Bygone

The next day Steve is quiet during their walk to the bank. He doesn’t speak until they’re over halfway there, despite seeming to start to several times.

“Did you and Rebecca have fun last night?”

“What?” Darcy looks over at him, confused. Rebecca had been working on several projects. She’d finished letting out one of Darcy’s dresses so it would fit better. Darcy is wearing it today. She thinks Steve noticed, even if only the hem and collar are visible outside of her coat. Her eyes widen when he looks over at her. “Steven Rogers, how much did you hear?”

“Nothing! Nothing!” He holds up his hands and dodges her slaps, only to pull her back close as soon as she relaxes. The cold is biting. “Just Rebecca. Laughing.”

“Giggling you mean.” Darcy corrects. “Crappy windows for the win.”

Steve’s brow flickers upward like it does when she forgets herself and doesn’t speak 40s. “Sounded like you were having fun. You’re lucky Mrs. Barnes didn’t hear you.”

“I know.” The bank comes into view. Darcy scowls at it, but picks up her pace. Ms. Howitz always looks at the clock as soon as Darcy steps in the door.

Steve tightens his grip on her when they cross the street, ice and gravel crunching under her heels. Darcy curls into him when the wind picks up, sharp on her cheeks, ears and neck and digs into her purse to pull out a handkerchief to wipe at her dripping nose again.

“Talking about John?” Steve asks with a smirk as they reach the bank.

Darcy unwinds her arm from his, certain her nose is as bright as Rudolph’s by now. So she doesn’t look at him as she walks to the door. “If you must know, we were talking about you, Mr. Rogers.”

When Steve meets her that afternoon he pulls a blue scarf from the pocket of his oversized coat and holds it out to her. Its worn with little nubs on the fabric, so she doesn’t worry that he’s spent any money.

She glances around the street at the scattered women. They have their scarves wrapped over their heads, then tucked around their neck and into the front of their coats somehow. “I don’t know how...”

Steve stretches the scarf out, reaching up to carefully lay the middle over the top of her head. “Then you kind of twist and wrap the ends around to the back, over your shoulders, and then tuck it in the front.”

Darcy follows his directions, a bit awkwardly. The wind whips around the corner and she smiles up at him. “Much better. Thank you, Steve.”

He shrugs a narrow shoulder. “It was my mothers. It was just sitting around, I had meant to take it down to the church box but...”

“Thank you.” She repeats.

It’s another quiet walk with Darcy watching Steve out of the corner of her eye. Several times he straightens his shoulders, one time even turning to her and opening his mouth, only to turn away again.

Once they’re back at the apartment, he lingers in the hall. “Steve?”

“Hm?” Those blue eyes focus on her.

“Don’t you have to get to the docks?” Darcy asks, because he’d set the pace on the way home, and she’s pretty sure he’s running behind now.

His eyes widen.

Darcy laughs. “Go! And thanks again!”

He waves a hand backwards as he runs for the stairs.

In the apartment Darcy finds Rebecca at the stove. Mrs. Barnes isn’t in her chair or sitting at the table.

“It was a hard day.” Rebecca says in explanation, and Darcy knows Mrs. Barnes has retreated to bed.

The next morning Steve is quiet, but he always is on Thursdays. He spends Wednesday evening at the docks, where it’s cold and the work is hard. Then he goes to the newspaper and works until six, first helping with the press, then doing a janitorial shift before the editors come in. He walks Darcy to work before he goes home to sleep.

He still keeps a tight grip on her, his arm offering steady support over the icy trek to the bank. Women’s shoes are made with smooth soles, and sometimes Darcy feels like she’s attempting to ice skate thanks to drizzle that had fallen the night before, leaving a fresh frozen glaze on every surface.

Her day takes a turn for the better when Mr. Welker calls Alvin Whitaker and Edward Kratz into his office, his yelling voice audible even in the lobby. After that, Whitaker and Kratz don’t so much as look in the direction of the type room.

Darcy has caught up on the back log, and it had been glorious to watch Ms. Howtiz walk into the storage closet in disbelief. Now Darcy only copies the notes that come through each day.

Steve is more awake when he meets her after her shift is over, but distracted watching the tellers discuss getting drinks.

“Do we have to stop by the print makers?” Darcy asks, tapping his scuffed briefcase and bringing his attention to her.

He offers his arm, turning toward the office instead of home as his answer. Darcy tells him about Mr. Welker’s tirade and Ms. Howitz’s gaping fish face, but she doesn’t get the reactions she normally would.

They drop off his commissions to Mr. Anderson and Darcy sits on a bench in the busy back room. Piles of paper are everywhere, and it smells strongly of ink and wood polish. Mr. Anderson nods to her while Steve signs the records sheet.

“I thought you’d be more interested in my little victories today.” She comments as they step back onto the street.

“What? I mean, I am.” Steve rubs at the back of his neck and doesn’t offer his arm. Darcy steps closer to him on the busy sidewalk. “I just...”

“What?” Darcy is jostled forward and Steve’s eyes shoot over her shoulder to eye the man angrily. She reaches forward to hold his arm.

“Would you like to take in a show?” He asks, setting his shoulders. “At the pictures, I mean. Tonight. With me. John and Rebecca need someone to double with, or they can’t go.”

“A movie?”

He nods, raising his chin.

“Are you asking because John and Rebecca asked you to, or because you want to?” Darcy fights a sniffle, because thanks nose, that’s so romantic, and also tries to force her heart rate to lower. But oh shit. Shit, shit, shit.

She watches those ears go red, and that chin comes up even further. “I want to take you to a show.”

If she was smart, she’d say no. She’s still hoping for that bright flash of light to take her home. She has no business taking in a show with this man who makes her heart ache in her chest.

“I’d love to.”

“Like a date?” He clarifies. “With me.”

“Well, I didn’t think you were asking me on a date with Mickey O’Brien.” Darcy pokes him in the arm. “Do I have to spell it out? Yes, Steve Rogers, I would love to go on a date to the pictures with you.”

His lips curve into a smile and his eyes become somehow hypnotizing. “I think you’d better spell things out for me from here on out, just so I make sure and get it through my thick skull.”

She takes his arm and sniffs. “You do have a thick skull.”

“Yes ma’am.” He says, perfectly straight-faced. An expression she knows well, because Steve Rogers is a troll.

Darcy loses the battle not to smile and can’t begin to regret it when she sees his answering grin.

Darcy is very aware that night that Steve can hear them as Rebecca squeals with delight when Darcy explains. Then it’s a flurry of getting ready, with Rebecca hurriedly finishing stitching up the first dress she’d sewn for Darcy. It’s rich navy colored and made of sturdy, warm fabric. It nips in perfectly at the waist, over Darcy’s hated girdle.

Then Rebecca is working quickly at Darcy’s hair. Darcy had managed a few more basic hairstyles, though she wasn’t anywhere as quick as Rebecca. But Rebecca is twisting and curling Darcy’s hair up into something gorgeous that back home she’d pay forty or fifty dollars for.

“Oh, I wish Bucky was here.” Rebecca pulls the last pin from between her lips and inserts it into Darcy’s hair.

“Steve got a letter today.” Darcy tells her. “He’ll probably read it to us tonight.”

Steve does, though Darcy can tell he’s skipping over parts. John sits next to Rebecca on the couch, and Darcy sits on the arm of Mrs. Barnes’ chair near the stove. Bucky got another promotion, and wrote about how cold it was in the barracks. He writes that there’s man called Wallace that reminds him of Steve, and reading this makes Steve grimace.

Afterwards Mrs. Barnes chases them out the door.

Rebecca and John walk ahead of them, strolling slowly. All around them the streets have changed from the daily crush, instead filled with couples walking arm in arm, just a bit closer than they normally are.

Steve tells her about Bucky, how much sense it makes that he’d be promoted. Darcy listens, knowing how much Steve misses him. Bucky and Rebecca had shared the bedroom Darcy and Rebecca share now, but after the Rogers moved in down the hall Bucky had slept there more often than not.

Mrs. Rogers often worked nights at the hospital. She’d come home and make breakfast for Steve and Bucky, with enough to bring back to Rebecca. In exchange, Steve usually ate dinner at the Barnes’ table.

According to Mrs. Barnes, they’d been in each other’s pockets since age ten. And now Bucky had gone off to become a soldier, and there wasn’t anything Steve wanted more than to join him.

“I’m sorry.” Steve says, stopping suddenly in the middle of a story about how he and Bucky had lead a group of neighborhood boys in moving Mrs. Trent’s piano three blocks over and up two flights of stairs.

“I understand, and you’re a good story teller.” Darcy tells him honestly, with a smile. “I have Jane.”

“Jane.” Steve repeats. “I’ve told you all about Buck. Tell me about Jane.”

“She’s my best friend.” Darcy says simply. “I’d do anything for her. I’ve followed her half way around the world.”

“Around the world?” Steve asks, looking interested. “You’ve traveled?”

“I went to college in Virginia.”

Steve stops next to her. “You went to college?”

“It’s common where I’m from.” Darcy tugs at his arm, to keep up with Rebecca and John.

Steve nods but still looks uneasy. “And where else?”

“I went to New Mexico to help her with a research project. She’s a scientist. Then we went to Austraila, Brazil, and then here.” She talks fast towards the end because Steve’s jaw is getting tighter. “Steve?”

“You went to college, you’ve been out of the country.” Steve says, shaking his head. “It was bad enough when you were just a beautiful typist.”

“Bad enough?”

“Everyone we’ve passed has wondered what a dame like you is doing with me.” Steve tells her. “You haven’t seen the fellas looking?”

“Steve.” Darcy tugs at his arm, then stops when he refuses to look at her. Like the gentleman he is, he stops with her. “There isn’t anyone here or back home that I would rather be on a date with. And no, I haven’t seen anyone looking because I’ve been too busy looking at you.”

The corner of his mouth twitches.

“I guess I’ll have to tell Rebecca her dress needs some work, because you-“

“Sweetheart.”

Darcy stops, her brow raising. Because Steve calling her sweetheart? Butterflies like woah.

“It’s been all I can do to look at anything other than you in the dress with that lipstick.”

Darcy beams. “You like that, huh? I’ve always been a fan of red. It’s not that popular where I’m from.”

“Hey, we’re going to be late!” John calls to them.

Steve’s eyes stay glued to her lips for a second longer, then he tears his eyes away. Darcy feels delicious warmth flood her.

They catch up to John and Rebecca and Darcy pulls herself closer to Steve, so they’re pressed together side to side. Still wanting to be closer, she brings up her other hand to lay on his forearm.

During the movie Darcy learns that necking at the theater is a real thing. Over half the couples are completely involved in each other, and the couple directly in front of her hadn’t come up for air.

John and Rebecca are curled together, but as far as Darcy could see, and she hadn’t been looking too hard, they engage only in light canoodling. She wonders if it’s because Steve is present, like an extension of Bucky.

The movie is The Philadelphia Story and Darcy finds herself watching the extravagant clothing and meals as much as the story line. It’s amazing after the scarcity she’d grown used to over the past weeks.

The seats are wooden and uncomfortable and she wants to lean against Steve, maybe rest her head on his shoulder. But he sits stiff and straight next to her, his hands in loose fists on his knees.

It’s raining again when they leave the theater. Both John and Steve had carried umbrellas. Darcy grabs Steve’s free hand in her own, twining her fingers through his and trapping their joined hands between them as she huddles into his side under the umbrella.

He holds her hand for a while, but pulls away when her shoe skids on the ice, instead wrapping his arm around her waist somewhat hesitantly, the way John has his arm around Rebecca ahead of them. Darcy leans into his side to assure him that she is more than okay with it.

Her shoes are a menace, plus she’s pretty sure she’s not getting a goodnight kiss.

She gets a smile at the door, while Rebecca gets a perfunctory kiss from John.

On Saturday she walks down to the library, having seen an ad in the paper. They’re paying two pennies a card for typists to copy card catalog entries onto new index cards from the old handwritten ones. It’s more intensive than it seemed, what with having to adjust the bar so many times to get the information in the right places.

She works for four hours, types eighty cards, and makes a dollar sixty, but her fingertips hurt from the bar grip on their older model machine. She quits earlier than she’d planned to because her fingers are red and she doesn’t want to be slowed down at her actual job.

On the way home she uses some of the money to buy a pair of gloves for eighty cents. The warmer pair were a dollar fifty, but she couldn’t justify spending so much.

She pulls them on leaving the shop, not paying enough attention, and slides on the ice. Someone catches her, hands tight on her hips, pulling her back into their chest as they skid too. His arm bands around her stomach, his big shoulders curling over her.

“Woah. Alright?” Big hands hold her steady.

Darcy looks up, skin crawling, then relaxes at John’s face looking down at her in concern.

“Women’s shoes are a joke.” Darcy tells him grumpily. She’d set out this morning happy to prove that women could navigate the world without a male escort. It turns out that perhaps they are not properly attired for such things.

“May I?” John offers his arm gallantly. “I’m on my way to pick up Rebecca for dinner and cards with my family. I should have asked if you could come.”

Darcy is glad that he didn’t. Steve comes over for dinner, and Mrs. Barnes falls asleep in her chair. Steve sits next to her on the couch and she steals his hand, tracing her fingers over his. He has beautiful hands.

She asks what his favorite job was, and he tells her about a mural he painted for a music shop a year ago. She makes him promise to take her by it sometime, but they’d have to pay to take the subway. He asks what she misses most about home, other than people.

She’s stymied thinking of everything, so he restricts her to the first three things she can think of. Her iPod, lattes, and pants. The third thing had actually been money, but she doesn’t want to say it.

Mrs. Barnes had told her that Steve had been contributing four dollars a week to the Barnes household since Bucky left for training, and once Darcy had come he’d upped it to seven.

Rebecca and John return late and Mrs. Barnes goes to bed. Rebecca tries to convince John to stay for a while, but he says his father will be waiting up. Instead, Rebecca joins Darcy and Steve in the living room, turning on the radio. A mystery show is playing, and they talk softly between listening.

Steve runs next door for his sketchpad and they pass a few hours, until Darcy is nodding off into her chest and Rebecca has fallen asleep with her head pillowed on her arms.