Chapter Text
That’s MY Bucky Bear!
Chapter One: Steve Rogers’ Very Bad No Good Terrible Day
Wisconsin, April 2017
Steve Rogers was having a helluva day.
It had started at dawn, when Bucky had woken him up with a none too gentle shake and they had quickly vacated the safe house they had been bunkering down in for the past three weeks. Bucky had apparently been in one of those moods where he just didn't talk so much. It didn't happen too often since he had woken up from cryofreeze and been healed, so every time it DID happen, it felt sort of jarring for Steve to have his congenial, chatty best friend replaced completely with a sullen, Winter Soldier sort of proxy.
Their rations had turned rotten overnight, so the pitiful symphony of enhanced metabolism fueled stomach gurgles played in their ears all morning as they drove to the pickup point to meet Natasha. They were running late thanks to the damned old pickup truck that refused to go up and above forty-five miles an hour.
"Nervous about seeing Romanoff?" Steve had asked as they got stuck behind a hay baler on a one lane country road.
Bucky grunted in the negative.
Steve rolled his eyes. Natasha had dropped them at the safe house three weeks ago and Steve had DEFINITELY spied a lip lock between she and Bucky. Bucky had refused to speak of it to Steve, refusing to admit it had even happened. If they hadn't of been in such close quarters, Steve would have never heard Bucky three nights into their stay having an amorous type of dream and whispering Natalia in an earnest, wanting sort of way.
Bucky hadn't been amused when Steve had teased him mercilessly about it for the next week.
"She's got a civilian with her," Bucky announced as he finally managed to get around the hay baler and took off as fast as he could, getting the truck up to at least forty-eight miles an hour.
"What?" Steve blinked at Bucky curiously. "Did she contact you outside of the message to pick her up?"
"Coded," Bucky explained.
"How did she fit a code in a twenty word text message?" Steve demanded. “And how did I completely miss it?”
"Time of day she sent it, day she sent it, date she sent it, capitalization, grammar," Bucky rattled off. He shook his head and rolled his eyes at his friend in the first glimpse of amusement he'd managed to hold onto all day. "You're not a spy, punk, I wouldn't expect you to get it."
"Do we know the civilian?" Steve sighed. They were fugitives from the law, absolutely unwelcome in the United States they were currently traveling in. Steve's team were scattered to the winds since the Raft breakout, safe and connected and doing good work, but definitely fugitives and outlaws all the same.
Bucky had been added to the mix four short months ago when things destabilized in Wakanda, and Natasha had thankfully gotten the final piece regarding deprogramming, bringing it in just as the Wakandan physicians and engineers placed the new vibranium arm on. She'd dropped him with Steve afterwards and the duo had been crisscrossing the United States ever since, meeting up with Natasha here and there as they did small missions to protect and defend Earth as a whole.
"The curvy mouthy brunette one," Bucky winked at Steve. "The one you have no interest in whatsoever cause you like willowy blondes now."
"Buck," Steve groaned out. He hated when Bucky brought up Sharon Carter. It had been a disaster the moment he had kissed the woman. One night Steve had met up with Sharon thinking it was a date only to realize it was a logistics and planning meeting. Sharon may have been attracted to Steve at one point, but it was a pitiful thing when compared to the roaring inferno she held in her heart for her work and her principles. She was a Carter woman through and through, and Steve was happy to call her a friend now.
"Natasha thinks that this Lewis girl is being heavily targeted by a handful of bastard organizations, and they're about to make their move," Bucky explained. "She knows too much and too little all at the same time."
Steve's jaw tightened. He had warned against that years ago when Darcy Lewis had started to expand her duties from just taking care of Doctor Jane Foster's notes into taking care of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner and Helen Cho and Erik Selvig. And all of that was after the first awful kidnapping she had endured. Not to mention her personal ties to Thor and the other Asgardians. The woman had access to far too important of information, even if she swore she didn't understand it, and every day the bullseye on her back got bigger and bigger.
He'd drawn the line when she had started to work on finding Bucky three years ago in conjunction with Sam and Natasha.
Of course his protestations had been ignored, and she had continued to hack and slash her way through defunct and active Hydra databases online, until she'd become wanted by that organization as well.
And throughout it all, Natasha had always been avidly trying to set Steve up with Darcy, declaring them the perfect match. It had taken a herculean effort on Steve's part to make sure that didn't happen. Darcy Lewis was on the most wanted list for the top ten most nefarious organizations on Earth and probably beyond. The last thing she needed to add to that list was paramour of Captain America.
And of course there was the other reason. But Steve hated to even think of it.
"What's the play here then? We going to get her somewhere safe?" Steve demanded.
"You could say that," Bucky smirked, his spirits finally fully lifting in his teasing of Steve. "Just hold your horses, pal, all will be revealed in due time."
Elsewhere in Wisconsin
"Fuck you, you fucking assbucket! I hope you shit in bed and roll in it and DIE!"
Natasha smirked from the other side of the alley as she expertly disarmed three men twice her size. Darcy had only had to deal with the one man who wanted to kidnap her, and she was doing quite well with remembering her physical steps in taking down a man twice her size. But no matter how much Clint or Natasha drilled the girl in the past few years, she refused to stay silent during the fighting. Instead, she offered a non-stop commentary of insults, filthy swear words and deeply dark wishes for the person's future well-being, or absence thereof.
They finished at the same time, Natasha applying a widow's bite to the driver coming at her and Darcy finally ramming the head of her potential kidnapper into a trash dumpster until he fell in a slump on the ground.
"Piece of shit mother fucking fuckball!" Darcy spat out before she kicked the guy in his spleen for good measure. She looked around at the four men Natasha had taken out and sighed. "Who are these guys?"
"AIM," Natasha answered.
"That's the second time this month from them!" Darcy wrinkled her nose in annoyance. "When are they gonna get it through their thick skulls that I don't have Tony's passcodes anymore!"
"I'm guessing never," Natasha shrugged.
"I'm---I'm fucking TIRED, Tash," Darcy sighed, leaning against the trash dumpster, careful of the wet spot of blood from her violent efforts. "I'm just---this is ridiculous."
"I know," Natasha smiled. "I have a solution, it's why I took you away from Fury."
Darcy wrinkled her nose. She had quite liked tagging along with Fury for the last eighteen months. It had probably made her at least fifteen new enemies, but Fury was good at protecting her, and she'd even managed to learn a few new swear word combinations under the man's protection. She'd been reluctant to part from him, but when the Black Widow said follow her, it was smart to listen.
It had kept Darcy alive for the last five years, even with being kidnapped seven times already.
"I don't understand what's safer than Nick Fury," Darcy reached her hand out for the SHIELD cuffs that Natasha gave her. The two women made quick work of wrapping the AIM goons up tight, wrapping the cuffs around wrists and ankles and activating them so that the men were hogtied. The activation sequence would alert Coulson and company and they'd be along to pick the ruffians up for questioning in short order. "I mean, half of the time, Maria Hill was with us too, so you know, that was like, super DUPER safe. She can shoot a man quicker than I can say FUCK, which is pretty fast."
"You'll be safer now, I promise," Natasha assured her, leading the way out of the alley to grab a new car from the street. "We have to go, we're meeting up with Rogers and Barnes in fifteen minutes."
"Fine," Darcy sighed, trudging after Natasha. She paused and went back and quickly kicked the man who had dared to try and kidnap her (again). Her foot froze when it went to kick a second time and she spun, turning to face Natasha, who had paused to wait for her.
Natasha's smirk was cat like and amused and entirely too self satisfied.
"Did you say Rogers?" Darcy gulped.
"Yes. I did," Natasha's smirk widened into a beaming grin. "Who could be safer than Captain America?"
"Fuck."
The frozen custard shop in small town Wisconsin was a bit of overkill, if you asked Steve. He and Bucky had ordered two trays full of everything the menu had to offer: hamburgers and hotdogs and french fries and deep fried cheese curds, as well as a pint of each flavor on that day's menu (seven flavors in total). They were waiting patiently outside of the shop at one of the little plastic picnic tables that were bolted into the ground, shaded by the weather worn umbrella above them.
They'd demolished one of the trays of food already, declaring the cheese curds to be the greatest thing ever created. Steve was just about to go back into the shop and replace what they had eaten when his enhanced hearing picked up the sound of a car door closing and a young woman whining.
"It's like a freaking double date from 1955, and I'm pretty sure that three out of the four people here were totally frozen in 1955, and the other person didn't even exist, so it seems just ridiculous to---"
"Barnes was not frozen in 1955, we were actually out on mission together for most of 1955," Natasha murmured as they walked towards the patio area of the frozen custard shop.
"Cold war spy games?" Darcy whispered eagerly. "Oh my god, please tell me about the cold war spy games you got to play with Barnes."
"We had to pose as a married couple," Natasha divulged. "It involved a lot of tumbling around in the bed, if I remember correctly."
"You do, but that wasn't for the mission, doll," Bucky laughed as the girls appeared. He gave Darcy a wink before turning his sultry gaze on Natasha. "Tumbling in the bed was because you couldn't resist pawing at me every opportunity you got."
"ADORABLE," Darcy declared, practically skipping to the table. She held out her hand and grinned, "Darcy Lewis."
"Bucky Barnes," Bucky shook her hand eagerly. "You know that though, cause you made my former torturers pretty pissed with looking for me back in 2015."
Steve huffed out a sigh.
"Oh, look, it's Senor Grumpy Butt," Darcy looked over to Steve with a smirk. "How's your grumpy butt doing, Senor Grumpy Butt?"
"It's been fine since I haven't had to rescue you from overzealous kidnappers for over a year," Steve sassed back.
"Jesus, punk," Bucky sighed, turning an irritated glare Steve's way. "Your ma would have tanned every square inch of your hide---"
"Oh, don't worry Sarge," Darcy assured him. "This is normal. I'd be concerned if Steve was actually polite to me. It's mostly just annoyed grumpybuttedness, hence the term of endearment I use for him."
"I'm sorry, are you still here? I would have thought someone would have tried to take you captive in the last three minutes?" Steve glared down at the woman standing next to his best friend, his jaw ticking in annoyance.
Bucky blinked in amazement at what Steve was managing to do. Steve Rogers had never ever been able to converse with a pretty dame, and despite whatever Steve would try to deny, Darcy Lewis was a looker specifically designed to bring Steve Rogers to his knees in supplication. She had the curves and softness to her body that Steve craved. She was brunette, which despite his failed attempt at dating Sharon Carter, had been Steve’s preference since he was five. And the lips? Bucky remembered Steve sketching pouty lips like that on every blue picture he had drawn for the boys back during the war. And here he was talking to her plain as day when a lady like Darcy would have normally had him drooling. Unless it was about work and war and planning and plotting, Steve was helpless with his mouth around the fairer sex. But here he was, sassing and teasing at Darcy Lewis like his life depended on it.
Bucky looked up at Natasha, who gave him a slow, little wink, the small expression speaking volumes. She had been right. But then again, his Natalia was never, ever wrong that he could remember.
"Where are the deep fried cheese curds?" Natasha demanded.
"I was gonna go get you more, but then I realized if I left this spot, Hydra might follow Miss Lewis' scent and come and try to grab her," Steve snarked.
"Come along, James, let's go and order more," Natasha held out her hand, to which Bucky elegantly accepted. She leveled an arched brow at Steve and said, "Keep her safe."
Darcy made a snorting sound of derision.
"And when have I ever gotten you taken against your will on my watch, Miss Lewis?" Steve demanded as Natasha led an amused Bucky away.
"You know what, it doesn't matter," Darcy grumbled, looking down at the remaining food on the table. She grabbed for a random container of frozen custard and a spoon and began to walk away from the table. "You're an insufferable pain in my ass, Rogers!"
Steve was her shadow as she tried to walk away, following her to the front of the little restaurant towards the car that Natasha had driven them in. He watched her as she opened the container and shoved spoonful after spoonful of butter brickle frozen custard in her mouth as she sat on the roof of the car. She glared at him and swallowed a spoonful before demanding,
"Go back and eat your french fries, Rogers," Darcy ordered.
"Oh, and leave you alone out here so you can find yourself in enemy hands again? I don't think so," Steve answered back. "I don't exactly have the infrastructure to plan a rescue mission. Save me a bite of that, it's my favorite flavor."
"Jump off a cliff, Rogers," Darcy scoffed around another mouthful. "I'd rather be in that torture chamber in the Alps than be sitting in front of you right now!"
Steve felt his jaw clenching again and his hands balled into fists at his hips. Of course she would bring up the Alps. It had been the first and the worst of all of her kidnappings. Steve felt his stomach turn over and his blood boil simultaneously as the picture perfect memory filtered into his mind of what state she’d been in when he’d finally managed to get her cell door open with the shield.
She’d been in a hospital gown, not that he could tell because it was ripped up and covered in disturbingly large stains of her own blood. Her face had been nearly unrecognizable at the time, both of those beautiful blue-green eyes had been swollen shut and colored with black and purple and yellow and green bruises. Her pouting lips had been split. She’d been remarkably thin from too much stress and no food for nearly two weeks. She’d been on her feet when he entered the room, armed with a weapon she’d managed to salvage from her bed frame.
As soon as she had gotten a glimpse of who he was, truly recognizing him, she’d let out one small whimper of relief before passing completely out. Steve had caught her in time, her blood staining a pair of gloves that were still safe in a vault back in New York City.
He wanted to run like hell at her mention of the Alps.
Her first and most brutal kidnapping had been all his fault.
The thing was, Darcy wasn't supposed to know that it was his actions and decisions that had caused her to be kidnapped away from Jane Foster to the Alps just three short weeks after they had fended off the Chitauri Invasion in 2012. Natasha had sworn she'd never be allowed to find out. And Steve was sure Darcy didn't know. It was just that everyone knew that the kidnapping in the Alps had been Darcy's hardest, most difficult and most painful to endure. And she usually never brought it up. Something about the way Steve was itching at her had all of her defenses up and she was using all the metaphorical slings and arrows she had available to her.
"Come back to the table, Miss Lewis," Steve said quietly. "We're going to have to get along for the greater good."
"FUCK the greater good. I'll call Heimdall and ask him to move me to somewhere in outer space that has no one in it," Darcy grumbled.
"You'd STILL manage to get yourself into trouble," Steve shook his head in annoyance and bitter amusement. "We stuck you in the Arctic Circle, and you managed to get carried off by rogue penguins."
"They were MUTATED penguins," Darcy corrected him.
"You're a trouble magnet---"
"Oh, sure and you're the poster boy for responsible living!"
"And you'd think you'd learn after the first time---"
"You are a wanted fugitive, tell me ALL about how to learn and be a responsible adult, Rogers!"
"But you keep getting deeper and deeper into trouble and I can't understand how---"
"YOU WERE A FROZEN CAP-SICLE FOR OVER SIXTY YEARS!"
"Miss Lewis, if we're going to be doing this, you are going to learn about using a more appropriate tone---"
"FUCK YOUR FUCKING FACE OFF YOU PIECE OF SHIT MOTHER- oh shit, what's that?"
Steve's eyes widened as a blast of light came out of driver's side window of an eighteen wheeler whizzing by the frozen custard shop on the very empty road. It wasn't the reflection of the sun off of chrome. It was an amorphous beam of plasma light energy and it was heading straight for them.
"DOWN!" Steve barked out, making a dive for Darcy just as the incredibly cold light beam hit them, knocking them both to the ground at the same time.
"Have I ever told you I find your dastardly ways really very attractive?"
"Yes, at least half a dozen times in the last half of a century," Natasha answered back with a smile right before she popped another of the cheese curds into her mouth. They found their way back to the table and both of them seemed not at all surprised that Darcy and Steve were not where they left them.
"Odds of them still being in the county?" Bucky sighed.
"High," Natasha furrowed her brow, looking around curiously. "Steve hates to leave french fries to get cold."
"What a good ma you are to my little Stevie," Bucky laughed. He focused his senses and looked around, seeing Steve's distinctive sneaker pattern on a bit of earth leading to the front of the shop. He heard crying, getting louder by the second.
Natasha heard it too, and blinked in concern up at Bucky. It was the sound of a child crying. They began walking in unison towards the front of the shop, going through the little bushes that obviously Steve had pushed aside earlier. Bucky picked up a strand of hair that must have gotten caught on one of the branches, long and curly and brown.
"Shhh, stop your whining!" a little voice ordered harshly. "Just---just calm your pants, we just gotta---gotta find Buck and Nat---"
"SHUT YOU FACE HOLE JUST SHUT YOU FUCKING FACE HOLE!"
Natasha's spine went rigid at the words. The sentiments behind them were familiar, very familiar. She'd heard Darcy screaming those sentiments at many people over the last five years. But the pitch and tone and diction of the words was wildly off. Bucky began running, with Natasha following in his footsteps. And in four short seconds, their entire world was spun backwards on its axis.
"YOU OUGHTA GET YOUR MOUF WASHED OUT WIF SOAP, LITTLE LADY!" Steve Rogers hollered, his face turning red. He was dressed in a t-shirt that had once been skin tight on him, but now fit him like a dress, going to just above his knee.
He was nearly four feet tall, towering over Darcy who stood in front of him, her dress drowning her petite little frame even more, she couldn't have even been three and a half feet tall as she glared up at Steve with tears running down her chubby little face.
"I HATE YOU'S STINKIN' GUTS!" Darcy screeched, her hands going to wild brown curls and yanking on them.
"I HATE YOU TOO YOU BIG CRY BABY!" Steve screamed right back, his own hands yanking in mimicry at his downy fine blond locks that hung on his head.
"ASSBUCKET!" Darcy yelled and then shoved, two little hands reaching up and shoving against the tender point in Steve's nose, forcing him to quickly move backwards so that she wouldn’t break it. He landed on his behind, staring up at her in shock as she choked on her next loud insult in favor of bursting into sobs once more. "I WANT MY MOMMY!"
"Holy cow," Bucky whispered.
Steve looked over at that, having heard it with his seemingly enhanced ears and he made a big gulping motion and held up his hands, protesting his innocence.
"I didn't do it, I swear!"