Chapter Text
A few days later the Jane Emergency in France turns into an actual emergency when HYDRA gets a hold of both the astrophysicist and her intern. The team receives a pre-recorded video dated two days ago showing both women tied to chairs looking dirty and beat up. Darcy Lewis is, of course, mouthing off and gets back-handed across the face for her troubles. Bucky Barnes sees red and the Winter Soldier memorizes the perpetrator’s face and thinks of six of the most drawn out and painful ways he can kill him. He adds six more when the man grabs her roughly by her hair and pulls her into sitting up straight again. Jane starts screaming at them angrily and the man who seems to be the leader reminds her that Darcy Lewis is expendable and that if she didn’t want Darcy Lewis dead she’d best shut up.
The Winter Soldier thinks he will keep this man alive for a few weeks before finally letting him die.
It takes Tony Stark less than an hour to figure out where the women are being held and less than ten more minutes for the entire team to be on a StarkJet headed for France. Both Bucky Barnes and Winter Soldier are scared out of their mind about the situation. Not because they’re willingly returning to the clutches of HYDRA, not because it’s dangerous, but because there is a big chance they could lose Darcy Lewis.
It turns out, they probably didn’t have to worry.
When they get there, the Captain sets up a strategy that will allow the Winter Soldier and Black Widow to infiltrate the facility while the rest create a distraction and provide back-up. The two assassins come in through the roof of the warehouse and weave through three corridors, eliminating sixteen HYDRA agents on their way through the facility. They don’t make it to the cells that the two women are seemingly being held in because there, on the catwalk above the burning Hydra hangar, not twenty feet in front of him, Darcy Lewis and Jane Foster are screaming at each other and gesturing wildly at the burning room below them. Darcy Lewis sways on her feet for a moment and then leans over the rail of the catwalk to puke. Jane Foster looks away and appears to be trying not to get sympathy-sick.
Bucky Barnes is before Darcy in an instant gripping her elbows and turning her to face him, checking frantically but thoroughly for any injuries. She has no visible wounds besides a black eye and a split lip. The Winter Soldier thinks of the man in the video and narrows his eyes.
Jane Foster must have recognized the look on his face because she quickly reassures him: “Don’t worry, Darcy set that asshole on fire.”
Bucky Barnes thinks that he actually should be worried about this and Winter Soldier is a little upset that he didn’t get to do it himself but nonetheless is proud of Darcy Lewis.
Now, Darcy seems to gain some lucidity because she looks him in the eye and then squints and puffs her cheeks out. For a second, Bucky thinks that she might be getting sick again but she just yells at him instead.
“You! Where have you been?! I am concussed! Jane has a broken leg! Car missing! No note! Beds empty!” she slurs.
“Darcy, you’re quoting Harry Potter.”
“Quiet, Jane! This is Important!” and then Darcy Lewis throws up again. All over the Winter Soldier’s boots.
Bucky Barnes sighs with relief that she is alive but also kind of disgust because he likes these boots. Obviously not as much as he likes Darcy Lewis. But still.
He carries her to the extraction point where the rest of the team are already waiting, calling in Coulson for clean-up. Surprisingly, it’s Iron Man that approaches him, flipping his mask up and looking Darcy over with concern.
“Jesus Christ, kid,” he says, gloved hand hovering over her head, “you almost gave me a heart attack!”
Darcy looks up at Tony Stark blearily and smiles in what she probably thinks is a reassuring manner but actually makes her look a little dumb.
“Well, I mean, you are getting up there in age, dad. You might just have a heart attack regardless.” And Bucky Barnes absolutely did not see that one coming though, now that he thinks about it, he probably should have.
“You take that back!” Tony Stark, Darcy’s father, gasps while faking a scandalized demeanor. Darcy giggles and then seems to remember something.
“Oh yeah, by the way,” she says, digging a hand in her bra and coming up with a flash drive, “I got you guys a present.”
Bucky Barnes almost wants to be angry that she would stop to gather information while trying to escape and the Winter Soldier almost wants to agree but would like to point out that the flash drive may have the whereabouts of one HYDRA leader who may or may not have called Darcy Lewis-actually-Stark expendable. Bucky Barnes wisely says nothing about it.
“That’s great, kid, but I think it’s probably best that we get you inside the jet and get your head checked out, yeah?” Tony Stark looks at Bucky Barnes meaningfully and nods his head towards the open jet bay.
For the next six hours neither Bucky Barnes nor the Winter Soldier let go of Darcy Lewis-actually-Stark. He doesn’t even put her down to walk on her own and is just barely talked out of going into the bathroom with her. When they get back to the tower, Winter Soldier carries her back to her room and checks the perimeter twice and then sits by her bed and doesn’t leave for the rest of the night. Thankfully, she never asks him to. She does scoot over and lift the covers in an obvious invitation. Bucky Barnes smiles and slips in next to her, curling around her body and falling asleep to the steady sound of her breathing.
Later, they use the information that Darcy got to take down an entire two branches of HYDRA. They really didn’t know what they were getting into with her, did they?
The Winter Soldier would like to revise and resubmit his first threat assessment of Darcy Lewis-actually-Stark, intern and best friend of Doctor Jane Foster, assistant to Pepper Potts, daughter of Iron Man, training partner and friend of Black Widow, shield-sister of the God of Thunder, movie buddy of Captain America, prank war adversary of Hawkeye, beloved of Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, and all around good gal. Esquire.
She is 100% a threat.
Not to him and not to any of his allies. But to HYDRA, AIM, or anyone else who endangers those she considers hers, she is absolutely a threat. She’s inventive, smart, a great strategist, cunning, charming, disarming, determined, morally ambiguous at best, resourceful, incredibly rich, loyal, protective, courageous, brave, just the right amount of reckless, and possessive of what’s hers.
And the Avengers are hers. Jane is hers, Pepper is hers, Kate Bishop is hers, but most importantly Bucky Barnes and The Winter Soldier is hers. Neither Bucky Barnes nor the Winter Soldier will admit to how much they like belonging to Darcy Lewis but not being owned by Darcy Lewis. How much it means to Bucky Barnes that she is always there and always wants to know about his day. Wants to protect him, wants to know his opinion, wants him to have an opinion, and wants to make him happy in the same way he wants to make her happy.
Constantly and for a very, very long time.
The Winter Soldier would like to add that she has an amazing everything. Bucky Barnes is inclined to agree.