The Date.
Steve Rogers was nervous. After Loki cancelled his date with Darcy, she had wrangled him into going with her instead. Steve had made a quick change into the only suit he owned (navy with a white button up, which Darcy found equal parts hilarious and patriotic for some reason), and then bundled Darcy, in her beautiful navy swing dress (they matched and he couldn’t help but think it was adorable), into the car. Once they reached the restaurant they had quickly been ushered to their table. Things were going well. It didn’t feel like a date at all. If he changed out the venue for her couch, the food for some Ben and Jerry’s, and their clothes for pajamas, it could easily have been any other night spent in each other's company. Which was precisely why he was so nervous. Had they really been unofficially dating for that long without him noticing? He couldn’t still be that bad with women. The one positive of this realisation was that it finally gave him the courage to look across the table, into her impossibly blue eyes, and tell her the truth, “Y’know how long I’ve wanted to do this with you? God Darce, I love you so much, you don’t even know the half of it”. Mentally he cringed at the confession. Way to make it smooth Rogers, he chastised. But she wasn’t looking at him in disgust. No, she gazed upon him tenderly, in a way that no one, not even Peggy, had looked at him before.
Darcy Lewis was nervous. After finally getting Steve into a suit that, with his Louboutin dress shoes, very much fit the stereotype of what Captain America would wear on a date, and heading over to the restaurant she was nervous. Darcy didn’t actually realise that she had basically forced him into a date with her until they were midway to the restaurant, and by then it was too late to bow out and recognise his choice in the matter. To be fair, he had gone with her. That had to be a positive, it’s not like she could actually force him to do anything against his will. Now finally, after finishing their meal she could tell Steve was working up the courage to say something. It was this not knowing, of whether it was exactly what she had not allowed herself to even hope for or a gentle rejection, that had the butterflies in her stomach throwing a damn rave. After he finally did work up the nerve to say his bit, she was left in utter shock. Steve Rogers was in love with her? Oh shit, Steve Rogers was in love with her. She took in his jacket, gaze sweeping over his hair before coming to meet his eyes. The eye contact alone was intimate in the most exhilarating way. “You love me?” she breathed out, “I thought...well I mean...you’re you...and I’m...me...regular old Darcy...are you sure you don’t want a super sexy spy?”. Wow so smoothDarce, she thought to herself, that was real eloquence on display right there. Steve chuckled a bit before shaking his head slowly, so as to not startle her, “Naw. Darcy, I love you. I am… well I would be... happy with you. If you’d have me? I know the avenging can be a lot but I really think this... you...us...could work”. He looked so damn hopeful in that second, an emotion that she knew rarely graced his face, that she just couldn’t say no, “Well I am fairly certain that turning down The Great Captain America counts as high treason. Anyway I love you too, so it would be really weird if I said no”.
It was quiet for a moment between them, each feeling content in their little bubble, before Darcy asked, “So am I rationed now? Isn’t that what you old timers called it back in the day?”. Steve, in response, could only whine, “I mean yes, technically. Oh god you’re not going to let that go are you?”. Darcy smiled back mischievously, which was really the only answer that he needed.
Loki was feeling victorious. He had pulled some strings to gain access to the security cameras in the front lobby of Avengers Tower and was thrilled to see that his plan had worked. At first, when the new couple had come back from their date shyly holding hands, he had been worried that The Captain hadn’t worked up the courage to confront his feelings for The Lady Darcy after all. But upon watching him push her up against the wall next to the elevators and give her a truly filthy kiss that deeply conflicted with his golden boy image, Loki knew he had succeeded. Oh yes, the things they would get up to together would do him proud. After all, mischief came in many forms.