No One Told Me

The Winter Soldier they called him, not that Darcy had any idea who that was until she’d googled him - which, ok, after reading about him she really should have already known since Steve never really stopped yapping on about him. Though, in her defence, he never specifically called him The Winter Soldier. It was always ‘Bucky this’ and ‘Bucky that’ and Darcy was confident enough in herself to admit that for the longest time she’d thought he was talking about a puppy he’d had back in the 40s and decided a pet dog wasn’t worth looking into.

She might have, eventually. If she finally managed to bring herself to listen to some of the stories Steve would blab on about and realise that Bucky wasn’t a puppy but a person.

(She really should have paid more attention to her American History professor in high school.)

But then she’d gone and started some nerf war with Barton before she had the chance to rub some brain cells together. And she knew it was dumb and stupid and that she was going to lose since he was the greatest marksman in the world, but Darcy was nothing if not determined. So by the time she finally realised that Bucky was a person and that he was Steve’s best friend from ‘back in the days’, well, it was too late for google to save her because she’d just accidentally shot him with a nerf gun... and then proceeded to make matters worse by running straight into him - because apparently Darcy was trying to claim the title of Dumbest Smart Person In The World.

“Shit,” she curses, right before she’s shoved up against the wall, a firm forearm resting against her throat for a solid thirty seconds before Steve and Sam manage to pull him away from her. She rubs at her neck, more out of instinct than pain. He hadn’t really been hurting her, not yet anyway. “Who’s the homeless guy?” she asks, tilting her head and focusing her gaze on Steve for an answer. He shoots her a pained look that tells her she should apparently already know this.

“Seriously?” Sam raises an eyebrow, more exasperated than Darcy has ever seen him - which is impressive, the guy always looked exasperated.

“What?” she demands, hands on her hips in the way Nat had taught her. She doesn’t think it gives off the same power as Black Widow, no matter how much she wills it to.

They couldn't seriously expect her to know what everyone who came and went around here looked like. Although, she sneaks another glance at the homeless person, the long unkempt hair and dangerously attractive scowl on his face really shouldn't have been something she'd forget - if she'd seen him before, which she doesn't think she has. “Correction: who’s the hot homeless person?” she grins as Steve’s frown deepens.

“This is Bucky," he sighs.

This time it was Darcy’s turn to frown, hands dropping from her hips. “Wait, Bucky’s a person?” is the first thing that comes past her lips before she could bite back the question.

Steve’s pained expression only seems to worsen at that and the homeless person - Bucky, she corrects herself - twitches a little like he was suddenly interested in the conversation. Which is sort of a relief since Darcy was starting to think that maybe something was wrong with him because of how still he was standing. “What do you mean?” Steve asks in that ‘Captain America Is Disappointed In You’ voice he only ever uses on her.

Except, as her eyes slant back to Bucky and the way he bristles a little, before the barely discernible parts of his face turn down into a frown, she thinks maybe she’s not the only one who’s been on the end of that voice before.

“I just…” she trails off, glancing back at Steve. “I thought Bucky was your puppy,” she explains. “You know, back in the forties,” she waves her hand around, as though that would explain everything.

“A puppy that took girls to dances with me?” he quirks a brow, a little bit of amusement filtering into his expression.

“Hey, I don’t judge. I just assumed that was how you met girls,” she shrugs.

“I told you about how I went to live with him,” he says, growing more and more agitated.

“You can’t expect me to listen to everything you say, do you?” she tries to defend herself.

“You made metalk to you when you first got here. Went on a whole spiel about how it was basically your job,” Steve emphasises.

“Well, you talk a lot,” she could have sworn she heard a small snort pass through Bucky’s lips at that. “And I’m always just off Jane or Science Bender hours when you drone on about the good old days,” she glances over at Bucky’s left arm as she says this, wondering how exactly it works. The inner mechanic that used to help her dad put cars - and just about everything else - together itches to pull it apart.

Steve wants to say something else, she knows he does with the way he purses his lips and glances towards Bucky before letting out a sigh. “I expect this kind of behaviour from Barton,” he says instead, his Captain America voice back again. “But you? Really? You're meant to be a scientist. You're meant to be smarter about these things,” his eyes flicker towards Bucky again and Darcy knows Bucky sees it with the way his body tenses up while Steve rubs tiredly at his face.

She tries to feel sorry for him, and she manages it for a couple of seconds, she really does. But then she remembers the envelope filled with glitter he’d sent her last week and instead all she does is shrug, “it’s my day off.”

“Come on, Rogers,” Sam tugs at his arm before he can say anything else, nudging him in the direction where all the science labs were kept.

“Where are you guys heading?” she asks, frowning a little.

“To get Bucky settled,” Steve replies evasively, which only serves to annoy Darcy.

“Where?” but no response comes, and instead she finds them all resolutely avoiding her gaze. “Fine, don't tell me. I'll find out eventually,” she promises. “Not even Tony can hide things from me.”

Sam snorts in agreement before they tuck tail and continue on down the hall. She considers following after them but she knows she wouldn't get very far. Even if Steve wasn't a super soldier and Sam wasn't a stealthy war vet, Darcy wasn't really a quiet person so to speak.

She's completely forgotten about Barton at this stage, which is why when he jumps down from the rafters above her and shoots her with a foam dart she screams out loud and jumps a little too high. “Dammit, Clint,” she glares at him.

“I win,” he grins with a shrug. “Wanna make a bet about how long it'll take for The Winter Soldier to come out and play?”

“No,” Darcy scowls at him. “That's mean and Steve will kill us when he finds out, because he will find out. Go bug Tony about it,” she pauses. “If he hasn't already started his own wager, that is,” she corrects herself.

Barton’s off within a couple of seconds, demanding JARVIS tell him where exactly Tony was (‘working on the Iron Man suit in his lab, sir’). She rolls her eyes, heading towards her own room in the Tower to do some much needed - and arguably far too late - googling.

-

The Winter Soldier. Darcy hadn’t understood the name at first - but then again, she’d thought he was a homeless person when she’d first seen him - so that wasn’t really saying much.

Scrolling through google - and little bits of information that she’d hacked her way into - however, was giving her a better idea on the whole matter.

She knows the name was developed partly because he’d fallen off a train in the mountains of Russia into never ending snow, and partly because he’d been frozen in ice on and off for seventy-five years, but Darcy sees it differently.

She keeps finding her eyes trailing off towards his metal arm in the videos and pictures - of which there are thousands - on the internet and she can’t stop the fascination building within her.

He’s definitely The Winter Soldier, she thinks to herself, watching as he brings his arm up and blocks a barrage of bullets that were heading his way. Though her attention isn’t on the bullets bouncing away from him, but on the way the sun hits the metal, spots of white glittering a little as though they were snowflakes. And Darcy thinks she can another reason why he’s known as The Winter Soldier, what with his long hair and metal arm and eyes as empty and cold as a city street in the middle of a snowstorm.

He also kinda reminds her of Snow White - except she doesn’t think true loves kiss will fix him this time. Although? Steve did talk about Bucky quite a bit and he was very secretive about how he’d talked Bucky into coming back - she’d hacked into the communication server and read back through the coms between him and Sam - and he never did go on any real dates...she snorted a little at the idea, she’d caught him staring at her chest more than a couple of times.

Still, it’ll be fun to tease him.

She turns back to the information pileup in front of her and presses play on the next video she’d come across. It was one of him on the bridge and she thinks that maybe she sees a second of recognition flicker in his eyes when he looks at Steve, and he’s suddenly not as cold as he was before. And if she hadn’t been interested in Bucky Barnes before, she certainly was now.

She doesn’t know how long she spent combing her way through various videos of Bucky - it seemed the internet was littered with them if you knew what to search (or hack, in her case), from scenes of him fighting a bunch of Hydra agents, to innocent shots of him picking out some plums from a street corner fruit stall. But she knows it’s been awhile when JARVIS interrupts her long overdue research to call her into a meeting.

Darcy knows it’s about Bucky because she’s usually never invited to these sorts of things - what with not being a super person - unless there’s some sort of huge change that will affect everyone in the building. That includes her now since Tony had basically insisted she move in after the whole Ultron Ultimatum. And the Mexican Mess. And the Dark Elves Fiasco. And The New York Meltdown... basically just after a lot of Bad Shit… and she’d eventually caved. Free rent? Yes please.

But right now, the only significant change she could think of was that Steve’s best friend who’d died back in the forties, hadn’t actually died and was in fact back after being brainwashed into trying to kill him (and anyone who got in the way).

He’s probably suffering from some major PTSD, Darcy thinks to herself as she waits for the lift to take her down to the meeting room.  

She wonders briefly if Bucky will be there when she arrives, but she immediately snorts at the idea. If there's one thing she knows about Steve it's that he's very particular about how things are done, and she has this strange sensation that he's not really ready to share Bucky with anyone yet.

Darcy doesn't really blame him. She doesn't know what she'd do if she'd been separated from Janie for seventy five years and then found out she was alive but tortured the entire time.

And she's only really known her for a couple of years now - ever since Thor decided he'd drop down to earth...with his brother causing major havoc that she’d somehow ended up in the middle of. (All she’d wanted was to get those damn science credits and maybe visit New Mexico, but noooo - at least she’d met Janie).

She can already hear everyone arguing when she's halfway down the hall, and rolls her eyes. She assumes from the random exclamations and angry huffing that not everyone had taken the news of Bucky’s arrival well.

She pauses before the door wondering whether she should knock or just enter when it's swung open for her. Darcy’s eyes widen in surprise and she's almost run over by a worried Clint - which is not a good sign, she decides.

“Oh, good,” he says. “I was just about to come looking for you,” he tries to force a smile as he moves aside to let her in.

“That bad?” Darcy raises a brow as she follows him into the room.

“You've no idea,” he lets out a breath, dropping down into a seat and pulling her down into the one beside him. “I almost want to turn my hearing aids off so I don’t have to deal with Mum and Dad fighting,” he tells her referring to Steve and Tony.

Tony is sitting towards her right and with one glance at him she knows that he's not happy.

“Uh,” she looks over at Steve. “Is everything alright?” she asks nervously.

“No,” Tony cuts her a side glance, eyes all fire. But, because she's spent so much time with him ever since he’d forced her to move into the tower, she was able to see the panic and pain behind his eyes. She looks away from him and over to Steve who seems to be having the same reaction.

Darcy lets out a sigh, the only conclusion she can come to is that Tony is Not Happy about Bucky. “What's wrong?” she asks in her best Talk To Me Like Adults Or Else voice. So much for a day off.

“He can't stay here,” is all Tony will say.

“Where else is he meant to go?” Steve demands back fiercely, and from everyone else's reactions she knows this isn't the first time they've had this conversation today.

Clint drops his head onto the table while Sam pulls out his phone - probably trying to look up some of the notes he's been given on how to deal with stubborn war vets, and Natasha just stares neutrally between the two, leaving Darcy to try and diffuse the situation. It was probably why she'd been called in the first place, now that she thinks about it.

As unqualified as she was, somehow everyone seemed to listen to her. They’d all started gravitating around her within weeks of her arrival, and somehow she’d become the official unofficial fixer of all things Avengers.

She wishes Jane and Thor were here instead of doing who knows what on Asgard, they’d at least be able to help her. Or Wanda and Vision, though she guesses that teaching Wanda to control her powers would be more important than sorting out an argument between two friends. Bruce was who knows where, but she thinks that’s probably for the best given the situation, and everyone else had day jobs they had to be at - or school in Peter’s case.

“He should be in prison,” Tony hisses angrily, bringing her attention back to the problem at hand. “After everything he’s-”

“It wasn't him!” Steve slams his hands on the table, making her jump. She doesn't think she's ever seen him so worked up before.

“Alright, can we start from the beginning?” she asks as calmly as she can, there were parts of the story she was missing, she was sure of it.

The two men turn to look at her simultaneously and it kind of scares her how similar they are to one another.

“He killed my parents,” Tony says in explanation, the fight suddenly disappearing from his body as his shoulders slump and the angry mask on his face gives way to torment. She notices Steve flinch in response from the corner of her eyes. “I didn't even get to say goodbye,” Tony murmurs just loud enough for her to hear.

Well.

She hadn’t been expecting that. Maybe she should have dug a little deeper in her hacking - uh, googling - earlier.

“And you blame Bucky?” she asks carefully, looking for confirmation that that was what they were speaking about.

“He killed them,” Tony nods, while Steve sits in silence, biting his lip to keep from saying anything he might regret.

“Bucky killed them or The Winter Soldier did?” she asks, wording her question purposefully. She’d spent enough time with a shrink after Mexico and the Dark Elves, and everything in between, to have picked up a few tricks.

“Does it matter?” Tony shot back sharply. “They’re the same person.”

“Are they though?” Darcy asks softly. “He wasn’t in control of himself at the time. According to all the files online, he was being used, tortured into complying.”

“But it doesn’t make it ok,” Tony insists.

Darcy nods back in agreement. “No, it doesn’t,” she pauses, glancing around the room in contemplation and wondering if she would be overstepping with her next statement. But she ploughs through anyway.

“Technically you’ve all done things that aren’t ‘okay’. You and Bruce accidentally made a robot that went all murder-y,” she says to Tony. “You broke about a hundred different laws and put people in danger while trying to protect them,” she says to Steve. “The two of you are super assassins and I think that speaks for itself,” she nods to Clint and Nat. “Bruce turns into the fucking Hulk when he’s angry and practically tore apart a country the last time you took him out. My point is,” she says. “You’ve all done some pretty stupid shit and gotten a lot of people hurt as a result - there’s no sugar coating that, or pretending it didn’t happen. It’s a fact and there’s hundreds of videos online of you guys almost destroying the world while trying to save it.”

“But -”

“And I get it,” she ignores Clint’s attempt of interrupting. “They were your parents and it still hurts, but Tony, you can’t blame Bucky for it. You can’t say he deserves to be locked up for following orders after having his goddamn brain thrown in the blender for seventy five years. I get it when you say you don’t want him here, I do, but where else is he supposed to go?”

“We should also consider what will happen if we set him loose. The world is filled with easy triggers,” Natasha adds - whether helpfully or unhelpfully Darcy wasn’t too sure, but she ran with it anyway.

“If he’s here at least you lot can keep an eye on him and keep him in check, but out there...well,” she shrugs. “Don’t you want a clear conscious?” She asks them all sweetly.

“My conscious is never clear,” Tony mutters, though Darcy can see the iciness in his posture melting away as he took her words in.

“No one’s ever is,” she shrugs, squeezing his leg under the table as a show of solidarity. She makes a mental note to bully him into seeing a shrink again later.

“He stays locked up,” Tony gives in. “And he’s not to be let out until a full evaluation is completed and we’re all completely sure that he’s no longer A Murderbot. Or until I say so,” he shrugs and Darcy knows that that’s the best possible outcome they were going to get.

“Where are you going to keep him?” she asks a little too casually.

“Nice try, Darce,” Steve cracks a little smile. “But that’s classified.”

“Sorry, Shortcake,” Tony agrees, shooting Steve a quick but unmistakable nod - she watches as Steve’s shoulders relax that little bit more. “Need to know only. It’s for your own safety.”

“Boo,” she pouts, crossing her arms across her chest and watching as every male’s eyes flick down quickly before shooting back up to her face again. Including Steve’s. She smirks to herself, yeah, probably no True Love’s Kiss for Bucky. “I’ll find out the hard way, I guess.”

Sam snorts from across the table. “Don’t think any of us are doubting that, Darcy.”

“Wanna start a pool on how long it’ll take me?” She grins wickedly, wagging her eyebrows suggestively.

“I’m not a betting man, but if I were, it wouldn’t be against you,” Sam quips back with his own grin.

“I can't wait to meet him, I have loads of questions for him when he’s no longer all hobo-like and his brain is less mush-like,” she claps her hands together excitedly. “Do you think it’ll be long?”

“I’m not sure I want you spending time with him,” Steve mutters.

“Why? I’ll be perfectly safe, you guys are the Avengers!”

Steve only frowns back at her. “Believe it or not I’m more worried about him than I am you?” he poses it as a question, probably trying not to offend her. But it only serves to make Darcy preen at the not really a compliment-compliment.

“Oh, we believe it,” Tony snorts, but his words aren’t spoken maliciously and he continues it with, “I’m still not convinced there was only friendship between the two of you.”

“That’s what I said!” Darcy nods furiously.

“JARVIS look into that for me.”

“Right away, sir,” JARVIS responds robotically.

-

It's Monday afternoon when Darcy finally decides to visit Bucky.

She’d hacked into the SI database the day after Bucky had arrived and found out immediately where he was staying. And ever since she's been telling herself that he needed time to adjust before she sprung herself on him, but that was only half of the reason why she’s waited two days to see him.

After the meeting they'd had on Friday, Steve had basically cornered her on her way to the lab to explain a few things - ‘since you thought Bucky was a puppy this entire time,’ he’d said, disbelieving expression still all over his face. And really, Darcy has felt a small bubble of anxiety growing in her chest ever since.

It isn't that she’s scared of Bucky or worried about her own safety - Darcy doesn't seem to have much of a fight or flight reflex, which is somewhat worrying.

She’s anxious because, well, she’s a mother hen and she really wants to help him but she's not too sure how successful she's going to be. And after everything Steve had explained to her, she doesn't want to make things any worse.

But, she knows that at this point she has no real impulse control and it was really only a matter of time before she snuck into the cordoned off area of Stark Tower.

Besides, she’s an all or nothing kind of girl and she’s already decided that Bucky will be one of Her People, and something tells her that he probably wouldn't appreciate people coddling him - or, this Bucky wouldn't. She's not too sure how 1940s Bucky would've felt about it, but from what Steve has told her, she thinks maybe he'd have savoured the attention.

She wonders if she could hack her way into slipping her name into the database to allow her access through her Stark Industries ID card but thinks this might be a good time to try some of the tricks Clint had been teaching her.

She regretted it almost instantly.

Crawling through vents was not as fun as Clint made it out to be and Darcy instantly decides that she’s never doing this again; not willingly anyway. At least she had the foresight to wear leggings instead of a skirt.

She doesn’t have to crawl very far - thank god - but it takes her longer than she’d like to pull aside one of the panels and slip out of the way too tight space. She doesn’t know how Clint does this every day.  

By the time she manages to find her feet back on solid ground, Bucky is already watching her closely.

She blinks back at him owlishly before slipping her eyes off him and looking around the space that seems way too small for someone his size - which is ironic considering the cage was built to hold the Hulk.

She frowns at the lack of space and furniture.

She’d wondered what kind of changes Tony had made to the place to make it more livable, but she frowns at how little work has actually been done.

She can see there's a bed and a bathroom and a tiny desk in the corner, but she thinks there should probably be more for it to be less prison-like and more comfortable.

“Miss Lewis, you don’t have access to this area,” JARVIS spoke, startling her from her musings.

“Keep this between us please, JARVIS?” she shoots the computer a sweet smile, fluttering her eyelashes up at him. She’s not too sure how intelligent Tony has made his toys, but she’s found that JARVIS likes her well enough to keep her secrets most of the time - even when he sometimes didn’t approve.

“Mr Stark thought you’d try and sneak down here, so he’s has some safety protocols in place,” JARVIS warns her and before she can do anything a bunch of self manned Iron Man suits fly up and situate themselves in every corner of the room.

“Honestly, Tony,” she mutters, eyeing the red and gold suits in exasperation.  

“They’re for your own protection, Miss,” JARVIS replies, making her jump. She forgets sometimes that JARVIS is everywhere and she really hates it when the computer replies to her when she wasn’t look for a response.

“Of course they are,” Darcy rolls her eyes. “Even if they aren’t necessary,” she mumbles under her breath, hoping JARVIS wouldn’t pick up on it; or respond when he inevitably did.

Darcy makes her way over to the smaller room within the room - she refuses to call it the Hulk Cage now that someone is actually living in it - and pauses in front of it. One of the walls is completely glass, allowing her to see directly into the room, and for Bucky to see directly out of it.

When she glances back inside she notices that he’s still staring at her - and hadn’t moved at all from where he’d been standing when she’d entered the room. And if he’s anything like Steve, then he’s probably heard every word she’s said and every step she’s taken with his freakishly good hearing.

She wonders briefly if all his senses have been heightened - wonders if Steve’s have been as well, and makes a mental reminder to ask him. She considers asking Bucky but doesn’t think that’s the best first impression she can make - or second impression really.

She supposes as far as first impressions go, neither one of them has gotten off to a good start. He did try to strangle her after all, and she did shoot him with a nerf gun.

She doesn’t realise she’s staring at him in complete silence until he shifts a little under her gaze, shaking her out of her musings. She’s ready to say something when he speaks first.

“Steve says I need to apologise,” he speaks slowly, his voice gruff, as if he’s not quite sure of his words. “For trying to kill you,” he correctly guesses from the confusion on Darcy’s face.

“Oh,” she says, eyes widening. This certainly hadn’t been what she was expecting. “It was more my fault,” she waves him off and Bucky doesn’t look like he was going argue with her, like he thinks it was her fault too.

And, ok, yeah maybe he had a point.

Darcy’s lips twitch as she tries not to smile. Bucky didn’t miss the reaction, his eyes flicking down to her mouth and back up again suspiciously. “I always thought you were a puppy,” she blurts, all of her professionalism flying out the window. She knows Tony and Steve and everyone else will probably watch this at some point and she subconsciously glares at Bucky as she imagines them laughing at her.

“Are you disappointed that I’m not a puppy?” Bucky asks, sounding a little confused. As though it has been a while since he’s spoken so many words all at once, like he wasn’t sure of what he was saying or whether he should be saying anything at all.

“What? Oh, sorry,” she apologises quickly, realising she’d been basically trying to burn a hole through him. “I was thinking about something else,” she admits. “I’m not much of a dog person anyway,” she waves him off, taking a couple of steps forward before pausing.

She pulls a bag of candy from under her sweater and pulled it open. “I’m glad I didn’t lose this in the vents,” she points above at the roof. “Would you like some? I googled you, and wikipedia said you had - have? - a sweet tooth,” she babbles.

Bucky doesn’t respond. Not that she minds, Darcy can talk enough for the both of them.

“Is there anything you wanna try? I can probably sneak you some snacks before Tony and Steve figure out I’ve found out where they’re keeping you.”

Bucky simply blinks back at her.

Darcy remains unphased.

“How long do you think they’re going to make you live in there?” she asks, eyes lighting up when he merely shrugs at her. She hadn’t been expecting much of a response.  

“Sounds shit,” she furrows her brow. “I’ll bring you some pillows, and maybe some books. Ohhh, I bet I can sneak in a StarkPad,” she continues, not really paying much attention to Bucky anymore as she planned. “Tony might take it away when he finds out you have one though, which will totally suck, dude, those things are great. But I’m still gonna bring you some stuff to make this place less sad. Maybe even a shaving kit so you’re less hobo-like. That way people won’t think you’re a homeless person who broke in when they come to visit you.”

“Mr. Stark won’t be very happy with you if you come back, Miss Lewis,” JARVIS interrupts before Bucky even has a chance to react. “Neither will Captain Rogers. They have asked you to stay away,” JARVIS reminds her, voice reprimanding - for a robot anyway.

“Well you can tell Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark that they can shove-”

She’s cut off by an alarm sounding loudly around the room. The sudden sound had caused her to jump in surprise and Bucky had leapt forwards, hands poised to attempt to break through the glass in an effort to do what, she wasn’t sure. Maybe to escape.

“Fucking dammit,” Darcy curses, hand held up to her chest as she glares up into free space. “Not again. JARVIS do I have to go to a panic room?” she quizzes, wondering what was going on outside this time.

“No Miss Lewis, you should be fine in here,” came the robotic voice.

“Thanks, J-Man,” she blows him a kiss and then turns back to Bucky. “Can you believe the nerve of these guys?” she snorts rhetorically, rolling her eyes at Bucky who simply stares back at her uncomprehendingly. “There’s an attack on the building at least once a month. And each time the bad guys just get dumber and dumber.” Darcy clears her throat. “So anyway, since we didn’t really get off to the best of starts. My name’s Darcy, I’m the unofficial Ruler Of The Labs and Secret Scientist Herder.”

Bucky doesn’t respond.  

“But between you and me,” she lowers her voice even though she knows there’s no one around to really hear her. “Tony pays me the big bucks to basically just feed and water Janie, Bruce and himself. Sometimes though, when I’m bored and The Heroes are desperate, Tony lets me hack into government agencies to stop the world from ending. I mean, you should have seen what the last alien invasion did to New York. The black suits were ready to level the city, sent a missile and everything. Honestly,” she shakes her head. “Men and their toys.”

She continues to babble on, munching on the bag of candy in her hand. “Are you sure you don’t want any?” she offers Bucky again.

He still doesn’t say anything.

Darcy sits down on the floor in front of Bucky’s glass wall and continues to chatter away, not really caring that he wasn’t saying anything at all, she could talk enough for the both of them.