Chapter Text
They come together at the worst possible time. Steve is hurting from the double blow of his failure to convince Bucky to come back to America with him and the news of Peggy’s passing and Darcy hadn’t been dealing well with the aftermath of her HYDRA kidnapping and it was just the worst time for them to start a relationship.
(And to be fair, the writing on his back and her unmarred skin literally promises that they will never have the romance of the century.)
*
It hurts sometimes. Steve is a big guy, with big hands that hold enough power to crush a man’s skull if he put his all into it. It’s only logical that those hands can leave bruises on her body.
HYDRA had told her that no one was coming to save her and injected her with something and turned out the light and then left her there, and she had given into the lie before Thor and Iron Man could prove them wrong. She spent two full days in the dark room, unable to see or hear or smell or feel, and while she told her body to walk and crawl and sit and do something, she couldn’t tell whether she was doing it. She couldn’t even tell if she was still breathing, and at one point had wondered if she had to go to the bathroom, or was even still alive.
It didn’t surprise her that on top of hunger and dehydration, she had also almost died from a head wound she didn’t even realize she’d gotten. Nor was it a surprise that it took Tony Stark and Bruce Banner another two days to come up with something that could get her back to normal. Or that she cycles through every possible way to remind herself she could feel, to make sure she could feel.
Darcy doesn’t mind that that her pleasure sometimes comes with the cost of pain and bruises. She can’t, really, not when the first time had led to an almost full night of feeling human again, of feeling more than paranoia and helplessness, and Steve, he’s everywhere on her, doesn’t not touch her, meaning it doesn’t remind her of those four days of hell at all, so really, either way, pleasure or pain, it was the best of both worlds.
The first time was undoubtedly a one night stand, as evidenced by the lack of manflesh when she woke up, and the second time nearly doesn’t happen at all when he sees the bruises. But Darcy, she knows possessiveness when she sees it, has seen it on the faces of her ex-boyfriends who’d sucked hickies onto her breasts, and it flashes on Steve’s face when he realizes the bruises are in the shape of his hands. So when he tells her he’s sorry and backs away towards the door, she darts in front of him and tells him she liked them and wants him to do it again, and then watches as he swallows and asks for her permission before sinking to his knees to mouth at every inch of every bruise while his fingers slip past her panties.
(And really, honestly, truly, those fingers, ugh, God bless America.)
*
Steve isn’t a sadist. He doesn’t want to hurt her, and he does his damnedest to watch his strength when he’s got his body against hers. But he also doesn’t deny that he likes marking her, that he likes seeing the imprint of his mouth and hands on her thighs and hips and waist and breasts and neck. And when she tells him he has express permission to mark her wherever he wants, he has to check the impulse to dig his fingers into her hips a little harder than usual.
He’s not a sadist, and his hands will not leave bruises on her body if he can help it.
“You’re lucky I own turtlenecks,” she says at one point while he soothes the bite he’d left at the base of her throat. “And scarves.”
“Bring them next time.”
She shudders. “Oh god.”
The scarves are a brilliant idea, and he makes sure to use them well. He’s aware of Darcy’s experience under HYDRA’s captivity and has noticed her aversion to dark settings, so he makes sure to have the lights set at their brightest when he folds the thinnest scarf over her eyes. “Can you see the light?”
Her body was the tensest he’s ever seen it, nervous for the first time in his presence. “Yes,” she says, licking her lips and digging her nails into the fabric in her hands. “And that’s the corniest thing I’ve ever heard you say to date.”
SMACK!
She cries out, but her hips rise up to chase his hand. “That’s not how I want you to talk today, Miss Lewis,” he tells her, unable to suppress the little smirk that spreads his lips as her body flushed in reaction.
“Is that so, Captain Rogers?” she asks, fighting to steady her breathing. “Tell me what you want me to say.”
He waits a beat. “I want you to tell me when it feels too much.”
Her body shudders almost violently, and only the way her body sways eagerly forward tells him it’s not out of fear.
“Steve,” she says, licking her lips again. “I can take it.”
(And she does.)
*
Eventually, Steve pokes around in her nightstand drawer and finds the collection of toys she has on hand.
“And this?” he asks, lifting a slim blue phallus up for her to see.
Darcy had, by then, gotten over the initial embarrassment of his request, but the sight of that one makes her cheeks heat up. “That’s little blue dude,” she answers, and tells him what little blue dude was for when he prompts her.
“Really?” he asks, intrigue in his voice. “Did you like it?”
“I’ve never tried it, actually,” she admits as he returns his gaze to the blue toy, and again, the thought that there should be something wrong with seeing Captain America looking at my sex toys crosses her mind. But it doesn’t strike her as wrong, really. In fact, it’s pretty hot, and Darcy tries not to think about how she doesn’t need the jar of lube he’d set beside her knee anymore, not when she had this imagery right in front of her.
Steve looks back up at her. “Let’s change that,” he says.
(Steve uses the lube on that little blue dude, and Darcy is thankful for the sound-proof room and the gag in her mouth.)
*
If anyone knew, they wouldn’t blame him for being so chipper. How couldn’t he be when he’s got a gal like Darcy, who gets off on telling him what to do on top of feeling what he’s doing to her? And no, Steve still isn’t a sadist, but making Darcy feel makes him feel good, and the fact that she wants his mark on her is just the cherry on top of his proverbial sundae.
“Have you met them?” she asks one day, two months after they meet.
He doesn’t have to ask who she means; her hand traces the writing on his back and it burns him. “A long time ago,” he tells her, his voice somehow steady in spite of the cacophony of emotions that flood up his throat. “But he’s gone now.”
Her fingers trip over the flow of their movements, and she’s silent for so long that Steve turns over, wondering and worried. Darcy’s eyes never leave his back.
“But he’s not dead,” she finally says, slowly, like the words were still trying to make sense in her head.
Steve’s jaw clenches involuntarily, his hackles rising, demanding fight or flight and he is not a sadist. He does not like hurting Darcy.
But neither does he want to leave her.
“No,” he forces himself to reply. “Not physically.”
She exhales, and there’s something heavy in her gaze when she looks at him, something like realization. “Steve,” she says, and he surges up while pulling her down to him, his fingers threading through her hair before fisting a handful and forcing her back onto the bed.
“Steve,” she gasps as he pushes her thighs apart, “oh my god, Steve, oh my god!”
She’s lovely, has he mentioned that? Lovely and devastating. He gets a kick in his gut every time she lies spread beneath him, the crown of her head pushing into the mattress and pillows, blue gaze peering out from under barely opened eyes, mouth parted as if she’s waiting for another—
“What do you want?” he asks before his mind can finish that thought. “Tell me.”
“Steve,” she whispers, her eyes fluttering shut briefly. “Whatever you want.”
He pauses, long enough that she notices and looks up at him. “Whatever you want,” she repeats, her hands moving up to cup his jaw and cheeks, “to do to me.”
He fails to fight back a shudder, because he wants to do many things to her. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I think I do,” she says, leaning up for a quick kiss, her pretty lips sliding over his with just the right about of slick and friction. “Tell me.”
He does. She moans and slants her mouth against his and then pushes him back so she can get on her hands and knees and Steve, he takes her offer and cups her breasts in his hands to remind him who he’s really with.
(He doesn’t tell her she reminds him of Bucky. Of the Bucky before, the one he’d failed to find.)
*
“Darcy, what the hell!” is the only warning she has, and then Jane is suddenly in her space and yanking her shirt up.
“Jane!” she protests, twisting away, but Jane has her shirt clenched in her fist and manages to keep her grip.
They’re in the dining room, Thor and Erik setting the table up while Jane and Darcy unpack the takeout, Tony walking in with Bruce, and when Jane pulls her top up, two gasps are accompanied by things clattering loudly on the table.
“What the fuck,” Tony says, and then Thor is suddenly standing beside her too.
“Lady Darcy,” he rumbles, eyes wide with building rage, “who has done this to you?”
Darcy grimaces and pushes Jane’s hand off her, taking a step back once she’s free. “It’s fine,” she says.
“That doesn’t look fine,” Erik tells her.
“That’s the picture you find on the dictionary beside the word abuse,” Tony tacks on, but Darcy holds her hand up sharply and glares.
“It’s none of your business,” she tells them firmly.
“None of our business!?” Jane echoes. “Are you kidding me? Darcy, you have hand-shaped bruises on your waist! Oh my god!” she exclaims. “You’ve been walking funny for days.”
Oh dear god, seriously? “Yes, Jane,” she grits out, “that happens when people get a little too into the sex.”
“But you’re not seeing anyone!” And then Jane straightens up abruptly, her eyes widening. “Darcy, oh god, are you—? Did someone—?”
Everybody gets the gist almost immediately. “Oh my god,” Darcy gripes, turning on her heel. “We are not having this conversation.”
“The fact that you didn’t answer the question is answer enough,” Jane says with a shaky voice.
Darcy whirls back around. “Oh my god,” she repeats. “No, just— Jane, jesus! That is so not what happened.”
“You’re coming to the infirmary,” Bruce says from his place at the door way, his face pinched.
“What’s going on?” Darcy stiffens, suddenly realizing how potentially fast things can get out of hand if she doesn’t do something. “Is someone hurt?”
“Lewis is,” Tony says before Darcy can even think of a reply.
“What?” Steve asks, slipping past Bruce. His eyes find her immediately, raking over her body, and Darcy sighs and folds her arms.
“I’m fine,” she says for the second time, meeting his gaze when he looks back at her face.
“You have giant bruises on your body!” Jane yells, as if she hasn’t noticed. “You are not fine!”
“You are coming to the infirmary,” Bruce repeats.
“No,” Darcy emphasizes, “I’m not.”
(And she doesn’t.)
*
“Maybe she really is just having rough sex,” Tony says. “Maybe that’s how she gets her rocks off. Figuratively speaking.”
Dr. Foster shoots him a dirty look, but it’s Thor who replies, much to her mortification. “My beloved Jane and I have performed such acts, and never have I left such bruises upon her flesh.”
“Thor!”
Tony whistles. “TMI, Thor, but good for you, buddy.”
“I know that this is a more openly-speculated topic now, but is this really anyone else’s business but Miss Lewis and her lover’s?” Steve wonders aloud, furrowing his brows together.
“Steve,” Bruce speaks up, “those bruises looked really bad. Whoever the guy is, he’s using all of his strength to leave those there. He wants them there. And he might not be ensuring that Darcy’s fully comfortable with what they’re doing. Hell, Darcy might not even know he’s leaving them until she sees them in the mirror.”
The atmosphere in the room shifts.
“You think she’s still affected by whatever HYDRA gave her?” Steve demands, having never even considered the thought. But the worry subsides just as quickly, because Darcy had never failed to respond to even the lightest of touches, and the first few memories he has of such moments are enough to disprove the idea to Steve.
“Maybe,” Bruce says. “What we gave her was tailored to her DNA. It should’ve countered the effects of the sensory-deprivation agent completely, and the tests I ran on her blood samples after showed a hundred-percent success. But,” he adds, “a few tests might be necessary, if only to check that it didn’t somehow come back.”
Steve thinks a follow up test shouldn’t hurt and asks, “Does it have to be blood?”
“No,” Bruce answers, perking up. “Blood’s the best baseline if we want to get everything checked, but a saliva or urine sample would do just as well for what we’re after.”
“I can do that,” Foster says. “Saliva. I can get you that.”
So can Steve, but why implicate himself if someone else won’t be questioned for doing it?
“JARVIS,” Tony suddenly says, “d’you know who Lewis has been talking to besides us?”
“Miss Lewis frequently visits the cafeterias in the lower floors to fetch lunch and dinner,” JARVIS reports. “She has made several acquaintances in that manner. As of last week, Miss Lewis has begun leaving the vicinity of the tower,” and here everyone straightens up, “to visit the nearby eateries. She usually returns with coffees for Prince Thor and Doctors Foster and Selvig, and occasionally yourself and Doctor Banner. These are the only instances in which she interacts with those outside the members of the Avengers Initiative and their affiliates.”
“Darcy didn’t tell me she’s been going out,” Foster says slowly.
“So maybe whoever did it was an outsider? Literally?” Tony speculates. “JARVIS, keep an eye on Lewis. Where she goes, who she visits. Just tell us when so we can follow her.”
“Tony,” Steve says sternly, fighting to keep his composure as adrenaline surged through him at the restrictions Darcy was unknowingly receiving.
“What?” he asks shamelessly. “Her bedroom’s in the authorized people only levels of the tower, so she can’t be meeting him there, which leaves the lower levels, and to my knowledge, Lewis hasn’t gone more than a block away, not since we got her out of HYDRA’s grubby paws, so if she’s seeing someone, he either works in the building or lives or works nearby. Ergo, let’s keep an eye on her comings and goings. We’ll figure it out faster than if we sat her down for a chat.”
“Okay,” Foster says.
“Really?” Steve has to ask. “You don’t think this is a huge invasion of her privacy?”
“Darcy’s my best friend,” Foster tells him. “If some asshole is hurting her, I’m going to find out who, and then I’m going to make him wish he never laid eyes on her.”
“And I shall endeavor to help you, my love,” Thor agrees.
(Wow. Just wow. These people, they’re his friends, but they’re just wow. Honestly.)
*
“JARVIS?”
“Yes, Captain Rogers?”
“Do you know?”
“If you are referring to my knowledge of the identity of Miss Lewis’s clandestine paramour, the answer to your question is yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell Tony?”
“My privacy protocols are still enabled, Captain Rogers, and Miss Lewis has asked me to keep my awareness of certain facts as undisclosed as I possibly can. So long as the question is not appropriately worded, I will be able to keep Miss Lewis’s secret.”
“Oh.”
“Captain, might I point out that my privacy protocols extend to all who reside within the tower.”
“…oh! Okay. Uh, can you please—? No, wait—would you please not inform anyone of the identity of… of Miss Lewis’s clandestine paramour?”
“I shall do my best, Captain. But you must understand, it is, above all else, my duty to provide my maker, Anthony Stark, with the information that he requests from me. While I shall strive to comply with your request for privacy, I am duty-bound to provide this information should he specifically ask for it, or if it be necessary for him to know of it.”
“I understand, JARVIS. Thank you very much.”
“Of course, Captain. And if I may, I can provide you with the necessary reading material to address the concerns Doctor Banner raised.”
“…yes. Please. I’d like to see those.”
“Very good, sir.”
(It takes him two hours to finish the readings, and he passes by a 24-hour drugstore during his run.)
*
“Are you mad at me?” she asks later, when he sneaks into her room.
“No, of course not,” he tells her, and she exhales shakily, the relief obvious on her face.
“C’mere,” she says, and he leans in, meeting her halfway for a kiss and helping her settle on his lap, her naked body telling him she’d expected his visit.
“They’re going to watch you,” he warns her as she undoes his pants. “JARVIS is going to report your every move.”
“My every move?” she asks with that tone and those moves, and he buries his face in her neck and laughs, because this girl. “I guess we have to get a bit more creative in sneaking around then. Good thing you’re sneaky and I’m creative.”
“Oh? You think we’d make a good team?” he asks before tugging gently at the dark splotch on the skin of her neck.
“We already do,” she laughs, sinking him into her.
(They do, don’t they? Huh. He hadn’t noticed until now.)
*
When it comes to people like him, there’s a line people like her can’t cross.
That line is love.
Darcy doesn’t quite know when she did, but she crossed it.
She crossed it and never looked back until it was too late.
(More fool her.)
*
Four months after Steve moves into the tower, the Winter Soldier pays them a visit.
Only, it’s not the Winter Soldier. Not just.
“Steve,” the assassin says. “I need to talk to him.”
“He’s listening,” Natasha replies, and yes, Steve’s listening. And staring. And digging his nails into his palms. And feeling like he’s choking on his heart.
“Steve,” the Winter Soldier says, his eyes somehow finding the real camera that’s designed to be invisible, completely skipping the fake camera stuck across it. “Punk, it’s me.”
(Steve’s out of the door so fast he doesn’t even hear his chair clatter to the floor.)
*
They stop four months after they start and Darcy tries not to resent him for it. He’d never promised her anything (anything but pleasure, anything but getting her off and doing what she asked him to and—) and she’d known he had a soulmate even on that first night and knew he would never be hers even before she knew who he belonged to. She has no right to be mad.
She had no right to miss him.
(But she does and it hurts that he’s gone and she doesn’t know why she can’t go back to the life she lived before he was in it but she can’t she just can’t and it hurts and hurts and aches and aches and—)
*
He notices, of course. Everyone does. Darcy is the most civilian of them, more so than Dr. Foster. She was… she was the baby of their dysfunctional family, so of course everyone is tripping over themselves trying to figure out what was going on with her.
It’s Dr. Foster who ‘solves’ the mystery.
“Her bruises are almost gone,” the scientist declares once everyone had gathered for an impromptu meeting. “Darcy broke up with him!”
“Who?” Bucky asks when (almost) everyone breaks out in smiles and cheer.
“How do you know?” Tony demands.
“I… I check,” Foster says, looking away with a flush on her cheeks. “She falls asleep in the lab sometimes. But anyway, it’s been a while since fresh bruises showed.”
“Foster, you little pervert,” Tony says affectionately.
“Shut up, Stark.”
“We must celebrate!” Thor declares. “Our Lady Darcy has freed herself from the chains of a monstrous villain. This calls for a feast!”
(A monstrous villain. Yes, he certainly feels that way every time he sees her now.)
*
When Barnes arrives, the first thing Natasha does is pull Darcy aside and give her some advice. “If he’s triggered,” the former spy says, “you run. You use everything around you to hide from him, especially if he has a weapon. He is a marksman, and the only person I know who’s a better shot than him is Clint. So you will run, and hide, and,” she holds up a slim bracelet, “you will activate this. It will send a message to JARVIS, and he will relay the situation to us.”
And then Natasha trains her. Not to fight, but to escape and evade. (Clint, the little paintball-bearing bastard, is happy to help.)
But Darcy’s also smarter than people give her credit for, so she doesn’t need Natasha to tell her that if she wants to keep her, ahem, affair with Steve a secret from him, then she shouldn’t actively avoid Bucky Barnes. In fact, she does the exact opposite and seeks him out, often in between her time with Natasha and her time with Jane, and when she doesn’t, she leaves books and DVDs and food outside his door, with advice scrawled on a sticky note and stuck to her offerings. And if she has to get up an hour earlier than usual to mentally prepare herself to smile at him, well, no one’s gonna know anyway.
Barnes suspects nothing as far as she can tell, because while he thanks her politely for the little treasures she leaves for him, he still treats her with the same aloofness he does the others when face to face, and there is nothing to indicate that he wants to murder her for sleeping with Steve. Still, she never lets herself forget that the man is an assassin, and strives to never falter in her ‘training’ or routine.
(She doesn’t, and ironically, it’s not how she treats him that gives her away.)
*
It doesn’t take long for Steve to fall into bed with him. Bucky’s getting better, remembering more and more about his life, the good and the bad, and no, it’s not easy, but it’s better, and Steve, Steve will take what he can get.
It also doesn’t take long for him to realize why he kept going back to Darcy after that first time, aside from being able to forget all his hurts by losing himself in her.
Darcy was mouthy. Talkative and demanding.
And so was Bucky.
That’s what gets Steve off.
“You jerk,” he says into the pillows, breathless and stuck in that space between coming down from the highest high and floating just above ground.
Bucky chuckles and slides onto the pillows beside him. “You loved it.” He does. “You ever come that hard with her?”
He stills, dropping out of the high like… like a Chitauri space whale cut off from its power source.
“Oh, come on, punk, give me some credit,” Bucky exclaims with a huff. “I got eyes. I see her dancin’ around you like you’re a leper.”
“Buck…”
“Answer the question, Rogers,” he says firmly.
He exhales shakily. “Yes.”
Bucky hums, turning to his side, and then Steve feels a slightly cool hand slide back to the place where he’s slick and now a bit achy. “She ever fuck you?”
Steve swallows. “No.”
“Tell me about her.”
“Bucky, I don’t—”
“Tell me,” he repeats, and Steve surges into the bed and his pillow with a choked gasp when unyielding fingers slip abruptly inside, “about her.”
So he does.
(He can’t remember exactly what he says, but Bucky doesn’t seem bothered and Steve, he’s just gonna keep an eye on Darcy for a while, just in case.)
*
(“JARVIS?”
“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”
“I need a favor. About that panic button...”)
*
Barnes isn’t an Avenger, not yet. Sam Wilson, the guy both he and Steve trust to act as his therapist, doesn’t recommend that he join the team just yet, not unless the situation became so dire that none of the team could handle it. So when Tony gets a call that summons all the Avengers and has them jetting to the south coast, Barnes is the only one left behind.
Darcy isn’t really that worried. Barnes had yet to give her problems of any kind, and Wilson the therapist stays with him in the media room, helping him catch up on pop culture via Tony’s entertainment system, so she expects them to stay there until the team comes back.
She does not expect to find him in her room, sitting on her bed and, she flushes, holding little blue dude.
“Come here,” he says.
She swallows hard. “Why?”
“I wanna talk to you. About Steve.”
“What about Steve?”
He is silent for a long moment, studying her, before he tosses Little Blue Dude back into her bedside drawer.
“I should kill you,” he says, the sound almost too loud in her ear. “You touched what wasn’t yours.”
“I’m sorry,” she tells him reflexively.
“Are you?” he demands, rising to his feet. “Are you sorry?”
When she doesn’t answer, he moves, and before she can get over the dizziness and figure out what happened, he’s already pressing her up against her bedroom door. His metal hand is wrapped around her throat, squeezing just enough to make sparks fly at the edges of her vision.
A thrill of fear tingles through her, knowing exactly what would happen if he decided to keep squeezing. The loss of oxygen could eventually put her in a coma, could make her a vegetable, unaware, trapped in darkness, no way to feel anything—
“Are. you. sorry?” he asks again, sounding distant, but it’s enough to tear into the panic sweeping up her spine, and she looks up and is nearly shocked to still be able to see.
Sight. Sound. Smell. Sensation. She needs them. She needs them now, needs to know she isn’t back there, isn’t drugged, isn’t trapped—
Her face snaps to the side right before pain blossoms through her cheek, and she cries out, unprepared for the feeling.
The feeling. She was feeling, she can feel, she had—
“Miss Lewis?” JARVIS’s voice cuts through the shock, and both she and Barnes look up, startled by the intrusion. “My protocols indicate that you may be in some distress. Do you wish me to alert Mister Wilson that you are in need of assistance?”
She stares into Barnes’s dark eyes. He stares back. There is a long moment of silence, and then the pressure of his hand becomes very, very slightly less. She swallows hard. “No, JARVIS," she says. “I'm okay for right now.”
“I will continue to monitor your vital signs,” JARVIS replies, and there might be a hint of disapproval in his tone.
Darcy swallows again. “Thank you, JARVIS,” she whispers.
Barnes glares down at her and growls. “Answer the question!” So she does.
“No,” she whispers, and he rears back a little, like he’s surprised at her answer.
“No?” he repeats, tone flat with just a hint of disbelief.
“No,” she confirms, opening her eyes and focusing on him, looking and listening and breathing and feeling him all around her and it helps, it helps settle her long enough to formulate her answer. “I’m not sorry,” she says, watching Barnes as his face blanks out. “I wanted him.”
“So you took him,” he spits out, lips curling into a snarl, his anger appearing through the emptiness of his face. “You took him and touched him even after you saw he was marked—”
“Yes,” she says, voice shaking. “Yes, I knew he had someone and—” And then the thought comes, unbidden, and she laughs, perhaps a little hysterically. “And you know what?” she continues, lining her tone with a vindictive, derisive quality. “He was free.”
Barnes flinches, and this, this hurt, it emboldens her, because yes, he was an assassin, she’s all too aware of that little gem and if he was here then there was only one reason for it and if she was going to die at his hand? Then she sure as fuck was going to take him down with her.
“He was free for the taking, free because you let him go,” she bulldozes on, her anger and resentment rising to the fore, making her reckless and petty. “You left him and you made him go and I know it was you because Steve isn’t the type to abandon the person he loves most in this world and the person he loves the most is you. You made him leave, you broke his heart, you broke it in two, and what’s worse is that you made him shatter it to pieces because you forced him to walk away, you forced him to abandon you! Do you even know what that did to him?” she demands. “Do you even know what he looked like when he got here?”
And then she bares her teeth at him and leans up and says, “Do you want to know the first thing he did when he arrived?”
Realization skitters across his face, and then Barnes snarls and suddenly, he moves his hand off her neck to pull at her hair, and he glares down at her, his fury fully formed on his face.
“The only reason I’m not going to kill you,” he says, “is because they’ll know it was me.”
And then he slams his lips against hers.
(Whaaaaat? goes her brain.)
*
“You want me to what?”
(It takes him a few hours, but Darcy Lewis is eventually convinced.)
*
When he and the team return to the tower, all Steve wants to do is check in on Bucky, hop into the shower, get a bite to eat and then sleep for the next week.
“Hey Buck, Sam,” he says upon seeing them waiting just outside the helicopter deck. “How’d it go?”
“That’s my line,” he’s told.
“It was fine,” Sam says. “Watched some movies, shot the breeze, no sweat,” he shrugs, and Steve feels relief uncurl through his chest.
“Great,” he sighs, grinning at Bucky. “I’m gonna shower and eat then sleep, unless you wanted to do something.”
The way Bucky’s eyes darkens, the way his lips curl up ever so slightly, tells him that Bucky has plans, and despite the fatigue weighing over his body like a heavy blanket, Steve feels a frisson of desire skate down his body. “Nah,” he says, though Steve can tell he’s saying the opposite. “I’ll bring up some food while you go get showered.”
So he does.
“Got you a nice spread,” Bucky says, slipping into the bathroom. “Should be satisfying, ‘specially after that,” he adds, gesturing to the dirty uniform Steve had dumped to the side.
“Thanks,” he replies, leaning in when Bucky does and moaning when he feels fingers rake shampoo in his hair. “Gonna send me straight to sleep,” he warns.
Bucky chuckles and pulls away to shuck his shirt off, and Steve’s eyes drop to the script scribbled in tight lettering along his ribs that respond to the words scrawled across his own back, an ever-present reminder of the first time they met. “I can think of a few ways to keep you up,” Bucky says, stepping in beside Steve.
The groping proves effective in rubbing the lethargy deep into his bones, and by the time he steps out of the shower, his eyelids are dragging shut every few seconds, and all he wants to do is eat and go to sleep. He stops Bucky when he wraps a hand around him once more and says, “M’just gonna drop out on you” as he rubs a towel through his hair, and he thinks his yawn sells the point for him. “Seriously, I need to sleep. Rain check?”
Bucky’s eyes narrow as he chews on the inside of his bottom lip, clearly considering the request. Steve wonders what there was to even consider; Bucky is a demanding lover, a bit of a taskmaster, but he’s not unreasonable, and he wouldn’t start something if Steve isn’t going to give his all to it.
“You’re sure?” he asks. “Once you say no, I’m not letting you change your mind.”
“Buck, seriously, I’m wrung out,” he sighs. “Tomorrow. You can wake me up if you want, but tomorrow.”
“No? Is that really your final answer?”
“Yes,” he replies, a little annoyed now. “Yes, it’s a no.”
Bucky visibly bites back a grin. “Okay,” he finally nods, his voice holding a laugh as he opens the door. “You can join me tomorrow.”
Steve rolls his eyes and follows him into the bedroom, just as naked as the man before him. “Thank you so much, Your Majesty, for your benevolent— Darcy?” he gasps, freezing mid-step at the sight of her.
“Hi,” she greets, her fingers wiggling at him with a playful grace that belied her current situation, which was also naked, but unlike them, Darcy was spread upside down over the bed, her head half over the edge, her hair hanging over the floor in shiny waves, her arms stretched out and bound to the legs of the bedframe by a familiar set of scarves. “Took you long enough. I was just thinking about getting some shuteye.”
“Bad news, doll,” Bucky tells her, approaching the bed and reaching out to smooth a hand over her belly, making the muscles there contract as she bites back an involuntary giggle. “Steve’s too tired to play with us today.”
“Us?” he echoes, the word coming out strangled, because fuck, he should've known something was going to happen.
“That’s… really inconvenient,” she replies, tilting her head up to meet his gaze.
Bucky hums an agreement. “That’s okay,” he says, his hand sliding lower on her body until it was between her slightly splayed legs. “There’s always tomorrow for him.”
Steve doesn’t even realize he makes a sound of protest, his eyes glued to the space where Bucky’s hand was.
“Steve,” Bucky calls, and he doesn’t even need to voice the silent “Look at me” for him to obey the command. Those blue eyes held a both warning and a taunt in them. “You chose this,” he reminds Steve, and Darcy suddenly cries out, her hips lurching up and drawing Steve’s attention back to her. “Go sit at the table,” Bucky says, and that’s the only time he even realizes that there were several plates of still-steaming food waiting for him on a table that hadn’t been there when he came through earlier.
“Go sit at the table, Steve,” Darcy reinforces, and Steve, he’s pretty good at strategies and tactics and he can easily see what the two of them had in store for him.
He sincerely regrets telling Bucky he wanted to sleep, because sleep was the last thing he wanted to do anymore.
“We’re going to play a game,” Bucky tells him once he’s seated. “For every bite you take, Lewis here’s going to tell me what she wants me to do to her, and I’m gonna do it.”
Steve tries not to think that the world was being unfair and just fails. “And when I run out of food?” he asks.
Bucky smiles, dark and wicked and just evil. “Then it’s my turn to do what I want to her.”
(Why? Why did he say no? Why???)
*
Of course they all notice when Darcy gains a spring in her step again, and it doesn’t take long for someone to find out what it was. Steve is in the kitchen with Bucky, mugs of cocoa in their hands, when everyone starts trekking in.
“Goddamn it!” Dr. Foster says as soon as she enters the room.
“What’s wrong with her this time?” Tony asks, looking exasperated.
“She’s seeing him again,” Foster gripes.
“Him?” Tony repeats, and then, “Him?” he sneers. “Are you fucking kidding?”
“Him or someone like him,” Foster says, waving her hand dismissively. “Does it matter who? The point is that she’s getting hurt again.”
Bruce sighs. “I suppose it’s useless for us to try asking her to come in for a checkup?”
“JARVIS,” Tony says, “put the Lewis Protocol back up.”
“As you wish, sir,” JARVIS replies.
“So we didn’t figure out who the guy was last time,” Tony says, “but maybe this is our chance to find out.”
Steve raises his mug to his lips, his eyes meeting Bucky’s over the rim, and takes a sip to hide his smile.