Chapter Text
Chapter One: Sex Will Lead You Back
Steve Rogers would do anything for Bucky Barnes.
He invaded a Hydra base on his own back in 1943 in order to save Bucky Barnes.
He was willing to be beaten to death on that helicarrier in 2014 in order to bring back Bucky Barnes.
He had torn the fabric of his team apart and engaged in warfare with friends in order to protect Bucky Barnes.
And he had called in favors to bring in Charles Xavier to bring back Bucky Barnes’ memories.
The results had been less than inspiring. Apparently, reintegrating seventy years of memories, painful, bloody, awful memories into Bucky’s fragile mind had been more than even Bucky’s super serum enhanced system could take.
“Buck? Can you hear me?” Steve whispered as he stared at the man lying in the hospital bed in front of him.
Bucky had been stuck in a waking vegetative state for twelve days. His eyes, once full of sparkling life and laughter and blues and grays and humor and love were now slate gray, unblinking and cold. He didn’t acknowledge Steve’s presence. He didn’t acknowledge anything that went on around him. Xavier had warned that this might happen before restoring Bucky’s memories.
Bucky had insisted it was worth the risk.
Bruce was hopeful that eventually, the serum would kick in, and Bucky’s accelerated healing would eventually bring him back. But he had warned it wouldn’t be any time soon. MRI’s of Bucky’s brain showed extensive damage. If the same had happened to Steve, the healing would take years. For Bucky and the bastardized serum that ran through his veins, it could be even longer.
“I’m going to find a way to help you, Bucky,” Steve promised. All of his team, even Tony, were looking for a way to help. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Bucky blinked. Steve nearly jumped in his seat at the slow movement of Bucky’s eyelids dropping down and then opening again.
It was progress. Slow, but sure. And Steve was sure that between all the brilliant and otherworldly people currently in his life, they would be able to come up with a faster solution.
Steve Rogers was willing to do anything to help Bucky Barnes.
He had no idea that Thor was on his way through the Bifrost with a remedy. A remedy that would test Steve’s devotion to helping Bucky Barnes to the fullest.
“You’re going to have to repeat that, Big Thunder.”
Thor leveled Tony Stark with a furrowed brow as they sat together in Tony’s workshop in the new Avenger’s Facility. Tony had been methodically wiping his hands the entire time Thor had explained the remedy that the healers of Asgard had provided him with for the Captain’s man. It was a simple enough concept, and Stark was too clever to not understand.
“The remedy is relayed through an intermediary,” Thor began again.
“OH...believe me, I understood that part,” Tony chuckled, throwing the rag on a nearby bench. He clapped his hand together and said, “I’m having trouble understanding what role you need me to play in this. You seem to have the...ah... intermediary position filled. And believe me, I am so past being able to fill that intermediary position. Even if I wanted to.”
“I have someone who could relay the remedy to the Captain’s man,” Thor nodded stiffly. “I look to you for the solution of presenting the opportunity to her.”
“And let me guess,” Tony heaved a heavy sigh. “When you say presenting the opportunity, you mean, offering a financial incentive.”
“She is not a whore,” Thor said decisively.
“She’s the exact opposite of a whore,” Tony rolled his eyes.
“I believe that if the remedy is presented to her as a business transaction, it will protect her heart,” Thor said softly. “As much as I care about easing the pain for the Captain, I must protect my sister above all else.”
“Alright...okay,” Tony nodded. “She’s in Selvig’s lab first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll pull her in for a meeting.”
“I thank you, Stark,” Thor nodded, placing a vial on Tony’s workshop bench.
The shimmering liquid inside was iridescent, the color wildly shimmering between pinks and purples and blues. Just one small vial, maybe a tablespoon of liquid and Thor promised that if given to Bucky the correct way, it would quickly mend his broken and fragile mind.
The correct way...only Asgard would make its medicine in such a way that it couldn’t be taken orally or intravenously or heaven forbid even topically.
No. Asgard’s cure-all was delivered via virgin.
“FRIDAY? Can you call up Pepper for me? I need her advice on how to handle a business transaction.”
“Coffee and donuts, tiny minion scientists! First come, first serve!”
Darcy threw the three boxes of donuts she had picked up at the bakery on the retail level onto a lab bench and quickly moved away. The minion scientists at the new Avengers’ Facility were rabid little beasts and she didn’t want to risk losing a digit to their need for breakfast treats. She held her own extra large iced coffee with eighteen sugars and a splash of cream as she walked back to her awesome little office at the epicenter of all the labs.
Tony popped his head into his office a little while later.
“Lewis. You busy?”
“I’m always busy Tony.”
“Can you spare a few moments for your favorite billionaire, genius, philanthropist?”
She rolled her eyes at him, but nodded anyway. She grabbed her coffee and followed the genius to his lab.
“Pepper tells me you’ve applied to have Stark Industries defer your student loans? I’m hurt, Fun Size. I would happily pay off your student loans. I’m sure I’ve offered before. Have I offered before?”
“Yes, Tony. You have offered before. But I need to do this my way. We’ve talked about this. And the rates for repayment from SI are way better than what I’m currently paying. I had to take a higher interest rate when I signed my promissory letter for grad school since I was still technically an unpaid intern. But since I’m using my degrees for SI, I qualify for your loans. It’s fine Tony. I’d rather do it this way. I don’t want to continue hearing about how I only got where I have either on my back or because of who I know. I need to do it this way,” she looked at him with as much seriousness as she could muster.
Tony looked at her thoughtfully. And that worried her. A Tony with a thoughtful look on his face was a Tony that was planning something. She’d learned to be wary of that face.
“Whatever you’re thinking, Tony, the answer is no.”
“But you don’t even know what I’m thinking about.”
“You just need to ask yourself, ‘Would Pepper approve?’, and if the answer isn’t a resounding yes, FORGET ABOUT IT!”
“Pepper approved this one, actually,” Tony said quietly.
Again, Tony’s seriousness and quietness had Darcy on high alert. This was something that even Tony Stark didn’t want to joke about. And that must mean that it was huge .
“Seriously, Tony? Just...get it out,” Darcy bit her lip. “I can tell it’s something important.”
Tony nodded. The kid deserved transparency at this point, especially considering what they were about to ask her to do. “What do you know about Barnes?”
Darcy took a deep breath. What she knew about Bucky Barnes could probably fill a book. She had met Steve Rogers two months after SHIELD fell. She had developed a serious, unrequited crush on Steve Rogers two months and three days after SHIELD fell. And by her estimate, she had completely disgusted Steve Rogers two months, three days and ten minutes after SHIELD fell.
She hadn’t told anyone, but she had worked with JARVIS to try to narrow the search parameters for Bucky Barnes. Sure, one of her hopes there was to earn Steve’s gratitude. But the larger hope had been to offer some kind of assistance to a man who had given his life to his country in 1945 and who had been disgustingly tortured and used by the most heinous group of assholes on the face of the planet.
It hadn’t mattered that her work continued with FRIDAY and Vision when they had moved into the new Avenger’s Facility. It hadn’t mattered that it was her program that had finally given Steve and Sam an accurate picture of where Bucky was hiding. It had only mattered that when the dust had settled from the events of last May, Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson brought back a man who could barely remember his own name.
So she began her research again, instead of trying to find Bucky, she began to research ways to help Bucky. She may have called up an old high school classmate , and provided Bruce with the contact information for Professor Xavier.
Essentially, Darcy knew that it was a little bit her fault that Bucky’s brain was essentially broken now.
She knew an awful lot about Bucky Barnes.
“I know that he’s hot,” Darcy said with exaggerated flippancy. “Like really, that hair shouldn’t work...but it does. Science could never explain that.”
“Capsicle said that today he said his first word since the memory procedure with Baldy,” Tony shrugged.
“Was it a request for a haircut? Because I don’t know if I’d let that happen,” Darcy continued on with her go-to defense mechanism of ridiculous humor.
“It was help ,” Tony said bluntly.
“Oh,” Darcy whispered, all of her humor flying from her.
“Are you willing to help, Fun Size?” Tony wondered, holding out a slim leather binder to her. She took it and Tony shuffled from foot to foot a bit, clearly feeling a little uncomfortable with his role in the Society to Improve Barnes’ Mental Health. “It’s a contract, regarding expanded job duties.”
“Oh,” Darcy whispered again, speed reading through the first page. Her eyes went huge and her cheeks flushed pink as she looked up at Tony curiously, making sure the man wasn’t pulling an epic prank.
He was not.
“ Oh. ”
“His synapses are healing at the rate we had expected,” Bruce looked down at his charts and then back up to Steve. “He can understand us. He can comprehend what is going on around him and he can give us a few words. But there’s a disconnect. He can’t tell us everything. It will still be a while until he can.”
“Right,” Steve nodded, giving Bucky a reassuring smile.
Bucky could only blink in response. Steve figured it was better than nothing.
“Have we heard from Thor? Vision? Wanda?” Steve wondered of Bruce.
“Captain Rogers, Prince Thor requests admittance to the room,” FRIDAY helpfully announced.
“Please let him in,” Steve nodded, carefully watching Bucky for any sign of distress. Bucky simply blinked in response. Steve turned to Thor, who walked in with all the gravitas that the future King of Asgard would.
“Steven, my friend, I come with good news,” Thor gave a soft, reassuring smile to Bucky before nodding at Bruce. “I bring a remedy.”
“Oh boy,” Bruce nodded. He had consulted Tony on the remedy. He gave a half-hearted wave to the men in the room and said, “And this remedy is definitely science that is over my head, so I’m going to just...disappear.”
Thor waited until Bruce had left the room before looking between the blank slate of Bucky’s face to the anxious, hopeful look on Steve’s.
“The remedy will heal the fractures of the mind. It will be whole and complete again,” Thor promised.
“Where is it?” Steve wondered hopefully. “Let’s give it to him.”
“Ah, that is where the difficulty lies,” Thor nodded. “It can only be administered through a highly specific ritual.”
“Ritual,” Steve repeated, suddenly very wary.
“There must be an intermediary,” Thor admitted. “The intermediary administers the cure via mating.”
Steve’s mouth gaped for a split second before he blinked five times in a row. He looked to Bucky, whose face was expressionless, but he was also blinking more rapidly now, as well. Steve turned back to Thor and nodded.
“Give it to me, I’ll...I’ll administer it,” Steve said resolutely.
“You are not an appropriate intermediary, my friend,” Thor shook his head. He surveyed Steve carefully and nodded. “You are approximately seventy-five years too late to be the correct intermediary.”
“What’s that mean?” Steve furrowed his brow.
“The healing draught is administered to the intermediary, who must be pure, and also in this case, a virgin maiden, and she can administer the cure to the ailing warrior,” Thor revealed.
“ What ?” Steve whispered. He looked to Bucky, who was still blinking rapidly, his eyes on Thor. “How are we going to----where would we find someone willing to do that?”
“Never fear, Steven,” Thor smiled gently at his fellow Avenger. “I have already found a willing maiden.”
“Who?” Bucky managed to spit out. The spoken word causing Steve’s muscles to twitch in his surprise.
“Lady FRIDAY, please open the door so I might retrieve my friend,” Thor asked kindly. He walked to the door and offered his arm to the mystery maiden.
“No, absolutely not,” Steve said firmly with his arms across his chest.
And at the very same moment that Steve said no, Bucky managed to whisper, “Please. Help.”
Steve turned to Bucky with wide surprised eyes, before whipping his head back towards the newcomer and scowling at her. He took a slow swallow, his eyes going from the top of her head with her wild brown curls down to the tips of her converse covered toes.
Darcy Lewis .
Steve knew Darcy Lewis. He’d met her at Avengers Tower two months after the fall of SHIELD. Two short months after he learned the man he had loved since 1937 was still alive.
Darcy Lewis was a short, curvy little thing, with a gap toothed grin, and bright blue eyes that couldn’t hide an emotion to save her soul. She was sassy and funny and witty and kind and smart.
It had taken Steve three short days to realize he had to keep himself far removed from Darcy Lewis.
And here she was, the intermediary for Bucky’s miracle cure.
A pure, virgin maiden.
Steve looked to Bucky again, knowing that his brain could process this, but he couldn’t communicate all he needed to. Steve knew Bucky inside and out though, and he wagered that his friend was thinking how a dish like Darcy Lewis had remained pure and untouched for so long.
Because Darcy Lewis was exactly the type of dame that Bucky would have chased to the moon and back before the war.
“We can find another virgin, Thor,” Steve insisted. “Miss Lewis doesn’t need to do this.”
“You are wrong there, Steven,” Thor insisted, with some strength in his voice, a hint of a reprimand. Thor knew Darcy well, and could feel her wilting at Steve’s utter refusal to consider her. “I specified a pure , virgin maiden. The purity does not pertain to her virginity. The purity is her heart.”
Steve winced internally. Of course she would be pure of heart. Of course she would be perfect . He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening his eyes again to look at Bucky, his eyebrows raised in question.
“I want to help you, Sergeant Barnes,” Darcy said earnestly, moving away from Thor and walking towards Bucky’s bed. She gave him a small, hopeful smile and said, “But if you don’t want to, just...just blink or something? Or say No, and I’ll work with FRIDAY to find another person that you wouldn’t mind. Someone who you would want.”
Bucky took a deep breath and looked up at Darcy, eyes unblinking. His lips parted and the words came out slowly, but had more emotion in them than Steve had heard from the man since 1945.
“Call. Me. Bucky.”