Bygone

The days leading up to the wedding - and Bucky’s arrival - are a mess. Ruth accidentally rips Rebecca’s veil, Mrs. Barnes’ sister arrives with her thirty year old son who is a complete smarm, and some kind of stupid chain letter money scam takes over the nation causing a run on dimes.

Darcy’s work at the bank quadruples thanks to completely freaking pointless bank notes.

Rebecca insists on traversing the pipes between the two apartments at least once. John holds onto her from behind, and Steve grabs her from the front. Rebecca rolls her eyes as Steve sets her on her feet.

The next day Rebecca scares the shit out of Darcy tapping on the window to be let in while Steve is at the newspaper.

That night a woman screams out on the street and Steve springs out of bed. Darcy leans out the window to see him standing in the street with several other neighborhood men, all in their bathrobes and hastily shoved on shoes.

It’s a good twenty minutes before Steve comes up carrying little Vera Adams. One of the stray dogs he’d warned Darcy against feeding had attacked Eunice Adams on her way to her shift at the hospital. It had bitten her hand. Mr. Grant took her to the hospital while Steve and some of the other men chased the dog off.

They get the girl settled on the couch with plenty of blankets to wait for her grandfather’s return.

Back in bed, Darcy presses herself against Steve’s cold skin, trying to warm him back up quickly, without trying to seem like that was what she was doing. Steve hated any time she acknowledged the possibility of his getting sick when he was healthy.

He was the most stubborn person she’d ever met, and she’d once wrestled Jane into a shower while force feeding her fluids.

Mr. Grant collects Vera an hour and half later. Darcy listens to the men’s voices from bed, with the covers pulled up around her nightclothes. When Steve comes back she can’t fall back to sleep again, and neither can he, so they trade touches and kisses until the sun comes up.

The next day is the wedding, and Darcy is ready to pull her hair out trying to deal with all of John’s sisters. Even Agnes is a pain, but it’s not her fault. She’s pregnant and something had happened with breakfast at Gladys’ house and it had not been had.

A nun finds her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich just in time for Katherine to lose her two year old son. After he’s located in the confessional, Darcy realizes Steve and Bucky are nowhere to be seen.

Steve, the best man, had gone to pick up Bucky, who was walking Rebecca down the aisle, from the train. And they’d been meant to arrive an hour ago.

Darcy has asked three people if they’ve seen Steve when she gets yanked into a choir room by a panicking Rebecca.

“Woah, woah, woah, what’s going on?” Darcy opens a window and pushes Rebecca’s flushed face there. “Nope, you stay. I will mess up your hair.”

She totally wont. That shit took hours.

“Second thoughts? You need me to steal Steve’s motorcycle so we can make a getaway?”

“Are you kidding me?” Rebecca squawks. “Of course I’m not having second thoughts. But what if he is? What if he regrets this? I’m nothing like his family, I’m not proper, I’m not-“

Darcy clamps her hand over Rebecca’s mouth and waits for her to stop trying to talk. It takes a while for her to run down. There is a reason that they became friends, obviously.

Rebecca takes deep breaths through her nose, then nods her head. Darcy lets her go and straightens.

When Rebecca stands up, she stares at Darcy with bright red spots on her cheeks. “Well.”

“Fuck.” Darcy says.

Rebecca’s lips curve up. Then she laughs. “Fuck.”

“Well, that was a hell of a pep talk.” A voice says through the window.

Darcy throws her purse and Rebecca shrieks and stumbles backwards. Darcy reaches for a taser that isn’t there, but Rebecca rights herself and launches herself towards the window.

“Bucky!”

A beaming face appears in the window, and soon a man is crawling through in army green. A hat comes through after him, but Rebecca pays it no mind, already throwing herself at her brother.

Steve crawls in next, and Bucky turns to Darcy.

“I guess I have you to blame for corrupting my sister?”

“She corrupted herself, I just brought the popcorn.” Darcy quips, and is rewarded with a loud laugh. Bucky’s eyes trace her up and down and she holds out her hand. “Besides that was all part of her pep talk for convincing me I was good enough for Steve even though I swear in church. I’m Darcy Rogers.”

“Bucky Barnes, doll. Glad to meet you.” He shakes her hand, a real handshake. His perusal of her became both less and more pointed.

“I was worried about meeting you, but I shouldn’t have. Steve has good taste. Obviously.”

“Obviously.” Bucky agrees with a pleased smirk.

“There’s two of them, and you found them both.” Rebecca says, standing next to Steve, she smacks his arm. “And look how smug you look!”

Steve does look pretty smug, standing there grinning at them both.

“Alright you, go do best man things.” Darcy tells him. “Maybe let John know that everyone’s here and there is going to be wedding today?”

“Yes ma’am.” Steve says, crossing the room to kiss her. He sets his hands on her hips, and the kiss is quick, but his thumb swirls over the iris. His eyes move over her, and Darcy feels a pleased shiver. “Nice dress. Ya look beautiful.”

Darcy sniffs. “Why do you smell like blood?”

“See you out there.” Steve kisses her cheek and disappears through the door.

Darcy watches him go with her hands on her hips, then turns back to eye Bucky. “He got in a fight and was late picking you up at the train.”

Bucky crows with laughter and herds them out of the room.

Mrs. Barnes goes to stay with her sister and her sister’s smarmy son for a week, leaving the apartment to John and Rebecca. They bring over a mattress from the Barnes apartment for Bucky to sleep on in the living room, and Darcy keeps the radio on at all times given that Steve had been able to hear Rebecca’s giggles across the alley all those months ago.

The guys go out for drinks one night, and Darcy and Rebecca stay in with their own. Talk inevitably turns to sex, which when paired with alcohol, inevitably turns to giggles.

John and Steve come home to red faced wives tittering on the couch. John carries Rebecca home, and Steve helps Darcy out of her clothes and into bed. She’s nearly asleep when she thinks to ask after Bucky.

“He found a dame.” Steve presses a kiss to the skin behind her ear. “Go to sleep, gorgeous.”

Another day they all go out to Ebbet’s Field so Bucky and John could wish the Dodger’s luck for the upcoming season. Steve stands next to her with his hands in his pockets when both men press a hand to the gates.

He’s quiet until Bucky manages to pull him out of it.

On a night that Steve and Bucky are meant to go out for a drink together, Darcy is surprised when Bucky shows up at the apartment alone. She glances at the clock and sees that Steve had barely gotten out of work.

“Punk got held up at work. Said I should wait for him here.”

Darcy gives him a look. “He told you thunderstorms make me sad.”

Bucky shrugs and nods at the same time. “So what are we gonna do to cheer you up, dollface?”

Bucky ends up swinging her around the room, his boots louder than the thunder overhead. He has her out of breath with laughter, but she thinks she gives as good as she gets.

They end up sprawled on the couch. Bucky moves to hang out the window to smoke a cigarette and Darcy blocks his path with her foot. “I would not. In fact, turn the radio back up.”

Bucky’s brows wrinkle, then he winces, and then he laughs.

“I’m glad the punk found you.”

“Oh, me too.” Darcy says, overly serious.

“I think you might be perfect.”

“Au contraire. I'm wildly inappropriate, I can't sew, and I can't cook.” Darcy shifts on the couch and rubs her stomach, sticking out her lower lip. “Speaking of....”

Steve comes home to find Bucky frying up beef chuck sandwiches, the radio turned up loud, and two smirking brunettes in the kitchen.