Chapter 21
Darcy.
Steve’s eyes opened at the thought of her. He was alive? Steve began taking in the room, but at the sound of the radio he immediately knew something was wrong.
“Ah, fuck!” Darcy dropped the folders as she felt a blinding light of pain in her head.
“Darcy?”
Jane’s voice sounded far away but Darcy knew she was beside her. Darcy’s vision blurred slightly as she tried to sort out the pain in her head.
“I think I just got a migraine.” Darcy said roughly.
Jane was suddenly helping her across the room. “You should go lay down. It will only get worse if you don’t.”
Darcy was making herself believe it was a migraine, but the intense pain made it feel as if someone was…no, that had disappeared a long time ago. Once Darcy was in the bed, she wasn’t sure if she was crying because of the pain or because of the emptiness still inside her.
“You’ve been asleep for a long time, Cap.”
Steve straightened, his eyes taking in what was around him. His once home didn’t look like home anymore.
“You gonna be okay?” He was asked.
“Yeah,” Steve said thickly. “What year is it?”
“It’s 2011. Don’t try and take it in all at once.” He was advised.
Steve choked on a smile as he realized what had happened. Fate hadn’t screwed them at all.
He had a date.
“You feeling any better?” Jane turned away from the computer to give Darcy a scrutinized gaze.
“Yeah, I think.” Darcy used her slippers to slid across the floor. “I just feel really…off.”
“Off? Darcy, no one feels normal with a migraine.”
“No,” Darcy shook her head. “It’s something else. Something…”
Jane sighed heavily. “I think you need some more sleep.”
She had slept too long. When she had lain down it had been the early afternoon and now it was already dark. It reminded her of when Steve died, she had slept more than she had breathed. She forced her mind not to go back to those days, the days that were nothing but a haze of grief and tears.
“By the way,” Jane turned back to the computer. “Oliver was worried that he couldn’t get ahold of you so he called me. I told him what happened.”
Steve was on edge with nerves with the fact that he was in the same time as Darcy. Most of him was ready just to find her immediately and reunite with her in a way they had both dreamed of. Yet, he rationalized and realized several things. First, he had to get away from SHIELD people or else they would ask questions that he didn’t want to answer. So, they set him up in an apartment so he was away from all of the curious gazes.
Second, he realized that he had been gone over a year for Darcy. She had grieved his death and his heart clenched at the pain he put her through. What would it do to her if he suddenly popped into her life not only alive but here in her time?
Lastly, he had no idea where she was at or what she was doing now. He wanted to test out and see if their connection was still there, but she would notice and he wanted this to be a reunion face-to-face. So, when a SHIELD agent came over a couple of weeks after he first settled into his new apartment with a laptop, he feigned ignorance and listened to the tutorial on its use. As soon as the agent left, Steve used the laptop as he had seen Darcy do many times before. First, he used Google like he had always seen her do and searched her name. That…that was a stupid idea. He narrowed his search and added in Culver University. Her Facebook page was the first thing to pop up. He remembered her talking about Facebook, stating it was a place where friends and family could find out what’s going on in each other’s lives. He took a deep breath as he clicked on the page.
The breath was soon taken from him as her picture appeared in the corner. It was her with a smaller woman who looked upset with having her photo taken. But Darcy…Darcy’s grin was bright and lively. Her eyes, though, they didn’t have that fire in them that he had always been used to. He looked further on the page, it showed very few things on it, just her location (New Mexico, that wasn't what he had been expecting), her schooling, and…
In a relationship.