Epilogue
Bucky ran his left hand down the length of Darcy's spine, marveling at the way her bare skin seemed to absorb the dancing light and shadow from the flames in the fireplace, the image a stark contrast to the way it reflected harshly off his hand. She shivered under his touch, huffing a content breath into the side of his neck as they both waited for their heartbeats to slow again.
It was mid November again, almost a year exactly from the day that Steve dropped him off at her doorstep, and they'd made the decision to take a little return trip to the McKenzie family cabin in celebration of the milestone. It was their first trip away from Becca and while they were eager for a few days just to themselves, they also had the lingering worry of leaving her behind. Thankfully, she was in very good hands with Irina and her supertwin entourage. Not to mention that Bruce spent most of his free time with her and the twins these days. It did a parent’s heart good knowing that if the shit hit the fan, a very large, very green man was at hand to deal with any trouble.
The second day there, they'd been hit hard by an early blizzard and now found themselves hunkered down in the cabin, running out of ways to keep themselves entertained and warm.
Well. In ways that didn't involve extensive nudity.
Not that Bucky was complaining. He ran his hand through the tousled, slightly damp curls at the base of her neck, snuggling deeper into the little love nest they'd set up in front of the fireplace.
Darcy stretched against his side, brushing a kiss along his jawline and fixing him with a wicked grin.
“Warmer now, Jamie love?” she asked, biting down on her lower lip.
Bucky rolled his eyes at the nickname. She tended to use it whenever he started whining about something or other. Which, for the record, he had not been whining about the cold. Just making polite conversation. It's not like they could talk about much else when he'd damn near frozen his balls off that evening retrieving wood from the pile that was still stacked up behind the cabin. He hated the cold.
Okay. He might have been bellyaching just the slightest.
“Yeah. Much warmer,” he grumbled, nipping at her lower lip.
She ducked her head back out of the reach of his teeth, fixing him with another grin. “Aren't you glad I made you chop all that firewood back in March? Just think how miserable you'd be right now if you had to go out in this weather to chop wood for us.”
Bucky stared at her stone-faced. “Did you really just wait eight months to set up an ‘I told you so?’”
Darcy rolled onto her back, head thrown back as she laughed at her own cleverness, curling her arms and legs over her middle as she giggled. When he dug his fingers into her ribs, she squealed and jerked away from his treacherous fingers and scrambled to disentangle herself from the nest of blankets and pillows they were nestled into, nearly tripping and falling on her ass when her foot remained twisted up in an errant blanket.
She finally freed herself and backed away from him on somewhat shaky legs, a fact that did nothing but fan the flames of his male ego. He smiled smugly at her until she tossed a pillow at his head and then she made a beeline for the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
He listened to her lingering giggles die out and the sound of her running the tap and rummaging around in the linen cabinet, presumably for a wash cloth. When he was sure that she wasn't about to walk out, he cast a furtive glance at the door and then darted his hand in between the couch cushions, digging out the small, black velvet box and balancing it in the palm of his cybernetic hand. He slowly opened it, peeking at the sparkling band within.
When he heard the creak of the doorknob turning, he snapped the box shut and quickly shoved it behind his back, hiding it once more beneath a pillow that was tucked beneath his shoulder. He folded his arms behind his head, hoping that he was affecting a relaxed and inconspicuous position as Darcy approached him.
He wasn't doing that great of a job based on the way her eyebrow quirked up as she made her way back to him. He gave what he thought was an innocent smile and jerked up into a seated position, folding his legs in and patting the spot in front of him in invitation, his heart beginning to thunder in his chest with each successive step she took.
Darcy's other eyebrow joined the first as she sank into a cross legged position in front of him and his smile faltered. He reached across the small space between them, pressing both of her hands between his and garnering his courage.
Her hands looked so small between his large, incongruous ones. Small and delicate and soft. He never wanted to let them go. Which was the whole point of the conversation that he was psyching himself up for. His stomach lurched and swooped as he grappled for the words he'd been practicing for weeks now, but they had seemingly left him high and dry. So he continued to stare at their hands, his mouth opening and closing around words that wouldn't come and trying to breathe around the way his heart was crashing frantically around between his lungs.
“Bucky,” Darcy said slowly, snapping his attention up to her face. His tongue darted over his. He watched as her eyes tracked the motion and then narrowed. “Babe, what's going on? You're being weird. Are you having another panic attack? Do you need to put your head between your knees?”
She pulled one of her hands from between his and made to place her palm at the back of his neck, presumably to push him down into the aforementioned position. He caught her hand before she could make contact, kissing the palm and giving a shrill huff of laughter that sounded panicked even to his own ears.
“Ha, no!” he squeaked, then cleared his throat before repeating himself at an octave that wasn’t reminiscent of his pubescent years. “No. No, I'm not. I'm just…” he released her hand to scrub his over his face. “God, I'm just fucking this up, is what I'm doing,” he grumbled into his hand.
Darcy tugged at his wrist, ducking her head to catch his eyes. “Fucking what up? I'm a little lost here babe, so any time you wanna enlighten me to what the hell is going on right now, I'm all ears.” She was looking at him with a tender smile that was slightly ruined by the bewildered look in her eyes, as if she wasn't sure if she should be kissing him or calling the psych ward.
Bucky sighed, resigning himself to the fact that he had well and truly ruined what was supposed to be the most romantic moment of a young woman's life, or so Steve had told him. Well, he wasn't very good at words anymore, he might as well stick to what he did best now and be a man of action.
He gently pulled his hand from her grip, reaching behind himself to dig the little box from its hasty hiding place. His fingers curled over the velvet and for a moment he thought he might pass out, but he pushed through the dizziness and pulled the box out in front of him. Bucky opened his hand and was slightly ashamed of the fact that the box was shaking rather violently where it rested on his open palm, but not necessarily surprised. He'd never proposed to a woman before. Never loved one so deeply, so wholly before. And though he knew she loved him just as much, there was still an element of doubt that clung to his brain, whispering that he wasn't enough for her, that he wasn't good enough to be a husband to anyone, let alone the husband to a woman as wonderful as Darcy.
He swallowed hard a few times, shushing the voice of doubt and shifted his eyes up to hers. Those big, blue eyes opened wide, and her mouth hung open in shock. She glanced a few times between his hand and his face, finally settling on his eyes.
“Bucky. Is that...is that a thing? A wedding thing? Like for marriage? Is this a proposal?” she uttered in a strained whisper.
He huffed a laugh at her expression. “Why don't you open it and see,” he suggested with a shrug, willing his hand to steady.
She reached tentatively forward to crack open the lid of the little box, her hands flying to her mouth with a sharp gasp when she saw the pretty silver band nestled inside. Bolstered by the smile that was widening behind her fingertips and crinkling the corners of her eyes, Bucky plucked the ring from the box and slid it slowly over the ring finger of her left hand. He still couldn't remember the flowery words that he'd written out beforehand but his brain supplied him with another set. Well, it remembered another set that he was fully prepared to steal.
With a wicked grin that made his cheeks ache, he interlaced his fingers with hers, pulling the knuckles to his mouth to brush barely there kisses across them. “Darcy,” he murmured into her flesh, “I love you...and I need you to be mine. I think you feel the same way.” He glanced up at her from beneath his lashes, trailing kisses along the thin skin of her wrist and up her arm.
Darcy stared at him, frozen in place as he continued his trail of kisses. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “This is a marriage thing.”
“Indeed,” he said then pressed his lips to the inside of her elbow. He hesitated slightly, some of that doubt flooding back in before he asked quietly, “So is that a yes?”
One minute he was pressing kisses into his girl’s skin and the next he was flat on his back, Darcy's arms and hands clutching at him, her lips frantically kissing every square inch of his face.
“Yes! Yes, of fucking course, yes!” she trilled in his ear between kisses.
He spat out the wad of curls that had fallen over his face and into his mouth during her assault, a giddy laugh bubbling up from his gut. He raised his hands to either side of her face, stilling her movement so he could look her in the eyes. “No, sweetheart, you're supposed to say-” he paused to clear his throat and then continued in a falsetto, “‘Oh Bucky, you're right. I do. I want to be yours. Forever.’”
Darcy paused in his arms, her nose scrunching in adorable confusion until her eyes began to narrow.
“Bucky,” she said lowly, the single word lined with an astonishing amount of menace for a woman so recently engaged. “Did you just propose to me using lines from my teenage fantasy fic!?”
“Potentially,” he smirked.
And then all hell broke loose as his sweet little woman began to rain down blows upon his poor, innocent, mistreated self.
“How dare you, you asshole! You are ruining my proposal!” she shrieked, swinging one palm to smack against his chest and bringing the other down to jab mercilessly at his tickle spot along his ribs.
“Darcy,” he barked between giggles. “Don't be like that, baby! I'm just trying to...to make all your teenage dreams come-come true!” He made a grab for her wrists and used his hips to roll her over onto her back, following to settle on top of her squirming body.
“Oh! You handsome bastard, will you ever let me forget about that stupid fic?” she asked, glaring up at him.
“No.” He followed the simple pronouncement with an unapologetic smile. When her glare didn't soften, he bent his head down to press tender kisses to the soft skin beneath her ear. “I will never let you forget it,” he whispered into her ear. “Why would I ever let you forget that you've always wanted me? That you've always thought that I was...I was worth a damn. That I've meant something to you long before you'd even met me. Before I'd even earned it.” He pulled up to meet her eyes. “I can't forget that, don't ever want to. It means too much to me.”
Darcy’s body relaxed beneath his and she clicked her tongue in mild dismay. “How am I supposed to stay mad at you when you say sweet shit like that, Barnes?” She tugged her hand from the grip he still had on her wrists, sweeping her fingers over his cheek and tracing the edge of his nose.
He kissed the pad of her finger as it slipped off the tip of his nose. “That's kinda the point, sweetheart,” he confided smugly.
She bit into her lower lip to suppress her grin and then her eyes shifted to the hand still lingering against his cheek, her eyes catching on the sparkle of the band resting on her finger. Her smile grew wider.
“Are you still willing to be my wife? Even though I’m a Grade A Asshole and gave you the worst possible proposal I could?”
Darcy sighed happily, her cheeks aching. “Yeah, I think I can manage that.”
Bucky’s smile matched hers in tenderness and intensity as he bent his head to meet her lips in a slow kiss. When he raised his head to draw a shaky breath, he uttered one last question.
“Darcy...would you-would you not only marry me but also make Becca your own, too? She already calls you mama, I’d be over the moon if you’d be willing to make it official…”
He watched her with hesitant eyes. He knew she loved Becca, cared for her tirelessly, but adopting someone else’s child is not a thing to be taken lightly, nor an easy thing to ask.
He should have known better than to doubt her answer. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, her lower lip began to tremble and tears started to collect along her lower lashes. She brought a hand to her mouth, her brows crinkling as she nodded sharply, too overcome with emotion to get the words out.
His own eyes were a bit damp when she laced her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck to pull his forehead down to rest on hers. They stayed like that for a long while as silent sobs shook through Darcy’s small frame.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he whispered. “You don’t have to cry.”
“Yes I do,” she hiccuped against him, drawing a huff of laughter from his lips. “I just love you both so much!” she cried.
“Ah, honey,” he chuckled and rolled them so he was on his back with her laying atop his chest and sobbing into his neck. He began stroking along her back again, waiting out the flood of her tears. “We love you, too.”
He felt her lips curve up against his throat at his admission before she rose up on her forearms to rain kisses down on his cheeks and across his nose.
“Oh my god, I'm getting married!” she gasped, her excitement only slightly marred by the way her tears had thickened her voice. This was followed quickly by, “Oh shit, I'm getting married. Angie is going to be thrilled and an absolute pain in the ass about this.” She paused, her head cocked to the side in thought before she snapped her focus back to his face. “How would you feel about a quickie wedding at the Justice of the Peace?” she asked and then immediately began muttering to herself. “It would keep Angie from turning into a wedding planning monster and in the process I'd be able to get married before I started showin-” She stopped abruptly in her self monologue, her lips pinching tightly together.
“Darce, I understand your well placed fear of your sister, but honey, if she were here, my Ma would skin my hide if I didn't get married in the church like a good Catholic boy,” Bucky replied.
Darcy just bobbed her head up and down in emphatic agreement and was about to barrel on to another topic when Bucky’s brain caught up to what she'd been saying a moment before. “Wait, what did you mean at the end there about getting married before something?”
Darcy froze. “Ah. Yes. That.” She cleared her throat and her eyes flicked down to his chest where she was tracing little circles with her index finger.
“So. There's something that I've been meaning to tell you. You see, I missed something pretty important a couple months ago and recently realized that I had missed it.”
Bucky's brow scrunched up at her riddle and the way she was still patently refusing to make eye contact with him.
“What? What did you miss? A meeting?”
Darcy let out a bark of laughter and her fingertip stilled against his skin. “Uh no. My period.” Finally she cast her eyes up to gauge his reaction.
Bucky stared at her blinking slowly while the cogs in his mind began to turn and then--
“You're pregnant?!” Bucky shot up into a seated position, awkwardly tumbling Darcy off his lap for a split second until his anxious hands shot out to catch her and scoop her back into his lap.
“Affirmative,” she replied, looping her arms around his neck and chewing on her lower lip.
“But. What? How? You said...how??”
“Well, you see Bucky, when a man and a woman love each other very mu-”
“Woman, you know what I meant. I thought you said you've got that…” Bucky made a confused motion in the general direction of Darcy's stomach, “...thing?”
“IUD. It's called an IUD. A non-hormonal copper one, to be precise. And while normally it is highly effective as a spermicide, it would appear that your little swimmers are, um, hearty little bastards that don't give a flying fuck about copper ions.”
Bucky just stared at her for a moment, trying to coalesce the stream of words that had poured out of Darcy's mouth into something resembling a coherent thought.
“Are you mad?” she asked, her voice small and quiet.
That broke through the informational overload and Bucky's hands sprung up to cup her face. “What? Sweetheart, no, of course I'm not mad.” He pulled her in, brushing his lips over her forehead and on the tip of her nose. “Darcy, I'm so happy it feels like I'm gonna burst. Just a little, you know, surprised.” He leaned back a bit, pleased to see the relieved grin on his girl-- his fiancée’s face.
“Buddy, you and me both,” she smirked and then her smile grew infinitely softer. “I'm really happy too,” she whispered and drew him in for a long, tender kiss.
He melted against her, his lips molding to hers like they were made to fit together. His hand slid to the back of her neck, pulling her closer, as the other hand slid low to rest over her still flat belly. Her clever tongue flicked out, teasing apart his lips and drawing a groan from his mouth. He met her tongue with equal fervor and then drew back sharply.
“Darcy!”
“What?” she asked, her eyes still dazed and her mouth still seeking his.
He placed firm hands on her shoulders, keeping her a safe distance from him. “Sweetheart, we've been having a lot of sex the last four days.”
Darcy gave a lazy, wicked smile. “I know. Ain't it great?”
Bucky gave her a quelling look before gesturing towards her belly. “What if we hurt the baby? I haven't exactly been the gentlest of lovers this week. Shouldn’t you be on bedrest?”
Darcy's eyes went wide and then she had the audacity to laugh riotously at him, right in his goddamn face. “Oh my god, Bucky! You're not gonna hurt the baby, you beautiful idjit. Pregnant couples have sex all the time, and thank god for that because this pregnancy is sending my libido through the roof--”
“But I'm not the average man and--”
“No need to brag, I already know,” she interrupted, throwing in a broad wink for good measure.
Bucky rolled his eyes and huffed in mild frustration. “Darcy I'm serious. Have you seen a doc yet? They used to tell women to stay in bed and rest and not get too excited and you’ve been really excited lately and I have too and what if I get too rough and--”
Darcy cut him off with the gentle press of her fingers to his lips. “Babe, yes, I’ve seen a doctor and medical advice for pregnant women has changed drastically since the 40s to reflect a little common sense. Did you know, there are pregnant women who survive car crashes where the baby is entirely unscathed. My body is designed to protect our baby. You would have to do some serious damage to my body in order to ever harm our little bean. And I know you would never do that. So, no field trips to Guilt City, okay?”
He nodded slowly behind her hand then pulled it away and adjusted her so she was on her knees, straddling his lap with her chest in his face. He bent down and forward to kiss the soft skin of her stomach, just below her belly button. He stayed there, just breathing in the scent of her and relaxing into the way her fingers combed through his hair.
“I love you, Darcy. You and the baby both,” he confessed quietly, his lips brushing lightly against her skin with each word.
Bucky Barnes had been forged in war, drowned in blood, and resurrected in the grasp of merciless cold. He had been used, broken, and endured more horror than any human being should ever have to.
Yet somehow, despite all of that, he had triumphed. He had won. Against all odds, against nearly a century of misery, he had found something in Darcy Lewis’ arms that he never thought possible.
He had found peace. He had found heaven.
He had found home.