sorceress? Grandpa’s feeling naughty today. Someone get their prescriptions refilled?”

“I’ve got something too,” Steve says. “Bucky and me made ‘em last night.”

That gets a disbelieving look from Tony. “Why’s the Golden Age Brigade suddenly so interested in geek chic?”

Natasha smiles. “He asks, right after seeing the elf sorceress.”

“Whatcha got for me?” Clint asks Steve. Steve slides him the sheet, and Clint frowns. “C’mon. I said something that isn’t like you.”

“It’s a monk. They don’t even use shields!” Steve protests.

“It’s still a fighting class!”

“Look, I picked the criminal background and Drunken Master subclass. And I wrote a backstory.” Steve hands over a folder crammed with looseleaf note paper. “Pages seven to twenty-two.”

Clint eyes the folder. The idea of Steve’s extensive backstory seems to intrigue him.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll accept it on one condition: I get to traumatize your character in the near future.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask.”

Steve looks like he wants to argue, but he already spent two hours last night sketching out a portrait of his fire genasi monk, and there’s no point in making that wasted time. So he nods, and Clint takes the folder.

Slowly, over the course of the evening, the “adventuring party” starts to come together. Sam builds Ol’ Joe Thibodeaux, a Cajun-flavored dwarf rogue, and is already having fun confusing everyone with his character’s thick Bayou accent. That’s gonna be a problem. Bruce, who’s only half paying attention, contributes the human fighter John Jones. (Clint accepts it after some wrangling. Bruce, after all, isn’t a physical combatant, and Hulk isn’t at the table.) After twenty minutes of intense staring at the Handbook, Natasha comes up with Marya Moryevna, a half-orc paladin of the god of light. She’s gonna have an ability called “Smite,” as if Natasha wasn’t scary enough.

Tony eventually goes with Angus Osbourne, centaur bard. 50% heavy metal references and 50% “hung like a horse” jokes.

Bucky’s the only one that decided to play a different sex. Seems like a missed opportunity to him. He can’t say he ever had a crush on any elf girls when he was young—the movies back then were more about the Southern belles, sassy secretaries, and the occasional velvet-draped vampiress—but JARVIS’s graphics program has generated a beaut of a character, with long dark hair, full red lips, an hourglass figure, and a clingy dress in fiery orange. He likes girls in bright colors. If he’s gonna be playing a wizard game, he might as well have something to look at.

Clint goes over the basics. They’re starting at level three, so they’ll have their subclasses and decent starting equipment, but they won’t be too high-powered yet. The goal is to learn to work together in this new environment, survive the story, and think creatively.

“Remember, you’re not you,” Clint tells them. He points to the 3D map hovering above the table, where the character tokens glow on the otherwise empty battle grid. “You’re a new person in a new situation and you have a completely different set of skills. Use ‘em. I don’t want to hear from Captain America or Iron Man—I want to hear from the monk and the bard. Make it happen or I’m dropping a dragon on your asses.”

Now Bucky kinda hopes that they fuck up. He wants to fight a dragon.

* * *

Session Zero wraps around 11 PM. It’s not late—not for a bunch of highly trained and occasionally insane special operatives—but it does mean most of the non-Avengers personnel have packed it in for the night. The Tower has that quiet, settled feeling of a mostly empty building. He likes it.

It’s not completely deserted, though. Portions of the lab floors are still active. He knows because, as usual, Darcy is making her almost-midnight coffee run.

Tonight, she’s in an oversized bright purple hoodie and worn black leggings. She yawns, not bothering to cover her mouth, as she waits for the industrial-strength coffee machine to finish processing about a gallon of java. Her fire-engine-red lipstick is mostly gone, which means she hasn’t had a chance to reapply it since this morning.

“Long day?” Bucky says, leaning across the breakfast bar towards her.

She laughs. “What are you, my therapist?”

“I was thinkin’ bartender, actually. Those guys know everything.”

“No kidding.” She smothers another yawn in the crook of her elbow. “There was this bartender in New Mexico … I’m pretty sure he was some kind of all-seeing Asgardian. Like, Heimdall’s secret love child. He had this crazy ability to look at you and just know what you wanted to drink.”

“Sounds like a good guy to know. You sure he wasn’t SHIELD?” Or HYDRA.

But Darcy’s been around him long enough to know where his mind goes, and she shakes her head. “Not a chance. I follow the bar on Facebook, and he’s still there. I don’t see the spooky guys or terrorists hanging out in that dump five years after Thor.”

It’d be a waste of an operative, that’s for sure. Bucky’s heart rate slows a little. He hadn’t even realized it was racing.

“But yeah, Bartender Barnes … long day.” She rubs the back of her arm over her eyes. Her eye makeup, too, has faded and smudged, adding to the general look of a confused raccoon. “Janey caught a signal that she thinks might be part of a guidance pulse from the old Bifrost—the rainbow bridge—“

“The Einstein-Rosen Bridge?” He’s heard the astro lab crew talk about it often enough.

“I still like rainbow bridge better. But yeah. That. It’s an old pulse that’s been bouncing around for years, sorta like those TV signals that we’re sending into space accidentally all the time … Man, I just realized that there really are aliens out there that could be picking those up. They could be watching our old Gilligan’s Island broadcasts and thinking we’re a planet full of morons. But yeah, a guidance pulse. Old signal. If we catch it, decode it, try to reverse some of the signal decay, then maybe we can learn a little more about how the bridge functioned from the Asgard side. Then we’re one step closer to figuring out how to generate it ourselves.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“Nah. It’s boring.” Darcy groans and wipes her eyes again. “I don’t speak math, you know? I mean, I can do regular math, I can budget and all that, but when the math starts filling up with Greek letters and stuff, I check out. Jane and Erik speak math and nothing else. I’m just trying to keep them alive and organized and mostly sane.”

“Sounds to me like you should switch careers.” Darcy frowns, seemingly detecting an insult to her professional integrity, and Bucky grins a little. “You’d make a swell zookeeper.”

She barks out a laugh. And yeah, bark is the right word: the laugh is sudden, loud, and uninhibited. Despite her exhaustion, a broad smile crosses her face.

“You’re the best, sarge,” she tells him. “I would totally ace zookeeper school. Feed them, water them, stay out of their way, and provide enrichment. If I could figure out how to stuff Jane’s Pop-Tarts in those kitty treat balls, I’d be golden right now.”

Bucky’s not smiling, but he can feel the urge. The late-night exhaustion, the warmth of the kitchen, and the good company combine to give the whole scene a dreamy quality, like he’s not actually here and nothing will have any consequences.

“Sounds to me like you’ve got your new life figured all out,” he says. “Though it might be dangerous. At least Dr. Foster won’t try to bite you.”

“You haven’t seen her seventy-two hours into a paper, my dude. She is vicious.”

The coffee machine finishes its cycle and Darcy pours two massive travel mugs full. One, Jane’s, she doctors up with several spoonfuls of cream and sugar. The other she leaves black except for a drizzle of caramel syrup.

“Back into the jaws of death,” she proclaims, hoisting the two huge mugs. “It is a far, far, better thing that I do, etcetera, etcetera. See you around, sarge.”

“Don’t do anything stupid!” he calls out. Then he winces, because he’s talking to a pretty girl, not Stevie, dammit. But Darcy just grins and salutes him with one of the travel mugs before disappearing into the elevator.

Chapter Text

The lights in the lounge are at half, and there’s electric candles flickering in the middle of the table. Clint is wearing a t-shirt that says “DMs do it on the table.” The best, oldest pizzeria in New York has delivered three of everything on their menu.

At each place sits a character sheet, a cold can of Coke, and a brand-new set of gaming dice. Bucky knows that Tony was the one who arranged for the dice, because they’re all themed. Natasha’s are black with skulls and spiders, Bruce’s are acid green with swirls of emerald, Steve’s are a patriotic red-white-and-blue, Sam's are clear with a tiny metallic feather embedded inside. Stark’s, of course, are made of gold-anodized aluminum and airbrushed hot-rod red. Stark has too much goddamn money.

Bucky’s dice have a cartoon princess on them—some woman in blue with snowflakes. It’s probably supposed to be a dig at him. Bucky, a guy with a kill list longer than the current roster of Congress, figures there’s worse ways he could be insulted.

The glowing battle grid above the table is populated with character tokens and the art people have generated. Steve’s the only one who drew his own, and Bucky is proud of his pal’s work. The red-skinned monk Airedale Abbott stand with hands raised, his long brown robe whipping around him and his single eye glowing orange. He even has a rosary wrapped around one fist, though in deference to the fantasy world, the crucifix has been replaced with an image of a flame. Honestly, the whole thing looks like a cross between a genie and St. Francis of Assisi.

“Wrong kind of monk,” Banner points out wryly.

Steve shrugs. “I knew monks who could deal some damage. Nuns, too.”

“Sister Mary Louisa,” Bucky murmurs.

“’Were ya raised by wolves, Mr. Barnes?’” Steve says in a thick Queens Italian accent, and the two of them snicker. Steve shakes his head. “Shoot, I should have made her.”

Clint looks up from his pregame prep, which mostly seems to involve a lot of graphs and looseleaf notes. “Go ahead and make her as backup if you like,” he says. “I’m not gonna try to kill you guys, but PC deaths do happen.”

Steve grins and reaches for the Player’s Handbook and a fresh character sheet. Bucky leans over to watch as Steve begins filling out a sheet for Maria the Furious, a paladin/cleric hybrid with proficiency in melee combat and intimidation. Under “Starting weapon,” he carefully writes “Yardstick.”

Bucky should probably make a backup character too. Doesn’t really want to, though. He looks up at the character art hanging in midair next to Ol’ Joe Thibodeaux and nods to himself. She’ll do for now.

Bucky’s character is a high elf named Milady Alexandra. (He’s most of the way through The Three Musketeers and decided to steal from Milady de Winter and Alexander Dumas.) She’s a draconic bloodline sorceress and is striking out on her own, looking for answers about why a group of dwarves murdered her red dragon great-grandfather. (Before The Three Musketeers, he reread The Hobbit. So he’s not that good at coming up with his own stories. He’s got brain damage, fuck off.)

He’s been reviewing the rules, but he still isn’t clear on how some of the magic works, so he picked simple spells that seem like they’d do a lot of damage. There’s a couple of good ones right at the beginning: Shocking Grasp and Poison Spray look useful. He’s also picked up Charm Person, because he wants his girl to have a chance at talking her way out of stuff. Gotta save those higher-level spell slots.

The others are just about ready to go. Thor is on the couch again, idly spectating, though sans Dr. Foster tonight. He seems to view this whole thing as a form of collaborative storytelling for his entertainment.

Clint clears his throat and leans forward just a little. He’s grinning.

“Once upon a time,” he begins. His voice is solemn, dramatic. Thor perks up and listens intently. “In days long past and lands now forgotten … There stood a lighthouse. On the wild, wind-swept coasts of the continent of Callidan, where cliffs of black glass towered out of the pounding gray waves, stood the lighthouse fortress of Caer Pallon.”

As he narrates, the holographic glow above the table shifts. The character art and battle grid vanish. A gleaming black cliff forms out of the specks of light, and a medieval castle with a tall lighthouse tower in its center appears. Its single beam of light flickers out from the lighthouse, tracing over the corners of the room.

Sometimes, the future is a hell of a thing. Bucky shoots a glance at Steve, who’s wide-eyed as JARVIS brings Clint’s narration to life.

Clint has definitely done this before. He settles right into a pulp fantasy, Conan-y kind of voice, occasionally throwing in dramatic flourishes and extra-gruesome details, grinning behind his cardboard screen. His narration is verging on Thorish. Bucky’s pretty sure he says “foul fiends” at some point.

Natasha leans over to Bucky. “His kids got him into it,” she murmurs, smiling.

Bucky doesn’t have time to contemplate the fucking bombshell that the Widow has just dropped (she trusts him enough to mention a sensitive detail like that? Does Clint know she told him? Clint must know) before the scene changes. As Clint narrates it, JARVIS shows them soldiers rallying to defend the fortress. Something is rising up out of the ocean, tendrils of darkness crawling up the black glass cliffs. Screams echo through the dimmed lounge.

“No man who lived in Caer Pallon that night ever saw the dawn,” Clint intones. “Searchers found cups still filled with wine. Fires still lit. But the men were gone, and the empty suits of armor scattered below the cliffs warned what would happen if the lighthouse fortress were ever manned again.”

Silence falls.

“You know,” Tony says, “I was worth more than Elon last year. I could be reinventing space travel right now.”

“Tony, shut up,” Bruce sighs.

“I’m just saying …”

The scene changes again as portraits of their characters appear. Clint informs them that they have all been hired by Sir Friedrich von Frankenthaler, a noble of the inland city of Baraval, to investigate the centuries-old ruins of Caer Pallon and recover lost family heirlooms. They’ll be generously compensated.

Half an hour of in-character bickering (and Sam’s insistence on rolling Sense Motive on everything that moves) gets the party assembled and on the way to the lighthouse fortress. Bucky’s barely done anything other than agree to go along with everyone else. Pretty normal for him so far. Steve keeps shooting him glances, clearly wondering if this was a good idea and if they’re going to trigger him.

Tony’s dialogue so far is mostly one-liners and blue jokes. The jokes are aimed at Marya Moryevna: Angus says he’s a stud horse, happy to help out the ladies. The others tell him off a few times, but that’s just Stark and no one can stop him, in or out of character.

Seems like a problem. This mission is to step outside themselves, after all. Not do the usual thing. Bucky can ignore Stark all day, but would his girl?

Glancing at the portrait of Milady Alexandra, the red-lipped sorceress with vengeance in her heart and dragon blood in her veins, Bucky makes his first in-character decision.

“Hey, Clint.”

“Yeah?”

“Do centaurs wear metal horseshoes?”

Clint checks a reference book. “Most do, yeah.”

“Is that enough metal to count as armor?”

“Depends on what else they’re wearing, but four metal horseshoes make several pounds of iron. It’s not gonna be protective, though. Why?”

Bucky looks across the table at Tony. “Milady walks over next to Angus. She puts her hand on his arm and says ‘I heard what you said about Marya. Would you also say those things to me?’”

At that, Stark’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wait. Is there actually sex in this game?”

“Not at my table,” Clint says, shrugging. “But yeah, some games. Depending on how lonely the players are.”

“Well, there’s nobody more lonely than Corporal Punishment over here … Shit, someone call Pepper. I need an adult.”

“Bucky, what’re you doing?” Steve says. Bucky picks up his blue princess twenty-sided die and rolls.

“7,” he says. “But he’s wearing metal horseshoes, so I have advantage.” He rolls again. “16. Plus my two points of Charisma modifier.”

Clint flips through his notes. “18 definitely hits,” he says.

Bucky nods. “Milady casts Shocking Grasp.”

On the hologram hovering above the table, the rakish centaur freezes as blue arcs of lightning surround him.

Bucky rolls another die. “Four points of lightning damage.”

“Traitor!” Stark says. “Benedict Arnold! Legolas, I thought this game was about not being ourselves. Barnes just backstabbed me!”

“So how is Angus going to respond?” Clint puts emphasis on the character’s name, giving Tony a pointed look.

Stark is glaring across the table at Bucky, who stares back. Above them, the portraits of Angus and Milady glow, ready to move into combat.

“Angus,” Stark says finally, “is going to be the bigger man here. Figuratively as well as literally.”

“Wow,” Banner murmurs. Natasha’s eyebrows make a break for her hairline.

“I mean, he’s a bard,” Stark continues. “He’s been on the road a lot. Probably gets shit thrown at him all the time by people who don’t appreciate everything he brings to the table. You know. Philistines. Ungrateful freeloaders.” He shoots Bucky another pointed look. “So he laughs and says ‘You get one free, ice queen. Next time, it’s your ass, and not in a way you’re gonna like.’”

Bucky shrugs. “She says ‘Then we have an understanding, mule.’”

At the head of the table, Clint relaxes a fraction. “OK, so … now’s probably a good time to review the rules about inter-party combat.”

* * *

Sam’s insistence on Sense Motive checks finally pays off. When they find a single insane man haunting the ruins of the lighthouse, Sam’s dirty 20 (17 plus his Wisdom modifier) uncovers that the man isn’t actually insane at all, just feigning it for some reason. The party captures and interrogates the man, but Natasha rolls a natural 1 on her attempt to torture information out of him and he ends up bleeding out. Clint sighs.

“I’m gonna let that slide because you’re newbies,” he says. “But listen, Nat, you serve the god of light. Ease up on the torture next time.”

“Light can be used for torture,” Natasha points out. Sam gives her a What the hell is wrong with you? sort of look. Bucky, who knows she’s right, stays quiet.

As they venture deeper into the fortress, they find signs of disarray. Cups full of wine, as promised. Fires still lit. But then Bruce makes a reasonable observation—namely, that if the disaster happened hundreds of years ago, all the fires should’ve gone out by now—and the shadows begin to writhe and twist. Monsters rise up to attack them.

It turns out that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes stink at D&D combat.

Tony and Steve are absolutely not prepared for a situation they can’t bulldoze their way through. Natasha, the queen of maneuverability, is having trouble thinking like a slow-moving melee combatant in plate armor. Bruce is, once again, barely paying attention and making the simplest possible moves, not even bothering to move his character out of stabbing range. Sam gets a couple of lucky hits but he keeps trying to engage head-on rather than sneaking and is quickly knocked down to single-digit hit points.

But Bucky? He feels like he’s cheating, honestly. It turns out that being a sorcerer is actually a lot like being a sniper: go long-range and line up a single real nasty shot. At their current level, the real nasty shot is Witch Bolt, which does a solid 1d12 lightning damage that extends over multiple turns if no one interrupts him. With the other chowderheads clogging up the field, the shadow bad guys don’t stop beating on Stevie and Tony long enough to take a whack at him, and he ends up just hanging back and frying everything that moves.

Combat concludes with most of them half dead. Fortunately, the shadow monsters drop loot, which soothes some of the bruised egos at the table. Natasha distributes healing magic.

Now they’ve got a decision to make. Their employer, Sir what’s-his-face, didn’t tell them about the shadow monsters being active or any people hanging around the site. Do they keep exploring, or go back and get some answers out of him?

“By asking nicely, of course,” Natasha says with a smile.

Sam as Ol’ Joe makes a compelling argument for not getting torn to shreds by mysterious monsters from the dark. Steve makes an equally compelling leaderly speech about how whatever’s going on here is bigger than them and if they don’t act, these creatures might start terrorizing innocent people! It’s the only right thing to do!

Sam slips Bucky a fiver.

Bruce and Bucky don’t add much to the discussion. Bucky’s pretty sure that if Milady Alexandra comes from a dragon family, she’s probably a little bloodthirsty and not too put off by killing guys that tried to kill her first. As Darcy likes to say: Don’t start no shit, won’t be no shit. Bruce is just sleepy.

Everyone looks to Tony. Everyone knows that Tony hates being backstabbed or lied to, and Sir Whatever would be on the chopping block ASAP. They’re already bracing for a Stark-versus-Rogers argument about going back.

“I say we stay,” Tony says.

“Huh,” Clint says.

Bucky passes the fiver back to Sam.

Tony taps his golden d20 on the table. “There’s a story here,” he says. “Stories make good songs. Songs make a bard money. And I dunno about you guys, but being broke in this world is seriously affecting my mojo. Let’s do it for Phil—and by Phil, I mean filthy lucre.”

Sam is outvoted: “Filthy lucre” seems to do the job that Steve’s impassioned plea didn’t. They venture deeper into the fortress.

By the time the session wraps, it’s almost midnight. They’ve fought two more brief battles, uncovered a couple of mysterious artifacts, and Bucky’s nearly died by having a magical trap explode in his face. As they emerge from the lowest depths of the lighthouse, Clint dramatically narrates that the sea has turned pitch-black and a massive rogue wave is racing up the beach towards them.

The group separates. Steve is mournfully flicking through his character folder, and Bucky can already see the patented Steve Rogers Determination™ kicking into gear. He’s probably gonna stay up even later and study until he can be the D&D player his team deserves. Stark makes another nerd crack and slopes off to go tinker until dawn. Bruce fell asleep during the final combat round and is half-escorted, half-dragged from the room by Natasha and Sam.

Bucky heads for the kitchen.

It’s empty, but there’s signs of recent activity: freshly used filters in the garbage can and a lingering whiff of citrus-scented shampoo. Darcy’s been through for the coffee run.

She’s been doing that a lot lately. The astro lab naturally keeps nighttime hours sometimes, but this is more’n a week of late nights. She’s not enhanced. That means she needs rest, and so do her pet scientists.

It’s smart to notice this shit. Tired, overworked personnel lead to security gaps. Bucky’s better than he used to be—feeling a little more steady, a little more him—but he can’t stop checking corners or looking for weak points. Right now, his instincts tell him that the astro lab is on the verge of becoming a weak point.

He could go to bed, but knowing there’s a possible security flaw in the building starts his nerves jangling. Before he can think too hard about it, he grabs a few bottles of water out of the fridge and gets in the elevator.

Up in the astro lab, he finds the scientists punchy and erratic. Foster and Selvig are currently plotting something complex on a series of whiteboards—something to do with the path of a comet and the effect its radiation may have had on the degradation of the signal they’re studying. Bucky’s no slouch at math (there’s a lot of calculations needed to get a bullet where it’s supposed to go), but faster-than-light physics and neutron decay are pretty far out of his wheelhouse. The fact that the eggheads can understand it even in their sleep-deprived state is a real testament to their genius, which almost makes him feel a little bad about what he’s gonna do.

Almost.

He whistles sharply. Foster and Selvig jump. On the far side of the cluster of desks, a smeary-eyed Darcy raises her head from a pile of papers. There’s a Post-It stuck to her cheek.

“Lab’s closing for the night,” he says. He tosses Selvig a bottle of water, and the man promptly drops it. Guess they don’t play baseball in Sweden. “Foster, catch.”

Foster catches the bottle thrown at her but glares at him. “Go away. We’re busy.”

“Lab’s closing,” he repeats. “Lewis!”

Darcy catches her water bottle like a champ. She looks a little confused, but that’s probably just the sleep deprivation.

“The lab cannot be closing,” Selvig says, confused. “We, ah, we were promised complete … independence, yes.” His command of English is wavering a little. Bucky got here just in time. “This is irregular. And you are not in charge of the labs.”

“Operational security assessment. Avengers clearance.” Bucky flashes his ID, not that it’s necessary. The metal arm does the job for him. “Clear out. You can come back at start of business tomorrow.” Technically later today, but like hell is he saying that. He doesn’t want to encourage them.

Foster crosses her arms. “We’re not going anywhere!”

“Uh, Janey,” Darcy begins, “maybe we should listen to the nice man? You’re getting kinda twitchy. And maybe we can relax just this once, huh? It is Saturday night.”

“It’s Sunday night,” Bucky says.

Darcy groans. “Seriously?”

Bucky nods.

“OK, I’m officially calling time!” Darcy stands and puts her hands on her hips. “I hereby back up Sergeant Hottie here. Jane, I love you and will die for you, but you’ve got crazy eyes and even I can tell your math is getting wonky. ”

“Darcy!” Foster says. This sounds less like defiance and more like a whine. “My math is not wonky.”

“You’ve started using a calculator.” Darcy delivers the words like a terminal diagnosis. Foster flinches a little.

“We’re in the middle of—“

“The comet will be there tomorrow, Janey. It’s got a stable orbit and everything. C’mon.”

Selvig seems to have gotten the message and is shuffling towards the door, bottle of water now clutched in his hands. Bucky catches his eye and gestures to the bottle. The scientist uncaps it, takes a drink, and then abruptly realizes that he hasn’t drunk actual water in the last forty-eight hours and starts gulping it down.

Darcy shepherds the reluctant Foster towards the elevator and then turns back to begin shutting the lab down for the night. She uncaps her own water and takes a long swig. Bucky waits, arms crossed, to confirm that the security gap is effectively closed.

“Thanks, sarge,” she says. “Sometimes they really need someone to yell at them, and they’re too used to me.”

Bucky shrugs. “Needed doing.”

“Yeah, but the bottled water was a king move. I didn’t know you were a hydro homie.” At Bucky’s blank look, Darcy laughs. “There’s a subreddit I need to show you!”

“Got no idea what you’re talking about, ma’am,” Bucky admits. “Just figured they could use a drink. Everyone knows eggheads get nutty if they’re burning out.”

“Well, I know. Because I’m a professional mad scientist wrangler. How would you know?”

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she winces. “Oh, shit. Sorry, sarge. I didn’t—I mean, I wasn’t gonna—fuck, chronic foot-in-mouth disease here!”

The girl thinks she reminded him of HYDRA. Bucky just shakes his head.

“Relax, Lewis,” he says. “I was talkin’ about Howard Stark.”

She stops. “Wait. Seriously?”

“Yeah. He knew Steve. Helped us with some gear.” A smile twitches at the corner of Bucky’s mouth. “Used to disappear into one of the bunkers for two, three days. He’d come out with a brand new weapon, a gadget, somethin’ like that … Or we’d hear the explosion from across camp. Pretty sure he blew up more of England than the krauts did.”

Darcy giggles. Her eyes scrunch up and her grin gets big, exposing that little gap in her teeth. It’s sorta cute.

(And that isn’t a thought he’s had in a long time. Must need his meds adjusted.)

“You’re the best, sarge,” she says. She touches his arm lightly, leaving a tingling sensation behind.

(Maybe she needs her meds adjusted. Or maybe she’s just tired. It’s nice, though.)

Chapter Text

D&D sessions are scheduled for once a week. Most of the Avengers don’t really keep to a regular nine-to-five schedule, so Sunday nights are game nights until someone says otherwise. Bucky hasn’t heard that Session Two is canceled, which means that on Monday morning Steve Rogers only has six and a half days left to perfect his D&D skills.

Turns out Steve approaches “be someone else for fun” like an op. By Thursday afternoon, he’s got it all figured out: not just his own playstyle but everyone else’s, too. Power combos that can work if Bruce does this and Natasha does that, the best way to engineer dramatically satisfying inter-party conflict, potential for any one of them turning evil and forcing the others to fight them. He sounds like he’s been talking to some experts. He is dedicated to playing the wizard game correctly.

He turns up on Sunday with his binder of ideas and starts eagerly telling Clint about all the source material he’s read. Clint looks vaguely alarmed.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Tony says, and snaps his fingers to get Thor’s attention. “How about you try to get into character the old-fashioned way? Have a drink. Tarzan, you’ve got some mead left, right?”

Steve suddenly looks like a deer in headlights. To his obvious relief, though, Thor shakes his head.

“Such libations are not to be used purely to unsettle the wits, my friends. We invoke such amusements in celebration of grand victory and to honor the glorious fallen, not to cloud the spirit or dull the senses. And when we are in the presence of a skald such as the honored Hawkeye, it is dishonorable to stop our ears to his utterances.”

“What?” Bucky says. Thor’s grammar is sometimes a little complex for someone recovering from brain damage. And what the fuck is a skald?

“Thor says no,” Natasha translates.

“Thanks.”

“Pozhaluysta.”

Tony points at them. “Hey, you two, take down the Iron Curtain for a minute. Are we playing or not?”

“Someone’s had a change of heart,” Natasha jibes lightly. “Or have you been sampling the mead yourself?”

At that, Tony smirks crookedly and taps his chest. “I change my heart every damn day, Miss Rushman. But this is eating into my tinkering time. The sooner we get started, the sooner I can get back to Dummy before he accidentally creates Skynet.”

“’Accidentally,’” Bruce says. Stark shoots him a “shut your ass up” kind of look, but Banner’s achieved partial Stark immunity after a couple of years and just ignores him. Bucky makes a mental note to avoid the workshops for a while: he doesn’t know what a Skynet is, but Dummy has some weird fascination with Bucky’s arm and is apt to grab it any time the robot is riled up.

Tonight, Stark’s laid on a spread from a local steakhouse, and Stevie gets that glint in his eye as they all load up their plates. Bucky knows how he feels. Cell phones and the internet are one thing, but the pair of them still can’t believe they can eat anything they want, whenever they want.

Once everyone’s had seconds (and thirds, fourths, and fifths, for the god and the super-soldiers), they clear the table and get out the dice and books. Clint unfolds his Dungeon Master screen and Stark lines up the first of the half-dozen Diet Cokes Bruce will need to stay awake during the session.

“Everyone ready?” Clint says. A chorus of yesses from around the table. “Great. JARVIS, bring up Session 2, please.”

The lights dim to quarter power and JARVIS’s blue-tinged wireframe holograms begin to coalesce above the table. In seconds they’re back on the windswept coast below the dark glass cliffs. The sea is frothing pitch-black and the massive rogue wave is moving towards their characters.

As Clint narrates, half a dozen mermaids emerge from the waves. In JARVIS’s simulation, they’re beautiful—and bare-breasted, which draws an inadvertent smirk from Bucky. Steve glances away, cheeks slightly pink. The good captain has certainly seen naked women before (you don’t travel with twenty showgirls without learning a thing or two), but he’s never quite lost his manners around the subject, which Bucky discarded a long time ago.

The mermaids don’t stay pretty for long, anyway.

“Their jaws unhinge, opening wide like snakes ready to swallow prey whole,” Clint narrates, and JARVIS suits action to the words. “Fangs flash between their stretched lips. Claws extend from their webbed fingers.” Clint clears his throat and assumes a new voice.

“’Fresh meat!’” he hisses, his accent turning vaguely Slavic. Natasha’s lips quirk in a half-smile. “’Men and blood and men and blood! We feast tonight, sisters!’”

Then, in his own voice: “Roll initiative.”

“This is more like it,” Stark murmurs as he rolls. Then: “Dammit! I need new dice. This one is broken.”

Stark is bottom of the list with a measly 4. Bucky actually gets the top initiative, with the first batch of three mermaids right after him.

Last week’s combat encounters have taught him that Milady is powerful but not tough. Sniping with magic creates maximum havoc for minimum risk, so that’s his first thought. But it means doing what Bucky would do, not what a dragon sorceress would, and the assignment is to be someone else.

All right. Maybe he’s a little worried about playing the wizard game correctly too.

He taps his d20 on the table, thinking and looking at his spell list. Across the table, Natasha gives him a pointed look.

He doesn’t remember the first time he shot her. He barely remembers the second time. Anything that might make the Winter Soldier differentiate between his targets, see them as different or as human, was ruthlessly scorched out of him. But he remembers training the young Widows—one little girl on the end of the line, with red hair and green eyes—and he remembers how they were programmed to think.

Milady Alexandra isn’t a Widow. But she’s not the Winter Soldier either. If he has to play this character, he needs to start somewhere that isn’t himself.

Natasha seems to guess something of what’s in his mind. Her eyes are fixed on him. He belatedly realizes that he’s frozen, dice in hand: the others are looking at him with a combination of confusion and concern.

“Sorry.” Bucky shakes his head, trying to refocus. Natasha nods at him.

“It hits us like that, sometimes,” she says. “Trying to find out how deep the masks go.”

“Yeah,” he mumbles.

“You don’t have to find out today.” Natasha rolls her own dice between her fingertips. “Just pick one mask you can live with.”

He nods back. His hands are shaking a little, and he tries not to crush the blue princess dice.

“I don’t like seeing those two planning anything,” Tony says. “I keep waiting for them to keel moose und sqvirrel.”

“Tony, shut up!” Steve groans. “Buck, you with me?”

“Uh. Yeah.” Bucky carefully opens his hand and drops the dice on the table. “I, uh, I got an idea. Clint?”

Barton leans forward. “Yeeeees?”

“All six mermaids are still in the water, right?”

“Yeah, but they’re in the shallows. They’ll be on dry land next round.”

“OK. My speed is thirty-five, and I still get an action when I finish my movement?”

“Correct.”

Sergeant James Barnes was a sniper and a commando. The Winter Soldier was a brute and a robot. Someone like Milady Alexandra isn’t either of them, right? She lives in a completely different world. A different mask. Dragon blood—hell, she’s probably been thinking she’s special her whole life. Never had a doubt about what she’s doing. She’s not gonna punch anyone in the face, but she’s still gonna throw a hit the best way she can, because no chance a proud girl like her is gonna take this lying down.

“Milady Alexandra moves right up to the water’s edge. Uh, seventeen feet. She crouches down to touch the water and casts Witch Bolt using a second-level slot.”

On the battle grid, Milady is wreathed in lightning once again. Clint nods. “Who are you aiming for?”

“The group of three mermaids on the left.” Bucky points. “And I have advantage.”

Natasha smiles at him across the table. “Nicely done,” she murmurs. Steve looks faintly alarmed at Natasha’s approval.

“No advantage, sorry,” Clint says. “Roll to attack.”

But Bucky doesn’t roll. “I should have advantage.”

“And why is that, exactly?”

“They’re in saltwater. Saltwater conducts electricity more efficiently than plain water. If I got advantage for Stark’s horseshoes, I should get it here.”

“Lemme check the book. Hang on.” Clint flips through his notes. “I’m not sure …”

“In fact,” Bucky adds, “since those three mermaids are all within five feet of each other, the spell should spread to all three of them.”

“He’s right,” Natasha says.

Clint gives her a “really?” kind of look. She shrugs. “Barnes knows about electricity.”

Tony lets out a strangled whoop that’s almost a laugh. Steve’s concerned expression turns deeply disapproving, and the rest of the Avengers exchange awkward side glances.

“She’s right too,” Bucky says. “Could say I’ve got a head for it.”

This time, Stark does laugh. Steve rubs his forehead, looking pained.

“I really hope this is a good sign,” he says fervently. “Sam?”

“’Humor is a long-established coping mechanism and is often associated with flexibility and resilience in stressful situations.’” Sam rattles the words off from across the table. “Ease down, Cap. Clint, are you gonna give the man his advantage?”

But Clint is still flipping through one of his binders of notes. “Sorry, Barnes,” he says after a moment’s perusal. “Official rules state that lightning spells do not behave differently in water. However, since you’re a sorcerer and I like the creativity, I’m giving you one free use of the Twinned metamagic feature. That means the spell hits two of them. Pick your targets and roll to attack.”

Bucky rolls. He barely manages to scrape a hit, but upcasting means he can double the damage, and 18 points of lightning is enough to kill the weaker of the two mermaids. On JARVIS’s display, the mermaid convulses and flops sideways into the waves before being covered with seafoam. Natasha nods at Bucky, who gives her a half-salute.

“Told you,” Stark says. “Moose und sqvirrel.”

“They should reevaluate the lightning rules.” That’s Bruce, looking up from his tablet for the first time that night.

“Glory hallelujah, he wakes!” Stark chuckles. “You with us, Brucie-bear?”

“Electricity spells should be more effective over a short area in bodies of water,” Bruce continues. Then he frowns and looks at his character sheet. “Do I have magic?”

“No, you just hit stuff.”

Bruce shrugs. “Must be a day that ends in Y.”

The mermaids launch themselves forward onto the beach and close rapidly with the Avengers’ characters. Milady’s already killed one of them, so she’s a priority target. The group is treated to a hologram of a wet topless mermaid tackling an elvish sorceress and trying to bite out her throat. Bucky fails the reaction roll and is officially grappled.

“All right,” Stark says, watching the two hologram women wrestle in the surf. “I understand this game now.”

The situation rapidly devolves. The mermaids came in too hot and too fast for the player characters to set up any kind of ambush or lay any traps (Bucky can see Steve writhing in frustration—the Commandos would have had this beachhead mined to hell in five minutes), and they’re doing their best to kill the women immediately and drag the men into the surf to drown.

At least Steve’s studying is paying off. Airedale Abbott manages to punch a mermaid in the face, twist free, and then—miracle of miracles—not immediately run to rescue Bucky’s character. Several Avengers break into applause, and Bucky claps Steve on the shoulder.

“Good job leaving me out there to die,” he say cheerfully.

“Oh, fuck you,” Steve grumbles.

Stark whistles sharply. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You recorded that, right?”

“Yes, sir. Adding to your personal blackmail folder.”

Bucky and Steve snicker. Anyone who thinks Captain America wouldn’t swear doesn’t know a damn thing about war or soldiers. Steve might be a little shy with topless ladies, but he can curse a blue streak in four languages.

The next three rounds of battle rough up the player characters, but they manage to whittle down the mermaids to one wounded survivor. She seems to be able to talk, even though she does keep trying to bite Bruce’s character, so they gather around and take a vote to interrogate her about what’s going on.

“On it,” Natasha says, picking up her twenty-sided die. But Clint makes a warning noise.

“Ah ah ah! I love the enthusiasm, Tash, but if you torture one more person to death I’m gonna have to make you an oathbreaker.”

Natasha narrows her eyes and clicks her dice between her fingers. “I don’t see why.”

“Yeah, you’re what we call True Neutral in real life. But your character is supposed to be Lawful Good, and the law in this part of Callidan says, let me check my notes here, ‘murder is bad.’”

“Fine,” Natasha says. “Who wants to interrogate the mermaid?”

“Does anyone have Interrogate as a skill?” That’s Bruce, surfacing briefly from his torpor again. The Diet Cokes must be kicking in.

A chorus of “No” goes around the table. From the awkward sideways looks on a couple of them, they’ve clearly figured that Natasha would have it handled.

Bucky clears his throat. “My character says, ‘The mule should do it.’”

Tony snorts. “Oh, I see! You’re trying to get me eaten, right? Nice one, Tin Man, but I see what you’re doing.”

“In character, Tony,” Clint sighs.

“’Nice try, Tin Woman.’”

“Dragons like gold, not tin,” Bucky points out. “But seriously—aren’t you supposed to be a performer, Stark? Shouldn’t you have, I dunno, the gift of the gab or something?”

“Yeah, but he’s more of a … hang on.” Tony shuffles rapidly through his character sheet. “Hey, Barton! Can I weaponize flirting?”

“Affirmative. You can question her using Charisma to charm her instead of Strength to intimidate. Roll a d20.”

“Brucie, loan me a d20. This one hates me.” Bruce hands over the green d20, and Tony rolls. “Come on, come on, JARVIS needs a new pair of servers … Ha! Nineteen!”

Clint leans forward and contorts his hands into claws. “’Release me!’” he hisses. “’You shall not lay hands on me, dirt-walker!’”

“See, that’s not the kind of thing a guy likes to hear.” Tony slouches sideways, the picture of ease. In JARVIS’s projection, Angus Osbourne crouches down on all four legs and throws his arm around the mermaid’s shoulders. “You’re a smart woman, right? You’ve clearly got a plan here. Hashtag-boss-babe and all that crap. But you’ve been dealt a bad hand, haven’t you?”

“This is you being charming?” Bruce asks Tony.

“Look, sweet-talking a government stooge wasn’t on my to-do list tonight. I’m making an effort.” Tony refocuses on Clint. “What do you say, sweetheart? Are you willing to work with me? You picking up what I'm putting down here?”

“’As the bishop said to the actress,’” Steve murmurs. Falsworth used to say that. Bucky chuckles.

“Wonder if he talks to Pepper that way,” Sam adds. Tony’s jaw tightens.

At that, Clint sighs and pushes the DM screen aside. “OK, guys,” he says. “Out of character for a minute. DM announcement.”

The Avengers (and extras) look at each other, somewhat confused.

“This is a team-building exercise,” Clint says. “But it’s also new for most of us. Tony is actually playing a character who’s not exactly like himself—and take it from someone who had to shadow him, but that is pretty damn hard for him to do. So let’s dial it back a little and not pick on each other’s roleplaying, OK? We’re all doing our best here.”

Awkward silence.

“So yeah,” Clint says. “Play nice, or I’m turning this car around right now and nobody’s getting any McDonald’s.”

Natasha was right. Clint does have kids.

* * *

Tony succeeds in charming their prisoner. She reveals that her tribe of man-eating mer-monsters has cut a deal with an agent on land: they pay him in sunken treasure, and he sends them victims for the blood sacrifices they make every year. Their agent is someone highly placed in society.

“Sir Friedrich,” Steve says, grim-faced.

Shoulda guessed a German would try to screw them.

But the night’s not over. Clint narrates how the blood of the slain mermaids seeps into the dark water and tells them to roll perception. They fail ... which means they apparently do not notice the crab monster the side of a minibus until it’s almost on top of them.

The best thing Bucky can say about the subsequent fight is that they win. Cold comfort for a guy who’s officially out of spell slots and down to about four hit points. Clint announces that they’ve leveled up.

“And you’re all alive, which is nice,” he adds. “I had about fifty-fifty odds on that.”

They take a vote to go after Sir Friedrich next session, and the group breaks for the night. Bucky grabs his copy of the Player’s Handbook and heads for the kitchen.

This time, he finds Darcy already there. As usual, her long dark hair is loose and spilling over her shoulders. He can see a tiny glint of gold peeking through the waves—some kind of earrings he can’t make out. But instead of lab clothes and day-old makeup, she’s wearing a tank top and soft, loose shorts. A fluffy pink robe hangs half open, and she’s barefoot.

“Hey,” Bucky says. Darcy lets out a yelp that sounds a little like “Jesus fuck!” and loses her grip on her mug of tea. “Sorry!” Bucky adds quickly and catches the falling drink before more than a few drops can splash out.

“I swear, if you freakin’ super-ninjas make me break my Pluto mug, I’m gonna commit some serious evil.” Darcy takes the cup back. “You are way too sneaky for a grunt. Why are you still up?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Bucky replies. “Scientists dressing like that these days?”

“I wish. I’m getting ready for bed. Love me some fluffy stuff, but it’s a tripping hazard in the lab.”

Bucky thinks back to the teetering stacks of books and papers. “Hate to break it to you, but your whole lab is a tripping hazard.”

“Hey, watch it! There’s a system.” Darcy gives him a menacing look over the rim of her mug. “Don’t make me come over there, sarge.”

“You promise?”

The words trip off his tongue before he realizes what he’s doing. The moment they’re out, he wishes he could grab them back: his nerves are suddenly tingling, on edge. It almost feels like the moment he said But I knew him to Pierce. The sudden swooping fear of knowing that he’s spoken out of turn, that he’s doing something he’s not supposed to be doing—

—which is such a stupid impulse. He mentally shakes himself and squashes the thought, forcing his tense muscles to loosen.

Darcy doesn’t seem to have noticed his sudden freeze. She just laughs and slurps her tea.

“You’re not so bad,” she says. “Y’know, when you got here, I thought you’d be kind of an asshole. Like Rogers and Wilson.”

That stops any remaining self-loathing dead in its tracks.

“Steve and Sam?” he asks. “Did I hear that right?”

“No, your hearing isn’t going, old man,” Darcy says. “Yeah, I said they’re kind of assholes. Not full-on assholes, but there’s a not-statistically-insignificant asshole percentage happening there.”

“You’re way off base, Darcy. Sam and Steve are solid.”

“Then how come they’re the only ones who never talk to us?”

Bucky frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Look, I get it. You guys have Avenging to do, right?” Darcy gestures expansively with the mug, almost slopping tea onto her sleeve. “Lots of day-saving going on. And I’m not asking to be part of the Best Friends Superhero Super Secret Treehouse Club. Lifelong sidekick and comic relief, that’s me. But Jane and Erik are working hard to fix shit—get the Einstein-Rosen bridge working, reestablish full contact with other planets, all that jazz—and I think that deserves a little respect. Even if they can’t punch shit.”

Now Bucky’s starting to be concerned. He pushes off the counter and comes towards Darcy.

“Look,” he says, gently taking the mug from her hand before any more hot tea can end up where it shouldn’t. “What happened? Did Steve say something to you?”

“Nah.” Darcy rolls her eyes. “He's too white bread for that shit. Him and the flyboy won’t even talk to us. Even the scary spy twins drop by to see how the research is going—and, you know, make sure we aren’t doing anything they have to disappear us for. Dr. Banner and Stark are on the research team, so we see them. Thor, well, Thor and Jane are knocking boots, so of course he’s around. And you! You’re checking in on us and helping me wrangle the scientists, which is weird, because I thought you’d hate labs and lab coats and hoooooly shit, that sentence got away from me, forget I said it. But the one time I saw Captain America, he looked into the lab, made a face, and pretty much ran away with the Falcon right behind him.”

That makes sense.

“Dammit, Stevie …” Bucky drags his good hand down his face. Seventy years later, and he’s still trying to explain his friend to women—and vice versa.

“So what’s the deal?” Darcy asks. “Does he hate women in STEM or something?”

“Fuck, no. If you’d’a met Peggy, you know he ain’t got a problem with smart girls … Jesus Christ, how do I explain this?”

Now there’s a little bit of a smile on Darcy’s face. She leans forward. “Something scandalous going on, sarge?”

“Just Stevie being an idiot. Look, you thought I’d be nervous in labs?”

She nods.

“Well, I am,” Bucky admits. “Gives me the creeps. I liked your lab right away because it was different—no biologists or anything, no surgical tables. I guess I spent enough time in ‘em over the years that I can sort ‘em out. Different types of lab, different types of feelings. Steve … he’s just scared of ‘em all.”

Darcy makes a face. “You’re fucking with me.”

“Nope. Labs, hospitals, anything that seems like medicine. He was in and out of ‘em all the time as a kid, right? Spent a lot of time with grown-ups talking over his head about whether he was gonna make it through next year. His ma dies in the TB ward. Then he goes and gets himself turned into a science experiment. Him and scientists, doctors, they got a hard time getting along.”

“But he hangs out with Tony Stark all the time.”

“Doing his job,” Bucky points out. “He hates that part. Doesn’t have episodes or anything—not like me,” he adds ruefully. “Not triggered. Just … doesn’t like it. I think he’s got it in the back of his mind that they’re gonna make him an experiment again.”

Darcy considers that for a moment.

“So he’s scared of the labs, and the Falcon is being a buddy and backing him up,” she guesses. Bucky nods. “Well. Now I feel like a moron.”

“Hell, you wouldn’t be the first dame he accidentally insulted. Makes it feel just like old times.”

Darcy takes a swallow of tea and sets the empty mug aside. Her eyes soften as she looks over Bucky, like she can’t quite puzzle something out.

“You’re a stand-up guy, sarge,” she says.

Bucky isn’t sure what to say to that.

“I mean that,” she adds quickly. “I mean, I know I’m kind of shitty at getting words around stuff sometimes, but—you went through a lot, and you’re still able to see someone else’s side of things. Even though his lab fear can’t be, like, one millionth of what you have.”

“It doesn’t add up that way,” Bucky says quietly. “Just ‘cause someone else has it worse doesn’t mean your own stuff doesn’t hurt.”

“Yeah, but not everyone remembers that.” She smiles, and Bucky’s nerves start to tingle again.

Standing there in her sleep clothes, with tired eyes and a rumpled robe, she looks … soft. Sort of warm and familiar. Like she’s welcoming him back from something. Like she’s someone who trusts him enough to greet him in a robe and bare feet.

Must be more tired than he thought. Either that, or trying to think like a dragon sorceress for half the night was messing with his head.

“You’re pretty stand-up yourself, Darcy,” he says.

“Hell yeah. I can even sit and lie down, too.”

“I mean it. Don’t sell yourself short. It takes guts to talk back to this bunch.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re all big bad superheroes.” She prods him lightly in the chest with one forefinger. Her nail polish is bright green and beginning to chip. “Well, I’m a big bad lab manager. Don’t start no shit, won’t be no shit.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says, saluting. Darcy’s cheeks pinken.

Chapter Text

The plan for Session Three is them returning to the guy who hired them in the first place. After the mermaid spilled her guts and the crab monster nearly spilled their guts, the team has a collective bone to pick with Sir Friedrich von Frankenthaler.

They’re at level four now, so Bucky takes a few minutes before the session to finish updating his character. Milady is getting a new cantrip—like an easy spell, unlimited shots, which is pretty damn useful—and a new spell. Bucky’s been having fun with Witch Bolt, so he chooses a spell called Dragon’s Breath, which allows him to breathe lightning (or fire, acid, cold, or poison). For his cantrip, he picks Mold Earth. Trap them and zap them: his girl isn’t gonna take any bullshit.

The first to arrive after Clint and Bucky is actually Thor. Instead of settling onto the couch like before, he hurries over to Barton and starts eagerly asking questions about the story. Barton fends him off, saying he doesn’t want to spoil the game for his players. But Thor’s enthusiasm is contagious.

“Tell you what, pal.” Clint spreads out some papers on the table, behind the DM screen. The others are trickling in, so he lowers his voice. “You wanna get involved? Sir Friedrich is gonna try and talk them out of hurting him. You’re a prince, so you tell me—what would a nobleman do?”

Thor considers that for a moment. Bucky is sitting at the other end of the table, flipping through the spell lists, and he twitches a little as he feels Thor’s eyes on him. Then the god turns back to Barton.

“He should offer them gifts,” Thor says.

“Well, yeah, bribery’s a classic. What kind of gifts are you thinking?”

“If he is a noble, then he should offer tokens which impress upon them his valor and virtues. Particularly adornments for the women, such as new blades or charms to supplement their power. Weapons are the glory of the ring-giver.”

Clint thinks it over. “You know what? That tracks.” He and Thor put their heads together, whispering about the best bribes for each character.

Dinner tonight is from a Japanese place, and once again Tony’s ordered multiples of everything on the menu. Bucky can take or leave ramen—he’s not sure about the idea of putting fish cakes in noodle soup—but it turns out this yakisoba stuff is pretty good. He’s feeling relaxed once the session kicks off. Thor sits down on the couch with a big mug of straight whiskey, eager for the show to begin, and Clint clears his throat.

“You have been foully betrayed!” he proclaims. Thor looks like a kid whose Christmases have all come at once. “You suspect that Sir Friedrich von Frankenthaler, nobleman of Baraval, sent you to the cursed lighthouse fortress of Caer Pallon to be blood sacrifices for the vile mermaids of the deep. You took grievous wounds in the battle against the mer-beasts, but after a night’s rest, you feel new strength suffusing you. Now you have chosen to return to Baraval and confront the betrayer. Shall you reason with him, or shall you bring vengeance upon him?”

“Vengeance,” Stark says.

“I vote vengeance,” Steve agrees. There are nods all around the table.

Clint steeples his fingers. “Very well. You awaken, still encamped on the beach amidst the bloody remnants of the creatures you conquered.”

“Hey, Clint.” Sam has a pensive expression. “Are the dead mermaids still in one piece?”

“Starting to get a little ripe, but yeah, they’re there.”

“Cool. I cut off one of their hands and stick it in my pack.”

Steve’s head whips around as he boggles at Sam. “Why?”

“It’s a surprise tool that will help us later,” Sam tells him solemnly. That makes the rest of the table crack up for some reason that Bucky doesn’t get.

“Oh-kay, add one severed mermaid hand to your equipment list.” Clint makes a note. “Anyone else want to mutilate any corpses?”

The whole table looks at Natasha. She sips her tea primly and says nothing.

Clint makes another note. “Good progress, Tasha.”

They double-time it back to Baraval. As Clint describes it, the city is a little like Venice on steroids: lots of canals and Renaissance architecture, with a sophisticated and effete upper class. The fashion is for all citizens in good standing to wear elaborate masks, and everyone who doesn’t is marked as an outsider. The stern, faceless figures in ruffs and cloaks look grotesque, hovering above the table, and Bucky’s head swims.

—skull-faced cartoon figures twisting and dancing across the screen. Mariana Mazzoli is next to him, smelling like heavy rose perfume, but the leering figures rush towards the camera and she lets out a shriek—

Bucky leans over to Steve. “Hey,” he says, low-voiced.

“Yeah?” Steve is instantly alert. “You all right, pal?”

“Just remembering … a girl? Uh, Mariana?”

“Oh, boy. Her, you remember?”

Clint clears his throat. “Problem, guys?”

“Bucky remembered something.” Steve shoots him a glance, a smile ticking the corner of his mouth. “Not technically a bad something, but that something sure was ticked at him for bringing her to a scary picture.”

“That’s great, guys.” Clint looks to Bucky. “Barnes? You with us, or do we need to take five?”

“No, it’s fine. And, uh, Milady votes for vengeance too.”

“Called it!” Stark exclaims. “I told you, Bruce. Gimme the dice!”

Banner sighs and pushes his green dice over to Stark, who gleefully stacks them up in front of his character sheet. The Hulk receives Stark’s red-and-gold dice in return.

“Bruce’s dice were lucky last time,” Stark explains. “I want in on that action.”

With great effort, Clint manages to drag their attention back to the actual game. They know the location of Sir Friedrich’s chateau, but they can’t just barge in and wreck the place. Oh, they could try, but Clint pointedly describes the very high-level armor and weapons worn by the guards and the big high walls that probably conceal magical traps. Reluctantly, they try to figure something else out.

Stark, still flush with his success with the mermaid and bogarting Bruce’s dice, suggests charming their way in. Steve says they should go through the kitchens: if he’s a monk, he could be collecting alms for the poor at the servants’ entrance. Sam proposes a bit of second-story work … though how an elderly dwarf is planning to get up on the roof of the chateau is never properly explained.

Finally, Natasha sets her can of Coke down with a decisive thump.

“You’re all idiots,” she says. “We were hired to do a job. We present ourselves at the front door and tell him it’s done.”

“I’m with her,” Bruce says quickly.

The rest look a little sheepish. Bucky nods along with Natasha and pretends he wasn’t secretly plotting to use Disguise Self and turn Milady into Sir Friedrich’s estranged wife.

Natasha’s plan works. Clint describes the interior of the chateau’s great hall, and JARVIS creates it for them: a grand vaulted ceiling dripping in golden chandeliers, filled with rare works of art and antique suits of silver-chased armor. The phrase “silver-chased” makes Steve smile, and Bucky glances over to see his old pal doodling a cartoon suit of armor being chased by a bar of silver.

—“Is something funny, Mr. Barnes? Mr. Rogers?”

Sister Mary Louisa grabbing Stevie’s composition book. She’ll find the cartoons in a minute. Stevie’s already coming down with another cough: if he gets his ass whipped again, he’ll be in bed for days.

Time to take one for the team. He sits up straight, putting on his most innocent face.

“Sister Mary! Sister Mary! Is it true that girls become nuns ‘cause they’re too ugly to get boys?”

That gets her attention, all right—

Bucky blinks, and the memory fades. Steve is still smiling, tongue between his teeth, as he sketches the cartoon knight’s flailing arms. Clint is painting a picture of a grand hall filled with gaudy treasures, and JARVIS is showing it to them. Nobody seems to have noticed his slip.

That’s a new memory. But just like the girl in the theater, it’s not exactly a bad memory. Bucky lets himself smile a little too and sits back, enjoying the moment.

As Clint narrates, Sir Friedrich looks extremely unenthused to see them alive again. Sam rolls Sense Motive yet again and somehow succeeds on a 9. Apparently, this guy isn’t very good at concealing his thoughts.

“Sir Friedrich was not expecting to see you, and now he’s frightened,” Clint says. “You don’t think he’s gonna call for the guards just yet, but he’s definitely wondering how he can get out of this and never see you guys again.”

“Marya will play dumb,” Natasha announces. Then: “No. Her Wisdom is 8. Marya is dumb. She marches right up to Sir Friedrich and announces for the whole hall to hear: ‘Hail, noble patron! We have uncovered a grave danger, and thou must be made wary of it. Shalt thou give us private council, that we may speak?’”

“Roll persuasion.”

Natasha reaches over and swipes Bruce’s d20 from Stark. He squawks, but she’s already rolling. “Hmm. With my Charisma bonus … twenty-one.”

“Sir Friedrich is persuaded that a paladin of your honorable order would mean him no harm. He says ‘This way, noble lady. We shall speak in my chambers.’”

“Sense Motive!” Sam says instantly.

Once Sam has been persuaded that, yes, Sir Friedrich is in the same mood he was two minutes ago, the party finally gets the the poor bastard alone. Thor is leaning forward on the couch, holding his massive stein motionless as he concentrates on the scene.

“’How wonderful to see you again, and so quickly, my dear … ah, friends!’” Clint’s voice as Sir Friedrich sounds like Falsworth with a head cold and a stick up his ass. “’I trust you recovered my artifacts. But before you answer, let me provide, um, a token of my—ah—appreciation! I have some treasures here, in my private safe, which may interest you.’”

A list of loot appears above the battle grid. Bruce and Natasha are being offered fine swords; Steve, Sam, and Bucky, enchanted trinkets that increase their skills; and Tony is being presented with a new lute whose sole power is that it’s absurdly expensive. Either Clint is testing Tony’s ability to stay in character, or Sir Friedrich knows that musicians are chronically broke.

“’Nay, I shall not give up the blade provided me by my sacred order,’” Natasha proclaims. Thor beams.

“Uh, me neither.” Bruce is engrossed in his tablet. From this angle, it looks like he’s reviewing DNA analysis.

Steve rejects his gift, claiming a vow of poverty. After carefully examining them for traps, Sam accepts the +2 Boots of Sneaking. They should keep him alive a little longer next time they get into a brawl.

Tony, in-character, is enraged.

“Look at this thing!” He points at the lute JARVIS is displaying. “That much metal on a thin wood frame? And gold? There’s a reason the Devil lost his violin duel, and it wasn’t Johnny being better. What a piece of junk. Angus turns to what’s-his-face and says ‘I can’t play that. No one can play that. Fire your luthier. Zero stars on Ye Olde Yelp.’”

“Sir Friedrich accepts this, though he’s not sure where Yelp is,” Clint deadpans. He glances at Bucky. “How about Milady?”

Bucky looks at his girl and thinks.

On the one hand, this guy tried to screw them all. His instinct—Bucky’s instinct—is to put a bullet through his skull. But Milady doesn’t have much money, and she’s got dragon blood. She ought to be willing to listen if someone wants to give her treasure.

Still. Dragons are supposed to be proud, right?

“Milady accepts the token,” he says.

“And the sorceress gets Earrings of +2 Elemental Damage.” Clint makes a note. On the character grid, Milady dons golden earrings shaped like lightning bolts.

“Then she says ‘Your generosity does you credit, Sir Friedrich. I should hate to see such a fine gift go unused.’ She’s going to prepare Shocking Grasp and hold her action, just enough to let lightning show between her fingers.”

“Intimidation,” Stark notes. “I like it. Angus moves to block the door. I’d like to see someone get past a thousand pounds of centaur.”

“Marya is staying where she is. She’s going to be straightforward about this.” Natasha elbows Bruce, who looks up briefly.

“Uh, John is staying with Marya.”

Sam circles behind their target, and Steve goes to the other side. Sir Friedrich is surrounded by annoyed adventurers that he just tried to bribe. And the only ones who took the bribes are now directly in front of and behind him, feeling awfully motivated to make sure he can’t talk.

—Howlies on every side. “All right, Fritz, we can make this easy or not.” Peggy sitting primly on a camp stool, looking reasonable and downright civilized, with half a dozen mud-smeared commandos and Captain America looming over their prisoner—

A lot of memories tonight. Bucky resolves to tell his shrink first thing in the morning. It’s taken a lot of effort to make himself trust a doctor of anything; the least the guy can do is listen to his flashbacks.

Sufficiently intimidated, Sir Friedrich babbles out the whole story in record time.

“’They pay me well!’” Clint says in Sir Friedrich’s nasally British accent. “’Their treasures are vast! They have every piece of gold lost in shipwrecks, every sunken yacht … But you see, they need blood. Human blood. And, er, other types, for flavor. They pay me well and I send them, ah, people who won’t be missed …’”

Natasha leans in. “And what about the lighthouse?” she says with soft menace. “What foul magic bedeviled that place?”

“Hey, you’re not supposed to interrogate!” Stark turns to Clint. “What she said, but wrap it up in charisma.”

“’The lighthouse was not their doing … They tell me there was a power there, some influence bigger than them. But it loves blood, so it lets them do their work there. They say it would drown the world if it could. Now, I’ve told you everything, so will you please let me go?’”

“Hang on. Hang on.” Tony points at Clint. “You said he’s got powerful guards, right? So what’ll happen if we let him loose?”

“Try it and find out,” Clint suggests with a smile.

“Not a chance, Legolas. I know what happens when you make that face.” Tony looks at the rest of the table. “So. Let him go or kill him? I vote kill.”

“It’d have to be really quiet,” Steve points out.

“Ask the Mistress of the Dark over there. I bet she’s got some silencing spells or something.” Steve glances at Natasha, and Tony laughs. “No, the other one.”

“No silencing spells,” Bucky tells him. “I could probably do something with Charm Person and Disguise Self, but we’d be betting our whole plan on the dice.”

Of course, they could silence Sir Friedrich permanently without magic. There’s ways to destroy a human voicebox by cutting a couple of key nerves. Easy. But while it’s Bucky’s first instinct, it wouldn’t be Milady’s. Yeah, she’s proud, and she doesn’t take betrayal well. She’d want this chump’s punishment to be loud and public.

Then Sam grins. “Ol’ Joe taps Airedale on the shoulder. ’Eh, donner tes flask, mon ami.’”

“English!” Stark and Steve say at the same time. Sam chuckles.

“He’s asking you to give him your flask.”

Steve hesitates. “You’ve got an idea, and I like that, but I don’t think Airedale would hand it over. He only met these guys yesterday.”

“Which is an excellent in-character decision,” Barton says, overriding Sam’s “C’mon, man!” “Sam, do you want to roll to persuade?”

After some wrangling, Airedale agrees to hand over the flask.

“All right,” Sam says. “I attack this idiot with my blackjack. Nonlethal damage.”

“He’s already trapped,” Barton says.

“Well, yeah. No point in attacking him if he isn’t. I’m gonna give him a concussion.”

The rest of the team watches as Sam’s character viciously beats a helpless man, dealing a severe concussion, and pours the contents of Airedale’s flask all over him.

“Is this the part where you light a match, Wednesday?” Stark drawls. Sam shakes his head.

“Now he’s concussed, which means he’s out of it, and he smells like cheap whiskey. Oh, and I’m planting the severed mermaid hand in his pocket.” Sam grins and strikes “Mermaid hand” off his equipment list. “If they don’t figure out he was beaten, then they’ll think he injured himself while drunk. But even if they do think he got his ass kicked, they’ll still discover that he’s toting a rotting monster hand around. Looks suspicious as hell.”

“And making it impossible for anyone to believe anything he has to say, including blaming us,” Natasha says approvingly. “You have a devious mind, Sam.”

Steve is looking sideways at Sam, like he’s never quite met the guy before. Bucky is just plain impressed.

With Sir Friedrich incapacitated and unable to call his guards, they walk right out of the chateau unharmed. Now comes the question of what dark power actually caused all that shit at the lighthouse.

“We have to check it out,” Steve says. “Right? That’s how the game goes. That’s, uh, a ‘plot hook,’ right?”

Clint shrugs. “You could check it out. Or you could buy a tavern in town … Go on a murder spree … walk five hundred miles in the other direction and find an owlbear to adopt. It’s your choice and your world.”

“The fat sack of crap said the mermaids have treasure,” Stark cuts in. “I’m a traveling entertainer, for God’s sake. I’m one step from insolvency and I’ve probably got student loans. I want the damn treasure.”

Bucky looks up at Milady Alexandra.

“I agree,” he says. “Dragons always like gold. And those mermaids did try to kill us. Don’t start no shit, won’t be no shit.”

There’s a brief silence at the table.

“All right,” Stark says, “who’s in charge of teaching Barnes slang? They deserve a raise. That sounded almost natural. Wilson, is it you?”

But Sam holds up his hands. “Not me, man.”

“You been on the internet again, Buck?” Steve says. He’s grinning, the punk.

“Fucking Wikipedia,” Bucky grumbles. The group laughs. His hatred of Wikipedia (and the fact that anyone can edit it and justify things with the most bullshit of reasons—no, he is not an android, and even he knows that the fucking Daily Mail is not a reputable source) is well known at this point. He can blame almost anything on that site and no one will question it.

He doesn’t want to tell them it was Darcy. He’ll share game nights with Stevie’s team and even memories with the therapist, but that little bit feels like it belongs to him.

* * *

It ends up being a more character-focused session after last week’s combat spree. Knowing that they’re planning to go back to the lighthouse and potentially face more monsters, the team fans out into the city of Baraval to sell their loot and stock up on gear. Natasha and Steve’s characters end up getting into a heated debate over religion that satisfies no one but sets up some of that potential inter-party conflict Steve was so interested in. Sam is the responsible one and actually buys a tent and some food … and some cologne, after a shopkeeper pointedly remarks on how rotten his gear smells. Tony’s character performs dirty songs in a bar and ends up making the most money of all of them. Bucky tries to go to the potion shop, but he gets a random encounter with a goblin mugger and ends up using Mold Earth to drop it into the sewer.

Bruce falls asleep at the table again.

As they pack up for the night, Thor is beaming. He clasps Barton’s hand and shakes it vigorously.

“A fine tale, my friend!” he booms. “’Twas pleasing indeed to see my shield-brothers and shield-sister spin an adventure. You must bring this game to Asgard, that proper bards may make it into a saga worthy of my father’s hall.”

“Uh, great,” Clint hedges. “Maybe hold off until the campaign’s finished, OK? These things can go off the rails pretty fast.”

He sounds like he’s speaking from experience. But the highlight so far is Sam Wilson, the only guy almost as stand-up as Steve Rogers, dismembering someone to frame someone else for a crime. Bucky can’t imagine some silly wizard game getting crazier than that.

It’s not quite midnight yet, but he heads for the kitchen anyway. After four hours around the table with the Avengers, he needs water and a little peace.

He wonders if Darcy will be up late in the lab again, or if she’s curled up in bed by now. She definitely needs to rest: the whole astro lab is in a perpetual state of “almost sleep-deprived enough to officially be a security risk,” and it’s making him twitchy. But he also finds himself hoping she’ll be up, just because she’ll love hearing about Thor’s weird investment in their D&D game. She loves anything she can tease Thor with.

Stepping into the kitchen, he finds Jane Foster fussing with the coffee machine. Her hair is tousled and her eyes are bleary, but she’s out of the lab. The refrigerator door hangs open, and half of a French silk pie sits on the counter.

Bucky clears his throat. Foster shrieks and grabs the first pointy object to hand, which turns out to be the pie server.

“Sorry,” Bucky says, holding up his hands. “Just me. I keep accidentally sneaking up on people.”

Foster lowers the pie server. “Sergeant Barnes,” she says carefully. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

Her eyes are wary, and it belatedly occurs to Bucky that this is the first time they’ve been alone together. He stays motionless on his side of the kitchen, hands still open and empty. Not a threat.

Then, to his surprise, she sighs and turns away. There’s tension in her shoulders, but she sets her jaw and puts the pie server back on the counter before returning to the coffee machine.

“Did you have a good time at the game?” she says. She sounds determined to be pleasant now. “Thor tells me it’s going well. He says Agent Barton is ‘a fine tale-spinner, for a mortal.’”

Bucky laughs softly. “That sounds like Thor,” he says. “Yeah, it’s going well. No one’s tried to quit or break the table, anyway.”

“Good.”

There’s a short silence. He can practically see her casting around for another topic of polite conversation.

Bucky tucks his hands in his pockets and bows his shoulders a little, making himself a bit smaller. Yeah, she’s got her back turned to him, but if she’s actually wary of him then she’ll be watching him like a hawk in the reflection on the shiny espresso machine. Stark’s appliances are a damn house of mirrors.

He clears his throat. “I hope I didn’t startle you too much, Dr. Foster. I’m not used to seeing you down here at this time of night.”

Foster is still busying herself with the coffee machine, but his enhanced hearing can still pick up a soft exhalation from her.

“It’s usually Darcy, I know. But she’s having a rough day, so I sent her home.”

Bucky straightens up. “Is she all right? Did something hurt her?” Lab accident, tower intruder, sniper, cholera, tuberculosis, trench foot—

But Foster shakes her head. “It’s not my story to tell. Nothing hurt her, though. At least, nothing that’s here any more, thank God and Galileo.” Her tone is sour in a way that was once familiar to Bucky Barnes. Around the time that Becca started going with boys.

“Some guy causing her problems?” The words come out sharp.

Foster turns around again, finally with a full cup in hand. She looks real tired, Bucky can see, but there’s more than that. A genuine concern marks her features and furrows her brow. This is Darcy’s “Janey,” the woman who’s been a mentor and friend to her for five years or more.

“It’s not. My. Story. To. Tell,” she repeats firmly. “But she’s probably in the media room on 92 right now, if you really want to ask.”

“Thanks.”

She eyes him. “Don’t complain to me or Thor if she sticks a taser in your arm socket.”

“Doc, I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Bucky promises.

Dr. Foster looks surprised—but hell, he really wouldn’t. His file is a horror novel and his memories are so muddled that it’s a damn shock when he remembers something nice. He shared a table with Iron Man and the Hulk this evening, both fully capable of leveling cities. If someone’s bothering a sharp girl like Darcy, who hasn’t got any powers at all, then he wants to know that she’s ready and able to defend herself.

(Like they used to say in the army: “God made men. John Browning made them equal.” He’d take her shooting in a heartbeat if he thought she’d go for it.)

The doc seems to be making a decision.

“Hold on a minute.” She quickly pours coffee into two travel mugs and shovels the remains of the pie into a plastic container. French silk is already soft, and the pie ends up an indistinct crumb-covered brown-and-white blob. She adds two forks and shoves the cups and container into his hands, glaring fiercely up at him to cover the unease. She can’t be more than five foot four. “Here. Now you have an excuse. But if I find out you made her cry, the taser will be the least of your problems.”

He believes her. He takes the mugs and the Tupperware with exaggerated care and heads for the elevator before either of them loses their nerve.

* * *

The ninety-second floor of the Tower is technically unused. Bucky isn’t allowed to see the building plans or the security schedules—yes, he’s tried—but he knows from eavesdropping that 92 was meant to be office space for the Avengers’ SHIELD liaisons. Then the helicarriers fell on DC, and suddenly SHIELD was out of the Avengers business. The place ended up used to store random odds and ends of furniture until someone had the bright idea of dragging all of the biggest spare couches into one room and adding a television.

The team persists in calling it the media room, despite Stark’s insistence that the whole Tower is a multimedia complex. As far as Bucky can tell, they mainly say it to piss him off.

He doesn’t come up here much, though.

The hallway outside the elevator is dim and quiet in that distinctive way of an empty house. Too bare, too empty, with an echo that only magnifies every footstep. Corridors that would be filled with filled with people seem far too broad, and the sameness of each unmarked doorway makes it difficult to tell which direction he’s going.

He can feel an ache growing in the back of his skull. Empty corridors, echoing footsteps, cold lifelessness—coming out of the cold, ready to comply—

Bucky quickly ducks his head and takes a deep breath. The smells of coffee and chocolate cream fill his nose, pushing back the echoing stillness.

Too many memories tonight. Definitely need to talk to the therapist.

He forces himself to keep walking. The media room is near the center of the floor, away from other distractions. He can hear the low hum of the TV now and see light spilling out from under the door.

Remembering Foster in the kitchen, Bucky stops at the door. There’s an awkward moment as he tries to balance both mugs and the Tupperware in one hand, but finally he gets everything arranged and knocks on the lintel with his metal knuckles.

“Fuck off, Janey!” Darcy growls from behind the door.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Bucky calls out.

There’s a thump and shuffle of blankets. Darcy pulls the door open and looks up at him, eyes wide as if she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing.

She’s wearing her typical workaday clothes—jeans, Converse, and a t-shirt under a loose hoodie for warmth in the air-conditioned labs. But her eyes and nose are red from crying, and her hair is pulled up in a messy knot on top of her head. Gold glints from one of her ears: she must have forgotten to take off both earrings. Today’s polish is a day old and definitely chipped. Blanket draped over her shoulders.

“Jesus, it really is you,” she says. She wipes her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “You need the room? I’ll fuck off.”

“Actually, I have a delivery.” Bucky holds up the mugs and the plastic container. “Dr. Foster sends her regards.”

“And she shanghaied a super-soldier into playing delivery boy.” Darcy manages a small, watery smile.

“Well, she gets a Viking god to be her arm candy, so you oughtta know she’s pretty persuasive. Can I come in?”

“Oh! Uh, yeah. It’s a free … Tower.”

Aside from the TV and some attached gaming consoles, the media room is mostly a jumble of mismatched couches and armchairs. Bucky looks around in vain for a table to put the food on. Finally, he finds a plastic milk crate and sets everything down there.

“Rough day?” he says. Darcy’s shoulders slump.

“You really should think about that bartender thing, sarge. Is it that obvious?”

“You look like you’ve been crying. So either you had a rough day, or you tried the hot wings in the cafeteria.”

She huffs out a laugh and wipes her eyes. No mascara smear on her sleeve: she must’ve cried it all off before now. “I’m weird, not suicidal. Just remembering some shit.”

Bucky sits down on the nearest couch so that he’s not looming over her. A moment later, she sits down too—but not on the couch. She settles onto the floor and leans back, resting her head against the seat cushion, knees drawn up. She lets out a soft sigh as she gets comfortable: almost like she’s burrowing back into the cushions for protection. Bucky’s left hand rests on the cushion next to her head.

“Traitors suck,” she says.

Bucky’s heartrate barely has time to rise before she scoffs. “Not you,” she adds. “It’s just that I dumped my last serious boyfriend a year ago, and it wasn’t because we were incompatible. He turned out to be a backstabbing asshole.”

Fuck. “HYDRA?”

“No, not HYDRA. Just your garden-variety douchebag trying to steal Jane’s secrets.” Darcy wipes her eyes again. “And he started trying to pull that shit after we saved the world together and hooked up. That’s what fucked with my head. He sees what’s going on out there and still goes ‘Nope, I wanna sell this stuff to some asshole for-profit research lab in Chicago.’”

Compromising operational security with money. One of the oldest stories in espionage. Even Bucky’s fractured memory can show him multiple examples of people selling out to HYDRA for nothing more than cash.

“Was anyone killed?” he says carefully.

“Because of what he did? Or do you mean, did I kill him?”

“Don’t want to make assumptions here …”

She manages another laugh. Her eyes are still red, but the amusement gives them a sparkle they didn’t have before.

“Nah. I didn’t even tase him. I mean, I wanted to, but we were getting ready to move the labs into the Tower and I didn’t know if Tony Stark would be OK with his employees, y’know, committing assault.” Bucky can’t even hide his surprise, and she rolls her eyes. “I know, right? Of course, now I know that I could’ve pushed him off the top of the Tower and Stark wouldn’t care. Probably help me hide the body. But I just dumped him, changed the locks and the passwords … and, OK, I emailed proof to every professor he’s ever worked with, which was probably kind of petty. But I wanted him to hurt for what he did.”

“Sounds like you fixed him good. So what’s the problem?”

“Nothing, really. I just got one of those Facebook notifications today. Like, ‘here’s what you were doing a year ago!’ And it’s the last photo we ever took together before I found out he was a lying jackwagon. I hate it when memories punch me in the face.”

Bucky smiles a little ruefully. “I know what you mean.”

“Ohfuckme.” Darcy covers her face. “I’m so sorry, dude! I’m bitching about memories and … ohhhh, fuck me, kill me now.”

“Hey. C’mon, Darcy. Remember the other night?” He nudges her gently with his knee. “Just because someone else is hurting worse, doesn’t mean you’re not hurting too. It’s not a damn contest.”

She peeks through her fingers at him. “Good. Because you would win every time.” Her cheeks redden, and she covers her eyes again. “Goddammit, mouth, stop talking.”

Bucky takes pity on her and takes a moment to open one of the travel mugs of coffee. Darcy visibly collects herself, takes a deep breath and looks back at him.

“All right,” she says. “I’m now calm and mostly sane. Ahem. I apologize for my behavior. It was very unprofessional of me and does not reflect on the views of my employers or my field. Etcetera, etcetera.”

“’S all right. I been thinking about memories too.” Bucky taps his temple with his metal forefinger. “Lots of stuff happening up here tonight. Even during the game, which was fu—uh, frustrating. Sometimes a memory just gets you and you feel that way all over again.”

Her expression softens. She takes the other travel mug, sipping carefully, but her eyes never leave him.

“How do you manage?” she asks. “I mean, I get one stupid flashback and it wrecks me. I had a nightmare about Loki and I was a mess for days. How are you even still … you know, sane?”

“Jury’s still out on that one,” Bucky points out. She mock-scowls at him. “All right, all right … And the answer is, I dunno. Just putting one foot in front of the other. I started so deep in the hole that anything feels like progress, y’know?”

“One day at a time,” she says.

“Yeah. And friends help. Distracting myself helps. Hell, even Barton’s wizard game helps.”

“Really? Are you still playing the elf lady?”

Bucky nods. He half expected her to laugh at him when she found out (via Thor) that he was playing a female character, but she’d just grinned and said it’s open-minded of him. He hasn’t quite told her it’s because he likes to have something attractive to look at on the battle grid. She’s a nice girl; he doesn’t want her to think he’s a hound.

“Got in some good fights last time. This time was more about character stuff. Barton’s pretty good at making up stories—you know he’s built this whole world for the game?”

“Yeah, dude. Video games and tabletop have gotten crazy complex in the last couple of decades.”

“Sam said something like that once. Tried to get me to play a game with him.” Bucky flexes his silver hand. “Controller wasn’t really built for super-soldiers.”

“Hey!” Darcy perks up as something occurs to her. Her eyes are still red, but she’s really smiling now, which is what Bucky was hoping for. “Ever heard of Twitch? The website, not the nerve thing.”

He shakes his head, and her grin turns mischievous. “Oh my God, I am about to rock your world.”

Five minutes later, she’s pulled up Twitch on the TV, and she’s explaining the minutiae of livestream lingo and how to donate to channels. Turns out that lots of people like to share video games as they’re playing them, and you can watch along as they do it. Now anyone can hear the game stories without having to worry about breaking controllers.

The lingo is a little hard to get his head around: phrases like “shoutout to chat” sound alien to Bucky. But when you break it all down, this livestream stuff seems a lot like streetcorner busking. Only instead of playing the violin or doing chalk drawings, they’re streaming something called Call of Duty.

“Oooh, no, you don’t want to watch that,” Darcy says quickly when he points to it. “It’s a war game. Also, a lot of the players are huge dickwads.”

“Pretty realistic game, then.”

Darcy laughs out loud. “Go into chat and tell them that! Or wait. Don’t. They’ll try to dox you and mailbomb your house or something.”

“They can try,” Bucky says flatly.

“Please don’t start a war with the Twitch goblins. OK, this game is called Skyrim. It’s a lot like D&D, just a video game. It’s a fantasy story where you get to fight dragons and zombies and stuff …”

They end up eating leftover French silk on the couch, watching a livestream of Skyrim. She sits next to him and commentates as the player stumbles through the tutorial scenario, nearly gets downed by a pack of wolves on the road to some Viking town, and discovers that using a fire spell on a nearby chicken is the fastest way to get a bounty on his head.

“It’s a chicken!” Bucky says as the guards shove the Dragonborn into a cell. “What the hell?”

“Look, this game was not programmed by someone like Tony. The AI is janky and the characters will arrest you for the most random shit.” Darcy leans over his arm and points to the onscreen guard. “See that guy? Never touch him or any of his buddies. Even if a dragon is attacking the town, do not touch the guards. They’ll stop you in the middle of a monster brawl to arrest you.”

Bucky thinks back to some MPs he knew. Trying to collar a Howling Commando on a twenty-four-hour pass was not for the fainthearted, but they sure did it. Come to think of it, the Commandos stole a fair number of chickens during their rampage through Europe, too.

Though to be fair, they were Nazi chickens.

He doesn’t say much more. Darcy’s comments get quieter and shorter, and she leans against him, her head on his shoulder. Eventually, she drifts off. He carefully slides out from under her, turns the TV off, and drapes a blanket over her.

“JARVIS, lights down,” he says quietly.

She looks soft like that, too, curled up on the cushions. Her dark hair tumbles down over her face, gold from her earring glinting between the silky waves, and her lips are just a little parted. Her limbs are loose and unguarded, and she sleeps deeply. Unafraid.

Bucky gently removes her glasses and puts them on the coffee table. Then he pushes her hair back out of her eyes. At the brush of his touch, she lets out a wordless murmur and burrows deeper into the couch.

“Mhrmmmbuckyyy,” she slurs. He stills, willing her not to wake up. She shifts once more and falls silent.

For a moment, his metal hand lingers on her cheek. Even the half-numb receptors can tell that she’s warm to the touch, her skin smooth and silky. He can feel the soft puff of her breath against the heel of his palm. For a moment, his heart aches.

“G’night, doll,” he whispers.

Chapter Text

Over the next three months, the Avengers weekly D&D game takes on a life of its own. They don’t make it every week, not when the main team keeps getting called out to stop nuclear-armed terrorists or rampaging robots, but more often than not a Sunday night will find the team in the lounge with character sheets, dice, and a whole lot of takeout.

Milady Alexandra levels up slowly but steadily. Bucky grins every time JARVIS shows his girl throwing lightning at an enemy, so he leans into it and starts choosing heavier, more vicious spells from that same school. The first time Milady casts Lightning Bolt, a one-hundred-foot blast doing a whopping 8d6 damage, he has to borrow a couple of dice from Sam just to have enough to roll.

“That’s nothing,” Barton says. “Wait until you level up a little more. Chain Lightning does 10d8.”

New goal: Get Chain Lightning by any means necessary.

The others are having fun, too. Bucky wouldn’t say it’s exactly bonding them as a team—he’s not sure if he can detect any of that shared wavelength—but it’s creating in-jokes and friendly rivalries, which is a good start. Sam’s character Ol’ Joe Thibodeaux becomes notorious for picking his teammates’ pockets, which results in Natasha being Lawful Good and telling him to cut it out. (He doesn’t.) Tony discovers an actual spell labeled Gift of Gab, and between that and something called Vicious Mockery, has mostly discarded his character’s musical ambitions in favor becoming Callidan’s first lethal insult comic. Bruce vacillates between doing nothing for most of the session and then abruptly rolling some insanely lucky hits, resulting in a minor superstition around the table that the good doctor can bless your dice.

(It’s just coincidence, of course. Never mind that Bucky scores his first-ever critical hit with a d20 borrowed from Bruce.)

Steve took a little longer to find his feet, but he’s in the groove now, and damn but Bucky’s happy to see it. The chance to be someone completely different seems to lift a weight off Steve’s shoulders. Here, he isn’t Captain America or even Steve Rogers: he’s a drunk monk genie who has to wear asbestos pajamas or risk setting his bed on fire.

Then Steve begins to embrace the chaos. At one point, Airedale Abbott accidentally poisons himself by drinking the local equivalent of rubbing alcohol. What does Captain America, the stoic soldier, make his character do? Sleep it off? Nah. He wanders into the brothel district and starts drunkenly preaching about the perils of dishonest living to what he thinks is a crowd of orphans, who are actually some very confused dwarf hookers. Seeing Steve pounding the table and slurring “SIN MAKES YER BRAIN HURT!” has the table in stitches.

Stark’s blackmail folder is getting pretty full.

Bucky’s starting to get a feel for his character as well. She’s smart and self-possessed, a little prideful, but not stupidly arrogant: she knows she’s got limits and she won’t get herself killed by acting out at the wrong time. Coming from an aristocratic dragon family, she’s not all that good at being nice in the ordinary way, so she shows she likes people by copping a bit of an attitude or making fun of them. And when someone’s pissing her off, she smiles real nice until Bucky can ask the DM just how much metal they’ve got on them.

Thor beams every time Milady Alexandra kills a guy with electricity. He seems to be taking “her” successes as a compliment to him, and repeatedly asks if she has her lightning bolt earrings equipped.

With Milady Alexandra’s pride and draconic attitude in mind, Bucky decides that his character is going to protect Natasha’s by any mean’s necessary. Natasha is playing Marya as stalwart, brave, and mildly brain-damaged, with a tendency to walk into dangerous situations and proclaim “Halt, evildoers!” (Thor loves her.) Milady thinks she’s crazy, but the paladin is useful to the party and losing her would leave them in bad shape. So Milady finds herself hustling after Marya, trying to get her to slow down and not go hunting heretics before she’s at least had a drink of water and a moment’s rest. Soon, the characters are referring to each other as Lexie and Mari.

“Boy, this brings back memories,” Steve says fondly.

All right, so maybe Bucky’s character does have a bit of him in it. Seems he can’t stop protecting self-destructive morons in any universe.

They’ve finished wiping out the evil cult on the island and slain its high priest, but they’ve found clues hinting that other cells are active deeper on the mainland. They begin to hear whispers about the Dark Lord Rezdemek, an ancient power from the dawn of time, now stirring in the depths of the world.

As Clint points out, they could quit now and enjoy the treasure they’ve found. But Bucky isn’t the only one who wants to see how the story turns out.

Steve is a little concerned about the plot. It currently hinges on a network of cultists plotting murder and dark magic—too close to comfort when HYDRA still exists. Bucky’s therapist even says the same thing, suggesting that the story might be responsible for some of his resurgent memories.

Maybe that’s true. He’s had a few more flashbacks since that day.

But if the plot does remind him of his life, he’s not experiencing any of it as Bucky Barnes this time. At the table, he’s not a lab rat and brainwashed murderer: he’s someone else, someone with infinite confidence and innate magic. There’s no way his girl can be physically disarmed or mentally destroyed.

The cultists won’t know what hit ‘em.

Still, he discusses it with Sam. Sam is thrilled that Bucky is actually talking to him about it of his own free will.

“Stuff like D&D can be a healthy coping mechanism,” he tells Bucky. “It gives you a safe place to work out your problems. The only concern is that it becomes a crutch—you know, people living in the fantasy rather than dealing with the real world.”

“D’you think …” Bucky starts. But Sam shakes his head.

“Not a chance. You and Cap deal with some pretty heavy shit. D&D once a week is only gonna help.”

He’s not wrong. It’s even eased some of the tension between Bucky and Tony, which is nearly a miracle.

On the table, at least, there’s been no more attacks on each other. Stark’s gotten bored with blue humor and has turned to building the most overpowered bard imaginable. He’s also accumulated a terrifying amount of custom dice, and is apt to throw away any d20 that rolls badly for him … unless they’re Bruce’s, because Bruce’s are The One True Lucky Dice.

Dunno if they’re bonding, but they’re mostly getting along. Bucky doesn’t hate it.

* * *

And after almost every session—there’s Darcy.

The astro lab is inches from a breakthrough on the residual signal pulse, and no matter how late the Avengers’ game runs, Bucky knows Darcy Lewis will be awake. All he has to do is lurk in the kitchen, and she’ll come by for coffee sooner or later.

He takes to leaving a cooler full of water bottles in the lab’s front office. The next time Darcy comes through, she’s carrying a half-empty bottle and gives him a grateful look.

Sometimes he finds her asleep, seated at the kitchen table with her head propped on her hands. The first time, he “accidentally” slams the cupboard door a little too hard, jolting her awake. He doesn’t like the idea of her being vulnerable around someone like him.

“Ffffuuuu—“ She forces herself off the table and grapples with her sliding glasses. “The hell?”

“Time to turn in,” Bucky tells her. “You’re gonna give yourself a bad neck, sleeping on the table like that.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Darcy yawns and stretches. Bucky hides a wince as her vertebrae crack and creak alarmingly. “Whassup, sarge? How’s the game?”

The second and third times, Bucky gently shakes her awake. The third time, though, he puts his foot down.

“Next time, I’m shutting the lab down,” he promises. “These kinda long shifts aren’t good for any of you. One of these nights I’ll have to drag you to bed.”

“Why sergeant, I never thought you’d ask,” she coos, batting her lashes. Bucky can feel the mortifying blush crawling up his face. Then she laughs again and waves off the moment. “Sorry, I get weird when I’m sleep-deprived. Soon as we finish figuring this comet out, I’ll be totally lazy and nap for a week. Promise.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he tells her firmly.

But she doesn’t stop doing it. The next time he finds her asleep in the kitchen, he carefully picks her up and carries her to the nearest couch. When she’s that tired, she doesn’t even twitch, and he gently sets her down on the cushions and puts a blanket over her before turning in for the night.

A few nights later, he can’t sleep and ends up in the same kitchen just after one AM. There’s a box of cookies on the counter labeled BARNES ONLY—HANDS OFF! Bucky opens the box to find a note sitting on top: Thanks for saving me from neck pain, hero. XOXO D.

She’s got a smart mouth on her for sure. The cookies are good, too.

The next time he comes down to the kitchen, the team has just wrapped up another game. Steve was absent (he’s in DC meeting with some congressional types, using the Captain America name to back them off placing too many restrictions on the Avengers) and the game’s not as fun without his pal there. Still, they’re making good progress on the cult plot and they should be leveling up again soon. He’s flipping through the Player’s Handbook, considering the spell lists, when he smells sweet-scented shampoo and hears a woman’s soft laughter.

“Killed any dragons lately?” Darcy teases. She’s wearing a red-orange sweater over dark gray leggings tonight, and her lipstick is a deep blood color, almost purple.

“Nah. I asked, but Barton says we’re not high enough level yet.” Bucky settles into a chair and closes the book. “How’s it going in the lab?”

“Oh!” Darcy perks up. “We had a breakthrough tonight! Sort of. So we were decoding the signal pulse, right? Lots of information in there—terabytes of data. Janey put me on decryption, ‘cause she sucks with any computer that isn’t a MATLAB toolbox. The problem was figuring out the underlying language inside the encryption. And then I thought—ha! Duh. This is Asgardian technology. What kind of programming languages does Asgard use? We crack that, we crack the whole thing wide open.”

Programming languages are over Bucky’s head. The Winter Soldier was given the bare minimum of information necessary to retrieve sensitive data, but more often they had a tech team following in his wake to handle the computers.

“So you asked Thor?” he guesses. Darcy nods.

“Yeah, I felt real smart … for like two seconds. It turns out that a lot of Asgardian programming is in a binaric coded version of Allspeak! So here I am going ‘fuck me, the computer is full of magic.’ Allspeak is totally unusable for anyone who isn’t an Aesir, and we don’t even know why. And Thor’s great, but he wasn’t exactly doing compsci classes at Asgard U., right? But then—get this—he mentions that the Einstein-Rosen bridge is old, old technology, even for them, and that a lot of the original frameworks and references are lost. It’s the equivalent of Atlantis to them! It’s literal Ancient Aliens for aliens!” Darcy laughs. “This is the best damn day ever!”

“I gotta tell you, Darce … I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bucky admits. “Doesn’t sound like it’s going well to me, though.”

“Oh, no, it’s a total clusterfuck,” Darcy agrees cheerfully. “We’re gonna have to get Stark resources on the decryption project for sure. It’s way over my head. But if we crack it—and I bet we will—then we’re gonna have something big that even Asgard doesn’t really have. And if they want the secrets of their own magic space bridge, they’re gonna have to play nice with us inferior mortals. Which means we’ll have their condescending chauvinistic space god asses over a barrel.”

She grins evilly, flexing her fingers like claws. “Suffer, you arrogant fools! It’s the perfect combination of political science and outer space bullshit. Fuck me, I love my job sometimes.”

Bucky doesn’t have a coffee cup yet, but he mimes raising one in toast anyway. “Here’s to making ‘em hurt.”

“Damn skippy.” Darcy clinks her own imaginary cup against his. The backs of her fingers brush his.

The world feels different here. Late at night, with the rest of the Tower mostly asleep and no interruptions from Stark or Steve, the kitchen is a haven. Isolated from everything that’s still weighing on him: the flashbacks, the the nightmares, the questions about his future. Training is good, game nights are good, but there’s something calming about the kitchen at night with a laughing girl. The Tower is quiet. His head is quiet.

He realizes he’s been blanking out and scrambles for a response. “Sounds to me like you got a bone to pick with Asgard, though,” he says. “Thought you liked ‘em.”

“Ehhhh … yes and no.” Darcy waggles her hand in midair. “Odin can go suck a fat one, that’s for sure. His kids can level a country, so it’s obviously a great idea to keep secrets from them and not raise them with any responsibility! Thor was kind of a douche when we met, honestly. But I mostly blame Odin and the rest of the la-dee-da stuck-up assholes at the top of the heap. Him and his ‘mortals are goats’ philosophy.”

“Goats?”

“Yeah, he talked shit about Janey. When she was dying. Of magic space vapor. I asked Stark to make me a fancy taser just so I can jam it up Odin’s ass if he ever comes down here.” She grins at the thought. “But most of the other Asgardians I’ve met are bros. The good kind of bros—the kind who help you move furniture.”

Bucky cocks an eyebrow. “You need furniture moved? Up to something, Darce?”

“Ha! Not that I’d tell you. It’s a good test of friendship though, right? Like, I’d help you move a couch. You wouldn’t need my help, but I’d be there to shout encouraging slogans and applaud.”

“My own personal cheer squad. How’d a bum like me get so lucky?”

She snickers. “That’s ‘cause you’re not a bum. You play D&D, Sergeant Barnes—you’re officially a nerd. And lab managers look out for nerds.”

Bucky shrugs. He’s getting a little better at modern slang, mostly thanks to Darcy, and the boot definitely fits.

“Always have been, I guess,” he says.

“Ohhhhh?” She draws out the sound.

“Yeah. Always liked the idea of different worlds. Robots and spacemen and flying cars and all.” He lets out a soft laugh. “Guess I was studying for my future job.”

“Hell yeah. Look at you, being all smart.” Darcy nudges him, smiling. “I’d totally write you a LinkedIn recommendation. ‘James Barnes is highly adaptive and forward-thinking. He was ready to fight robots before robots existed.’”

She’s changed shampoos. Instead of the citrus, she smells sort of sweet and vanilla-y, with a hint of coconut. A little like sugar cookies or fresh macaroons—

—Leibniz’s bakery, six blocks over. Fresh baking every day. Bucky is eight years old in 1925, standing outside with his skinny seven-year-old pal Stevie, both of ‘em taking great big lungfuls of the smells—butter and sugar and cinnamon and chocolate. All the old Polish and German Jewish ladies, coming out with their vanilla kipferl and rugelach. Sometimes they’ll give a half-bun to a couple of skinny kids—he can still taste the cream.

A powerful ache fills his chest, drowning out the soft warmth of the kitchen. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe deeply, but there’s a lump in his throat and his breathing is turning rough and raggedy.

Goddammit. He’ll be almost fine for days. Weeks. He’ll be Bucky, the man who was turned into the Winter Soldier. Bucky, Steve’s friend. With him ‘til the end of the line. Even Bucky, the brain-damaged ally of the Avengers. But then something punches him in the chest—the memories come out of nowhere, the old memories, from before he was even grown—and he’ll remember being Bucky, Mrs. Barnes’ son, who lived in a world that doesn’t exist any more.

Leibniz’s closed down in ‘32. Depression got it.

For one flashfire-hot second, he hates this damn kitchen. Hates this soft quiet moment where he’s hiding from everything, pretending he isn’t what he is, where he is, when he is. Hates that he’s the kind of weak, broken man who needs a fucking “coping mechanism” instead of just dealing with everything that comes rearing up out of his broken memories. Hates that he’s afraid of himself, afraid of fighting again.

Maybe it’s a good thing he got captured at Azzano. He’d probably have folded like fucking laundry if he was in real combat much longer. The only way he could make a commando squad is to get turned into a fucking lab rat …

But he can’t turn that into words. Can’t force those words out between his teeth.

If he wants to be the Bucky Barnes he was, the one he was supposed to be—he can’t let those thoughts escape. That Bucky Barnes would never lay that kind of crap on a woman who’s done nothing but kindness for him.

With an effort, Bucky pushes himself to his feet.

“Gotta go,” he grinds out.

And he’s out the door before Darcy Lewis can do much more than say “What—?”

He needs to get his head down. Get his thoughts straight. But he knows he can’t sleep, so he heads for the gym. Maybe he can wear himself out enough to quiet the bitterness in his wounded brain.

* * *

Steve quickly figures out that something’s wrong when Bucky doesn’t come back to the apartment that night. Just after seven AM, when Bucky is finally unwrapping his hands after six hours of hard work, Steve comes into the gym with two bottles of water in his hands and a furrowed brow.

“You scared one of the lab girls,” he tells Bucky.

Bucky mops his face on the back of his arm. Steve throws him a water bottle, and he catches it.

“Yeah,” he says. His voice is hoarse.

“Thor’s on the warpath. Says you ‘failed to act with honor.’ The hell did you do to the lab girl, Buck?”

“Darcy Lewis.”

“What?”

“That’s her name. Darcy. Not lab girl.”

“So you know her enough to be on first name terms.” Steve crosses his arms. “What happened? Another episode?”

He hates that word. “Episode.” Like it’s just another installment of fucking Flash Gordon.

“Flashback,” he says instead. “Nothin’ she did. Never laid a finger on her.”

“I know that,” Steve points out. “If you had, Thor would’ve put you through a wall by now. Just … what’s going on, Buck? What’s on your mind?”

Bucky sits down on the nearest weight bench. His whole body feels heavy. His head drops, and the water bottle dangles from his metal hand.

“Remembered when I was,” he says.

“Oh.”

There’s a world of experience in that one syllable. Then Steve lets out a soft sigh. The weight bench creaks a little as he sits down next to Bucky.

“Hits me like that sometimes too,” Steve admits.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I was supposed to be dead by now. Asthma or TB. You were supposed to come home and marry your girlfriend … or one of ‘em, anyway … and have a good life. And now we’re here.”

Bucky looks over at Steve. He’s sitting upright, but his eyes are fixed on the far wall. There’s a tense line in his jaw and bags under his eyes. He looks older than he really is. A little closer to their real ages.

It never really occurred to him that Steve must be hurting as much as he is. Which is kind of funny, in a twisted way. Brooklyn Bucky, before the war and the serum and the seventy years of hell, would’ve taken it as read that Steve was the weaker of the two. If something was hitting them both, it was gonna hit Steve harder. Not because he was a weak man, but because his body didn’t match his spirit and he’d cough himself to death some day.

But the war changed all that. Bucky got used to seeing Steve as everything he himself wasn’t: stronger, faster, more whole. Then came the labs, and the cryo, and Zimniy Soldat and the highway—and now everyone knew that Captain America was a tough opponent. But Captain America was still Steve, and Steve would bury shit just as hard as Bucky did.

“I’m sorry, pal,” he says quietly. “I been lettin’ you down, huh?”

“Jesus, Buck—no.” Steve groans and runs a hand through his hair. “It’s not your job to prop me up. But you’re not the only one. OK?”

“Seems I’m the only one who needs ‘coping mechanisms.’”

That gets a chuckle from Steve. “Definitely not. You know, I really look forward to Clint’s game now?”

“Me too,” Bucky admits. “’s nice to think different for a while.”

“Amen to that. So make up with the lab girl—uh, Darcy—before next Sunday, OK? We can’t have a game if Thor kills you.”

* * *

Bucky finds Thor and apologizes for … whatever he specifically did that frightened Darcy. The god gives him a sharp look.

“I am certain you intended no dishonor,” he says. “But as you have attended my lightning sister with your company, and as she is under my protection as an honored ally of the Realm Eternal—you must consider yourself warned, Soldier of Winter. Asgard shall tolerate no disrespect to its own.”

Noted.

Next, he finds Darcy in the astro lab. It’s just after noon, so the team is relatively awake and coherent. Darcy is filling out a spreadsheet with radiation emission readings when Bucky knocks on the lintel.

“Hey, you!” she says. “Feeling better?”

Bucky tucks his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. I—uh--I wanted to apologize. Thor says I scared you.”

“ … what? Oh, godfuckingdammit.” Darcy groans. “I said you freaked me out a little! Not in a bad way. I was worried. But I also said ‘freaking me out’ when I tased Thor that first time, so now he thinks ‘freaked out’ means ‘red alert, DEFCON 1.’” She frowns. “Wait, did he come after you?”

“No. Uh, the way I figure it—you told Thor, Thor told Steve, Steve told me.”

“The Avengers hotline.” Darcy makes a face.

“Yeah. It’ll be all over the building any time now.”

“Well, I wasn’t scared, I was worried. You got this frozen look on your face and then you just stalked out like you were on a mission. Are you OK now?”

“Uh …” She deserves to hear the truth. It’s painful to say the words, but he’s gotta take his licks. “Not really. But … maybe tomorrow’ll be better.”

“One day at a time.” She nods.

“Yeah.”

She stands. “All right,” she says, holding up her hands, “I’m gonna try something. And you can tell me to fuck off, OK? But I have this overwhelming urge to hug you. I’m a touchy-feely type of girl. So if you’re not cool with that, speak now.”

He says nothing. Just looks at her. His mind is a whirlwind of thoughts, but none of them make it out of his mouth.

“All right, I’m calling that a green light.”

Darcy Lewis moves closer. She’s used that vanilla-y soap again today. The top of her head doesn’t quite reach his chin. She opens her arms and steps right up against him. Her soft figure molds against him as she wraps her arms around his waist and squeezes, gentle but firm.

A shiver goes through Bucky’s body at the contact.

“We cool?” Darcy says. Her voice is muffled against his chest.

Bucky wraps his human arm around her shoulders. She’s wearing a soft fleecy hoodie printed with tiny cartoon dinosaurs. It’s the stupidest thing he’s seen in his life. He tightens his arm just a little, and Darcy grins against his chest. He can feel the shape of her face and the hard lines of her glasses frames through his t-shirt.

“That’s more like it,” she says. “Nice work, Buckster. Another few months and we’ll be all the way up to going outside.”

He’s heard worse ideas.

Chapter Text

They’ve hunted down the mad high priest of the islands and slain him in his own lair. Among his treasures, they found hints of the dark ritual intended to raise Rezdemek of the Silver Skull, the most ancient of the dark lords who e’er bedeviled this land (as Clint puts it). His acolytes require five keys, five “weapons of the ancient thralls,” to open his prison. Once he’s free, he plans to “tear open the sky and smash the barriers barring men from madness.” Now the adventuring party must track down these ancient weapons and hide or destroy them before the acolytes can free him.

Sam’s quite reasonable suggestion—namely, that they try telling the authorities about the problem—gets half the group thrown in jail when it turns out that the local nobles are actually, uh, on board with said plan. The baron of Baraval thinks that he’ll be at the dark lord’s right hand and be able to destroy his enemies once Rezdemek rises. Corrupt cultists in government: where has Bucky heard that one before?

The subsequent jailbreak and escape from the city takes up two extra-long sessions. Milady (sexy sorceress) and Marya (oblivious paladin) have to run a honeypot scam on the guards, with the awkward result that Bucky ends up teaching Natasha how to seduce a man.

“’Find excuses to put your hands on him,’ Milady says.”

“Marya nods. ‘Ah! I shall challenge them to hand-to-hand combat!’”

“’Not like that! Use light touches. A lingering caress. Let him know you want to touch him more.’”

“’So … light sparring only? Padded gloves?’”

That scene probably goes longer than it should have, but the others were laughing too hard to intervene.

Now they’ve taken the investigation into the swamps of Hagmarsh, raided a compound full of cannibals, slain the bridge troll at Jarod’s Landing, and rescued Tony’s character from a clan of malicious fairies that wanted to cut his tongue out. The group actually votes not to let that particular operation proceed, but it’s a pretty close-run thing.

Now they’ve come to the depths of Argosphair, an underground city of gnomes, where the Temple of the Eight and the first ancient weapon is said to lie. The gnomes have promised them a meeting with their high priest.

“The doors creak closed behind you, and you are left in darkness.” Clint smiles. “Roll perception.”

“Oh, shit,” Sam and Tony say together.

Everyone passes except Bruce and Bucky. Clint nods and leans forward.

“Milady Alexandra and John Jones are focused on finding a light source. Everyone else, you hear a heavy shuffling and thumping, like logs slamming against stone. There’s a thick, musty smell in here—like sweat and old meat.”

Natasha makes a face. Over on the couch, Thor is listening intently, unable to hide the almost childish grin.

(Bucky was worried after the “freaking out” incident, but Thor seems to be over it now that everyone’s apologized and it’s all back to normal. Thank fuck for that. He’s pretty sure he could fight Thor, but he’s not sure he could win.)

“Airedale whispers ‘Do you hear that?’ to Milady and John.” Steve, naturally, is a team player and doesn’t want anyone to be caught off-guard. Clint’s given up on making him stop it.

“As you speak, a light bursts into existence high above you,” Clint narrates. “You find yourselves in a vast cathedral chamber. Looming over you is a creature you’ve never seen before. Half-man, half-spider.”

The thing fades into existence on the battle grid. It’s ugly as sin and sort of sticky-looking. Bucky wonders if it’s flammable.

Clint leans forward. “It towers above you, head brushing the ceiling. Eight crablike legs thump and crash, making the building creak underfoot. Its flesh is veined with thin black lines, each one glistening in the light like oil. The same black drips from its distended mouth. Seven luminous red eyes glow from the misshapen crest that serves for its face. It raises its three arms, and cold purple light begins to glow in each palm.

“ … And that’s where we’re gonna stop for the night.”

“Oh, come on!” Tony yells across the table. A chorus of complaining breaks out. Clint shrugs and begins to fold up his DM screen.

“I’m the DM, and I say we’re stopping there,” he says.

Tony glares. “This is a boss fight! You can’t blue-boss us, Merida. What about team bonding?”

“Well, if you want to bond, you’ll have to turn up next week,” Clint says cheerfully. “For now, it’s almost two AM and Tony and Steve have a press conference in about eight hours.”

“I’m kicking you out of the Tower,” Tony grumbles.

“Try it and I call Ms. Potts.”

Tony gives in, as expected, but he’s not the only one annoyed. Even Sam frowns as he watches the giant spider monster fade from the battle grid.

“Truly, this is a vile trick, Clint Barton,” Thor says. “We were well prepared for a grand battle. The week ahead shall be a long one, with such a glorious fight withheld.”

“Who’s ‘we,’ kemosabe?” Tony says. He’s gone through even more Cokes than Bruce and is vibrating slightly, tapping his fingers against the table. “You’re not part of this. Backseat players don’t get a say.”

“He’s agreeing with you, Tony,” Steve says tiredly.

“Consensus is not proof!” Tony snaps. Bucky’s not sure what that has to do with anything, but a sleep-deprived Tony Stark always erratic.

But Thor’s standing up now. “Is this a challenge?” he demands, eyes on Tony.

Tony raises his chin. “Put up or shut up, Prince Valiant.”

“Then when our dungeon master deems it right, I too shall make a character and join you on the field of battle.” Thor thumps a fist against his chest. “The heart of Asgard is not afraid of dungeons nor dragons!”

That gets a laugh from Bucky. “Hey, Barton, when are we gonna actually see some dragons?” he calls across the table.

“When you dumbasses are high enough level to survive one!” Clint shoots back.

“Ahhh, you said that two levels ago!”

“And I’ll say it two levels from now. Don’t test me, Barnes.” Clint waves his copy of the Monster Manual, but threateningly. “There are horrors in this book you’ve never imagined.”

“I should like to fight unimaginable horrors.” That’s Thor, naturally. “Tell me, Clint Barton. When may I begin to craft my character?”

Clint shrugs. “Any time you like. It’ll be a few sessions before we put you in, though.”

“So shall it be. I will create a valiant adventurer inspired by my beautiful Jane, in the manner which has been shown to me by our noble sergeant and his own dear one.”

It takes Bucky a second to work that one out. Goddamn fancy Asgard grammar. “You’re gonna make a girl?”

“Aye. As you have crafted a sorceress in image of your beloved, so shall I craft an artificer in the image of mine!” Thor laughs and reaches over to slap Bucky on the shoulder. “Ha! Perhaps we shall see our Darcy join our adventure in your guise. I have no doubt she is greatly pleased with how you describe her, and you shall doubtless find her efforts in your form to be as worthy!”

Steve says something, and Clint is saying something else, but Bucky doesn’t hear. He’s looking at the battle grid.

The characters are still hovering there. Tony’s centaur, Natasha’s half-orc, Sam’s dwarf, Bruce’s human, Steve’s genie. Bucky’s elf.

Bucky’s dark-haired elf with curves and red lips and a love of lightning.

I have an illegal Stark-type taser and you have a metal arm. Not exactly scared here.

Proud enough to see her enemies humiliated in public.

OK, I emailed proof to every professor he’s ever worked with, which was probably kind of petty. But I wanted him to hurt for what he did.

A caretaker, despite everything.

Jane, I love you and will die for you, but you’ve got crazy eyes and even I can tell your math is getting wonky.

And always firing right back with a smart mouth, no matter what.

Well, I’m a big bad lab manager. Don’t start no shit, won’t be no shit.

Jesus Christ, he’s an idiot.

Moving slowly, like he’s wading through deep water, Bucky scoops up his dice and the book. He leaves the character sheet. Then he walks out of the room, ignoring the others calling out to him.

He needs to think.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the lounge:

“I do not understand.” Thor frowns. “I said only the truth.”

“Truth hurts, man.” Sam shakes his head. “You hit him with something he wasn’t prepared to think about. Now he’s gonna crash out.”

“He did not think about portraying Darcy in this game? But it was clear to all. I had thought it a token of his favor to her.”

Steve groans. “Clear to everyone except him!”

He gets to his feet, ready to dash after Bucky, but Sam grabs his arm and mouths No at him. Now’s not the time to force Bucky to talk. Slowly, reluctantly, Steve sits back down.

“Yeah, not known for emotional stability, that one,” Tony adds.

That gets a snort from Bruce. “Look who’s talking.”

“Shut up, Jolly Green, we’re in crisis here.” Tony stabs a finger at the amused Thor. “We’re about to go into a heavy boss fight and you scared off our best caster. So either go find Barnes and slap some sense into him, or roll up a wizard or something we can use. I’m twenty points away from leveling up!”

“I shall not seek the sergeant out,” Thor declares. It sounds regal, a pronouncement from the throne. “But I am not one to leave my brothers and sister in arms without aid in their time of need. Steven Rogers, the book.”

Chapter Text

Bucky ends up on the roof.

No particular reason. The shrink would probably ask if he’s thinking about jumping, but it’s not that. It’s just … there.

And he needs to be alone for a while. To think.

It’s not dark up here. His eyes are sharper than ever, thanks to the serum, but he doesn’t need super-sight to be able to see all of New York laid out below him. Though it’s well after midnight, the city blazes with light. Swoops of neon and the sharp lines of spotlights and endless minuscule dots of yellow glow, each one a lighted window. A few stories below him, the stylized A glows blue-white.

The city that never sleeps. They were calling it even back in his day. Nice to know some things haven’t changed.

Up here, the roar of traffic is muted. The wind whistles through the towers and the steel support cables, tousling his hair into a crazy mess. Bucky wraps his titanium arm around one of the cables, leans forward against the narrow railing, and faces facts.

Looking back on it, it’s all so fuckin’ obvious. He straight-up told himself that he wasn’t really making up a character—just copying from stuff he already knew. He lifted her name from The Three Musketeers and her backstory from The Hobbit. Seems he stole her personality from somewhere else too.

No wonder he’s liked playing her so much.

Darcy … Damn it. Darcy Lewis is something special. She’s always giving him sass and busting his chops, but she’s probably the most honest thing in his life right now. There’s no question of who someone used to be or the dangers of mixing up the real person and the mask. No old history making her ask if he’s ever gonna be the way he used to be, and no new pain making her fear him. Why should she be afraid? She’s got a Stark taser and a thunder god on her side. She just is who she is, and she talks straight with him.

He likes her. And apparently he’s such a goddamn creep that he invented a fake version of her just to order around.

Fuck. No, not that. Bucky orders himself to be rational. He never went into a game thinking he was issuing orders or controlling something. It was just like Clint said, a chance to step outside of himself.

But it was fun, thinking about how his gi—his character would respond. How she was proud but not stupid, kind but smart-mouthed, one of the group but always a little apart from them.

Hell. He liked spending time with her. And the real thing has been under his nose the whole time.

Did the rest of them know? Thor must have twigged to it before tonight: he was the one saying Bucky attended her and using words like dishonor. And Thor’s not a guy known for being quiet or subtle about anything. The others must’ve heard it from him. But they can’t have believed it, or they’d have been ripping Bucky a new one nonstop.

… Unless they were sharing a table with a brain-damaged guy they didn’t want to set off. Christ. He really fucks everything up, doesn’t he?

“Negative Charisma modifier,” Bucky mutters. The words cut off in a short, sharp laugh as he realizes what he’s just said. Damn Barton and his wizard game. Things were a lot simpler an hour ago.

But now they’re not, and now he has to figure out what he’s gonna do next. He can’t just carry on like he has been. Not now that he knows he’s created a Darcy doppelganger.

She’ll be in the kitchen some time soon. Sooner, if the Avengers gossip line is on form tonight. He should talk to her. Explain. Apologize, if he can put the whole thing into words. And promise to create a new character. Sure, he didn’t mean any harm when he built his sorceress—but now he knows just who that sorceress is supposed to be, and the thought of ordering her around on the tabletop sickens him.

This probably wouldn’t bother someone else. If Sam accidentally based a character on Sharon Carter, they’d think it was funny. But Bucky has had enough of others imposing their will on him, seeing him as a thing. He can’t do that to someone else. Won’t.

Bucky straightens up and reaches for his phone. It’s a StarkPhone, latest model, and he can count the number of times he’s used it on the fingers of one hand. But it’s got something important in it.

“JARVIS,” he says.

The phone’s screen lights up, displaying a wireframe blue orb.

“Good evening, Sergeant Barnes,” the AI says calmly. “How may I be of assistance?”

“Can you tell me where Miss Lewis is, please? Miss Darcy Lewis.”

“Certainly. Miss Lewis is currently at the bottom of the stairs leading to the rooftop egress. She has been waiting there for nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Shall I inform her that you are ready to see her?”

Bucky can feel his stomach drop. Of course: someone must have told the minute Thor spilled the beans. Maybe Steve finally got over his fear of the labs to go find her and tattle.

But he’s got to face it now. He takes a deep breath. “You can tell her, JARVIS.”

“Of course, Sergeant Barnes.”

The phone goes silent. Bucky quickly shoves it back into his jeans pocket. His hands feel clammy. Light footsteps are coming up the concrete steps towards the roof.

Darcy Lewis emerges from the stairwell. She’s wearing slouchy jeans and Converse, and her hair is loose and tousled in the wind blowing between the buildings. Instead of a hoodie, she has a flannel button-down knotted around her waist. Her phone glows in her left hand.

“Thanks, JARVIS,” she says to it.

“You’re welcome, Miss Lewis.”

She tucks the phone away and steps up next to Bucky. Her shirt is an oversized men’s t-shirt featuring a shower of bullets and the words KISS MY BRASS. Bucky’s brain may be scrambled, but he knows enough about her now to make an educated guess.

“Gag gift?” he says, nodding at her. She startles a little, looks down, and grins.

“Yeah. Superspy Number One thinks he’s funny.” She tugs on the collar of the t-shirt. “Not really my style, but I’m never gonna turn down a comfy shirt.”

“Darcy.” His voice is hoarse. “What’re you doing up here?”

She offers him a crooked smile. “Well, you’ve been coming to me all this time. Figured I should return the favor, y’know?”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that. He leans forward again, letting his weight rest against the railing. He feels numb, worn-out, like there’s a fuse blown somewhere in his brain and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

“Hey. Hey.” Darcy shuffles a little closer. He can feel her warmth now, a momentary prickle on his skin before the wind pushes it away. “Thor just told me he fucked up and dropped a bomb on you. Are you OK?”

“Dunno.” Bucky can’t look at her. He probably should, but that numb feeling is nailing him in place. “He tell you what he said?”

“Yeah. He said you figured out where your sorceress came from. And it bothered you.”

“He tell you I made it look like you?” Bucky’s voice is bitter. “And act like you, talk like you, think like you. Like a goddamn puppet.”

Darcy lets out a breath. It sounds ragged. “Bucky, will you look at me?”

He forces himself to turn. There’s fine lines in the corner of her mouth. Furrows in her brow. A little red lingering in her eyes, like she’s been crying again, just a bit.

“Thor figured it out weeks ago,” she tells him.

She brushes her long hair back, exposing the wink of gold at her earlobes. For the first time, Bucky notices their shape. Golden lightning bolts, inlaid with intricate designs in pale electrum. They flicker in the light as she tilts her head.

Like magic.

“Before I came up here, he told me that he made Clint give your character my earrings. It’s an Asgardian thing, I guess. Wearing a token from someone you—care about.” Her voice hitches a little on the words, but she pushes past it. “He thought it meant something to you. I tried to tell him that most guys don’t really notice details like jewelry, but he’s an idiot. Well-meaning, but an idiot.”

Bucky reaches out. Gently, he traces the tip of his finger over one lightning bolt. The designs are runes: sharp, spiky, and a little alien. The metal is warm from the touch of her skin.

“He’s not the only one,” he murmurs.

“Look, Bucky—“

“I’m sorry, Darce.” The words tumble out as he draws his hand back. “I keep fuckin’ up—but this, this crossed a line. I didn’t realize. I would never—make you do anything—didn’t mean to be a creep, making some kinda doll or somethin’ of you—“ He drags his hand down his face. He feels old. “I’ll go.”

“Hey, hey.” As he turns to go, she lays her hand on his metal arm. The pressure sensors flare, firing crucial data directly to his brain. “Hold on.”

Bucky stills. He can’t look at her, but his heart is in his mouth.

“I like the idea of being a badass sorceress.” He can hear the smile in her voice. “And it’s flattering that Bucky Barnes wants to spend time with little ol’ me.”

She’s close. Warm. He drags up every erg of courage he has left and puts his hand on top of hers. “I always want to spend time with you, doll,” he says hoarsely.

He can feel her pulse against his now. He looks her in the eyes again and sees her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Pupils dilated.

“Oh,” she says.

Bucky gently lifts her hand off his arm and turns it over, lacing his human fingers into hers. She doesn’t flinch or pull away. Her heartbeat is racing, and his isn’t far behind.

“Feel free to tell me to jump in a lake,” he begins. “But … I like you, Darce. Even with everything happenin’ up here—I know enough to know I like you. Maybe—if you’re all right with it—maybe you and me could go out some time?”

Nice one, Barnes. Jesus Christ, his Brooklyn self would be curling up and dying in shame right now. But he doesn’t know how to be smooth or charming any more: the words feel like stones, dropping heavily into the world.

Her pulse is still racing. But her hand tightens on his, and a smile as bright as sunshine crosses those red lips.

“Hell yeah,” she breathes. “Hell. Yeah. That’s what I was hoping for!”

Bucky blinks. “You were?”

“Of course!” Darcy’s smile is turning giddy. “Oh fuck me sideways, I’ve been crushing on you for months. You’re always here being kind and sort of a smartass and hot like fire—fucksake stop talking—“

“No.” Bucky is mesmerized. “Keep talking.”

He’s pretty sure he’s smiling like an idiot too. His heart is pounding, and the soft clutch of Darcy’s hand on hers is sending heat zinging up through his arm and collecting in his chest. He could take a swan dive off this damn Tower right now and he wouldn’t care.

“And now you’re smiling at me!” Darcy exclaims. “I can’t think when you look at me like that. Fucking hell. Aim those baby blues somewhere else, soldier, or I’m gonna collapse right here and we’ll never get to go anywhere.”

Bucky gently pulls on their joined hands. Darcy takes a step closer. Slowly, moving as carefully as he can with all his nerves singing, he winds his metal arm around her waist.

“Guess I’ll have to carry you, then,” he murmurs. Darcy’s cheeks flush brilliant red and she buries her face in his chest.

“You’re the worst,” she groans into his shirt. “Kill me now. Time of death, whenever now is. You’ve officially broken my brain.”

“Seems like we match, then.”

She smacks her free hand against his shoulder. “Hey. That’s my date you’re talking shit about.”

“Date, huh? You really sure you wanna go out with this guy?”

“ … yeah.” Her voice softens. He can feel her breath against the hollow of his throat as she raises her head slightly, nuzzling at the collar of his t-shirt. “He brings me water and helps me kick Jane and Erik out of the lab. I’ve been thinking about him a lot.”

She’s pressed against him, chest to chest, hip to hip. She feels like a perfect fit in his arms: he could bend his head over her and pull her in closer, harder, and cover her completely. Shield her from anything. The gentle pressure of her body against his is like digging a palm into a tense muscle, a small ache that unravels the knotted pain gripping him tight.

It feels good, too good, and he can’t think. He loosens his titanium arm around her and pulls back just enough to make her raise her head.

“Darce,” he says, “I’m gonna try something.”

“Why sergeant,” she murmurs, “I never thought you’d ask.”

The brush of his lips against hers is light, barely a whisper, but Darcy shivers. His skin thrums where they touch. He kisses her again, soft, feeling her opening for him.

Darcy wraps her arms around his shoulders, her fingers winding into his hair. It’s not enough: he wants her closer, tighter against him, pressed into him until there’s no separating them. Every nerve shudders. He feels weak, but almost like he’s flying.

For a few long moments, they just hold each other. She feathers kisses along his lips and jaw, and he can feel her smiling against his skin. “You’re wearing more lipstick than me right now,” she teases.

“Then I oughtta give it back,” he says, and strokes a kiss across her lips that makes her sigh against him.

It takes effort to loosen his hold on her. But eventually, she puts her hand on his chest and says “Janey’s gonna kill me if I don’t get those files decrypted,” and Bucky opens his arms enough to let her slip free.

“To be continued,” Darcy says breathlessly. She takes a reluctant step towards the stairwell, a little wobbly on her feet. “We’ll figure out that date. Uh, JARVIS has my number. Ask him for it. I can’t remember anything right now.”

“It’s a deal.” Bucky wants to reach for her again, but she’s still smiling at him. She’s not running. “And … we’re all right? About the game?”

“The what?” Darcy runs a shaking hand through her hair. “Oh! The sorceress! Yeah, it’s cool. No squick at all. Although …”

Bucky stills. Her expression turns impish.

“Seriously, dude, how do you end up accidentally playing me?”

Bucky can feel his face growing hot. “Witch Bolt.”

“What?”

His voice drops to an embarrassed mumble. “Witch Bolt. ‘S a good spell. Lightning damage. And I was usin’ it a lot, and I thought hey, better get more of this stuff next time we level up. And my character was part dragon, so I figured she’d be hard to rattle. Don’t get mad, get even. And if you’re gonna get back at people, it’s a good idea not to set ‘em on fire, ‘cause there’s collateral damage, so instead she started shockin’ people that pissed her off …”

Fuck. He’s rambling. “Sorry, doll.”

Darcy looks at him. Then at the stairwell. Then back at him.

“Fuck it, Jane can wait,” she says. And for the second time in one glorious half-hour, Bucky finds himself with a warm armful of Darcy Lewis. She kisses him, whispering "I would totally not do collateral damage," and he laughs against her lips and holds her close.

This, more than anything else, is the real fantasy. Feels like it’s gonna be a damn good one.

Chapter Text

THE TOP TEN AVENGERS D&D MOMENTS (SO FAR!!!)

by Sarah Worsley, AllAboutAvengers staff writer

There may be some aliens on Mars who don’t know about the Avengers’ D&D campaign so far, but they’re probably busy trying to invade us right now, so they can suck it. Everyone else is tuning into the madness—and it’s a wild, wild ride.

The official Avengers YouTube started dropping clips of their sessions this past summer. Before that, nobody had any idea that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes knew a d20 from an AR-15. Now it turns out that Hawkeye (yes! Arrow guy!) is also Earth’s Patientest DM and the rest of humanity’s fave badasses are … NERDS?

Of course, they’re not REALLY nerds (aside from Iron Man, duh). Nerds would be better at minmaxing and remembering their proficiency bonuses. But the Avengers have been using D&D to blow off steam, and thanks to the clips, we’re getting a little glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes at Stark Tower when they’re not punching bad guys.

Nobody’s posted a full session yet, because security concerns are a thing. Boo! But rumor has it that they’re willing to livestream a one-shot for charity, so watch this space!

In the meantime, you know what you’re here for. Let’s take a look at AllAboutAvengers’ Top Ten Avengers D&D Moments from Season 1 of their campaign—so far!

10. Shock to the centaur

The Avengers are all TTRPG noobs (aside from DM of the Year Hawkeye), so they didn’t really grok it when PTSD poster boy the Winter Soldier decided to play a female character. But when Iron Man decided to live the horny bard meme, PC Milady Alexandra proved that she still had a lot of Winter Soldier in her with a beautifully timed cast of Shocking Grasp.

Not only do we get our first example of Iron Man actually making an in-character decision (our baby! #soproud), but this is the first time that the Winter Soldier’s sorceress sweetheart showed off the lightning magic that would make her a legend. Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss, galvanize.

9. Just Falcon around

We love the Falcon. He’s almost the most normal person on the Avengers and he has soooooo much patience with all the weirdos in his group. Iron Man might be paying the bills, but Falcon is the actual adult in the room.

Which is why it ROCKS OUR WORLD that he decides to get down with the madness.

Over three consecutive sessions during the Hagmarsh arc, Falcon’s PC Ol’ Joe—aka Dwarf Klepto Grandpa—stole everything that wasn’t nailed down from the halfling village shaman’s hut in the Whispering Wetlands. None of the others knew why (except Hawkeye, because Falcon is an adult, and adults clue the DM in on WTF you’re doing) and they kept telling him not to do it. Black Widow even asked if he was planning on switching his alignment. But Falcon just kept robbing that shaman blind, and the shaman had no idea who was doing it.

Then, the night before the assault on the Hagmarsh Keep and its crowd of evil witches, Falcon sneaks into the keep and PLANTS THE STUFF HE STOLE. Then he goes right back to the halfling village and tells the shaman—who was, hello, trying to stay out of fighting a bunch of witches—that those same witches took all his stuff. With an absolutely #epic level of bluffing, Falcon gets the entire halfling village riled up until they join the party to attack the “thieves” in the Keep. And if you know anything about halfling luck bonuses, you know that those witches got completely #btfo.

The best part is that he got away with it. Completely. The shaman even gave him a cool five gold for “finding the thieves.” DM Hawkeye, naturally, gave our favorite flyer a point of Inspiration for that, and Captain America actually broke into applause at the table.

8. Problem-solving, Black Widow style

The fact that Black Widow’s paladin still isn’t an oathbreaker is TOTAL DM favoritism, because she’s #brutal. And we’re so here for it.

When the party’s airship crashed in the Cyrdin desert, the Avengers were surrounded by dozens of hungry chimeras. This one had potential to be a TPK if the dice gods were feeling naughty. Meanwhile, Black Widow had caught the evil NPC who sabotaged the airship, but he “accidentally” died in the crash. So Black Widow POISONS HIS BODY and throws it into the middle of the chimera feeding frenzy, killing half of them when they try to chow down. Literally #slayqueen.

DM quote of the night: “Tash, I don’t know what I expected, but I don’t know why I didn’t expect that. Gain a point of Inspiration and run like hell while they’re puking.”

7. Iron Man vs. Angus Osbourne

We all know and love Tony “Iron Man” Stark as the icon of engineering badassery. And being an engineer and an MIT graduate, he was definitely gonna be one of the first converts to the joys of D&D. (As the man himself said in Episode 22: “Look, shiny math rocks go click and things die. This is basically programming target coordinates with an abacus.”)

Too bad science in fantasy isn’t the same as science in real life. That means that sometimes Iron Man has to FIGHT to stay in character. #TheStruggleIsReal, and the struggle was never realer than when the Falcon’s PC Ol’ Joe encountered a vein of deadly radium in a mineshaft in Khala Azem.

Shouts of “Radium is a TRACE element!” and “Alpha particles can’t penetrate the skin!” could be heard as Hawkeye and Falcon tried desperately to roleplay the scene. Hawkeye had to threaten Iron Man with negative modifiers to keep him from completely derailing the session.

(Spoiler alert: Didn’t work. Disadvantage on ALL Intelligence rolls for the next two sessions? Ouch.)

6. How does he know that?

This one goes out to Forever DM and light of our lives Hawkeye, who’s stuck with the worst party of all time. Sure, #MattMercer does better voices, but his players aren’t rewriting the battle grid’s AI between rounds or capable of ACTUALLY flipping the table. But we’re also thinking we’ve underestimated our favorite Robin Hood impersonator, because Hawkeye is one weirdly well-informed dude.

• Episode 18: “Along the riverbank, lines of shadufs rise and fall, dipping into the river like … What? It’s not a monster. It’s an irrigation device, like a weighted bucket. About thirty-four hundred years old. Are you gonna let me finish?”

• Episode 12: “No, I said a KING cobra. They mostly eat other snakes.”

• Episode 19: “The Baghdad Battery wasn’t a battery, Tony. Shut up and roll your knowledge check.”

• Episode 26: “And is your hand still bleeding? And no gloves? OK. You slice him clean in half. Roll 1d12 to see if you now have syphilis. Why? Because syphilis is still infectious through fluid contact in the tertiary stage and you just bathed in his blood, dumbass.”

• Episode 8: “It only takes five pounds of force to remove a human kneecap.”

We’re not sure what Hawkeye does when he’s off the clock, but we’re pretty sure it’s too hardcore for us. We totally didn’t mean it when we made fun of your arrows, sir.

5. Happy Hogan, Body Thief

Every TTRPG player knows That One Guy who NEVER shows up on time or always cancels. His life is perpetually melting down and he just can’t play tonight, guys. Well, we’re not saying Captain America is that guy, but he spends a lot of non-Avenging time doing charity work and appearances for the troops, and he’s the one who’s skipped the most games. Sucks, because he’s lolarious.

The third time he was absent because of reasons, he left a message asking someone else to play his character. So you’d think Winter Soldier, Cap’s BFF, would take the job. Right? WRONG. Winter Soldier was fifteen minutes late too and Iron Man grabbed someone else, namely his former bodyguard Harold “Happy” Hogan.

(Holy shit, imagine being Iron Man’s bodyguard. YOU WILL NEVER KNOW PEACE.)

Hawkeye makes it happen by claiming that Cap’s character has been temporarily possessed by a wandering spirit. Hogan spends the whole session playing as himself … aka a grumpy boxer-type paranoid daddy who solves every problem by hitting it in the face. No ki points. No magic. No maneuvering. Just “I punch it.” The Avengers are BEGGING him to try anything else, but Happy Hogan knows what he’s about. He looks gods, Hulks, and Iron Men in the face and says “I punch it.”

We kinda love that for him.

4. Titzkrieg

We’re not gonna explain the sequence of events that required the Black Widow’s PC to sneak firebombs into a fancy party by concealing them inside her breastplate. Seriously, just go watch the clip.

3. Hold my beer

Captain America playing a drunk pyromaniac wasn’t on our list for 2016, but holy shit it should’ve been and we love this patriotic murderhobo.

Airedale Abbott, fire genasi monk, deals with the tragic murder of everyone in his backstory (seriously, it’s like fifty people) by getting shitfaced. #relatable. His Hall of Fame includes spit-taking fire into a bandit’s face, attempting to drink formaldehyde out of a specimen jar, and meditating on the universe by chanting the Thunderbird jingle. What we’re saying is that Captain America is weirdly good at RP. But sometimes he can’t quite stay in character.

While traversing the Ashlands of Gremora, the Winter Soldier’s fab sorceress gets captured by some bad guys. Obviously this is mega #triggering for both of them and Winter Soldier is going “OK, bro, don’t be stupid, stay in character.” Cap goes quiet.

Then he says those three magic words: “Hold my beer.”

It turns out that Airedale Abbott with a hangover is WAY WORSE than Airedale Abbot just drunk. Cap’s character ditches the booze so he can focus better, then spends every single point of Inspiration he’s collected so far (and it’s a lot) to commit some HEINOUS shitfuckery that ends with him Sparta-kicking the kidnapper bad guy into a pit of giant cannibal ants and pissing on his corpse.

Cap claimed it was all strictly RP. Sure, dude.

2. The Lone Hulkster

Bashful Bruce Banner, our favorite Hulk, is always a wild card. Right from the beginning, the big green brain wasn’t dialed in to the D&D madness. He’s usually working on his tablet during sessions, and he sometimes falls asleep during long fights. Fans have started sending him pillows and blankets.

But when he’s locked in, bashful Bruce becomes brutal Bruce in no time flat. And nobody figured that out faster that the Tyrant of Rothbard.

Trapped in an underground temple with a lich T-Rex (yes, really—see why we love Hawkeye?), the party was in big trouble. Most of the heavy hitters were down from the Tyrant’s poison breath weapon. And there’s Bruce, aka totally blandest-of-bland human fighter John Jones, with T-Rex jaws the size of a smart car coming at him.

Acrobatics check. Nat. Fucking. 20.

John Jones jumps UP ONTO THE T-REX. He has to make another acrobatics check—contested, naturally—and flubs it, but Iron Man gave him Bardic Inspiration last round and our boy struggles to a success that way. So JJ swings down onto the side of the Tyrant’s head, stabs it in the eye, and swings out of the way just before it can slam him into anything. The Tyrant concusses itself on the temple wall instead.

What followed was five rounds of T-Rex Rodeo 2016 starring a terrifyingly tricky Hulk riding an increasingly confused, blind, and brain-damaged zombie dinosaur while it rams itself through half the temple in an attempt to get him off its face. Should’ve specced into longer arms, dude. #RIP

DM quote of the night: “Guys … Y’know, you weren’t actually supposed to win this one.”

1. The Halloween special

You knew this was coming.

Dressing up as your character is a tradition for D&D Halloween specials, and the Avengers came through #frfr. Seeing Captain America in red body paint and horns broke the internet. But the real question was: WHAT WOULD THE WINTER SOLDIER DO?

Sadly, drag fans didn’t get to see beautiful Bucky rock the lashes and lace-front. But straight men and gay women won everything ever, because the Winter Soldier sent a body double: his girlfriend (!!!), lab manager D., who took his spot in a sorceress-style slinky red dress and golden lightning earrings. She rolled the dice while he narrated his moves though her earpiece.

But it gets better. Table talk showed us that Miss D. is also a big fan of lightning damage IRL—showing off a custom Stark taser. And according to the queen herself, the earrings are actually HER signature piece, since they were a gift from Thor years ago. Which means, #couplesgoals, because holy shit the Winter Soldier has been PLAYING HIS BAE.

THIS DORK. omfg we are dead.

FINALLY …

Season 2 of the Avengers D&D campaign is beginning to release. While Earth’s Mightiest Heroes still aren’t livestreaming and we won’t see full sessions because, hello, security, the first clips are already showing us it’s gonna be a hell of a ride.

So far we’ve seen certified #girlboss Pepper Potts guesting as a tabaxi warrior queen, Hawkeye confirming his Forever DM status by whipping out a whole binder of unused PC builds, and Thor’s attempt to play anyone NOT an Asgardian tank. Or, as the god himself put it: “I am an ordinary mortal, and enjoy such things as pacifism and oat milk.”

But our early favorite for craziest S2 moment is Captain America going full Lawful Evil by poisoning an enemy castle’s water supply with laxatives. According to him, it’s not really a war crime because it’s just the side effects of a real medicine, and “Nobody complained when we did it to the Schwarzhausen base in ‘44.” Seems the Star-Spangled Man always has a plan.

Until next time, AllAboutAvengers out!