London
“Rick!”
The tinny sound of Darcy’s voice filled the STRIKE office. Rollins and Anderson looked up from their cubicles. Rodriguez sighed and hung his head.
“Shit is going down in London! Jane disappeared. Then Thor showed up. It was raining, and then Jane blew the fuck up—”
Several agents stood up at that. Steve stood from his own desk and crossed the bullpen, pushing into Rumlow’s office. Rumlow was listening to her voicemail tapping his pen against the pile of paperwork on his desk.
“But she’s alive though! Thor took her to space again! I’m pretty sure I’m getting arrested. If you get this, well—hey—I said I was coming—shit—fuck, man, I said I would go willingly—ow—Rick!”
Her voice was getting farther away, presumably as the London police carried her off.
“I am officially being arrested!”
There was a muttered conversation, the sound of someone’s radio clicking, and then the message ended.
“Wheels up in ten,” Rumlow said quietly before putting his reading glasses back on and returning to his paperwork.
Steve nodded and turned to let the rest of the team know, but they were already packing up their gear and calling down to the hangar for a crew to prep the quinjet.
--
The last time Steve had been to a police station in London, he’d been bailing Falsworth and Dernier out of a bad spot when they were on leave. As he rolled up on the street parallel to the building where Darcy Lewis was being held, a wave of familiarity washed over him.
The streetlights were different, the pedestrians that walked past all held smartphones and other devices that would have been the stuff of Bucky’s wet dreams. No flying cars though. That would really have chafed at Bucky’s last nerve.
We’ve got men in flying suits, Stevie, but they ain’t even bothered to make a car fly?? How hard could it be??
He put the car in park and turned to Rumlow and Rollins as they finished suiting up and exited the vehicle.
Rumlow turned back to him.
“Wait here,” he said. “We’re gonna snag Lewis and bounce. I don’t want to be on the street any longer than necessary until I know what exactly it is that she thinks is coming—”
“Understood,” Steve nodded dryly. It still chafed a bit to have to follow another man’s orders. He really had gotten used to being in charge over the years.
Rumlow slammed the passenger door shut and jogged across the street to catch up with Rollins.
Steve eyed the building they were heading into and thought of Falsworth and Dernier.
“The building, at least,” he muttered under his breath and checked his rearview. “Looks exactly the same.”
The cameras, the gates, the cars and the clothes though….
Steve gritted his teeth and sucked in a sharp breath, holding it for a beat, before releasing it slowly. The itch in the back of his mind that wanted him to remember Bucky was squashed immediately by the pang in his chest when he did.
When he thought of Bucky, he thought of him falling. And his hand clenched the steering wheel too hard. He closed his eyes against the urge to lunge. The reflex to dive after a memory he was no longer living in. The train was gone. Bucky was gone with it. You can’t catch the hand of a memory, no matter how many times you were forced to relive it.
Steve released the steering wheel and flexed his hand once, twice, three times, trying to put his best friend back in the little pocket of his mind that he never spent any time in.
Steve sucked in another breath and held it when he failed.
--
“Is that Captain America driving my getaway car?” Darcy asked as Rumlow shoved her into the backseat of an armoured SHIELD car.
“No,” Rumlow said, sliding into the back with her as Rollins hopped up front into the passenger seat. “That’s Steve Rogers escorting you to your apartment in a government vehicle.”
Darcy rolled her eyes and caught Steve’s eye in the rearview mirror.
“Miss Lewis,” he said and smirked. “Good to see you in your daytime clothes.”
Darcy flushed and cleared her throat. For once, unable to come up with a retort, she averted her gaze and snapped her seatbelt, slapping Rumlow’s hand out of the way when he tried to do it for her.
--
The labs that were set up in SHIELD’s London office were sterile to say the least.
Now that Dary Lewis had been secured and safely deposited back at the flat she shared with Jane Foster, STRIKE had decided to divide and conquer their work at the London office, trying to get to the bottom of the anomaly Darcy had warned them about.
Rumlow and Smith had gone to speak to the higher ups about a potential extraterrestrial threat approaching the atmosphere.
Rollins and Johnson had gone in search of any possible leads in the news.
Steve and Rodriguez had been sent down to the labs to sort out the science of the anomalies Darcy Lewis had proposed to them in the ride from the police station to Jane Foster’s apartment. Like Jane Foster disappearing for five hours in a warehouse after they through keys through a space-time loop that had somehow suspended a giant truck in mid-air.
“The fabric of space time is being shredded as we speak, Captain,” the little brunette scientist said to him, eyes bright with a manic sort of wonder. “It is truly remarkable.”
Steve glanced at Rodriguez who grimaced in return.
“Hey, it’s Simmons, right?”
“Right, you are Agent Rodriguez,” she beamed at him. “Come this way, I’ll show you the diagram we built—just over here—”
“Miss Simmons,” Steve said, holding out a hand. “Can you tell us more about the source of this anomaly?”
“I’m afraid we are still narrowing down just where exactly it’s coming from at that moment, however—”
The door opened behind them. Rodriguez glanced back, but Steve was trying hard to give the scientist his full attention. He had asked for her help after all.
“No time,” Rollins poked his head through the door to the lab, cutting off Dr. Simmons. “Got a hit on Selvig, guys, we gotta go—”
Neither Steve nor Rodriguez needed to be told twice. They turned on their heels and bolted after Rollins, Steve shooting an apologetic smile over his shoulder at the scientist they were leaving in the dust.
She had already gone back to her calculations when he did.
--
“What do you mean gone?” Rollins asked the front desk clerk at the mental health facility.
Steve hung back, not wanting anyone to get a good look at his face.
“He was discharged about an hour ago,” the clerk informed him.
“And who signed for his release??” Rollins asked.
“Next of kin,” the front desk clerk snapped. “Now, sir, if you don’t mind, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Rodriguez stepped forward and put a hand on Rollins’ shoulder.
“We’ll find him,” he said and dragged him away.
Steve watched them go and then glanced back at the wary looking clerk.
Offering the other man a self-deprecating smile, he stepped up to the counter. “You wouldn’t happen to know how we can contact him, do you? He’s part of our volunteer program and we just want to make sure he’s okay.”
The front desk clerk narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “No,” he said. “Don’t have that information.”
Steve sighed and hung his head. “Right, well,” he said. “Thanks for your help today.”
The clerk arched an eyebrow and glanced from Steve to the door.
Steve pushed away from the counter and nodded, taking the hint and walking away.
--
Back in the bullpen at the SHIELD office, Rollins was muttering under his breath as he hacked into the security footage at the mental health facility where Selvig had been kidnapped from.
Right as he caught sight of a red knitted beanie and a familiar face, there was a snap in the atmosphere.
Steve felt the energy roll over his back, an odd sensation along his spine that told him something was very, very wrong. And then came the great heaving groan, the sound of metal bending at unnatural rates. The high-pitched scream of steel and other materials tearing through natural matter and then the shudder as it made impact with earth.
Steve didn’t have to see it to know it was bad. He was already lunging for his shield on the arms rack across the room, while the rest of the team snapped into action and the local SHIELD agents started shouting orders out to each other and over the phone.
That’s when they heard the screams.
--
“Thor,” Steve said, holding his cell phone to his ear with one hand and ushering a family of five down into a tube station to take shelter. “It’s Steve, I’m in London—”
“I cannot hear you, my good Captain—” Thor’s tinny voice rang in Steve’s ear. “I am afraid the inferior technology of your planet is not yet advanced enough for long distance communiques—”
“Hey man—” Steve tried again. “You gotta turn the phone around – you’re speaking into the earpiece—”
“Yes, I yearn for peace as well my friend,” Thor said, and the call crackled briefly with a wave of electricity as a bolt of thunder shot down from the clouds that had gathered over Greenwich.
Steve rolled his eyes and ducked out of the way as a flock of pigeons appeared out of nowhere, shooting up out of the sidewalk and into the sky.
“What the fuck—” Rumlow grunted, blocking his eyes as the birds clawed at everything in their path as they tried to escape time and space.
Steve blinked at the pigeons and stared blankly at Rumlow before hanging up on Thor as he shouted.
“Send a Raven!” over the sounds of battle.
“We gotta get to that ship,” Steve shouted over the chaos on the street.
Rumlow nodded once and called for the men to convene on the ship where Thor was fighting an unknown entity.
--
“Goddamn it, Lewis!”
Rumlow blew the face off a pale green alien, before grabbing it by the ponytail and swinging it out of his way.
Steve whirled around to see what had caught Rumlow’s eye, ripping off his cowl as he did.
Rumlow dispatched another alien and then turned to stalk toward Darcy Lewis, kicking debris and ushering the public to safety as he went.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” he shouted over the chaos.
Darcy Lewis was sprinting down the street, a giant grey alien chasing after her. She had a long metal rod hitched over her shoulder and she was dragging a man by the collar of his shirt, evidently not trusting that he could keep up.
The alien was gaining on them. Steve broke into a sprint, hoping he would reach them in time. Rumlow had raised his weapon to aim at the creature, but Darcy was blocking his shot.
“It’s mad science Rick!” Darcy cried out, eyes blown wide with adrenaline, beanie falling off her head. “It’s really fucked! Really fucking fucked!”
“Get your ass underground!” Rumlow shouted, falling the alien with his gun as Darcy and her charge sprinted toward him.
Steve had almost reached them, arm extended outward so he could snatch Darcy out of the way, when a ripple appeared in the air between them. Steve blinked as Darcy let out a shriek.
Steve skidded to a halt and stared at the space in horror.
Darcy Lewis and her charge were gone. The alien picked up speed, and Brock fired.
Steve stared in shock as the bullets all fell through the ripple and disappeared. Heart hammering in his throat as he thought about Darcy who had just fallen through that same portal. The alien lunged for the ripple. Steve unstrapped his shield and threw it. It curved it around the portal. Steve watched with grim satisfaction as the vibranium cleaved the creature’s throat. The shield ricocheted off the alien’s armor. Arced back toward him. Steve caught it and strapped it to his arm, turning on his heel when he heard Rumlow shout.
--
Jane Foster’s London flat was on the second floor of a small brownstone on a quiet residential street. Rumlow flung the door to the entry open with force, and the door swung out and bounced against the wall, leaving a dent.
There was a little table next to the door with a doily on it and a set of fake pink roses. The downstairs neighbour must not have been home – or perhaps was too scared to come out after the events of the day. After all, it was just an hour ago that London had been invaded by an army of pale green and grey aliens who sought to wreak havoc on the people of earth…again.
Rumlow didn’t bother to wait for them. Instead, he stomped up the steps toward the second story flat, his boots thudding mercilessly against the old hardwood flooring that had probably been in the place since Steve was a kid.
The rest of the team followed their commander as he climbed. The banister creaking under the weight of their hands when they touched it, and the steps squeaking and shuddering as they suffered the weight of the team.
When they reached the landing, Rumlow raised a fist and banged on the door.
“Hold the fuck up!” came Darcy’s shout from within.
The door opened, and Darcy blinked out at them owlishly, before zeroing in on Rumlow’s surly expression and promptly slamming the door in his face.
Rumlow let out a string of curses and pounded on the door again.
“I will knock this thing off its hinges, Lewis,” Rumlow said, crowding the door with impatience.
The door opened swiftly this time to reveal a wide eyed, sweaty young man. He blinked up at Rumlow and Darcy shouted from further inside.
“Close it,” she said. “I told you not to let them in.”
The man seemed to hesitate. Caught between Darcy’s command and Rumlow’s glower.
Rumlow grumbled and shook his head, shouldering his way past the scrawny man and storming into the flat.
“When I say, ‘lay low,’ Lewis,” Rumlow said, and Darcy whirled around in shock when he was suddenly behind her. She curled her lip, and Steve watched a line of blood come from a cut on the corner of her mouth.
“Come back with a warrant, Rick,” she snapped.
“I mean lay fucking low,” Rumlow said, crowding her back toward the table and forcing her to sit down. “Do you understand me?”
“There was a bit of an emergency, if you hadn’t noticed,” Darcy said, unflinching as she stared up at him. “What was I supposed to do? Not help?”
“That’s exactly what you were supposed to do!”
Rumlow ran an agitated hand threw his hair and turned as though he was going to storm away before colleting himself and facing the girl in the chair once again.
A throat cleared to Steve’s left. Steve glanced over to see the young man Darcy Lewis had been dragging down the street shifting anxiously from foot to foot. He shot the younger man what he hoped was a reassuring grin, but it seemed it only made him cagier.
He shifted away from Steve and accidentally bumped into Rollins, who arched an unamused eyebrow down at the poor guy.
Steve took off his gloves and stuck out a hand. “Steve,” he said.
The younger man glanced nervously from the glowering Rollins to the yelling Rumlow and then down at Steve’s hand.
He took it tentatively. “Ian,” he said.
“Good to meet you Ian,” Steve said.
“Y-you too, mate,” Ian said.
Steve grinned and turned back to the Rumlow and Lewis situation unfolding in the kitchenette.
“You are not a goddamned agent, you are not the goddamned God of Thunder, you are not—”
“But I helped,” she stood from her chair to get in Rumlow’s face, but her chin only came to his chest. “Without me, they never would have gotten the lightning rods of destiny in place on time and the Dark Elves would have eaten the universe!”
“There were plenty of qualified professionals on the ground—”
“Then where the fuck were they, Rick?” Darcy asked. “Because I didn’t fucking see any.”
“That’s because you were sucking face with the fucking slim jim over there—” Rumlow shouted. “Which by the way, is the exact opposite of laying low!”
“Who says sucking face anymore?!” Darcy threw out her hands and stared at him as if he’d grown another head.
“If I may say something—” Ian cut in, taking a tentative step toward Darcy.
“No—” Darcy and Rumlow snapped in unison, turning to shoot Ian near identical glares.
Steve winced. Rumlow narrowed his eyes on the younger man and turned back to Darcy.
“Who is he?” he asked.
“Ian,” she snapped. “The intern.”
“You don’t have an intern,” he snapped back.
“I. Do. Now.”
--
Steve could tell that Rumlow wanted to hate Ian, No Last Name, the Intern, but from the looks of things, he just couldn’t seem to find a good reason.
After the mess that was the Dark Elf clean up and debrief, Darcy had been coerced by Rollins and Rodriguez to join them for a drink. Drinks though, after the fighting and the clean-up, and the mountains of paperwork they’d all had to file, had quickly turned into dinner and drinks.
Steve had reluctantly tagged along.
When they got to the restaurant, Darcy showed, but she wasn’t alone. She had breezed through the door unwinding her red knit scarf from around her neck and caught Steve’s eye. Her face lit up and she threw up both hands to wave at him and the others who were seated around the table with him.
Darcy, still unwinding her scarf, had turned and said something to someone who was hidden from view by the bodies in the entry waiting to be seated.
The person must have responded because Darcy rolled her eyes, shot off something snarky, took off her hat and smacked it into their chest before grabbing their arm and dragging them forward.
At first, Steve had expected Dr. Jane Foster to be Darcy’s plus one.
But the thin man that appeared from behind the mass of bodies squashed that suspicion.
It wasn’t Rumlow who had voiced his shock nor his annoyance at the appearance of the man they had seen running around with Darcy on the streets of London. Rollins did that for him, voice low as he glanced around the table. But one glance back at the Strike Commander told Steve that he likely had the strongest objections to the pair.
--
They had only left one chair. Thinking Darcy would be the only one to join.
When the pair got to the table, Darcy let go of Ian’s arm and snapped, “Sit.”
Ian blinked at her, nonplussed, but obeyed.
Steve immediately made to stand, but Brock beat him to it.
“Darcy,” he said, and held the chair out for her. Darcy rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Keep your seat, I’ll just snag—”
She leaned over to the table next to theirs and curled her fingers possessively around their empty chair.
“Do you mind?” she asked with a coercive grin.
When the group gestured for her to take it, Darcy was taken aback by Brock’s sudden presence behind her.
“I got it,” he said in a low voice, Darcy glanced up at him, startled by his proximity. “Go ahead and sit.”
Darcy didn’t voice whatever complaint was surely on the tip of her tongue but moved back over to the table and took the seat Brock had originally offered her. Ian was on her right in the chair that they had originally intended for her, and where Rollins had been elbow-to-elbow with Brock before, there was now a gap between her chair and the giant Aussie’s. Darcy shot Rollins a confused look, but he only quirked his lips and lifted his beer by the neck, taking a swig.
While Rumlow placed his chair in the gap between Darcy and Rollins, she turned, a bit nonplussed, to meet Steve’s eyes across the table. Then her eyes widened, and her mouth popped open in a disappointed ‘oh.’
“Oh man,” she said and leaned back in her seat with a defeated huff. “I knew I was supposed to tell Thor something.”
Steve raised both eyebrows and cocked his head to the side. “Oh?” he asked. “What would that be Miss Lewis?”
Darcy narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s Darcy or bust, old man,” she said.
Rodriguez choked on his drink and Steve didn’t break her gaze when he reached over to smack the other man hard on the back in an attempt to help him out.
“Noted,” he smirked.
Darcy let out a sigh and then nodded when a waiter came and offered her a drink.
“He’s off wooing his Lady Jane right now,” Darcy said, and Ian had the grace to look a little green next to her.
Darcy glanced at him and offered a sympathetic twist of her lips.
“They’re very…” she said and trailed off unable to find the words, which is how Steve knew she must be tired.
“There’s blokes and then there’s blokes,” Ian said shooting a look around the table with astonishment. “And that bloke…”
“He’s a bloke,” Rollins finished for him, lifting his drink toward the other man.
Ian raked his hands through his hair and nodded. “Exactly,” he said.
Rumlow eyed the other man without affect, and Steve watched, mildly amused, as the STRIKE Commander stretched both arms before resting his right arm over the back of Darcy’s chair.
Ian noticed. His eyes flickered from the table, to Brock, to the arm that now rested around the girl he’d been snogging in the middle of an alien invasion. He looked again at Brock, a series of emotions crossing his face, before he cleared his throat, eyed Darcy and then turned back to the group.
“You met him, then?” he asked Rollins.
Rollins smirked and shook his head. “Only heard a story or two.”
Ian nodded, “Yeah, well, when Darcy suggested we give them some space…”
“I can imagine,” Steve said, feigning boredom. He stared at Darcy whose story had been interrupted, but she was staring curiously at Rollins.
Steve wondered if she knew, like he knew, that Rollins and the rest of STRIKE Alpha had been on site when Thor landed in New Mexico and had engaged in close hand to hand combat with him to keep him from Mjolnir which SHIELD had found immovable in the middle of the desert.
Darcy cleared her throat and shook her head before turning back to him.
“Anyway,” she said and offered a half shrug. “He’ll be bummed to know he missed you. Big on comrades and shield brothers and all that…”
“He is,” Steve agreed but didn’t say anymore when Ian turned curious eyes his way.
Darcy’s intern-slash-fling though seemed either too smart or too stupid to ask the question that was on the tip of his tongue, because he didn’t insert himself.
--
It was when Ian got up to go to the bathroom that Darcy let whatever was left of her chipper façade fall by the wayside.
She watched him walk away with a bright grin before her cheeks began to twitch and then her face fell.
She turned then to Rumlow of all people and looked at him absolutely miserably.
“I fucked up, Rick,” she said.
Rumlow was working his way through his steak and finished chewing before setting down his knife and fork and looking at her. He seemed to consider his thoughts carefully before replying.
“Is it a matter of personal security, national security, or intergalactic security?” he asked.
Darcy blinked and then narrowed her eyes. “I said I fucked up, not that I’m a fucking newb, you dweeb.”
While it wouldn’t be obvious to most, Steve saw Rumlow’s eyes gave way to amusement.
“You in the family way, Lewis?” he asked. “Need me to give the kid the shovel talk?”
Darcy let out a hiss and elbowed Rumlow in the ribs. He didn’t even flinch, and Steve thought he saw Darcy rub her elbow under the table.
“He’s still wearing his vest,” Rodriguez muttered in Steve’s direction.
Steve winced in sympathy then. Darcy hushed Rollins who was chuckling and then looked to Rumlow.
“I need you to make up some reason you need me to leave—”
“What? You’re not having fun?” Rumlow asked dryly.
“Not the restaurant,” Darcy hissed and then sunk a little lower in her seat when she saw Ian leave the bathroom. “London. Britain. Europe. Pick one.”
Rumlow frowned at this. “Why?” head sked.
“Because” Darcy said again. “I. Fucked. Up. You. Dweeb.”
“You’re gonna have to say more than that, Lewis,” Rumlow said, picking up his knife and fork again though Steve wasn’t surprised that his attention was more on Ian, the Intern, who was walking their way and less on his steak.
“I kissed Ian, the Intern, and now he thinks this—” she pointed downward as though her situation were under the table and not walking toward her from the bathroom. “Is a thing. And its not a thing. But I fucked up and he like lives with us now, I think? But I can’t live with him. Where is he gonna sleep? And how is he supposed to eat?”
“Eat?” Rumlow asked. “You’re worried about what he’s gonna eat?”
“Well, I can’t pay him,” Darcy hissed. “I don’t even get paid for this shit. Which is bullshit by the way. I just helped the God of—”
Rumlow dropped his fork to pinch her arm under the table, and hissed, “Keep your voice down,” through gritted teeth.
“Thunder,” Darcy hissed under her breath. “Defeat a goddamn alien army and I don’t even have dental insurance—”
“Really,” Rodriguez asked, seemingly genuine intrigued by her words. “You’re gonna pick dental as the primary complaint?”
Darcy blinked at him. “What?” she asked.
“Dental,” Rodriguez said. “You’re not gonna pick just general health or hell even psych insurance?”
Darcy shrugged and looked a little flustered by that. “I have stress dreams—”
“Stress dreams?” Rumlow asked, a look of genuine concern appearing on his face. Steve, though he didn’t voice it, shared the concern. Stress dreams could mean anything from wondering if you filed a piece of paper, to being three seconds away from having a nervous breakdown in the parking lot. “And I cracked my tooth the other day.”
“You cracked your tooth?” Rumlow asked.
Darcy rolled her eyes. “Not the point,” she hissed when Ian was almost to them. “Help. Me. You. Ass.”
“What do you want me to do?” Rumlow asked, throwing his hands out between them, half hidden under the table.
“While you’re in London, you should get that tooth checked,” Rollins said with a shrug. “Might be a pain to fix later—”
Darcy sucked in a breath of absolute misery when the chair to her left slid out from its place under the table and Ian took his seat again.
“What’s this about a tooth?” he asked, shooting a curious look between Darcy and Rollins.
Darcy plastered on a pained grin and turned to him. “Just a component on the thingamajig,” she said.
“Oh,” Ian nodded and took a bite of his food. “We should look at that phasemeter too, it’s been looking a little bent since the incident.”
Darcy cleared her throat and nodded solemnly before turning back to her own plate.
--
Rumlow caught her arm as they exited the restaurant. Ian, the intern, was just ahead of them while Rollins talked his ear off about some football game or another. Steve slowed as Rumlow and Darcy lagged behind the rest of their group, whispering in hushed voices.
When he was sure Ian wasn’t paying attention, Steve gave up all pretence of walking ahead of the pair and came to a stop, waiting for them to catch up before keeping pace with them from Darcy’s left.
“You’re gonna have to tell him,” Rumlow said, exasperated.
“If I wanted relationship advice, I would have gone to Jane,” Darcy hissed and tried to shrug off the arm Brock had slung around her shoulders.
Rumlow’s hand flexed once like he was gonna tug her closer, Steve noticed, but then the other man sighed and let his arm drop unable to ignore her gesture as anything other than a bid for space.
“Then what did you drag me into it for?” Rumlow asked.
“An extraction,” she said under her breath.
Steve coughed to hide a laugh, but Darcy caught it and shot him a glare.
“Not funny Captain America,” she said.
“Steve,” he reminded her wryly.
“Captain Steve,” she said, though the way she put a little more force behind her words told him she had misunderstood him on purpose.
“I hate to agree with Rumlow—”
“Oh, I’m sure,” she rolled her eyes.
Brock scuffed his boots on the sidewalk as they walked. The group ahead of them had managed some distance, and Steve wondered if Darcy knew that was no accident.
He shot Rumlow a curious glance, and Brock caught the look, glancing from Steve to the group and then down to Darcy before catching Steve’s eye and shaking his head before then catching himself and shrugging.
Got it, Steve thought.
Rumlow had no idea how much Darcy actually knew about anything they did or the circles she ran in. She just ran in them, and somehow, despite their enhanced skillsets she managed to still leave them all guessing.
Of course, Steve considered in a tone reminiscent of Natasha’s, it was safe to say that no one had ever asked her before what she knew or how much she observed.
“I can’t break up with him,” she pondered miserably. “We aren’t a thing to break up. But I can’t ignore it, because I need to know when he plans on leaving my apartment. He kissed me again, like when we weren’t running away from being alien-murdered, and I just let him…”
Rumlow cocked his head at that. Darcy groaned. “I am really quite horrible at boundaries,” she acknowledged.
“You’re aware of that, are you?” Rumlow asked.
Darcy didn’t even bother to glare. Instead, she kicked a piece of loose concrete out of her path and watched it skitter into the street.
“How do you think I ended up being the unpaid intern of an astrophysicist who fell in love with a notoriously hard-to-track-down God of Thunder?” she asked. “You think I dropped out of school without a degree because I had healthy boundaries?”
“No,” Rumlow said with a roll of his eyes. “I had chalked that up to a trauma response and you’re generally scatter-brained nature.”
Darcy nodded. “You wouldn’t be wrong,” she said and then glanced at Steve. “Did they tell you I almost got charbroiled by Thor’s brother?”
Steve blinked at her. He had read her file, and he knew the gist of it all, but to hear her say it…
“I was aware of that, yes,” he said after a beat.
“And the worst part is he took my iPod,” Darcy said, jerking her thumb at Rumlow.
That was the worst part?
Steve blinked.
“You took her iPod?” Steve asked Rumlow.
Rumlow rolled his eyes. “Thor landed in New Mexico; we had to clean sweep Foster’s lab. The iPod was collateral.”
“That’s asshole speak for yes,” Darcy pouted, shooting Steve a miserable look. “I had just downloaded like 30 songs on there when he did it too—”
And then, as though they had never strayed from the subject at all, Darcy sighed.
“And Ian…” she said. “He’s a perfectly nice guy…”
“Ah,” Rumlow said just as Steve began to smile away from her, unable to mask his amusement. He knew a death knell when he heard it.
“What?” she asked. “He is. Very nice. And… kind…”
Darcy cringed. “And he’s…”
They were silent as they waited for her to say more.
Darcy didn’t.
“I fucked up,” she said.
“You mentioned that,” Rumlow said.
That was when Steve noticed Ian ahead of them, swinging his head around to look for Darcy. He frowned when he saw the three of them trailing behind the rest of the group, shoulder to shoulder and speaking too quietly for anyone else to hear.
Jack seemed to have timed out their conversation as he didn’t move to distract the younger man anymore and let him bring the group to a halt as he waited for Darcy.
Darcy hissed and muttered “fuck me sideways,” under her breath before fixing that ever-present smile on her face and bobbing over to him.
“Hey,” she said and then glared at the group. “You finally remember us or something?” she asked.
Ian’s smile wavered a bit as he glanced between her, Rumlow and Steve before he said something flippant and forgettable and wrapped an arm around her waist, guiding her along with the rest of the group and leaving Steve and Rumlow behind, this time without Darcy.
They stood there for a beat and watched them go.
“You don’t like him, do you?” Steve asked.
Rumlow stared after them before turning to Steve.
“He’s a complication,” he said.
Steve nodded, half understanding. “Care to elaborate?” he asked.
Rumlow eyed him warily before bringing a hand up to swipe at his tired face. None of them had slept much in the days since they touched down in London.
“Just thinking the worst,” he said.
“Part of the job,” Steve said in understanding.
Rumlow licked his teeth and worked his jaw for a second before nodding once and resuming their walk, his eyes on Darcy’s bubbly form and the man who clung to her as though he was trying to tether her to the ground.
“Got a feeling is all,” he said.
“Got anything to corroborate it?” Steve asked.
“No,” Rumlow laughed gruffly and scrunched his shoulders as though to fight off a chill. “Just a feeling.”
Steve frowned and considered that for a moment. He wouldn’t say it, not yet… but he had a feeling too… he just couldn’t figure out way.
Rumlow glanced at him out the corner of his eye and then let out a small laugh.
“Occupational hazard, Cap,” he said and at Steve’s look of confusion he nodded his head toward Darcy.
“She your first asset?” he asked.
“What?” Steve asked.
Rumlow smirked and shook his head. “Is she your first Asset Protection Detail?” he asked. “I never thought to ask or check your file.”
“Uh...” Steve considered the question and the last few years. He had fought in a war and then joined a team of other highly skilled individuals to fight in another war. He’d seen a lot of shit and saved a person or two… but he’d never…
“No need to say more,” Rumlow chuckled and elbowed him good naturedly. Steve couldn’t hide his surprise. “You get close, and it gets intimate…”
Steve drew back, unable to hide his concern. Rumlow held up his hands.
“Not inappropriate, Cap,” he said and then made a gesture as though to say, ‘come on, man, really?’
“Intimate is…?” Steve cocked an eyebrow.
“Strapping someone to your chest and jumping out of a plane with them, knowing they are scared out of their mind, would never sign up for that on their own, and are relying on you to get them on the ground safely without any added trauma,” Rumlow said. “Intimate is putting someone’s shoes on them and helping them with the laces while a volcano erupts over their head. It’s holding their hair when they puke, and holding their hands when the panic sets in, and finding a way to get through to them in the heat of a really fucked up moment – possibly the worst of their life – knowing that you were trained for this, and they weren’t and never wanted to be.”
Steve frowned. Rumlow made a noise of acknowledgement before gesturing to the group ahead as they came up to a stop light and waited to cross the street.
“She’s your first asset, Rogers,” Rumlow said. “And the feelings that come with that… can be confusing.”
“I don’t see Darcy at all in that way,” Steve tried to clarify, holding up his hands.
Rumlow nodded. “I know,” he said, stopping them close to the crosswalk but far enough away that they could speak without being overheard. “Call her a little sister, or a quirky friend or whatever… feelings weasel their way in when you’re new at it…”
“You just said you had a feeling too,” Steve pointed out. “And she isn’t your first.”
Rumlow seemed conflicted by that, and Steve was honestly surprised he let it show so easily.
“She isn’t and I do,” he said when the cross walk turned, and the meter beeped. The group walked ahead of them, crossing the street, and Rumlow and Steve followed, knowing they had caught up and their conversation was just about done.
“Darcy is different,” he shrugged.
“Different?” Steve asked.
Rumlow’s eyes flashed, almost defensively. “Yeah, she’s…”
Steve froze and stared at Rumlow, knowing what he wouldn’t voice.
“I just got a feeling about this one,” Rumlow said instead. “Something’s not right. Can’t explain it.”
They joined the group then and integrated seamlessly.
But Steve couldn’t get Rumlow’s words, or his face, out of his head.
Darcy Lewis had become personal to Brock Rumlow.
Darcy Lewis was no longer just a job to the commander of STRIKE Alpha.
The nature of his feelings were unclear, but Steve knew it didn’t matter.
Brock Rumlow was compromised.
And Steve had no way of knowing if the rest of the team knew it.
He had no way to tell what that would mean for Darcy’s safety in the future.
Men like Rumlow couldn’t afford to be compromised. It was dangerous for them all.