Bygone

Darcy has survived her first period, and three weeks of dating Steve Rogers without a kiss when she finally cracks.

“Rebecca.” She whines pathetically.

Rebecca looks up from the men’s dress shirt she’s repairing with a quizzical look.

Darcy abandons her place on the bed and moves to sit on the rug at Rebecca’s feet, much closer. “When did you first kiss John? Like, how long are we talking here?”

Her friend laughs at her.

“Rude.” Darcy flicks Rebecca’s shin.

“I’m sorry!” Rebecca whispers, in deference to Mrs. Barnes sleeping in the bedroom just on the other side of the wall. “It’s just I’ve noticed a certain amount of... pining.”

“Pining.” Darcy mutters. Hell, she’s about to explode from frustration and want. Steve has taken a page from her book. At the theater he’ll take her hand and run his fingers along it, from the tips of her fingers, over her palm, up her thumb. He puts his arm around her without hesitation.

Darcy knows how he smells. She knows what his laugh sounds like with her ear pressed to his chest. Once when they’d been waiting for his pay at the docks he’d even unbuttoned the front of his coat and wrapped it around her.

“Yes, pining. If it’s any consolation, I think Steve’s brain is about to catch on fire every time you’re together.”

“Hmph.” Darcy pokes through Rebecca’s sewing box. It was a very nice one, and had been a gift from John for her birthday. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“We kissed on our first date.” Rebecca whispers, even lower than before.

“What?!” Darcy drops the spool of emerald green thread in outrage. Outrage!

“But we knew each other for years beforehand. And were sweet on each other for at least a year.” Rebecca rushes to explain.

But Darcy isn’t having it. No, sir. She’d thought this was all because of 40s dating norms or some shit. The era of Netflix and chill it was not. But no.

She gets to her feet and is to the window before Rebecca can react. She’s got it open before Rebecca can run over.

“What are you doing?” Rebecca hisses, grabbing for Darcy’s arms as the cold air rushes in.

“Getting my damn kiss, that’s what.” Darcy examines the pipes that run between the buildings. They’re thick and there are two of them right next to each other, making a bridge that’s at least six inches across. And the gap between the buildings is only four feet wide.

“No.” Rebecca grabs onto Darcy’s elbow. “No, no, no, no.”

“Yes.” Darcy shakes her off and climbs into the window sill. “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

“Darcy!”

“Rebecca!” Darcy hisses back as her feet touch the icy pipes. She presses her weight on them experimentally. But Bucky had done this a thousand times, according to Rebecca.

Plus, Darcy had faced a Destroyer, Dark Elves, and airport security on no coffee. Darcy pushes out of the window and scoots across the pipes.

“Nooooooooooooo.” Rebecca squeaks.

Steve’s light is on. She can even see his shadow on the parquet floor. She reaches his window and lets her legs drop so she’s straddling the pipes. Her lady parts do not thank her.

She wants to SHIELD knock on his window. All I can and will break this down, because I’m getting what I want. But Mrs. Barnes would probably hear that. So she taps. Insistently. With her index finger.

Steve’s expression is confused when he leans into view, then his eyes go wide and he knocks over his chair running to the window.

Darcy doesn’t even have time to say anything before he’s yanking her inside. She shivers against him and he holds her tight with one arm while reaching around her to pull the window closed.

“Darcy?! What-what?!” He shakes his head and bands his arms around her, one hand coming up to hold the back of her head. “Darcy! What were you thinking!?”

“Pssh, Bucky did that all the time. I’m here for my kiss.”

“Bucky - he - kiss -what?” Steve shakes his head, adorably confused. Then anger begins to build in his eyes.

“You owe me a kiss, Rogers. I’m here to collect.”

“You climbed over the pipes, four stories up, to get a kiss?” He asks, nonplussed.

So Darcy kisses him. It muffles whatever he was going to say next. After a second, his grip changes. His head tilts.

Darcy leans into him and lets her hand travel up from where he’d trapped it between their chests to slide into the hair at the nape of his neck. He groans.

Then he finally decides to be an active participant, teeth nipping at her bottom lip suddenly, enough to shock her. Then his tongue runs over it before darting up to trace the seam of her lips.

She’d been worried about 40s kissing.

She’d had nothing to worry about.

When he pulls back, they’re both breathing hard. He rests his forehead against hers.

“I’m bad at waiting.” She whispers, and he laughs.

“I’ll walk you back over.”

“Nope.” Darcy shakes her head and pulls away. “I’m perfectly capable of getting back over the pipes. You know Mrs. Barnes will wake up if the front door opens.”

“Darcy.”

“Steven.” She replies back, just as firmly.

“Please, doll?”

“Cheater. It’s not going to work anyway. I’ve done stuff way worse than this back home. I saved a dog from a fire in a pet shop!”

Steve’s eyes slam shut and he winces.

“Oh, stop it, Mr. Gets Beat Up Every Other Day Fighting The Good Fight.”

Steve ends up leaning out his window with his hand fisted in the back of his coat, which he’d forced her into. Rebecca opens the window back up and reaches out for her.

“Our first kiss was nothing like that, just so you know.” Rebecca whispers as she shuts the window behind Darcy and waves to Steve. “I think his brain did catch on fire.”

Darcy looks back across the gap. Steve is leaning in his still open window, arms braced on either side, head hanging.

She waits until he looks up again and smiles at him.

He shakes his head and pulls the window shut.

The next morning Steve asks her to be his girl, and she agrees and then kisses him so long that they have to practically run to get her to work on time.

After that, John and Rebecca kissed a lot more in the theater on their double dates. John didn’t have to worry so much about Steve acting as Rebecca’s stand in big brother when Steve was so distracted himself.

They ride out to see his mural and Darcy wishes she had a camera. His ears are red, and she knows it’s not just from the cold. She takes in the colors, the people, the shine of the saxophone.

“You’re amazing.” She says, turning to Steve. Who had created this.

He couldn’t help the pleased smile that spread over his face. Darcy grabs his hands and kisses each one.

“Darce.”

She smiles at his warning and kisses him. Someone whistles sharply down the street and Steve’s hands land firmly on her arms to set her back.

“Come on, let’s get home.” Steve says, giving her a mock stern look. He stiffly offers his arm and Darcy formally puts her hand just at the crook of his arm. They walk with straight spines for several steps before Steve reaches up and pulls her arm the rest of the way through his and they bump together.

The following week Mrs. Barnes can hardly do anything other than work. Steve comes over and helps cook since Darcy was still terrible with the stove, and no great shakes at cooking even once it was lit.

The following Saturday, Rebecca and Darcy talk with Mrs. Barnes about quitting at the laundry. Bucky is four months away from completing training and he’s already risen to a corporal, which means once he deploys Mrs. Barnes will get thirty-seven dollars a month as his dependent, and Rebecca an additional thirty.

Steve had already upped his contribution by three more dollars, making it ten dollars a week by slipping it to Rebecca.

Darcy goes to Mr. Welker at the bank and asks to be allowed to take on extra work to do when she’s completed her days work. Ms. Howitz absolutely refuses, insisting that Darcy is being paid by the bank during the hours she’s there.

With her heart in her throat, Darcy states that she could quit and they could wait to hire a girl who would take the same pay and not finish her work every day. Mr. Welker agrees if she’ll take a dollar cut in pay each week since she’ll be using the bank’s equipment.

Darcy picks up more copy work from the library, but switches to doing work for a rubber band company that pays ten cents a page.

The first week in November Mrs. Barnes gets sick and has to quit her job. She’s in bed for nine days and they have to get a prescription. Steve pays for it, insisting that the Barnes had bought him more prescriptions than he could count.

They can’t afford to go out on dates, and Steve took on extra work down at the police station so Darcy hardly sees him. Finally she’s had enough, and seeing his light on through the window, crawls across the pipes again.

His eyes still widen, but he doesn’t act like she’d just taken her life in her hands this time.

“Another kiss?” He asks her after he’s shut the window behind her.

Darcy rubs her hands together. “I won’t say no, but I was hoping for a dance.”

They dance and kiss until Steve notices with a start that it’s snowing and he insists she goes back across before the conditions worsen. Again, he holds onto the back of her coat until Rebecca lets her back in.