Chapter Text
"You're late." He taps the index finger his of flesh hand onto the wrist of his metal arm as if anyone even wore watches anymore. He lifts a brow as she casually saunters her way across one of the numerous, fully equipped Stark Industries employee gyms. His face signalling he is waiting for an explanation, knowing full well she already has an excuse ready to go. She always did.
"I know." She says as she pops her lips around a bright red lollipop as she pulls it out of her mouth. "I can totally explain. I needed to get this." She holds up her candy as if it offered any reason as to why she never managed to make their planned training sessions on time.
"A sucker?"
"Yeah. See, I had read somewhere that chewing gum during workouts helps keep you hydrated or some crap. Then I went searching through my desk drawer and no luck. So I remember Jane always keeps candy in the lab for those much needed sugar boost. Soooo I made my way alllll the way up to R&D. Only she didn't have any bubble gum BUT I did find mini Blow Pops. WHICH! Eventually have bubble gum to offer. So bada-bing-bada-boom! I picked that." She smiled at her own ingenious logic.
His face remains impassive. He was trying to process her rationale but he knew it best not to reveal any of his cards to Darcy Lewis or he risked finding himself in an asinine debate... like the one he was close to being drawn into now.
"I brought you one." She says around the lolly that had made its way back into her mouth. She offers both a wrapped treat and puppy dogs eyes as the only form of an apology he is going to get from her.
He quirks a lip and steps to her. He first reaches for the outstretched offering and palms it before reaching for the other. He removes the sweet from her mouth and pops into his own. "Stretch." He commands her and nods to the mats.
Never one to back down, she reaches for his water bottle in his hand not holding the unopened candy and bring it to her lips. She never breaks eye contact as she takes a long pull. After she has her fill, she uses the back of her hand to wipe her lips. She smiles sickeningly sweet as she hands the bottle back to him.
"Lewis." He sighs while shaking his head as he walks to put his towel and a now half gone water down. His takes the sweet from his mouth and tosses it into the nearest trash bin and it goes in with amazing finesse.
"What?" She says defiantly as she moves into a bent calf stretch.
His back to her as he eases into his own set of stretches. "Let me ask you and please answer honestly, though we know you will, why did you ask me to train you? You so obviously hate it. Why am I being bestowed the amazing misfortune of listening to you sulk your way through our hour and a half, three times a week?" He was still peeved at her tardiness but he was beginning to soften. Truth was he liked meeting her for workouts. He considered Darcy Lewis to be the very first friend he made since attempting 'rediscovering himself' after being liberated from Hydra's clutches. She didn't cower from him or who he had been. In fact she damn near spit in the face of the idea that there was ever anything to fear. She sassed him, called him on his bull and never hid what she was thinking. It was refreshing. Where even Steve still occasionally tiptoed around him, Darcy put down a heal and lovingly smushed. He and the dame could match wits all afternoon and neither would back down until it was time to call it a draw. He had a soft spot for the little brat.
"Hmm. Okay, my thought process for picking you? Well, first I asked myself, 'out of all the Superheros I happen to know personally, who has the best butt?'" He swung his head quickly over his shoulder and sure enough she was shamelessly checking out his rear. She met his eyes and shrugged as she continued "...but Natasha is always away on these super crazy long missions. Then I knew if Coulson found out out why I wanted to get fit, I would get a very stern and unwarranted Dad-type lecture from him. So here we are Barnes, my good man. Here we are." She drops to the mat to continue on with floor stretches.
"Third?! I am the third best ass you know?" He makes his way closer to her.
"Third best that I know personally. I don't know any Xmen." She shrugs again and pulls her legs into a crisscrossed seated position. She spends a great deal of their time in the gym sorta lounging and drawing him into conversation than actually working up any sort of sweat.
"Hey Darcy!" Some all too eager blonde Stark employee waves at Darcy from across the floor. Not a total gym rat type guy but obviously someone who is no stranger to the free weight section he was currently enroute to. Bucky actually growls back towards his direction.
"Be nice." Darcy scolds in a whisper before she returns the greeting. "Hey there, Brad." Bucky is quick to pick up on the sudden octave raise of her voice and slight pink to her cheeks as she waves back.
Really, Darce? This chump? He thinks as he obeys her command to play nice. The guy is carrying on across the room anyways. He turns back to Darcy who now twirling the ends of some of her long, soft waves between her fingers and watching the other man's retreat. Bucky can't help but roll his eyes. "So your reason then, Darce?" He breaks her trance.
"Hmm?" She asks.
"Your reason for working out? Apparently, Coulson arguably came before me with a better rump but you said he wouldn't approve of the reason. So what's the reason?" He was glad to have her attention again.
"Oh! I am going to have sex." She offers it as matter of fact.
He is taken back but only momentarily stammers in his return. "Uh... oh... Well Godspeed to ya." He cheers a weak fist into the air. He is quiet for a moment before he continues. "Wow Lewis. You must be into some kinky shit if you need the stamina boost of working out just to apply it to the bedroom." He points out a chin and nods in agreement to his own statement. He's kinda impressed, actually.
"No you perv! I am not doing this to have sex. I am doing this to have sex. Like as in the first time." She furrows her brow and jaunts her face to him. As surprised as he is by this revelation he doesn't stammer at all on this return.
"You're a virgin... You're a virgin?!" It comes out as soon as it is processed.
"Keep it down, huh?" She pops her head around for a quick scan of anyone who may have heard him. "Were you this covert when you were off being a super assassin? Kinda hard to believe you made such a name for yourself." Her retaliation is letting him know he should breach the subject with a gentle ease... Unfortunately for Darcy, that is not really his style.
"Sorry. It's just that... How is that possible? I mean, Darcy. You... Look at you, Doll. You got a body made for sin, ya know that? I seen a lot of smart men do dumb things to be able to pull up a seat next to women like you. How? I mean HOW is that even possible?" He gives her a lingering and appraising once over. He is surprised at how easy his Brooklyn accent floated back in when he addressed her just then. It almost felt like something, someone, inside was trying to make it to the surface. "I mean really. How?"
She sighs into a third shrug. "I don't know really, Okay? I mean, it wasn't easy getting use to filling out all of this in high school." She runs and open, flat palm the length of her body and back up. "So letting any boy get pass a quick feel under my shirt was out. Then college, the boys just kinda sucked. Then there was New Mexico. Jane kinda got the only good one, when he fell from the sky. I was left locals or jacked booted thugs... Although if given a time machine, I probably would have let curiosity win over competitiveness in a game of strip poker with Clint this one night. However, I wasn't really raised to throw a good hand. So I don't think that would really be how I would want to remember it anyways. Then there was, I don't know, AN ALIEN INVASION that changed EVERYTHING. It brought me here, to New York with Jane. Turned into a promising job with SHIELD as a junior Agent until a 90-something-year-old-Solider-being-used-as-a -weapon-of-mass-destruction at the hand of Hydra showed up. With that whole mess SHIELD fell. I managed to maybe, just maybe, use a little nepotism to land a pretty good position at Stark Industries but it was still a life adjustment. So here I am. Darcy Lewis. Totes Virgin."
"Wait. Are you saying this is my fault?" He was mentioned in there somewhere, right?
"Ugh. Of course you would pick up on only that! Barnes, what am I going to do with you?!" She lays back on the floor and brings her legs out so her feet our planted on the floor and knees bent. She covers her face with her hands and shakes her head from side to side before lowering her hands to the mat and continuing. "And you're not suppose to care! Remember?! Doesn't 70 years of intense brainwashing trump the trauma of being a reluctant 24 year old virgin? That is part of why I picked you!" She stops. " No, Barnes. This is not your fault. This is mine. I need to approach this with gusto. I need to go out and get laid! Surely, you can understand?" She rolls her head to the side to get a direct line of sight.
"Doll, more than you know." He gives a slight purse to his lips and joins her on the floor. He makes a move to continue their since forgotten warm ups by twisting into stretches. "More than you know." He says again.
"Nooooo? Barnes? Are you saying, you haven't gone out and found a warm body since officially coming out of occasional deep freeze for good? You are way worse than me!" She has shot up, eyes trained on him.
"How am I worse? I have at least had sex. Sure, not anytime recently, not by a long shot, but I have." Counting out the actual amount of decades would have been depressing.
"Exactly! You know what you're doing! All you would have to do is hop back on that bike. I've got to learn to peddle still. Training wheels! All that stuff. You! You just got to dust yourself off!" Darcy was becoming more and more an encouraging cheerleader by the end of her rant.
"It's ain't that simple, Hun." It was his turn to shrug.
"Oh no? Have you seen YOURSELF? Ever since you chopped of that Hobo Chic hair you were working with and got all 'oh yeah, I was born with smoldering good looks and one of those unbelievably hot butt chins!'. You have totally had the women around the halls swooning. Some of the fellas too." She winks at him.
"Well I am glad you seem to think all of this as just a physical attraction thing. We will be coming back to all of that by the way." He points at her, cementing the place holder pin he was putting in the subject. "However, there is the small, but oh so huge, elephant waiting to sit right in the middle of anything I start up. 'Hi Doll, James Barnes, reformed super assassin. I've got an untold number of kills under my belt. If you can get past my metal limb, I would like to spend some time with you in a dark room. We'll pray I don't have some horrific flashback the second you take your top off. Sound like a date?' Not exactly the kinda game I am told I normally use to work with." He gives her a sincere face. He knows its true. He's not playing the victim. Those are just the facts.
Darcy doesn't see it that way. Her face a wears her disapproval at his outlook.
"What?" He asks. Sometimes being pinned by her glare was worse than her snark. He was beginning to feel self-conscious. He raises his brow as is to non-verbally ask again.
"I am having a hard time knowing whether to pity or pummel you right now, Barnes. You can't keep thinking like that okay? I care about you too much to let be so melancholy. Give yourself some credit every once and a while, huh? Also, please do not make me go off on my whole 'the arm is actually totally hot' tangent again. Once was enough and at least I could blame tequila shots for that one." Her glare unwavering. He has the need to break the tension.
"Aww, Doll. You care about me. I knew you were a sweet on me." He teases.
"Shut up Barnes. I actually hate you." She starts stretching again. He laughs to himself.
"So this working out thing? What? You think you gotta change or something?" The thought of her not thinking she was good enough for anybody bugged him, he would have a hard time holding back on anyone who said she was anything short of fucking unbelievable.
"No. I knooooow I got it going on. Thank you very much!" She attempts over-the-top sass. While he is relieved to hear she knows the truth, he couldn't help but raise a brow at her act. "Okay. I know I got that whole "real women have curves" vibe but I don't know. I hang around people who use their body as weapons every. single. day. Even those stuck behind the desk are ready to take down and invading army at any given minute. Take Agent Jenner for example. Well former Agent, with SHIELD debunked but anywho..." She nods towards the back wall of the enormous space. Bucky shrugs as if to ask who the hell Agent Jenner was. "Brad? The guy you just got in predatory mode for waving at me?" She points again and they both look. This causes Agent Jenner, Brad or whatever to look up at their directions. When he make eyes contact with Darcy, his head dips into a coy smile. Darcy blushes and does the same. Bucky thinks he is going to puke.
"What about him?" He asks, drawing her out of her hesitant flirtation.
"Well, Agent Jenner also spends his day with almost other worldly... Actually Thor is in fact "other worldly". So he quite literally spends his days with other worldly beautiful people. He is nothing short of golden Adonis himself. It makes it kinda hard for us regular ol' hot folks to stand out or rank high on the uber-hot scale. Case in point, I have been making eyes at the very man I am referring to for SIX. MONTHS. Six months, do you think he would be stalling this long if it were Natasha? No, because in here 'Tash is an 11. Where I am a 6 on my good days. It does something to your confidence, man. Let it be known, Darcy Elizabeth Lewis has never let anything knocked her confidence!" She stops herself right as her monologue starts to intensify. She visibly gathers herself and calmly continues with a smile. " So I am being proactive. This is all more of a 'if you build it, they will come... and then I will cum' type of things" She giggles at that. He loves how she was never afraid of letting such filthy things come outa that pretty mouth.
"You're a dime and you God damn know it, Lewis." Bucky actually felt anger at her for placing herself so low. "First off.That's a horrible comparison. Natalia has never waited for a damn thing in her life because she is fucking terrifying." Darcy does her face up in enlightened agreement. "Second. That blonde asshole looks like he just gets too stupid and silly every time you give him a bit of those blues of yours and he can't bring himself to be anything other than the chump I pegged him for when he walked in." He turns back to Darcy. "Maybe what you need is to be making eyes at real man." Bucky felt the need to turn and scowl at the punk for good measure. He looks back at Darcy again and her mouth is slightly agape. 'What just happened?' he asks himself. "What?"
"Nothin'. I was just thinking something I probably shouldn't have been thinking." She shakes her head and is quiet for a moment. "Look, I'm done talking about this. Help me do that back of the leg stretch thing, would ya?" She lays flat on her back again with both knees bent. He makes a note to revisit this later. Seriously, he can't have her going around thinking even Helen of Troy had anything on her. He smirks to himself when he think of the obvious 'Oh yeah, old friend of your's?' joke she was going to make about his age.
He crawls in between both of her legs and lifts one so the back of her knees and part of her calf is resting on his shoulder. The rest of her leg straight in the air and he leans into her. She is giving a little moaning whimper every time he pushes into the stretch a little further. Other than that, they stay quiet. Bucky's head is starting to betray him when she make a surprisingly seductive noise while pinned under his pressure and he begins to think what she would sound like in other positions. She is the one to draw him out of the thought.
"Do you miss it?" She asks as they make a move to switch legs. He settles her up on his other shoulder before replying.
"Miss what?" His head was a bit cloudy.
"Sex. Do you, ya know, miss having it?" Her question is innocent and it makes Bucky even more at a loss of concentration between her open knees.
"You really wanna ask me this now?" He points at their positioning with his face and makes playfully salacious eyes at her.
"Pervert." She moves to swing an open palm at him and he pushes further into the stretch to subdue her. "Ahh! Right there! Oooh, push into it." God, this woman. Moaning under him like this and oblivious to any effect it might be having. He needs to keep up with the conversation and his mind outa the gutter.
"I don't know. I guess maybe. I don't know if I ever really got this whole soulful transcendence from it ever. I mean maybe I did and I just can't remember or I block out the good memories. I don't know, Darce. Maybe it was always 'just sex" with me?" He feels her begin to make a move to get out of the hold so he releases and she sits up. She faces him. They remain on the floor.
"Now that really is sad." She hugs him and releases to look at his face.
"Yeah. Whatever. At least I ain't a virgin." He shrugs and then moves quickly to avoid her swinging hands. Chuckling to himself as evades her enough she gives up chase. "It was too easy, Kid. You left yourself open." He chuckles into it again. "So with you being late and our little 'Girl Talk', our time here is almost up. How about a quick mile sprint on the treadmill and then hit the showers?" We'll double up next time. ON time!"
"Alright. Hit the showers. Gotcha." She nods.
"I said a mile and then shower." He presses.
"Right. Shower and a pastry. You got it, Coach!" By now they are both standing and he takes his retrieved towel to give her a quick snap on the behind with it as she walks away. She gives a skip as it connects and yelps. She collects herself and turns.
"Watch it, Barnes!" She threatens with a pointed finger but he can tell she is smiling once she turns again towards the locker room.
He can't help but watch her retreat.
Once she has made it out of view, he finds the other sucker she brought with her. He unwraps it before putting it into his mouth and starts in on a hanging speed bag. He is mindful of the stick now hanging out of his mouth as he begins in on a steady but fast paced rhythm. He is hypnotized with each rhythmic thud. It serves as soothing background noise as he replays the last half hour with Darcy. The things that they both shared with each other. The level of trust it took. Something he didn't have when he first showed up to Stark Tower with Steve. He had come so far. He was sure Darcy was much to thank for it.
Then as if the very thought of her summoned her out thin air Darcy was behind him. Though he remains uncharacteristically unaware.
"I think we should have sex." She spits out.
In a floundering move not at all expected by the man once know as the Winter Solider, he jumped.
As he went to turn to her, he stepped right into the moving speed bag and it thudded against the top of his eye. If the Red Room could see him now. A picture of cat like reflexes. He puts his hand up to the throbbing. Darcy makes a move to inspect the damage done. Her hair is wet. She obviously made it as far as the showers before turning back around. Her hair smells strongly of the floral shampoo he has grown to love so much.
"What the hell are you taking about, Kid?!"
"Okay... I thought that was pretty obvious but I will go ahead and elaborate." He wasn't sure how his fumble gave the impression that anything about what she had shot out was clear. "You and I have an opportunity to help each other out here. You need to reacquaint yourself and get over that "hump". No pun attended." She waves a hand in the air and continues. "I need to dive in and get it over with. Quit making it this... this thing." Darcy was no longer Darcy. This was plotting and determined Darcy. He would be lying to himself if he didn't admit that this side of Darcy combined with the idea of getting tangled up in some sheets with her wasn't making him a little hard right where he stood. That didn't mean he was dumb enough to agree to it though. Darcy had no business being drawn into his fucked up doom and gloom. She's still looking at him. Waiting for something. He's not sure what to say when she softens and continues.
"Let me be honest with you. I wouldn't be suggesting this if I didn't trust you. If I didn't feel you could trust me. I feel like we could really lean on each other here. James Barnes, will you have sex with me?" She gives him those blue eyes. She accentuates them behind heavy batting of her lashes.
He's screwed.
"Okay." He is not sure when his brain told his mouth to agree. Though he just had. She is laughing loudly and moves to cover her mouth with her hand.
"Oh man! I didn't think you'd actually agree to it!" She laughs some more. Harder this time.
He instantly becomes indignant. "All right. You've had your fun. You done now?" He needed her be gone in order to sulk in the embarrassment she just caused.
"Aww, Barnes. Don't be like that." She takes a step forward and places a hand on his metal arm. The fact it makes no difference to her that its not his flesh arm warms him a bit. "I'm totally serious! I totally wanna rock that bod. I just thought I had my work cut out for me before I got you to agree. Nice to know you're a little horndog." She ruffles his hair.
"Well never let it be said that Bucky Barnes ever turned away a pretty dame who was willing. I've got a reputation to uphold. " He gives her a shit eating grin paired with a leer and he is hoping it is all coming off as seductive.
"That's the spirit! How's Sunday night? I've got a thing all weekend but you could come over Sunday evening. I'll cook. Would you like to have dinner first?" She was on a roll.
"I don't require it." He's having trouble with words alright?
"Jesus Christ, Barnes! You don't require it? You're not the asset anymore. Live a little. Would you like to have some dinner before you see me naked?" There she goes again being unafraid to poke at his past. He is taking inventory of her face. He is certain he is seeing her in a whole new light. He can only nod back his agreement.
"Great. I'll make that thing you like. Ooh, or is that too heavy? How nimble can you be with a belly full of Chicken Parmesan, huh? Assuming one should be nimble for such activities? Should we maybe skip eating all together?" Bucky is getting his revenge for her earlier outburst by knowing she's actually a little nervous despite her calm and calculative outward persona.
He takes pity on her. "No, I love your Parmesan. You know that. I wouldn't miss it for the World." He might as well said he wouldn't miss the sex for the world but he fells it goes without saying. "Maybe just skip making dessert. I'll be bringing it anyways." Ugh, that was rough.
"Eww. Don't make me regret this." They both laugh and it lightens the mood considerably. She visibly looks more at ease. "Okay, Barnes. This will be good. What are friends for after all?" She is nodding along as if convincing herself. "7 o'clock at my place." She takes his lollipop out of his mouth. He was pretty sure he was just drooling around it anyways. She pops it into her's. She smiles wickedly at him. "And don't be late." She winks and starts towards the gym doors.
This time he is certain every swish of the hip was meant for him to watch walk away.