Bygone

Mrs. Barnes wakes both of them up the next day for church. Darcy burns herself twice attempting to replicate the hairstyle Rebecca had done for her the day before. Rebecca takes over even as Mrs. Barnes yells for them to hurry.

The dress is Darcy’s least favorite. But it’s also the best fitting. Most of the others are too tight in the breast area and the hips. Rebecca has promised to sew her a few dresses as soon as Darcy gets her first paycheck.

Darcy is still plucking at herself when someone knocks on the front door, then it opens and Blue Eyes steps in.

“Steve! Is it that time already?” Rebecca gasps and runs back into their bedroom.

“She’s always late.” He says, his eyes skimming over Darcy quickly. His cheeks flush when he sees her watching. “I’m Steve Rogers.”

“Darcy Lewis.” She responds, not quite sure what to say to him. Thanks, dude, for carrying me two blocks in what was apparently very inappropriate clothing? According to Rebecca, that is.

“I was glad to hear that you’re feeling better.” Steve says, apparently unaware of her brain spaz.

“And she’s got a job!” Rebecca comes back in pinning a small hat to her head.

Mrs. Barnes comes into the room and adjusts Steve’s tie, then smooths a hand over his hair. Thanks to Rebecca, who happily chatters no matter what she’s doing, Darcy knows a lot about Steve.

She knows that Steve used to live down the hall in an apartment with his mother, Sarah, who was a nurse. When Sarah died Steve couldn’t afford the rent and moved to the next building over. His apartment is closer now though, because he’s on the same floor in the other building.

Bucky, Rebecca’s brother and Steve’s best friend, would climb across the pipes into Steve’s apartment in secret.

Steve gets odd jobs whenever he can, but his main income is doing copy art. He loses the other jobs when he gets sick, which is apparently a common occurrence. Steve’s been having a hard time of it, having been left behind when Bucky went to the army.

He hadn’t been accepted, Rebecca had told Darcy, for once her chipper tone lowering.

“Miss Lewis?”

“Darcy!” Rebecca slaps at Darcy’s arm. “He asked where you’re going to be working.”

“At the bank.” Darcy blurts. “As a typist.”

Like Rebecca’s had, Steve’s brows go up.

They fall in line behind Mrs. Barnes. Rebecca immediately takes Steve’s arm once they reach the street, and Steve offers his other arm to Darcy.

There was more that Rebecca had chattered about. How to refer to people, which places she could go on her own and which places she could not, how to behave towards a man, and how a man should behave towards her.

Darcy isn’t so sure she’s going to be able to pull it off.

Steve sits with them at church. Darcy wants to be back in bed. She’s not religious - like at all. And it’s way too fucking early for this standing and kneeling, then sitting, then kneeling, then standing business.

Then they all get up in a line to receive communion and Darcy feels like she’s going to be revealed as an outsider. But she listens to what Rebecca says in front of her, a little louder than necessary, and she completes the ritual successfully.

At the end of the service Rebecca drags Darcy away to meet John. After the way Rebecca had gone on about him, Darcy had been a little worried. But it’s obvious that John is just as taken with Rebecca.

She spends the next few days fumbling through cleaning and cooking while Rebecca and Mrs. Barnes work. The only thing she doesn’t at least marginally fail at is the doing the laundry, but it’s a tedious chore that leaves her hands red, dry and cracked. Standing over steaming pots of boiling water and scrubbing clothes over a washboard has made whoever invents washing machines a damned hero in her eyes.

On Monday she leaves the bank spitting mad. She’d been given one twenty minute break during which to eat lunch. Other than that she’d spent the entire eleven hour shift working her way through what appeared to be a massive backlog.

Ms. Howitz had seemed to catch her every single mistake and Darcy wanted to throw her damned typewriter across the room. Not to mention, the tellers were all jackasses. Giving her smarmy smiles as they dropped off new notes, standing just outside the door to the tiny office and obviously looking while they elbowed each other.

Darcy had spent a few hours smirking down at the keys imagining drop-kicking them in the balls. Then her wrists began to ache. Then she had to change the ribbon and Ms. Howitz had acted like she was a total moron.

By the time she pulls on her too small coat, she’s envisioning quitting in a blaze of glory. Only the thought of Rebecca’s and Mrs. Barnes’ reactions stop her.

Steve is leaning against the building when she steps out. Two of the tellers are also lingering. Steve smiles at her.

“I thought I’d walk you home.” Steve straightens, taking his hands from his pockets. “I work just around the corner.”

“Miss Lewis-“ One of the tellers calls over.

Darcy crams her arm through Steve’s. “Walk. Before I throw something through the front window.”

Steve’s eyes widen and he starts walking. Smart man. He waits a block to attempt conversation again. “Rough first day?”

“Let’s just say that things are very different here.” Darcy says, swallowing a knot in her throat. She wants to be in Jane’s lab, listening to her iPod, toasting pop tarts, and perfectly allowed to tase sexist assholes.

“I imagine you must miss home.” He says softly.

Darcy bites her lip and nods. His grip on her arm tightens, pulling her a bit closer to him. He doesn’t say anything else for the rest of their walk, but he’s a steady presence next to her. She also notices that she has a much easier time walking than she had that morning.

When she walks out the door the next morning, somehow the last one out in this messed up world of shit-tastic workdays, since Mrs. Barnes starts her shift at the laundry at five and John picks up Rebecca to start their day at the shop at six, she finds Steve waiting for her in the hall.

“Hey Steve.” She motions to the door. “Do you know how...”

She trails off as he holds his hand out for the key. He leans one shoulder against it, jiggles the key in the hole, jams the knob up, and then cleanly slides the key out. She’d nearly made herself late the day before, trying to get the key back out.

He hands her back the key, then shoves his hands into his pockets. She still manages to notice they’re ink-stained.

“Which apartment was yours?” She asks as they walk down the hall.

“Right here.” He nods his head to the side as they pass an apartment four doors down from the Barnes’ apartment.

“Were you drawing last night?” Darcy asks, realizing her previous conversation topic pretty much ends at his dead mother. “Rebecca told me you draw, and I saw your hands.”

His ears go red and she kicks herself.

“I, uh, worked last night. At the newspaper.” Steve shrugs his shoulders in a jerky movement. “Small enough to reach in quick.”

“You worked last night too? What time did you get off? When do you sleep?” Darcy demands, having had it about up to her ears with this time period. Mrs. Barnes had been stooping over almost at her waist after work, and after completing her own full working day Rebecca had made dinner and then set to work darning neighbors clothes for extra money. And they still had to scrimp and go without to get by.

“I slept.” He pushes open the door to the street, letting her walk through the door first. She waits at the top step for him and takes his arm.

It sets the routine for the rest of the week. Steve is always waiting for her in hall to walk her to work, and outside the bank to walk her home. As Rebecca had said he did, Steve has dinner with them a few times that week.

Mrs. Barnes treats him as her own, and Steve’s ears frequently flush red. Rebecca teases him, but in a kind way that Darcy thinks is a lost art in her time. Humor is almost always at someone’s expense. Steve teases back, and Rebecca’s laughs make Mrs. Barnes’ tired smile a little brighter.