Darcy Lewis/ Brock Rumlow
Noise. Endless noise. Everything in the shitty little dive bar was smoke, and haze, and noise- Darcy had had enough. She had drunk enough that she didn’t feel as empty, or as broken. She was still angry though. Ian, of course, had called almost incessantly over the last few days- he felt guilty, and wanted to talk about things, and wanted to meet somewhere. It was something else every time.
Darcy had made enough mistakes in her love life that she knew people didn’t change. People don’t cheat unless they want to, and if they want to, then you’ve already lost them. It’s not as though he had been particularly good in bed, he was terrible, in fact. But he seemed like he was normal enough to balance out Darcy’s brand of crazy. He was down to earth, and Darcy needed that. Darcy could have handled it if Ian had just had balls enough to say he wanted to end things. It was one thing to break off a relationship, but it was another thing to fuck somebody else in the same bed.
She had been blonde, too. Blonde, and leggy, and had a cute little laugh, and a cute little butt. The insecure part of Darcy shuddered involuntarily at her own chestnut brown hair, curvy hips and thighs, and her bawdy laughter. While she seethed internally while she stood drinking a brand of vodka that she couldn’t pronounce, she noticed Ian and his cute new girlfriend walk into the bar. Darcy was partially angry that they would dare to intrude on her here, and another part of her knew that this was the only bar that an intern could actually afford.
She had also noticed the way a man in the corner of the bar was watching her. He was gorgeous, too, but Darcy wasn’t ready to process that yet. He was stocky, and had tawny olive skin, and perfect hair. His eyes were the same color as the dark bourbon he was throwing back. She knew she had seen him somewhere before, but she couldn’t place him. She pushed thoughts of him out of mind.
Her eyes followed Ian and his toy as they wandered up to the bar to order. As he got their drink order out, Ian’s shifty eyes settled on Darcy.
“Darcy!” Ian was already stalking towards her. “I’ve been trying to catch up with you for days!”
Not wanting to deal with any of Ian’s bullshit, Darcy was backing away fast until she collided with a chair near the wall. Feeling cornered, she felt her face grow hot with anger. “Go. The fuck. Away.” She grated out. Darcy wasn’t kind when she was drinking, and even sober, she wasn’t about to make nice with Ian.
“Please just talk to me Darcy, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about some things for ages!” Ian sounded desperate, looked desperate. It wasn’t a good look on anyone, but on Ian it made him look slightly unhinged.
Darcy was in no way interested in letting him talk himself into circles and make her into the bad guy. She had made her choice to stick with Jane, finish her internship, and then, maybe, go to work for Agent iPod- Thief from New Mexico. She’d had just enough alcohol to feel brave, and just enough vodka to feel mean.
“Oh really?” Darcy wasn’t quite yelling, but she knew the entire, seedy little bar could hear her. “I think you’ve got ahold of enough already.” She gestured at the leggy blonde Ian had wandered in with. “Why would I ever want to fucking talk to you again? Because in case you haven’t noticed, we are done here. You had your chance to talk to me before you brought your little tramp to MY APARTMENT and fucked her in MY BED.”
Someone had turned the TVs down, and all conversation had stopped. The only noises she could hear were the faint scrapes of chairs, and glasses on tables as all the eyes in the bar faced them. Feeling self- conscious, Darcy turned to go.
“Darcy don’t go, please. We were good together, we can still be good together.” At this, the blonde’s eyebrows rose into her hairline, and she quietly grabbed her coat, and headed for the door.
“Good together!?!??” Now Darcy was shouting. Throwing her glass at the floor, she grabbed Ian by the shirt and screamed into his face, “You have literally never been good for me! At anything! There was never a night that we had sex that I didn’t have to take care of myself afterwards because you sure as hell didn’t know what to do! There wasn’t a day that I went to work that you didn’t tell me it was wasted on me and that I should just stay home and cook. You expect me to do everything and be everything for you, but all you are for me is a piece of shit.” Some of the men in the bar were openly laughing now.
Ian was looking nearly apoplectic, and he drew back an arm to hit Darcy, when someone grabbed his wrist and wrapped a burly arm around his neck. The man from the corner of the bar had apparently known what Ian was going to do, because he had made it across the length of the bar before Ian’s hand had raised.
In a very low, menacing growl, he spoke into Ian’s ear, “Why don’t you back off the lady, pal. She’s got no use for a pathetic little boy.” It was a deep voice, with a thick Bronx accent that, despite her anger, was already doing things for Darcy.
Ian’s eyes were wide, and he was frozen stock- still. Darcy spoke up in a very small voice, “Please, just let him go, he’s not even worth the trouble.”
Eyes the color of dark bourbon peered around behind Ian, and the arm around his neck slowly moved. “You heard the lady. Best be going, boy.”
It only took Ian a split second to scrabble out the doors of the bar. Now that the show was over, the televisions had been turned back up, and people were getting back to their drinks. Darcy slipped up to the bartender, avoiding her mystery savior’s beautiful eyes, and paid her tab. Only wanting to go home and take a hot bath, she turned. Darcy stopped short when she realized that the gorgeous Italian man was right behind her.
He smirked down at her, and leaned in to whisper in her ear, “You know, darlin’, if you need a man that won’t leave you hangin’ I promise I can take care of everything you need.”
His voice was gravelly, and sounded like pure sex. Darcy wanted. Oh, did she want, and oh did she want to not want.
Clearing her throat, Darcy eked out, “That is an extraordinarily tempting offer, but I don’t know you buddy, and you look like trouble.”
“Hey, you gotta be smart, I get it. Why don’t I pick you up from the lab tomorrow? We can go somewhere and grab a drink. Somewhere- not this.” He gestured at the bar around them, and Darcy realized where she knew him from.
“Oh, my god, you’re a STRIKE agent. You’ve been following me?” Darcy was suddenly incensed at the thought that someone had been following her, and especially that one of Agent iPod- Thief’s jack- booted thugs was doing the following.
“That I am, Ms. Lewis.”
“Why?”
“Well, I mean, there really aren’t a lot of career prospects for guys that have my specific skill set, and I spent a year on wall street, but I hated it, so-” He looked amused.
“No, you ass, why are you following me?”
“I can’t tell you that right now, but please trust me when I say that you will be glad that I am.”
“How long have you been following me?” Darcy didn’t generally care about privacy, she didn’t have any real shame, but the thought of where this man had followed her was getting under her skin.
“Also not something I can tell you right now, Ms. Lewis,” he leaned back into her space to whisper once more into her ear, “But I promise I won’t put it in my report that you went to a sex shop, and I certainly won’t put into that report what it was you bought. I’ll just let you know, between the two of us, that I am much more capable of pleasing you than the little toy you bought.” He was so self- assured that Darcy wanted to slap him. She was mortified, and stepped aside to flee the bar.
Once outside in the fresh air, she had taken a few deep breaths when she felt hands on her shoulders. Startled, she turned. She looked directly into the agent’s eyes. “Look guy,”
He cut her off, “Brock.”
“What?” Darcy was confused.
“Brock. Rumlow- that’s my name.”
“Look, Brock, I need space. It’s been a really bad week for me. Thank you, for helping me with Ian, but I just want to be alone.”
“Ms. Lewis- Darcy, I know that you want your space, but it’s my job right now to keep you safe. I’m not just STRIKE, Darcy. I’m the STRIKE team Commander. I’m here to protect you, and it will be easier to do that if you let me come with you. I promise you, I will leave you alone, but I need to keep you safe.” He seemed desperate, pleading.
“You’re totally sleeping on the couch. And don’t bitch about the mess in my apartment.”
Brock smiled down at her. “Of course, Ms. Lewis. But if we’re going to your apartment instead of mine, we need to make a stop.”
“A stop for what?”
“I need to grab some stuff. While I’m sure that whatever cute little lacy panties you happen to have would look fantastic on my ass, I think I’d be more comfortable in my own clothes.”
Darcy wanted to laugh, but instead flushed deeply and tried not to lick her lips at that mental image. The thought of Brock’s ass in her bright pink panties was making her feel warm all over. She started walking.
As Brock kept pace, he tilted his head to say, “Of course if that’s something you’re into, we could give that a try.”
Darcy could hear the smile in his voice. “You know what? Talk to me about it when I’ve had some coffee.”
While they were silent for the rest of the way to Brock’s apartment, Darcy had the feeling that her evening was far from over.