When she was young, Darcy used to dream of meeting her soulmate. All she wanted was to look into someone’s eyes, realizing that they weren’t the grey shades she was used to, but a colour. She spent hours fantasizing about their first meeting, about the colour of her soulmate’s eyes and the colours everything else would have.
None of her fantasies ever came close to reality.
She was on an introductory tour at Stark Tower with Jane. The astrophysicist had been offered a job here, and Darcy had been asked to be her assistant. The tour had been amazing so far. She'd met most of the Avengers and hadn’t even made a fool out of herself - although she did scream when she met Clint, but in her defense he did drop out of the vents right in front of her - and Jane was in awe over all the new equipment.
All residents of the Tower were now gathered in the common area for dinner, after which Jane and Darcy were going back to New Mexico so they could finish their experiments before moving to New York. Darcy had been standing in a corner with Clint while Jane sat around a large table with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, undoubtedly talking about science.
After he apologized for scaring her, Clint had offered to give her a rundown of the other residents of the Tower. They got along surprisingly well, and his commentary was definitely helpful. So far, she’d learned that Steve was as protective of his cookies as Thor, and that Tony could get even worse than Jane when on a science bender - and really, how weird was it that she was now on first-name basis with the Avengers? He’d been in the middle of telling her about a recent prank war when someone else walked into their view.
“That guy,” Clint said, “is Bucky Barnes. He used to be the Winter Soldier but don’t worry, he’s not Hydra anymore - can you even be Hydra if you were brainwashed? Anyway, he’s the one I’m in a prank war with, so we’d better watch out. I still haven’t gotten all the glitter out of my hair…”
Darcy snorted, briefly glancing towards Clint’s hair. She did see some sparkly spots, but she couldn’t tell whether they were actually glitter or not. She turned away from Clint to look at the new guy.
He had dark, chin-length hair and a metal arm. He was currently grabbing a drink and when he closed the fridge, he turned around and looked at her.
Their eyes met and it was as if time stood still. She was close enough to see them change from a generic gray she’d seen a billion times before to a colour her mind told her was blue - ice blue, as she’d later learn.
She saw colours spread from those eyes to the rest of him, to his brown hair, pink lips and red shirt. Next, the colours spread to their surroundings, colouring the lights yellow and the sky blue. She could hardly wait to look around and see what everything looked like in colour, but now her focus was completely on her soulmate.
Her soulmate.
She bit her lip and stepped forward, completely ignoring Clint’s protest. Bucky set his drink down and walked towards her, his lips slowly curling into a smile. A few seconds later, he was standing right in front of her.
“I like your eyes.” He said quietly.
“Thanks.” Darcy replied, trying her hardest not to grin like an idiot. “I like yours too. They’re very… blue.”
“Yours aren’t grey either.” He remarked, reaching out to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “And neither is your hair.”
“Your hair appears to be brown.” Darcy noted before frowning. “How is it possible that I’ve never seen anything that’s brown before, and I still know what it looks like?”
“That’s a question for our residents scientists, not for me, doll.”
“Something weird in our brain, scientists don’t actually know for sure.” A new voice said, snapping the two out of their bubble.
Darcy only now noticed that the entire room had grown silent and that everyone was listening to them. She could see Clint grinning at her in the corner she left him in, now with Jane, who had apparently been distracted from science for long enough to realize what was going on. She was grinning just as widely as Clint.
Looking around some more, Darcy marvelled at all the colours she saw. Unfortunately most of the room itself was black and grey, but there were still plenty of new colours to see. She saw that the woman who had introduced herself as Natasha had red hair and Steve was blond. Clint wore a purple hoodie and Sam a green shirt. She was sure she was going to get a headache later because of how bright everything was, but she couldn’t care less.
Her eyes fell on the huge windows on one side of the room. The sun was setting, creating the most amazing colours. She quickly walked towards the windows, standing as close to them as she could.
Bucky joined her, touching the glass with one hand.
“That,” Darcy said to him, “is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
“It’s certainly something.” He nodded.
“So, are you guys going to tell us what’s going on or not?” Jane demanded, still beaming as she stepped between the two.
Darcy grinned at her best friend before looking at Bucky again. He smiled at her while he reached around Jane, taking Darcy’s hand in his. She squeezed his hand lightly and couldn’t help but smile when he squeezed hers back.
“Soulmates.” Bucky declared.
The room erupted in cheers. The two were separated for a few minutes while everyone congratulated them. Darcy was pretty sure she heard both Thor and Jane threaten Bucky, one with a hammer and the other with a portal to a different dimension. She didn’t get any shovel talks, although she did get a scary look from the Black Widow and a teary-eyed Captain America, which was terrifying in its own way.
Jane hugged her tight, screaming how happy she was in Darcy’s ear before demanding a girls’ night with details in a week. Clint hugged her too, telling her that ‘Barnes is a good guy, really, just please don’t give him any glitter’.
After a while, Darcy found Bucky again, still standing near the window. She instinctively reached out to lace their fingers together. Her smile fell when Bucky pulled his hand away.
“You don’t want to touch that one.” He muttered. Darcy looked down to see she’d tried to take his metal hand. She shook her head firmly and reached for his hand again.
“I want to touch all of you, including the metal parts.” Darcy replied honestly. He smiled and this time, he let her lace their fingers together. They stood in silence for a while, simply watching the sunset. The other people in the room resumed their activities, and Darcy could hear Jane and Tony fight about something science-related from where they were standing.
“You know,” Bucky said after a few minutes, “we never introduced ourselves.”
Darcy laughed and turned away from the window, loosening her hand from his grasp to stick it out in front of her.
“Hi, I’m Darcy Lewis.”
“James Barnes, but you can call me Bucky.”
He took her hand but instead of shaking it, he simply held it in his own.
“Am I going to get that back?” She asked, swinging their hands between them. She looked at him with a smile and met his eyes again, smiling even more when she saw his happy expression.
“Not anytime soon, no.” Bucky said. “Will that be a problem?”
Darcy shrugged.
“Depends on what you’d call a problem. On one hand, I kinda like holding hands with you. On the other hand, though…” She trailed off, taking her hand out of his before bringing both of her own hands together at the back of his neck.
“On the other hand what?” He asked softly, putting his own hands on her waist.
“On the other hand, it means I can’t do this.” Darcy said before she pulled him closer until their lips met.
Reality was so much better than any of her fantasies had ever been.