Chapter Text
The science lab was closing for the day. As usual, Darcy was the last one to leave. Steve waited patiently as she cleaned up after the scientists and switched everything off. Even at the end of a long day, she was a sight for sore eyes. The messy bun atop her head was drooping, wisps of hair falling out of it and framing her face. Her glasses were distractingly smudged and Steve watched in amusement as she squinted at everything while grumbling adorably under her breath.
“Here,” he said, gently removing her glasses and cleaning them on his shirt.
She grabbed her bag, her iPod and then turned to him with a grimace. “I’ve got to start making them clean their own desks before I kick them out for the day,” she complained good-naturedly.
Steve chuckled, carefully placing her glasses back on her face. He casually let his fingers trail lightly down her cheek when he pulled his hand back. If she noticed, she didn’t mention it. They slowly started walking toward the stairwell. Darcy was big on taking the stairs. Steve found it unnecessary yet admirable.
“You said you wanted to ask me something,” she reminded him suddenly and Steve started.
“Oh, yes. Um… would you like to have dinner with me tonight?” he asked, jumping straight to the point unlike last time when he had made it sound too casual and the time before that when he had made a colossal tit of himself beating around the bush and, in the process, not asking her what he really wanted.
He knew she hadn’t misunderstood the intent behind his question by the way her eyes widened a little and her smile turned fake. She tried to play it down, though, and treat it like a question between friends.
“I’d love to, Steve,” she began regretfully. “But I’ve got a bunch of chores to do before I sleep and I’m really tired. I might not even have dinner.”
The little Steve inside him was used to rejection but this hurt because Darcy was not like other women. She was smart and funny and wasn’t one to go for outer appearances. Judging by the amount of time she spent with him and her regular text messages to him, he had assumed that maybe she liked him too, that maybe he stood a chance with her. Either he was wrong, in that she was trying to let him down easy with what she thought were believable lies or she was hiding something. The latter sounded a little too dramatic, so Steve was forced to consider the former option.
It hurt. “Oh, okay,” he said, quickening his pace. “I’ll see you later then.”
“Cool.”
He should have seen her to her room. That’s what a gentleman would have done. The flash of disappointment in her eyes when he had left in a hurry haunted his mind till he fell asleep later that night.
The thing was, he didn’t mind the rejection so much as her making up lies to go with it. Steve wasn’t a stalker or some stupid stranger on the road. He could handle the truth. He preferred the truth. She could have just told him that she wanted to be friends and he would have accepted it gallantly.
He debated avoiding her the next day.
He couldn’t. He was too gone for her to stay away like a rational human being.
***
Tony loved and hated being Darcy’s agony aunt. Loved because Darcy was an inherently funny person and even her complaints sounded funny. Tony enjoyed her. Hated because every time he tried to suggest something or offer a solution, she would counter it with her own suggestion, pitching them both against each other in a bid to work out the best possible solution and, in the process, annoying the hell out of Tony. She almost always went with his advice. So at least that was a consolation.
That day, too, he was listening to her go on about something that had happened in Jane’s lab last night while he worked on the design of a prototype.
“… and I say to her, I say I’m your intern, not a human test subject. And she turns her head with a subtle flip of her hair, raises an eyebrow in a manner reminiscent of a certain female Avenger and quips, ‘could have fooled me.’” Darcy stopped to shoot Tony an exaggerated look. “I was like, the hell Jane! Just because I let Bruce experiment on me once, doesn’t mean I’m gonna make a habit out of it.”
“Good,” Tony interjected. “You shouldn’t.”
“Right? I mean, science scares me, dude. A saner person would have left Jane months ago.”
“Why don’t you?” he asked reluctantly. He didn’t want to give her any ideas. He liked having her in the tower. But it seemed like a question someone in his position would ask.
Darcy shot him a look that said she knew what he was trying to do. She didn’t disappoint with her response. “You know why.”
He pretended to study his design as he looked at her from the corner of his eyes. “Because of… Steve?”
“Because of you, you idiot!” she exclaimed with a grin and a kick to his shins.
Desperately trying to hide how pleased her admission made him, Tony opened his mouth to snark at her when a super soldier walked in, smelling of righteousness and looking like freedom.
“Hey, Tony, I was wondering if…” he trailed away at the sight of Darcy perched atop Tony’s work table. “Hi, Darcy.”
Tony resisted the urge to roll his eyes when Darcy smiled and waved awkwardly at the blond giant. “What’s up?” she mumbled pitifully.
Steve glanced between them, his face unreadable. “I need to talk to you,” he said to Tony. “About something… but I can come back.”
“Okay,” said Tony, relieved. One, awkwardness irritated him, in that he couldn’t stand it. Two, he was pretty sure Steve wanted to talk to him about the repairs on his bike. And there was no easy or kind way for Tony to say that he was not removing the nitrogen boosters and flame throwers from the two-wheeled monster. They were cool additions. Period.
Darcy moaned and banged her head against her Stark tablet once Steve was gone with a soft, “Bye, Darcy.”
“Woah, woah,” said Tony, snatching the tablet from her hands. “That’s valuable.” When she moaned again, he asked, “Why are you acting so hard to get? Just kiss him so we can all be happy. The sappiness is getting on my nerves.”
Darcy looked at him. “If I go out with him, I’ll eventually have to tell him about us. Won’t that be weird?” She paused as if to consider it. Then nodded and declared morbidly, “It’d be weird.”
“What’s weird about our relationship?” Tony asked, looking adorably defensive. “You love me, I love you. And we’ll add Steve to our group of three. Hey, that rhymed.”
Darcy giggled. “Do you even realize how wrong that sounded—? Wait, you love me?”
Tony paled and went back to working on his prototype. “No.”
“You said it. You’ve never said it before!”
“No, no, no! I said you love me and then I just… I just stopped talking!”
“FRIENDS reference. Nice.”
Tony huffed and poked her side. She slapped his hand away. “Go talk to Steve, taser girl. Put him out of his misery.”
For a moment, it looked like she would argue but thankfully she didn’t and Tony had to practically push her out of his lab before she got the hint and followed Steve’s footsteps.
“Whew,” Tony said to himself. “Kids these days...”
***
Darcy ran up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. She didn’t really know why she was running except that after the chat with Tony, she was experiencing this inexplicable urgency to talk to Steve and tell him everything. She was a sweaty, wheezing mess by the time she caught up with him on the communal floor. He was on his way out of the kitchen with a donut in his hand when she screeched to a halt an inch from his body.
He looked at her in surprise. “Are you all right? Why are you panting?”
“Mid-morning cardio,” she joked. It fell flat on him as he continued regarding her with concern. “I… uh… I need to…” she peeked at him nervously. Why was this so hard? She had known Steve forever. She already knew he wanted her, if the three times he had asked her out was any indication. Then why was it so hard to talk to him?
Her brain helpfully supplied that she was scared of how he would react to her news. News of her relationship with Tony. It was a well-kept secret between Tony, Pepper, Natasha and her. Now one more person was going to be in on it. At the thought, Darcy took another minute to debate whether telling Steve was a good idea or not.
She looked at the concern in his eyes, at his patient expression while he waited for her to get her bearings, and Darcy decided that Steve was worth it. She was still finding it hard to put her thoughts into words, so she changed tack.
“Can I borrow a kiss?” she asked him seriously. “I promise I’ll give it back.”
At first, he merely stared at her, his blue eyes gaping wide. Then, the donut fell from his fingers and Darcy had a hard time reining in her amusement at his reaction.
“On the cheek?” he asked uncertainly.
Darcy shook her head and tapped her bottom lip, watching his eyes drop down her face. Butterflies erupted in her stomach when his eyes found hers again, his gaze intent. She stepped closer to him, took a deep breath and spoke.
“But I have to tell you something first and you have to promise not to freak out.”
“Okay.” He already sounded freaked out, wondering what it was that was making her so nervous.
“It’s just that,” Darcy began. “I mean to say that— Tony and I… shit! All right. Here goes. Tony is my—”
“Biological father?” Steve finished, looking bemused. “I know.”
Darcy gaped at him. “You know?”
“That’s what you were going to tell me, right?” At her nod, he smiled slightly. “Yeah, I know about that.”
“Wha— How? When?” sputtered Darcy. She tried to remember if they had told anyone else or if she had told Steve in some drunken or exhaustion fueled haze. She couldn’t remember something like that happening.
“Natasha told me,” he informed her guiltily, adding quickly, “She didn’t tell anyone else. It’s just that she knows about… she knows that I…” It was his turn to fumble with his words. His skin flushed endearingly as he mumbled, “She knows that I like you more than a friend and she thought I should know this important detail about your life before I asked you out.”
His words calmed Darcy down, just a little. Still, she couldn’t help eyeing him dubiously. “And this doesn’t freak you out? Tony is your friend, your teammate. It’s messed up. It’s messed up, right?”
It wasn’t as messed up as she was insisting it was in a bid to get some validation and when he shook his head and simply said, “No. I think it’s cool that Tony has a family,” Darcy fell in love with him right there. It felt so good to hear him say it that she grinned widely and threw her arms around his shoulders. He let out a surprised laugh and held her against him.
“Now what were you saying about borrowing a kiss from me?” he asked when she pulled back, eyes shining.
“I said I’d give it back.”
“Well, I mean, if you’re gonna give it back, then by all means, take it.”
“Quit sassing around,” said Darcy, pulling him down with a laugh and planting her lips firmly against his.
He tasted just like she had always imagined he would: Right.