The Hero of Wolf Kingdom

     The look on Steve’s face when Natasha told them the news was somewhere between shocked disbelief and betrayal.

     “You’re sure?” Bucky asked her, watching Steve try to process the new information. “You’re sure it was Agent?”

     “That’s what they said but…” Natasha crossed her arms and gave him a meaningful look, “No one else came forward with any other story.”

     The story, as it was, was that Natasha was intercepted on her way north by a contingent of guards heading for the city to file a report. When they noticed who was coming towards them on the highway, the captain had flagged her down and told her about the situation. Seven guards were attacked just outside their village—unprovoked, no less—while on patrol duty. When she’d asked who’d done the deed the captain had told her that it was none other than the Hero of Wolf Kingdom. Shocked, Natasha had demanded to speak to the victims of the crime. They’d all told her the same story even being separated and questioned intensely. However, when she asked any villagers, they told her that the soldiers in question had been nowhere near the village that night, nor had they been on patrol though the roster said they had. No one had seen Agent; no one had seen anything at all.

     So now it was the soldiers’ word against Agent’s and, well, obviously they wouldn’t be getting any words from the anonymous vigilante.

     “I decided to bring the seven victims back with me—here, to the city. They’re at the local guard station and under strict orders to stay put and keep their mouths shut,” Natasha told them.

     “So, everyone in town knows that Agent attacked the King’s own men, then,” Bucky sighed.

     “Pretty much.”

     “This just doesn’t seem like something Agent would do,” Steve said finally, lifting his head to look at Natasha, brow furrowed still. Natasha gave him a sympathetic look.

     “Your Majesty, we don’t even know Agent. We know nothing about Agent. We can’t really say what Agent would or wouldn’t do, not with certainty.”

     Bucky nodded with agreement but turned to Steve and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing once, “Look, pal, I’m gonna go back into town with Natasha and see if I can’t find a crack in this story if they did actually make it up. You should get out of the palace for a bit, go for a walk to that meadow we used to play in, yeah? I won’t even force you to take a guard.”

     Steve sighed but nodded, mirroring Bucky’s gesture and squeezing back before giving Sam orders to take the Howling Commandos north to patrol there. Then he headed out himself. Bucky watched him and Sam go their respective ways before turning back to Natasha with a cold look in his eyes. Her eyes mirrored his.

     “Lead the way,” he said.

     When Steve arrived at his meadow, dressed in simple clothing so as not to be recognized, he found it already occupied.

     Sitting in the tall grass, leaning against a willow and face tilted towards the sun’s rays, was the most beautiful human being that Steve had ever possibly seen. Her hair was a lustrous chestnut, curling gracefully just over her shoulders. Long, dark lashes rested peacefully on high cheekbones. The thin slope of her nose turned up just the slightest bit at the end and below that, red lips, plump and curving into a small, content smile. Steve had the greatest urge to draw her, to put her likeness to paper so that he wouldn’t forget the way her skin shone in the sun or how her brown eyes sparkled with—

     Steve blushed as he realized that she’d woken up to see him staring at her intently. She frowned at him, her brow furrowing with suspicion.

     “E-excuse me, I’m so sorry,” Steve stammered backing up from the intensity of her narrowed eyes, palms up, “I was just—I’m sorry I didn’t know—I’ll go, sorry.”

     During his babbling the woman’s look had gone from suspicion to bewilderment and finally amusement. She chuckled warmly as he started to retreat and Steve froze at the soft sound.

     “No need for that,” she said with a smile, spreading her arms out to encompass the meadow, “There’s plenty of meadow here for the both of us.”

     Steve was so entranced by her voice that he forgot to pay attention to her words.

     “Huh?”

     “Or, I can leave if you were hoping to sketch an uninterrupted view of the meadow,” she said, gesturing to the sketch pad in his left palm still outraised. She moved to get up when he didn’t answer and Steve panicked.

     “No, don’t!” He said waving his outstretched palms in an abortive motion. She looked at him shocked and he blushed crimson. “Um—that is-is your fine—good! You’re good! Um, sorry. I, uh, wasn’t going to paint the meadow, I mean, because why paint that when your far more beautiful? It’d be a waste of canvas—not you! The meadow! Would be…a waste…I’m not even painting…wow.”

     Steve’s face could not possibly get any redder and he looked at the ground abashed having realized that he’d just called a stranger he just met more beautiful than this meadow and also possibly propositioned her to let him paint her?

     When Steve found the courage to look back at her, he was surprised to see that she was also blushing, not a trace of judgment on her face.

     “Would you like me to stay, then?” She asked hesitantly.

     “Yes!” Steve choked immediately and then blushed again when he realized what he’d said, “I mean, if you want…”

     She just smiled at him kindly and took back her spot under the willow, “I think it would be pleasant, thank you.”

     He sat down not far from her and stared. When she met his gaze he startled and rubbed the back of his neck, looking for a topic of conversation.

     “So, do you, uh, come here often?” He froze and closed his eyes, not believing what was coming out of his mouth right now. He used to give speeches before battles, dammit, what was he doing?

     The woman threw her head back and laughed before answering and Steve dazedly thinks he could dance to the sound of it.

      “Not particularly, no. I’m Peggy, by the way,” she says, offering her hand to shake.

     “A pleasure to meet you, Peggy,” he takes her hand but instead of shaking it something, and god only knows what, but something compels him to brush his lips over the back of her bare knuckles, rough from use. She blushes again and he smiles happily.

     “I’m Steve.”

     Steve doesn’t get the chance to draw her that evening, but by the time they’ve stopped talking and headed their separate ways, Steve has a date set for the same time tomorrow. He walks home in the dark, grinning like a fool.

     Darcy doesn’t even make it all the way into the city square before she starts hearing the rumors. Unsurprisingly, none of them are true and none of them are good.

     “Well, I heard that Agent rode out of the forest at the head of a group of raiders!” Darcy overhears from two women as she peruses fruit in the market, “They say that those poor soldiers were the only ones to stand up to the villain when he came riding into the town!”

     The other woman gasps, making some noise about ‘poor darlings’ and ‘I always knew that vigilante was trouble’ and blah, blah, blah. Darcy sighs, moving away from the fruit and kicking at the cobblestones beneath her feet dejectedly. She thinks about Peggy and how much good she’s done this kingdom, the hours of service she’s given both in and out of the army, and she gets angry.

     “Ugh!” She growls and kicks a stone particularly hard, gasping as it sails through the air to hit some poor man on the back of the head.

     “Ow!” The man stumbles and whirls around looking for the perpetrator, eyes locking onto Darcy like he’s got some kind of sixth sense.

     “Oh! Oh my god! I’m so, so sorry,” she says as she moves towards him. Without thinking she reaches up and puts her hand over his where it’s holding the back of his head.

     “Does it hurt too terribly bad? God, I’m sorry that was stupid of me.” She knocks his hand out of the way (which is strangely hard) and prods at the back of his head to assess the damage before she notices that he’s staring at her in shock. She freezes, realizing she’s got her hand buried in some stranger’s hair, her face only inches from his. His very, very handsome face.

     She blushes hard.

     “Um. Whoops?” She pulls her hand back, “my bad.”

     He still seems to be in shock, not answering her at all, just staring.

     “Um,” her eyes dart around looking for a way to politely leave, “I’m just—I’m just gonna—“

     She turns to go but before she can move too far he grabs her wrist to keep her there. She looks back at him, startled.

     “No, it’s fine, it’s—it’s fine. Um,” he looks down and seems surprised to see that he’s holding her hand. He drops it like it’s on fire, “Sorry! That’s, uh, no harm done. Don’t worry about it…”

     “…Oh. Okay.”

     They stand there in awkward silence, her staring at him and him trying to look anywhere else but at her. They’re both blushing severely. When he does finally look at her, he clears his throat and introduces himself.

     “I’m, uh, James,” he says. He doesn’t offer a hand. She’s still staring at his ridiculously handsome face and startles when she realizes that he expects her to answer.

     “Darcy.”

     More awkward silence ensues except this time, he’s staring back at her with a weird intensity, his gray eyes wide. Darcy shifts uncomfortably and blushes again.

     “What,” she asks defensively and he shakes his head.

     “Nothing, it’s just. You have the bluest eyes I have ever seen.”

     Darcy frowns. Wow, does he even know what he’s saying? Darcy thinks. My disguise doesn’t even have blue—

     Darcy’s eyes widen comically when she realizes that he can see her. He can see past the enchanted cloak that makes her look like an old lady!

     Crap, she thinks.

     “Barnes!” someone calls suddenly and they both jump about a foot in the air. Darcy makes her escape when he turns to find the source, still blushing and heart pounding with the knowledge that James could see past her magic.