Grade A American Beef

Bucky raised his hand to unlock the door to Darcy’s apartment when he was stopped by the unexpected sound of two women laughing within. Two fairly drunk women, it sounded like, one of whom was definitely Darcy. He tried very hard not to think about why her voice had become so easily recognizable to him so quickly. Bucky glanced at the watch on his wrist, she was much earlier than he had been expecting and he certainly hadn’t been planning for company. Best approach with caution, then.

Bucky eased the door open silently and crept slowly down the front entryway, pausing where the wall ended and opened up to her living and dining room.

“...and then, the fucker had the balls to say ‘you sure you’re not offering your bed.’”

A gasp, and then, “No!” Peals of feminine laughter rang out.

“Shut up, Jane! It’s not funny! God, I was mortified!”

Alright, Bucky thought, time to stop lurking and make his presence known before he overheard anything incriminating from the tipsy women. He rolled around the edge of the wall, pushing off and walking towards the two seated on Darcy’s couch. At his appearance both women gave him matching wide-eyed stares of shock. He quickly took stock of Darcy’s flushed cheeks and rumpled pajamas before turning his gaze to the other woman. Vague recognition stirred. He was fairly certain this was the astrophysicist that Thor was constantly yammering about. Jane, his memory pushed forward. Yeah, her name was Jane. Or my lady Jane, based on his conversations with Thor.

The woman in question reached her arm out to lightly smack the back of her hand against Darcy’s thigh. Without change in expression or taking her eyes off him, Jane muttered out, “I see what you mean about the sexy murder-strut.”

That stopped Bucky in his tracks. Did she really think he looked murderous right now? He was trying so hard to appear tame and non-threatening so as not to frighten their guest. Some things were just too deeply ingrained, he guessed. Shame colored his features and he self-consciously tucked his prosthetic behind his back.

In the moment after Jane spoke, Darcy looked at her friend in horror and then launched herself at the smaller woman, slapping a hand over her mouth. “Jane! Oh my god, shut up!” This outburst was immediately followed by Darcy retracting her hand with a look of disgust, wiping her palm across Jane’s purple pajama pants. “Gross, Jane. Real mature.”

Jane tipped to the side, overcome with giggles and, based on the mostly empty bottle of wine sitting on the coffee table, not a small amount of drunkenness.

Bucky looked to Darcy, who seemed the more sober of the two. Ish. “What happened to girls’ night?”

Darcy ran her teeth over her bottom lip, looking up at him shyly from under dark lashes. “We, uh, we thought maybe you’d like to join us? For girls’ night shenanigans?”

“I'm flattered doll, but I don't think I have the required parts.”

“Oh pish posh,” Jane spoke out, straightening up from her reclined position and flapping her delicate hands about. “It's not about the parts, Barnes. It's about the spirit,” she said with the kind of wise solemnity that only outright intoxication can produce. “You have the strong spirit of a girl, and are therefore qualified.”

“Thanks...I guess,” Bucky replied, face scrunched in confusion.

“You’re welcome,” Jane nodded magnanimously.

Darcy facepalmed hard and groaned into her hand. “What she means, Bucky, is that we thought you’d like to drink wine with us and..uh, hang out. Chat. Have fun?”

Bucky glanced at the empty bottle sitting out. “What wine?” he asked with a sardonically arched brow.

“That was your fault,” Jane piped up. “We came looking for you, but you were kinda busy beating the crap out of a punching bag. It was like, waaaay hot but also waaay scary SO we came back down here to wait for you. But, you stayed up there for so looong. Who the crap goes to the gym for hours? Like, more than one hour. Several hours. So many hours...” Jane trailed off, glassy eyes staring into the distance in horror at his workout regime.

Darcy hissed lowly into her palms. “Oh my god, Jane!” Which seemed to bring the other woman back into the present.

“Right! So, we decided to wait for you and we started talking and then Darcy pulled out this super depressing bo-”

Jane was abruptly interrupted by Darcy pulling her back into her chest, one arm wrapped around Jane's middle and the other wrapped firmly around her mouth.

“We got thirsty,” Darcy shouted out, eyes wide in alarm. “We got very very thirsty,” she hissed, turning to glare at her friend.

Jane's face flushed beneath Darcy’s hand. She nodded emphatically and gently pulled out of Darcy's manic embrace. “Yeah. Thirsty,” Jane confirmed.

Bucky narrowed his eyes at the women, but let the obvious lie slide. If they didn't want to tell him, well hell, it wasn't his business anyway.

Darcy sighed in relief at his acceptance of her blatant lie. The two hadn’t planned to go near the bottle since they'd already hit their predetermined quota at Jane's place, deciding to leave the entirety of the second bottle for Barnes and his supersoldier metabolism. That plan had been quickly upended when Darcy had told Jane about the booklet Sam had made for her. Jane had poked at her until she'd fetched it from her room and the two women had opened it up to read together. She was actually really glad that she didn't have to read it alone, to be honest. The weight of it had been pressing at the back of her mind for the last two days but she had been too chickenshit to actually read it yet. With good reason. Three pages in and she and Jane had both reached for the bottle in Jane's tote. There was no way in hell she was gonna tell Bucky that, though.

Darcy was giving him an odd look, causing Bucky to glance down at himself. Sweat was still trickling down his back and stomach, making the thin fabric of his shirt cling to him in dark splotches. Not exactly looking his best at the moment...or smelling his best, he thought, nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Right, if I'm gonna join you dames, I'm gonna need a shower first,” he said. He gave the women a calculating look and added, “You two start chugging water. You've got work in the morning and I’m not gonna be the one dragging your hungover ass out of bed, Lewis.”

This was met with a mock salute and a “sir, yes sir,” from Darcy.

“That's what I like to hear,” he replied over his shoulder, sauntering off down the hallway to shower and change. Dear god, what had he just agreed to?

He bundled up fresh clothes, tucking them under his arm and heading into the guest bath. He could hear hushed voices and more giggling from the kitchen, but it sounded like they were getting water as instructed. Good. They'd thank him in the morning. He got to work undressing, quickly and efficiently stripping himself of his sweat stained clothes. His eyes automatically lost their focus, skittering away from his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He still had difficulty looking at his own body, the scarred and twisted flesh a constant reminder of what Hydra had made him into, how they had used him. His face was, more or less, unchanged and its reflection didn't give him much pause anymore, but the rest of him...he just couldn't handle it.

He'd tried a few times before, scoping out his reflection or looking directly at himself where metal met flesh. Every attempt had ended with him succumbing to full on panic attacks, naked and keening, balled up inside his own bathtub with Steve screaming for him to open the bathroom door.

He would gladly go to his grave before he let Darcy witness that, so he kept his back to the mirror and his eyes focused on a middle distance as he stepped into the spray of the shower.

His movements slowed, letting the hot water cascade down over his scarred shoulders and back. He took his time with this, eyes closed and savoring the warmth and solitude.

One of his favorite things to experience after coming out of Hydra's control were the showers. The seemingly endless supply of hot water and privacy were his particular brand of heaven. Even before Hydra and the war, he'd grown up in a poor neighborhood, with plumbing that was unreliable and aging even then. A hot shower was virtually unheard of. And after that...well he'd had 70 years of the same post-mission regimen. Report to medical for assessment and wound care, then to tech for repair and maintenance. After that he was stripped, hosed off and disinfected--usually in some bare bones concrete cubicle by empty-eyed guards--then redressed and finally put in cryo. Not exactly his idea of a good time.

It still sometimes surprised him to see that the water at his feet was clear and soapy. So different from the sluggish brown rivulets that used to puddle beneath him, tainted by blood and sweat and grease.

Bucky stayed beneath the water long after he had scrubbed the sweat from his body, letting the heat soothe and center him, taking deep breaths of humid air. Maybe that's why he liked showers so much. They were the polar opposite of the cold, arid climate of cryo.

Bucky shook those thoughts from his head and turned off the spray of water. He dried and dressed himself quickly and then strode out to join the ladies waiting for him in the living room. Their heads popped up simultaneously at his arrival, turning to him with identical expressions of mischief. Maybe the long shower had been a bad idea, giving them ample time to plot and scheme unhindered. He fought the sudden urge to cross himself, vestiges of his Catholicism rising to the surface in response to whatever devilry they had flitting behind their eyes.

“Buckster! Baby! Glad you could join us!” Darcy shrieked, her voice just this side of too loud for the setting. “You ready for us to rock your girl world?” Before he could respond, she continued, “We’ve got snacks, we’ve got games, we’ve got three sips of wine and a bottle of spiced rum in the pantry!” She ticked off her list on her fingers as she spoke.

Jane accompanied the statement with a “whoop,” and a fist pump. “There’s also nail polish! Every girl deserves a damn good pedicure at least once in their life, even the spirit girls!”

Mother Mary and all the saints, this was way above his pay grade. “Ok ladies, simmer down. I’m all yours.” He wondered how big of a mistake this would be as he sat cross-legged on the floor beside them. Based on their elated shrieking, probably pretty big. “Ok, so what’s first?” He looked to Darcy expectantly, as she seemed to be the ringleader.

“First things first, you need to eat this,” she said, pushing some kind of plastic wrapped goody into his hands.

“What is it?” he asked, with a decent amount of dubiousness coloring his voice.

“It’s called a Ho Ho, don’t question it, just eat it.”

He eyed the packet warily, but ultimately submitted to Darcy’s will. Much to his surprise, it was

actually pretty damn good. He reached for another package, to the delight of his companions.

“Told you he had a sweet tooth,” Darcy said to Jane, her full lips twisting into a smug smile.

Bucky gave her an unimpressed look. “That’s enough outta you, kid,” he said around his mouthful of cake. “What’s next? Games?”

“We were gonna get you drunk on rum before we got to the games part,” was Jane’s helpful response.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I think you two broads have had enough alcohol for all of us. I’ll stick to the Ho Hos and water.”

The two women acquiesced to his better judgement without argument, deciding it was best to pick their battles when it came to the supersoldier. Besides, rum was unlikely to affect him any more than the water would.

“Okayyy then, on to the games. First up! Cards Against Humanity!” Darcy pulled a black and white box out from under her coffee table, motioning for him and Jane to sit closer to the table. It was, apparently, her favorite game, appealing to her deeply irreverent nature. She quickly explained the rules to him and got to work divvying up the white cards and declaring herself Card Czar.

They played a few rounds of the game, taking turns trying to pick the most disturbingly hilarious combinations. There were a lot of current cultural references that he didn't quite understand and incredibly crude phrases that had him coughing and blushing. The women found that almost as funny as the game itself, calling him Grandpa Buck after about the fourth or fifth round. Despite all that, the game was quite funny. He found himself roaring with laughter often. The ache in his gut was a pleasant reminder of nights when he'd gathered around a card table with the other Commandos, jaw-jacking and laughing at one another. It was a peaceful feeling, having this kind of friendship. He was suddenly struck with a deep gratitude for these two women who had so effortlessly folded him into their friendship.

Darcy ended up winning the card game, which was no surprise to anyone. Her wicked sense of humor was pretty legendary amongst her friends and acquaintances. Or, really, anyone who had spoken to her for more than 5 minutes.

They moved on to good old fashioned poker after that, betting against each other using Darcy's assorted bottles of nail polishes. Bucky was surprised to find out that Jane, even soused, had an impressive poker face. She had repeatedly wiped the floor with him and Darcy.

“What the hell, Foster?” Bucky barked out. He’d just lost the purple bottle of ‘Don't Provoke the Plum!’ that he'd grown attached to.

“What?” Jane asked with a beatific grin. “How do you think I managed to pay for clothes and food during grad school? I can’t tell you how many sexist astrophysicists I cleaned out over the years. They never expected a girl to have any poker skills. Idiots.”

Darcy gave a horrified gasp. “We should have played strip poker!”

“Oh no, why didn’t I think of that,” Jane lamented, a moue of disappointment on her face.

“There’s still time...” Darcy trailed off, eyeing Bucky speculatively.

Bucky’s eyes darted between their faces, panic rising up in his chest and souring his gut. He knew Jane’s skills now, he’d be down to his skivvies by the end of three hands. The thought of being exposed to these two kind and beautiful women was enough to make him nauseous. They were whole and good, never had their bodies used in contradiction to their wills. How would they look at him after their untainted eyes had mapped out the sins of his past that marred his flesh?

He couldn’t...couldn’t let them see...let them know...

Something of his panic must have shown in his eyes. Darcy ran her knuckles lightly across the back of the fist clenched at his knee. “Let’s play something else, though. Jane’s embarrassed me enough for one night, don’t you think?” Her wide blue gaze held a tenderness and understanding that instantly settled the churning in his stomach.

He gave a slow nod and took a steadying breath. “Yeah. I’m not about to be suckered into another poker game with that card shark of a woman. She already took my plum polish, I won’t let her have my dignity on top of that.” He gave what he hoped was a convincing smile.

Darcy smiled gently back and pulled her hand back into her own lap. The loss of warmth shouldn’t have shot a spark of disappointment through him like it did.

He had been very tactile as a young man. The thrill of running his hands over silk stockings had been unparalleled. But it had been a long time since he could be considered a young man. Or even just a man.

He didn’t like to touch or be touched by anyone anymore, with the exception of Steve, who he trusted implicitly. Darcy was now, inexplicably, added to that list. Something in him trusted her and sang out with bliss at even the smallest of touches from her delicate hands. He really wished he could talk to Steve about this confusing development.

While he’d been moping about in his head, the women had decided to move on to the pedicure portion of the evening. Darcy had Jane’s feet in her lap, leaning over them in deep concentration. Her full bottom lip was tucked into her teeth, blanched white where her front teeth indented the soft flesh. He watched as she carefully layered a pretty shade of pale green to Jane’s toes, all the while chatting happily with her friend. By the time Darcy finished, Jane had finally succumbed to the late hour and her inebriation, softly snoring with her head tilted back on the seat cushions of Darcy’s couch.

Darcy chuckled softly at her friend before closing the polish and rising out of her crouched seat on the floor. “I can’t leave her like this, she’ll have a terrible crick in her neck come morning. She’ll be cranky enough as it is, best not add to it,” Darcy muttered softly to Bucky. “Would you mind helping me get her on the couch?”

Bucky nodded, scooping Jane up into his arms and settling her on the couch. Darcy grabbed the knit throw blanket off the back and stretched it across her friend. Jane rolled a bit, snuggling into the softness of the blanket with a contented sigh that was, honestly, damned endearing from a grown woman.

Darcy must have agreed. “They’re so sweet when they’re asleep. Like little angels,” she whispered.

“What, children?”

“No, scientists. You should see Banner when he’s passed out after a Hulk bender. Looks like a little cherub, rosy cheeks and dark curls and everything.” Darcy gave a heartfelt sigh. “So adorable.”

Bucky chuckled quietly. “I’ll let Banner know the next time I see him.”

“Oh, he knows. I told him the first day we met.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Of course you did, doll.” He paused for a moment and ran a hand through his hair. “So, I take it girls’ night is over?”

Darcy’s face scrunched up in disappointment. “Yeah, I guess. I was hoping Jane would paint my nails tonight though.”

“I could do it...if you want,” Bucky asked shyly.

Darcy’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “Really? Didn’t realize that was in your skillset, soldier.”

“Steady hands, doll. If I can break down and reassemble a Dragunov SVD in twenty-seven seconds flat, I’m pretty sure I can handle painting some pretty dame’s nails.”

She flushed attractively under his gaze, “Yeah, okay, charmer.” She gave a quick roll of her eyes and picked up a bottle of lemon yellow polish, then tugged him towards her bedroom. “Come on, I don’t wanna wake the baby.”

Up until then, Bucky had yet to go in Darcy’s room. He looked around, taking in the chaos of color and memory laden odds and ends that covered her walls and the flat surfaces of her furniture. “Bit of a pack rat, huh?”

“Shut your face, Barnes. This is my sacred space. No criticism allowed,” she said sourly.

He didn’t reply to that, just plucked the polish from her hands and swept a hand out to gesture at her room. “Where do you want me?”

Darcy’s mouth popped open and a strange look crossed her features. “Um, the bed’s fine,” she said with a strangled voice. She clambered up on top of her coverlet, sitting up against her headboard before sticking her feet out and wiggling her toes at him. Bucky took a seat at the foot of her bed, one leg crossed in front of him and the other dangling off the side. He hunched his shoulders a bit, not sure how to go about reaching for her foot. Should he ask for permission first? Would that be weird? It was just a foot. Was he overthinking this? He looked up to see her staring at him with apprehension. Shit, she must think he was a complete weirdo.

Partly on impulse and partly in panic, he ran a finger up the sole of her foot. She jerked her foot back and instantly broke into giggles. “Hey! None of that, Barnes! No tickling!”

His face cracked into a sunny smile, relieved that the awkward moment had passed. With more confidence than he really felt, he reached forward and pulled her foot into his lap. “No promises, doll.” He gave her a quick wink and then went to work, opening up the polish and coating her nails with a steady hand.

He hadn’t been joking about his skill with his hands, and the resulting pedicure was probably the best she’d ever had. They chatted quietly as he worked, the topic of conversation ranging from favorite books to pleasant anecdotes about their mutual acquaintances.

“You electrocuted him?! You electrocuted the God of Thunder,” he asked in disbelief.

“Tasered him, yeah. He was being ultra threatening, stumbling around and yelling at Mew-Mew. I thought he was gonna hurt Jane! What would you have done?” Darcy gave a helpless shrug.

“Shot him, most likely. Or stabbed. Depending on what weaponry I had on me at the time and the distance between us.” The sentence rolled off his tongue, without thought, as he twisted the cap back onto the polish. Darcy was uncharacteristically quiet, her lack of response drawing his eyes up to her. She looked to be a bit shell-shocked by his frank answer, so he crooked one corner of his mouth up in an apologetic grimace and began to gently dig his thumbs into the fleshy arch of her foot.

Darcy gave a low groan, her eyes rolling back in her head, and sank down into the pillows on her bed. “You have thirty minutes to stop that,” she threatened. She closed her eyes and let loose a sigh of contentment.

“That sounds like an empty threat, sweetheart.” Bucky grinned and rolled his knuckles over the heel of her foot, enjoying the way her face shone with bliss. He worked quietly, letting his hands mold the muscles and tendons of her feet, pressing his care and appreciation for the woman into her soft skin.

Eventually, her face and body went lax, her chest rising and falling gently with sleep. He carefully untangled himself from her legs and bed. Trying not to jostle her too much, he scooped her to his chest, pulling her covers out from underneath her and settling her back down into her bed. He brought the coverlet up to her neck, letting the knuckle of one finger graze lightly against her chin. He plucked her glasses from her face, folding them and placing them on her nightstand before turning back to face her.

She was so beautiful it almost hurt him to look at her. Soft skin and dark brows... He suddenly found himself brushing a metal thumb over her right brow, then twisting his hand to push back a stray curl from her forehead. He withdrew his hand slowly then turned and marched brusquely out of her room, switching off the light and closing the door as he went. Best not let her catch him being a complete sap over her sleeping form. He was liable to get slapped for getting fresh with her.

He’d deserve it, too. Hands like his? They were too drenched in blood to ever earn permission to touch her the way he might want.

He crawled into bed, twitching the blankets over his suddenly freezing body and settling into the softness of the mattress. He fell asleep with the image of Darcy floating behind his eyes and the hand that had touched her face tucked protectively against his chest.