Chapter Text
Darcy decides abruptly that she is done with crying. She tells herself firmly that she is a mature adult with responsibilities and friends and a really great boyfriend who is equally, if not more, fucked up over this, and she needs to shower, put on real pants and deal with her life.
Darcy does not do any of these things. She does, however, roll over and put a pillow over her face so that the universe doesn’t know she’s crying. She’s not really crying anymore so much as hiccuping and making increasingly pathetic noises, but so long as the pillow’s there, no one can see or hear her. She is firmly in denial land and she would like to stay there as long as possible. Longer than is possible, actually. That’s the thing about denial land, she thinks to herself. It’s always there for you, even when your other boyfriend gives himself up to an evil neo-Nazi organization in order to save your sorry butt, and it’s really there for you when he comes back without a clue about who you are and why you occasionally slip and call him stupid pet names. He used to think it was funny. Now? Not so much.
Darcy is actively not remembering how Bucky’s lip curls in disgust when that happens. That entire portion of her brain is now dedicated to watching reruns of Battlestar Galactica and thinking about really cool dogs, like Great Danes who are afraid of everything and that Husky who can talk.
She thinks if she tries hard enough, she might even be able to repress their entire relationship. From day one when he helped her lift a box of Jane’s files and left without a word to somewhere around day three hundred and twenty when he took one look at her in a chokehold with a gun to her head and dropped every one of his weapons and surrendered himself to Hydra. And all the moments in between with Steve there and the three of them smiling and everything seeming so perfect that of course it had to end at some point.
The bright side is that Bucky still knows Steve - still knows that Sam is a friend and that Natasha would kill to protect him and that Tony is an asshole, but an asshole with good tech and the ability to fix his prosthetic no matter what damage he does to it. Bucky still has family, and that’s good. She has to remind herself that it’s good a lot, especially when she walks in on Sam and Bucky talking and the guy who used to kiss her senseless (among other things) looks at her like she’s actual human garbage. Or when he smiles at Natasha. That one sucks.
Steve keeps telling her that he’ll come around, but it’s been nearly four weeks and Bucky’s doing the opposite of coming around. Mostly he’s just glaring at her and pretending she doesn’t exist. And Darcy, being an incredibly mature adult, is moping in her room and also pretending she doesn’t exist. She’s gotten really good at it. In fact, she thinks she could probably play a dead person on one of those crime shows. She used to wonder how the actors did it, but after a few days of perfecting lifelessness, she feels ready for it. Bring on the zombie makeup.
She’s practicing a lifeless stare at the ceiling when her phone rings. She tries to move as little as possible (the dead, if they must move, move incredibly slowly) and puts the phone up to her face.
“Yeah?”
“Darce?” Her ringtone for Steve used to be something stupid and patriotic, but it got too depressing to listen to the Battle Hymn of the Republic every time he tried to get her to try just one more time with Bucky. So now it’s the generic iPhone ringtone, which is actually even more depressing.
“Uh huh.”
“Is it okay if I come over?”
Steve is doing his best to completely ruin denial land. To be fair, though, she’s been ruining things too. Like how he and Bucky used to basically live with her and now he calls instead of just showing up. Or how she’s been kind of a bitch to Natasha just because she’s pretty and Bucky shouldn’t smile at pretty girls who aren’t Darcy, even if he doesn’t remember her. It turns out she’s great at dealing with a lot of things (Thor, Jane, Tony and Thor come to mind) but her sort of ex-boyfriend having her existence wiped from his brain isn’t one of them. She’s not even sure if he’s her ex. He’s still with Steve, except Steve’s trying to mediate and keeps telling both of them that he’s not choosing. That part probably has a lot to do with the glaring. She’d be pissed too if some random showed up in her life and fucked with her relationship. Although, some random had showed up and fucked with her relationship, except being pissed at a Hydra agent because Bucky got all Eternal-Sunshine-d and not because the guy put a gun to her head and shoved Bucky into a car so he and the other goons could torture him was the most petty, fucked up thing in the world, and she’s trying really hard not to be an asshole.
“Darcy?” Steve sounds worried, which sucks. It all sucks, but it sucks the most for Steve. Or maybe Bucky. It’s really a toss up about who it sucks more for.
“Yeah, I’m not doing anything. See you in a bit?” She rolls her eyes at herself. See you in a bit? she mouths sarcastically, scrunching her face up.
“Okay, yeah.” He pauses for a second. “I love you. See you soon.” He hangs up after that and Darcy frowns. Stupid perfect boyfriend. He still tells her he loves her whenever they talk, even after everything. If she was a better person she’d tell him to just be with Bucky so that at least they could be happy together. She’s pretty sure no one’s happy right now, and after what he did for her, Bucky should be the one with the happy ending. What kind of a bitch would she have to be to let him give himself up to fucking Hydra for her and then steal Steve from him too? A huge bitch. The biggest bitch.
She considers meeting Steve with unwashed hair, still wearing last night’s pyjamas (pyjamas from the night before that, if she’s honest with herself) but decides that much self-flagellation is beyond her. And besides, the shower does make her feel marginally better, even if she can’t actually wash away boy drama amped up to unreasonable levels. She remembers fighting with her BFF in middle school over a crush on some guy neither of them ended up with. That was a reasonable level of boy drama. This entire situation is definitely not reasonable.
The knock on the door startles her, and she winces when she realizes Steve isn’t going to use his key. He still smiles when she opens the door, but he does that thing where he scratches behind his ear and kind of shrugs at her, and breaks her heart because Steve being awkward around her is like an awful flashback to the time before she knew everything about him.
“Hey,” he says, shifting to shove his hand into his pocket.
“Hey,” she echoes. “You didn’t use your key.”
He shrugs again, smiling apologetically. “I didn’t know if… I didn’t want to just barge in.”
“No, you can - It’s fine.” She rolls her eyes at herself. “Barge away. Is, um. Is everything okay? Is Bucky -” She stops herself before she says something stupid, like Is Bucky okay (no, he’s not, of course he’s not) or Is Bucky still considering killing me in my sleep (yes, probably). “Never mind,” she finishes lamely.
“You can ask about him,” Steve chides softly. “You don’t have to pretend not to care.”
Darcy sighs. “Is he okay?”
“He’s been asking about you.” Steve has this way of looking right into her soul and it’s so very much not compliant with denial land rules. He has hope in his eyes and there is no room for hope in denial land. Darcy keeps her eyes on Steve’s shoes. “He wants to know why you’re not around anymore.”
“Well, fuck.” She closes the door behind him and takes a moment to press down anything resembling hope. Darcy’s life is brought to you today by the letter ‘R’ for repression and recurring daydreams about her life circa six months ago and redheads she should really call and apologize to.
“Darcy, you know I understand this better than anyone. You have to give him time. He’ll figure it out.”
She scrunches her face up and fights the urge to cry. “Steve, he doesn’t know me. And he doesn’t want to.”
“Darcy -”
“No seriously, I’m pretty sure he hates me. Have you seen that look in his eyes? He gets this look like I’m a mosquito or something. An irritating mosquito that’s getting between him and the guy he’s loved for like eighty years.”
Steve’s face falls and Darcy immediately feels bad.
“He loves you,” he says seriously. “You know he does. He just doesn’t understand. He doesn’t remember us.”
“He remembers you,” she reminds him.
“Not how I am with you and him, though. It’s different.”
Darcy sighs. “This is because of me, Steve. He knew what he was doing, what could happen. I can’t be the person getting between you and him when this whole thing is my fault.”
“It’s not. You didn’t do this to him.” He’s starting to look pissed, and Darcy really, really gets that. “I would have made the same choice, and if it were me - if I couldn’t remember you, I’d want you to remind me. I wouldn’t give you up just because it was confusing or difficult.”
“Okay, I didn’t pull the lever or whatever, but…” she trails off. “What’s the difference really?” She smiles sadly. “You should be with him. He needs you right now.”
Steve starts to shake his head but Darcy grabs his hand. “Maybe he’ll remember. It could go back - we could go back to the way things were. But until then, this in between stuff isn’t helping anyone. He needs you. More than I do,” she adds, looking anywhere but at Steve.
He brushes his thumb back and forth over her palm. “I can’t not be with you, Darcy.” He sounds unbearably sad and it feels like a punch to her gut. Stupid perfect boyfriend. Stupid feelings.
“Yeah, well. I know I’m amazing, but you’ll have to survive without me.” She fakes a sunny smile and the corner of his lip turns up slightly.
“You are amazing,” he says seriously. “And we’re going to figure this out.”
She nods. “Yeah. But for right now - ” She leans up to kiss his cheek. “Be good to him, okay?”
Steve looks like he wants to argue but he nods. “Can we just - just for today? For a few hours?”
She bites her lip, trying to decide if it would hurt more for him to leave now or later. “Yeah,” she says finally. “Just for today.”
He follows her to the bedroom, toeing his shoes off and folding himself around her. She closes her eyes and imagines that Bucky’s at his back and everything is the way it should be. There aren’t any big gestures or declarations - he just holds her, kissing her hairline and telling her meaningless gossip from the Tower common rooms. When it gets dark, he kisses her one last time, tells her that he’s going to fix things in his best Captain America voice, and then he leaves.
Darcy doesn’t cry, which she thinks is an achievement worthy of more Netflix and ice cream.
x
Darcy goes back to work two weeks after Steve came to her apartment. To her credit, Jane doesn’t acknowledge that anything’s different, even if the small part of her brain not dedicated to science is probably burning for details. They settle back into their old routine, and for long hours Darcy is able to lose herself in recording data and translating Jane’s chickenscratch into beautifully styled digital documents of how hard they’ve both worked for the past three years. She consults her CSE style guide, makes new pots of coffee, orders in their lunches and, somehow, inexplicably, manages to forget for hours at a time.
Until her fourth day back, when she looks up and sees him walking past the glass doors, away from the elevator and towards Stark’s lab. It’s only a few seconds, short enough for her to doubt herself (it wouldn’t be the first time her imagination got the best of her) and long enough for her to see the glint of the overhead lights on his arm. She tells herself that he’s probably going to Tony for a tech tune up or something, puts on her headphones and gets back to work.
Except she keeps seeing him. Not every day, or even every other day, but often enough. And then, because she’s a hopeless idiot, she starts watching for him. And then she starts wondering in earnest about what exactly he’s doing in the labs and that leads to worrying about whether or not his arm is seriously malfunctioning and if Tony can’t fix it and that’s why he’s spending so much time there. And then she starts imagining Bucky having to remove the arm entirely and how unfair that would be, and before she knows it she’s in full-blown mother hen mode over the idea of him adjusting to a new prosthetic. Steve does his best, but she knows Bucky hates worrying him, so he wouldn’t tell him if it was bugging him or if the edges chafed or if he was frustrated with the difference in sensation.
She used to be the one to harass him until he finally caved and confessed to having emotions about stuff.
She sends off a quick text to Steve before she can reconsider because, again, hopeless idiot. His response comes in minutes, saying that Bucky’s the same - still frustrated and confused, but okay.
She frowns, wanting more than anything to ask for more details. Another text arrives seconds after.
I miss you.
And that’s when she puts her back to the doors, turns her phone over, and starts thinking happy science thoughts. Jane is close to a breakthrough, Darcy is going to be acknowledged when she publishes, and she is too busy being incredibly good at her job to think about Bucky spending an unusual amount of time in Tony’s lab and Steve missing her. Even if she misses them both so much that it’s like a constant ache in her chest that she might have attributed to heartburn if she hadn’t already tried popping Tums like they were candy.
She thinks it would be easier if she’d ever had a bad breakup before, but the truth is, Darcy’s never really been dumped. Not in any meaningful way. Which probably has something to do with Darcy never having been in any meaningful relationships until Steve and Bucky and their stupid handsome faces making her do crazy things like agree to turning a night of (really great, beyond amazing) sex into a long term relationship with two WWII-era antiques.
But, things being as they are, Darcy has never had her heart broken before, so now she’s confusing heartache with heartburn and rearranging the lab tables so she won’t be able to watch the halls for her sort of but not really ex-boyfriend.
It’s a suitable bandaid until Bucky starts coming into Jane’s lab instead of just walking past it. Of course he doesn’t talk to her, he just passes along messages to Jane from Tony, or Bruce, or Thor, or anyone else in the building who needs to talk to Jane. Never mind the existence of Jarvis, cell phones, or email, apparently Bucky is the new standard method of communication in Stark Tower. He only stays for a few minutes at a time, but it’s enough for Darcy to start hanging her headphones around her neck at all times so she can (very, very subtly) put them over her ears whenever he comes in and not have to hear him speaking in full sentences to someone else. And Jane, myopic nerd that she is, doesn’t even register Bucky’s visits as abnormal.
If Darcy were a bitter person (which she is not), she’d be more than a little bitter about it.
She barely sees Steve since she stopped hanging out in the common rooms at the tower, and she only sees Bucky during his odd forays into the science floor, which she’s pretty sure are designed to torture her.
All in all, Darcy is not pleased with the current state of affairs. She should be happy that Bucky’s feeling social, that he’s not cooped up in his apartment with Steve and refusing to talk to anyone. And she is, really. The first time he came into the lab, despite everything, she had to hold back a smile at the sight of him approaching Jane. She knew science people made him nervous, and science tech even more so, but she could see him out of the corner of her eye, rolling his shoulders back and striding forward. But mixed in with that surge of pride and happiness for him is this ugly feeling of resentment and envy, and Darcy hates having ugly feelings like that, especially toward people she loves. So she puts her headphones on and stares at the screen of her laptop and tries really hard to forget that he’s even in the room.
x
After a long day of pointedly ignoring Jane’s sympathetic glances, she manages to get home (even with the Downtown 6 being delayed by twenty minutes). She opens her apartment door, already kicking off her shoes and pulling her sweater off when she hears a pointed cough coming from her couch.
She barely has time to fumble for her taser before she hears Sam of all people telling her to wait. She turns and sees him rising up from the couch, his hands in the air.
“Hi,” he says to the ceiling.
Darcy sighs. “I’m wearing a shirt. You can stop averting your eyes now.” She drops her bag to the table and rolls her eyes. “Although you wouldn’t have to worry about that if you weren’t creeping in my apartment. Like a creep,” she says pointedly.
“Sorry. Sorry,” he says twice, wincing. He lowers his hands and finally looks at her. “I swear I didn’t used to think breaking in to people’s homes was normal,” he says with a grin, and Darcy wants to kick herself because she’s already forgiven him. Sam’s smiles are lethal. She’s pretty sure if he weren’t totally dedicated to saving the world, he’d have a solid career as a model. Or one of those actors where it doesn’t matter if they’re talented or not because they’re just so damn pretty.
“Steve’s corrupted you,” she agrees. “Although the sneaking into apartments thing is more Bucky’s bag.”
“Actually,” he says, “Natasha’s been teaching me lock picking. I’m surprised they let you live in a building with such shitty security. You know one of your neighbors just let me in? No questions asked.”
She rolls her eyes again. “That’s why I like living here. None of my neighbors are overly paranoid super spies. Besides, even if you were a legit creep, you’d still have to get past -” She stops herself before she says Steve and Bucky, but Sam obviously knows what she was going to say if the way his eyes soften is any indication. “So,” she says instead. “You here for the thrill of breaking and entering or…?”
Sam settles back into the couch and gestures for Darcy to join him.
“You don’t have all our friends waiting to ambush me with an intervention, do you?” she asks, half joking and half concerned about whether or not Natasha is hiding behind a curtain somewhere.
“You need intervening on something?”
“Well,” she says, pulling her legs under her in the armchair. “You’ve got this habit of trying to fix people, and normally it’s really endearing, but I’ve had a shitty couple of days. So what’s up?”
Sam frowns. “I don’t want to fix you. I just want to talk. We’re friends, right?”
She winces. “Yeah. We’re friends. Good friends. You’re a really good friend, Sam,” she says sincerely. “Sorry, I’m …” She waves her hand around her head. “I’m all weird. Don’t mind me.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’m the one who showed up uninvited. Which I am sorry about. I just wanted to see you and then you were late coming home and I tried calling but it just went to voicemail, so I just… let myself in?” He smiles and shakes his head again. “Again, I used to be more well-adjusted than this. I even brought beer,” he says, brightening up. He moves to get up, gesturing toward the kitchen. “Peace offering?”
“Yes, please.” Sam gets up and she calls after him. “Sorry about the phone thing. I got stuck in the train station.”
He hands her a beer, cold from the fridge, and she takes a long drink before smiling gratefully at him. “You’re a hero, Sam Wilson.”
“Just call me Duffman.” He settles back into his spot on the couch and drinks from his own bottle.
They sit quietly for long minutes, drinking and saying nothing, until Sam breaks the silence.
“So, we gonna talk about this?”
Darcy closes her eyes, scrunching up her face and sighing. “Do we have to?”
Sam sighs. “Maybe? You guys are screwing it up. It’s getting hard to watch.”
“You should try Netflix instead. Or HBO. You know Tony subscribes to literally every streaming platform there is?” He gives her a pointed look and she huffs. “I’m just saying,” she insists.
“Look. You don’t want to talk about it, then we don’t have to. I’m just saying you three are making yourselves miserable. You should stop that.”
“I can’t really force him to remember me,” she says with a frown. “It’s not like I can hit him over the head and reboot his brain.” She’s considered it, especially after talking to Nat about how she got Barton back to reality back during Loki and the New York Invasion and everything else that happened while she and Jane were stranded in Tromsø, but she doubts that would end well for anyone.
Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay. But you’re not even trying. You’ve just given up. I thought you three were -” He stops and makes a face. “Please don’t make me talk about your great love with Cap and Mother Russia.”
“You’re the one who wanted to talk,” she mutters.
“And you’re the one hiding out in Chinatown and ignoring all your friends so that you don’t have to deal with Barnes and his fucked up head. And Steve is being useless,” Sam replies with a raised eyebrow. “Practically forcing me to …ugh.” He shakes his head.
Darcy sits up, barely holding back a smug grin. “Forcing you to…? Go on, Sam. Please. Continue.”
He sighs. “Fix it,” he finishes with a defeated look. “Man, you’re not the only one with problems.”
“Uh huh. Codependence-Man and Avoidance-Girl strike again.” She says, grinning broadly. “Do we need to talk about your uncontrollable urges to fix people? Maybe set you up with a dream diary?”
“Shut up.” He takes a swig of his beer and sighs again. “You guys are total enablers. Stop having so many problems and maybe I’ll stop cleaning up after you.”
“Yeah, yeah. You love it.”
“Normally? Yeah,” he admits. “Being around all you weirdos makes me feel incredibly sane in comparison. But this is just sad.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “It is.”
“Okay, so do something about it. I can’t watch you guys tip toe around each other anymore, it’s depressing as hell. And it’s really not okay that you’re not talking to anyone about being attacked by Hydra agents. Seriously, you can’t let that fester. Don’t think I don’t notice you getting all jumpy and weird.”
She doesn’t say anything and Sam leans forward.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this.” Darcy raises an eyebrow. “I mean, I really shouldn’t, because it’s not my business and I live with trained killers. So just - be aware that I know I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Okay,” she says slowly.
“Bucky’s kind of been stalking you,” he lets out in a single breath, looking simultaneously pained and relieved.
“Um. What?”
“He thinks he’s being subtle, but clearly he’s going a little soft because he’s being the opposite of subtle. Honestly I’m surprised no one else has caught on.”
Darcy tries to train her face into something resembling a human expression, but she’s pretty sure she just looks crazy.
“All that time in Stark’s lab? Totally just an excuse to look at you for a few seconds on his way in and out. And don’t even get me started on him playing messenger. And he’s started bugging the security people about restricting access to the science division floors to -” Sam raises his hands to make air quotes “- increase the safety of the research staff. Which he apparently doesn’t get the irony of, because the guy? Is totally stalking you.”
“Sam,” she starts cautiously. “He’s probably just bored. Or curious. I know I’d be curious about someone I don’t remember who’s seen me naked.”
He winces. “Please don’t remind me. I’m just saying, people don’t make up excuses to do stuff like that because they’re bored. He wants to be around you. And whether you admit or not, you definitely want to be around him. So you guys should. You know. Be around each other. Away from me,” he adds quickly.
Darcy’s heart, without her permission, starts to beat faster. She remembers the first few weeks of trying and not so much being brutally rejected as being completely ignored, and doing that all over again would be just doubly humiliating. She looks away and Sam makes this frustrated noise that he mostly saves for ridiculously difficult levels of Super Mario Bros.
“Darcy, I swear,” he mutters. “Steve’s miserable. Bucky’s miserable. You’re miserable. You’ve gotta take a chance here. Maybe he doesn’t know you right now, but you got him to love you once. You can do it again. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? Everyone’s already unhappy. You telling me there’s a worse scenario out there?”
Sam leaves that night without any sort of promises from her, but he hugs her before he goes and tells her to buck up, which earns him a smack over the head. He laughs and dodges her hand and she closes the door, sliding the chain lock with a degree of satisfaction.
x
“Sam thinks I should try to get Bucky to love me again. Like a romantic comedy or something. Like my life is 50 First Dates and I just need to suck it up and woo him with my feminine wiles.”
Jane looks up from her microscope, squinting. “What?”
“I’m just saying I’m not Adam Sandler. I think we can all agree that I’m not Adam Sandler, right?”
“Okay,” Jane agrees. “You’re not Adam Sandler. And Bucky’s not that one girl-”
“Drew Barrymore,” Darcy adds helpfully.
“Yes. Bucky’s not Drew Barrymore.”
“So you think it’s a bad idea, right?”
Jane frowns thoughtfully. “It’s not not a good idea.”
“Huh?”
“Well, the basic problem with that movie is that they’re always starting from scratch because it’s like their first date, right? They can never make any progress and her entire world is structured around what some stranger says her life is. But you guys were together for nearly a year. And Bucky’s brain isn’t going to reset everyday. So he’s not Drew Barrymore and you’re not Adam Sandler,” she finishes, looking pleased with herself. She turns back to her microscope and Darcy fights the urge to sigh.
“But isn’t it kind of fucked up? Like, what if he’s happier not knowing? We had fights and stuff. Big fights,” she emphasizes. “Steve and Bucky don’t fight.”
Jane sits up again, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Steve and Bucky don’t fight because you’re the only one who makes them deal with their shit. They just avoid and break punching bags and beat up bad guys. That’s why they don’t fight. Not because they’re happier without you.”
“He seems pretty happy,” Darcy mutters, letting a hint of bitterness color her words.
“Darcy,” Jane scolds. “You’re being ridiculous. And you’re making up reasons not to try because you’re scared, which is understandable because Barnes is terrifying, but that doesn’t make it right. You know what you should do.”
“And what if I keep trying and he just ...doesn’t want me,” she asks in a small voice.
“Then that would suck. It would really suck. But trying is better than not trying. I mean, come on, Darcy. He loved you. You made him happy. Or at least less scary and robot-like. And besides, he and Steve make you happy. That’s what matters, right?” Jane nods like she’s solved the problem and smiles at Darcy before going back to her slides and ignoring her entirely for the rest of the day.
x
Darcy is going to try. She is. She's going to walk into the common room and start a conversation, and Bucky is going to be overcome with memories of the past year and the music will swell and they'll have a big silver screen moment. Tomorrow. Or maybe the day after. Soonish, definitely.