FIC: Rule Number Nine (Avengers) Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers (Explicit) 2/3
Part One || Part Two || Part Three
When Steve gets back to his room the next morning, there's a text message from Darcy waiting for him, sent shortly after he gave up on trying to ignore the noise from Thor's room and dragged his pillow and blanket downstairs. So last night really did happen, and she really does want him to come to her place, Steve thinks, as he stares at the message. When he woke up with his face mashed into the back of the couch, it almost didn't seem real.
The text is simple, her address and a time to meet, and he almost replies and tells her this whole fuddies thing is a really bad idea, but when his finger starts typing it comes out Thanks, see you soon.
The house is unusually quiet for most of the morning. Even Tony, who seems to need very little sleep and almost never suffers from any kind of hangover, no matter how much he drinks, isn't up and around. Steve goes for a run in Central Park, churning out the most distracted five miles of his life. As he's standing on the curb across the street from the house, winded and sweaty, he sees Darcy come out and get into a waiting cab. She spots him and gives a little wave as the cab pulls out into traffic. He barely has time to lift his own hand before she's gone.
He spends the rest of the day vacillating between excitement and dread, unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds. I'm going to Darcy's to have sex with her, he thinks to himself, and can't get over how strange it feels to know that. Bucky made this kind of thing look so easy, but everything having to do with women seemed to come easy for Bucky.
Steve changes his mind about a hundred times before he leaves for her apartment, and then twice more between her stoop and her apartment door, but in the end he knocks and she answers. Some of his nervousness subsides when he sees Darcy standing there, looking a little nervous herself, but still undeniably cute in a bright purple sweater and the kind of yoga pants all women seem to wear now, whether they actually do yoga or not. Her hair is falling loose over her shoulders, like it was when he kissed her the night before.
He almost says, "I don't think we should do this," or something equally stupid, but before he can speak she grins at him and tugs him inside by the front of his jacket. He's barely over the threshold when she kisses him on the mouth, and he suddenly remembers why this seemed like a good idea.
"Hi, Darcy," he says, against the corner of her mouth, a little surprised to find his voice sounds mostly normal, even though his heart feels like it's beating at a ridiculous speed.
"Hi, handsome," she says, and gives him another quick kiss. It's almost embarrassing how happy that makes him feel. He knows, objectively, that he's good-looking now, but he'll always remember what it was like to be the short, skinny guy women didn't look at twice. It still surprises him, sometimes, when other people find him attractive. He's beyond pleased Darcy does.
He looks around a little as she takes his hand and leads him over to the couch. The apartment is a lot like Darcy: an interestingly shaped space with a lot of personality. She's right, though-the red bedroom at the mansion really is bigger than her apartment. The place is filled with colorful, mismatched furniture and odd little tchotchkes, the kitchen is basically just an alcove, and the bedroom has a curtain for a door. It's a comfy, welcoming place, and he notices with delight that she has a crowded shelf of actual paper books. It seems like no one has real books anymore.
The couch is small and beat up, and a weird orange-brown color, partially covered with a fluffy yellow blanket. He sits down on it and tries not to look surprised when she straddles his legs and kisses him some more. This is what he came here for, after all.
The sleeves of her sweater are, like almost all of Darcy's sleeves, way too long, coming down to over her hands, and the fuzz tickles the sides of his face when she runs her thumbs over his cheekbones. "I was afraid you'd change your mind," she says, between kisses, and he must look guilty, because she stops kissing him and makes an exaggerated shocked face. "You were going to back out!"
"I'm not backing out," he says, and he's never meant something so much in his entire life. Now that he's here and she's in his lap, it would take an alien invasion to pry him away from her. Which is always a possibility in his line of work, so he hopes that won't happen for at least a few more hours. She nudges at his jaw with her chin until he tips his head back, and then she leaves a line of hot, sucking kisses along the tendon in his neck. "Definitely not backing out," he chokes out. "Um. Oh, that's--"
"Good to know," Darcy says, her breath on his wet skin sending shivers through him. She uses her hand on his cheek to turn his face until their mouths meet again, and whatever response Steve might have made is lost in the kiss, and the kiss after that, and all the kisses that seem to blend into one long blur of her mouth on his, and her hands in his hair.
Her purple sweater is really soft and fuzzy, and it feels good under his hands when he slides them around her waist and up her back. She makes a pleased sound into his mouth and presses down on him, where he's already hard and ready for her. It makes him suck in a breath and lift his hips to meet her as he slowly tugs the back of her sweater up, trying to get his hands under it, until she says, "Wait, wait."
He stops kissing her and lets his hands fall to her hips, feeling inexplicably guilty about what he was doing, even though they've already agreed to do that and more. She leans her forehead against his as they both catch their breath.
"I forgot we should probably talk about the rules," she says, sitting up a little. "Since I guess you don't know them."
That wasn't at all what Steve was expecting to hear. He had no idea there were rules. If he didn't already feel over his head, he would now. "Right," he says, trying to focus on what she's saying and not how eager he feels and how gorgeous she looks right now. It's not an easy job, especially with her fingers still slipping through his hair, making a mess of it.
"First rule," she says. "Condoms always." Steve nods. He has no problem with that. Theoretically. He knows some guys-jerks, in his opinion-complain about it, but he wouldn't know the difference, so it's nothing to him, and he knows it's the responsible thing to do.
"Second: no spending the night unless invited." This one brings him up short. He hadn't realized that wouldn't be allowed. He nods anyway, even though he's a little disappointed. He's never spent the night with a woman before, obviously, but the idea of it had been appealing.
"No one can know," she says. That one he is on board with, 100%. He's still not even sure if he's totally comfortable with what he's doing, and he feels like he'd mostly be embarrassed if everyone knew. Not embarrassed by Darcy, but that people would know something so private about them. He nods again, vigorously.
"No public displays of affection, especially when we're around our friends. We can talk to each other, act normal, but no kissy face stuff," she continues, and then rattles off the rest more quickly. "Anyone can call it quits at any time, no explanation necessary. No holiday gifts. Always call or text before coming over, no drop-ins allowed." Steve just continues to nod along until she gets to the last one: "And no feelings."
"Feelings?" he asks, taken aback. He already has feelings toward her. That's why he's here.
"Like, romantic feelings," Darcy explains, flipping her hand in the air. "You're my fuddy, not my boyfriend. So no hearts and flowers stuff."
"Ah. Got it," Steve says, and then, because he's finding he doesn't really like this conversation very much, he pulls her down into another kiss. That must be all the rules, because after that the talking stops completely.
The kissing gets a little messier, and he slides his hands up under her sweater and cups her breasts, which makes her squirm pleasantly in his lap. He can feel her nipples poking up through the silky material of her bra, so he circles one with his thumb, which makes her squirm even more, and tip her head back so he can kiss her throat at the same time.
"We should go in the bedroom," she murmurs, sounding gratifyingly short of breath, and Steve couldn't agree more.
Once they get to the bed, it doesn't take long for clothes to start coming off, and his shirts join her sweater on the floor in no time. After she shimmies out of her pants, Darcy rolls him over onto his back and straddles his hips, just in her bra and panties, her hard nipples showing through the nearly transparent pink fabric. Her hair is curling in dark swirls against the skin of her shoulders, and her mouth looks even more lush and tempting than usual, pinked by his kisses. She's even more beautiful this way. He feels like he can't stop touching her.
He's not sure how long it's polite to wait before he tries to take her bra off, so he works around it for a bit, sitting up so he can kiss her neck and the center of her chest where he can feel her heart pounding under his mouth. When he finally works the hooks on her bra loose and gently pushes it away, she's rolling her hips against him, and she guides his head down to suck gently on a nipple. Her breasts are beautiful, round and heavy in his hands, and unbelievably soft. He spends a few minutes concentrating on them, figuring out what makes her moan.
Just when he feels like he's getting the hang of it, she suddenly pushes him down onto his back, rubbing against him, and the skin on skin is a bit of a shock, a sensation he's never felt before. It's wonderful. But then she reaches for his belt, and it's time to come clean. He closes his hands over hers, stopping her. She gives him a questioning look, and there's no turning back now.
"I need to tell you--I've never done this before," he says.
"You've never…." she trails off, eyebrows raised.
"I've never done any of this before," he clarifies. There, he said it.
The shocked look on her face makes him feel even more ridiculous. "Are you joking?" she asks.
"No." God, this is so humiliating.
"But you're-Look at you!" she says. "How did no one hit this, ever?"
That's at least a term he understands-Tony uses it all the time. "It's a long story," he says, and then, when it looks like she might want to hear it, he adds, "And not a very happy one."
"Oh," she says in small voice. "I'm sorry."
Her fingers stop clutching at his belt and instead thread through his and squeeze. It's a sweetly comforting gesture.
After that, there's a long, excruciating silence. Finally, Darcy asks him, "Do you want to do this?"
"Yes. Absolutely," Steve says immediately. Even this painful conversation has barely made a dent in the hard ridge nudging persistently against his belt buckle. There's no way she can miss it.
"Good," she nods. "Me, too." She gives him a reassuring smile. "Listen, I just want to have fun and make you feel good, okay? No pressure. So don't worry about it."
He doubts it's possible for him to not worry a little, but he appreciates the sentiment. "Okay." After another extended silence he asks, "I killed the mood, didn't I?"
"A little," she admits, but she's smiling again, rubbing her thumb against him through his pants, which makes his hips roll up to meet her touch. "But I'm glad you told me. You want to take off your pants now?"
Does he ever.
He feels a little shy about it for a few seconds, mostly because he's unaccustomed to the frankly appreciative look she gives him as he stands and strips. She reaches for him as he crawls back up onto the bed, lightly running her fingers up and down the hard length of him, a teasing touch that makes him shiver. No one's ever touched him there before.
He kneels on the bed between her knees and hooks his fingers under the lacy edge of her panties, then slowly eases them down. She's bare down there, completely, and his surprise must show.
"Yeah, that's another thing about the 21st century you'll have to get used to," she says with a small laugh. Her fingers are still rubbing him gently, making him twitch in her hand. "Wide variety of styling choices for the nether regions."
"Fine with me," he says, and his voice sounds a little more gruff than usual. "Fine" is probably an understatement.
He reluctantly takes her hand off of him-it's too distracting-and nudges her thighs up and apart with his hands so he can finally touch her. She obligingly reaches down and uses two fingers to spread herself open a little for him, and the sight of her touching herself makes him feel like he's been hit in the back of the head, right down to the ringing in his ears. He really-he really likes that. A lot.
Most of his fevered imaginings involved him touching a woman, or a woman touching him. He'd never thought to picture a woman touching herself, and in hindsight that seems like an unfortunate lapse in judgment because holy smokes.
"It's okay, you can touch me," Darcy says, nudging him with her knee, and he realizes he probably looks like an idiot, staring at her with his mouth hanging open. Or maybe she thinks he's hesitant to touch her, which he certainly is not. He shifts a little closer and slides his palm down the inside of her thigh.
He's never seen a naked woman up close like this before, and definitely never one this naked everywhere. He's an artist; he's seen nudes, even drawn nudes himself, and of course there's always been pornography around, no matter what decade he's been in, but this is different. Darcy is live and in person, and right there for him to touch. There's nothing hidden at all.
He runs the pad of his thumb along a delicate pink fold of flesh and hears her suck in a breath as she pushes up towards his touch. She's warm and wet, and not afraid to tell him what feels good as he explores her with his fingers. Once he has the lay of the land, he holds himself over her with a hand braced on the bed and kisses her as he touches her, and slowly slides two fingers up inside her, where she's even hotter and wetter, and unbelievably soft.
She feels impossibly small and tight around his fingers as he works in and out of her body, and when his wrist bumps against her, she moans and says, "Yes," so he changes the angle of his arm until she says, "Right there." Her hands dig into his shoulders, and she arches her back and bears down on the heel of his hand as he presses forward again and again. At the end she gasps and shudders, and he feels her squeeze tightly around his fingers in a fast rhythm. He had no idea that would happen.
They kiss for a while as she catches her breath, him trying not to push himself down into the soft skin of her belly, until she taps her knuckles on his chest and says, "Ready for the main event?"
He really, really is, but he kind of had other plans. "Can I-with my mouth?" He'd been looking forward to it before, and is even more so now.
She looks pleased that he wants to do that, but shakes her head and says, "There'll be time for that later," as she reaches for a box of condoms on the table next to the bed. Steve hadn't even thought to buy any, he realizes much too late. He's lucky Darcy did.
He expects her to hand the little packet to him, but she doesn't. She tears it open, pointing with her chin where wants him, so he kneels between her thighs while she gets the condom out and rolls it onto him with confident fingers. It's snug but not uncomfortable, and she strokes him a couple times after she gets it on, watching his face. He already feels a little-lightheaded.
"C'mon, handsome," she says, urging him down with her knees against his hips. "I think you've waited long enough."
He agrees with that sentiment, so he carefully settles between her legs, propped over her on his arms. His heart is pounding and he's incredibly nervous; he hates that he doesn't know any of these things, what exactly he's supposed to do. The aching part of him slides against her, where she's slick and ready for him, and he shivers.
She reaches down and takes hold of him, guides him into place, much to his relief, because he doubts he would be able to find his own way. He's not prepared for how it feels, how tight she is around him, how hot she feels, even through the condom. He sinks into her with a shuddering breath and says, "Oh, my God."
Darcy doesn't say anything, just gives him a minute to gather his wits as she slowly strokes his sides with her hands, kisses his temple. She's so patient with him. He wants to kiss her face, hold her tight and tell her how much he appreciates it, how much it means to him, but the words get tangled in his throat and he can't. Words are quickly becoming an after-thought anyway, because his body is over-riding his mind, demanding action. He rocks his hips a little, and it feels fantastic, so he does it again, pulling back a little more this time, which makes the slow slide back in even better.
"Mmmm, just like that," Darcy breathes, clutching at his back. "Just like that."
He has no plans to stop, so that's an easy request to follow. He thrusts into her over and over, trying not to go too fast or too hard, but it feels so good it's hard to concentrate. She starts moving with him, tilting her hips up to meet his downward stroke, and that makes it even better. It's indescribable, not at all like he'd imagined, and he's imagined this quite a lot. He's not going to be able to hold out.
He pants, "I don't think I can-"
"It's okay, just do what feels good," she says, urging him on with her hands on his backside. He drops his head next to hers and moves faster, gets maybe a dozen more thrusts in before he's done, breath caught in his lungs as his hips hitch against her in jerky little thrusts. It's so intense his vision swims a little, and he sort of half-collapses on her as the last tremors work through him.
Afterward, he's winded and sweating, like he just ran ten miles, and her fingers are combing through his hair where it's sticking to his neck. He lifts his head and she kisses him, laughing against his mouth and he laughs, too, which kind of ruins the kiss, but makes him feel better, less awkward.
"See? First time out of the way, and you did great," she says, taking his face in her hands and kissing him again through a smile. He knows it wasn't actually great for her in the same way it was for him, but he'll make it up to her as soon as he can.
He's wondered, a time or two, if it wouldn't be easier-and less humiliating-with someone he didn't know, someone he'd never have to see again. At times he's been tempted to treat it like a necessary burden and just get it over with, like getting a haircut. Now he's glad he didn't, because it's nice this way, with Darcy and her smiles.
As relaxed as he is, he's still conscious of how heavy he must be, so after a few minutes he reluctantly lifts off of her. There are a lot of instructions involved in pulling out of her and dealing with the condom.
"You're still totally hard," she says, sounding surprised, as he sits back on his heels, handful of tissues at the ready.
"Yes." He thinks he might be blushing, even after everything they just did. "It usually takes two or three times before--"
"Oh my God, we are going to have so much fun," Darcy says, before he can even finish the sentence. She hands him another condom and says, "Suit up, you're goin' in again."
The second time lasts a lot longer, and he doesn't feel so overwhelmed by sensation, and can pay a little more attention to what's going on, and to her specifically. She bites her lip and says, "Slow, slow," so he goes as slow as he can. Based on the noises she makes, he figures out a gentle, languorous rhythm with a little pause, as deep as he can get, and then an equally slow retreat. That seems to do the trick, and he's able to keep going much longer, and then she starts really talking, telling him yes, like that and now a little faster. He does everything she asks, determined to let her finish first this time, gritting his teeth when she digs her fingernails into his biceps.
It's close, so very close, but finally her thighs tremble against his hips, and she tips her head back and makes a sound that reaches right into his gut and twists. Her orgasm feels amazing, all her little muscles contracting around him in a fluttering pulse, gripping him even more tightly as he rides it out, wanting to wring every inch of pleasure out of her. He watches her, thrilled, until he can't hold back anymore, and then he squeezes his eyes shut and finally follows her.
~*~
Steve feels terribly guilty for thinking it, but there's no denying that he sort of dreads seeing Darcy at the house for the first time the next morning. Even more so when he belatedly realizes that his home is her place of employment--he's been to the SHIELD workplace sexual harassment seminar, he knows the rules. Also, Tony might not be thrilled that Steve is fuddies with his assistant, though Pepper used to be Tony's assistant, Steve remembers, and, well. Tony should understand.
Eventually he also remembers that Darcy is Jane and Thor's friend, and that having sex with her could complicate everyone's relationships with each other. For several uncomfortable minutes, Steve's horrified that he's managed to simultaneously break so many rules.
Then Darcy walks into the kitchen and nonchalantly punches him on the shoulder with her phone and says to Bruce, "I'll take one with blueberries, please." She sits down next to Steve and smiles, nudges his knee lightly under the table before becoming completely absorbed in updating Tony's Twitter account, and none of that stuff matters at all.
After that it's fine. They're both really good at being discreet, and both aware that Jarvis sees everything, so there are no stolen kisses or secret liaisons, even when they're alone in the house. But there are a lot of kisses and liaisons when they're elsewhere. A lot.
Steve thinks that if he had known just how great sex is, he wouldn't have waited quite so long to have some. And Darcy appears to know a lot about sex, and lot of different ways to have sex, and she seems perfectly comfortable-and very enthusiastic about-showing him all of it.
They spend a whole day on oral sex alone, which is a glorious day as far as Steve is concerned. First she teaches him how to use his mouth on her, which he enjoys immensely. For long, long minutes she lays open in front of him and tells him what feels good and what doesn't, moaning encouragement when he gets it right, and gently nudging him elsewhere when he doesn't. She hangs onto his head and arches up against his tongue, which makes him so hard he can barely see straight when he finally levers himself up and guides her hand to him. It doesn't take much before he's gasping for air and striping the gentle curve of her belly, barely done before he collapses next to her.
For about half an hour or so, it's the most intense sexual experience of his life so far, and then she completely flattens him with his first blowjob.
After that they spend several visits on all the variations of her on top of him-Steve had no idea there were so many-and then she gives him an appraising look and says, "Super strength, huh?" and they try a few more acrobatic positions. A few of those end in laughter, and only one in bruises.
It seems there's no end to the things they can try, and even the ones he thinks are just okay are still pretty darn good. But many of them are absolutely fantastic. He kneels on the bed and pushes into her from behind-a favorite, because he can span her waist with his hands, smooth his fingers over the rounded curves of her hips, watch himself moving in and out of her. He holds her up against the wall of the shower and blinks water out of his eyes and thrusts up into her; curls up behind her and presses inside while his fingers work between her legs; kneels next to the bed and makes her cry out over and over again with his mouth, hands pressing her thighs open until she begs for a break.
As much as he enjoys the sex, he likes the parts before and after it nearly as much. He likes going to her apartment and cuddling on the couch a little beforehand, catching up with each other before they move to the bedroom. He likes standing in the kitchen, naked and pleasantly tired, eating cold pizza from the refrigerator. He likes the way she sometimes pushes his damp hair off his forehead and kisses him there when they're done, and he likes dozing in her bed with his arm slung over her between rounds. As much as he hates to leave, he likes kissing her goodbye at the door, pinching her lovely bottom on his way out, just to make her laugh and smack him on the arm.
But he does hate to leave before morning. He hates it more as time goes on, really, but he respects her too much to try to talk her into letting him stay. He thinks it would be nice, though, if she wanted him to. He'd like to wake up together in the same bed, naked and warm. He'd like to make her moan, and watch her hands clutch at his shoulders in the early morning light, and then eat breakfast together, just the two of them at the crooked little table under the window. He's not sure she would welcome the suggestion, though, since there's a rule against it and everything. It's better to not say anything about it at all.
~*~
At first they see each other once a week or so, and he leaves it to Darcy to initiate, but their lives being what they are, sometimes plans fall through, and after a while he gets more comfortable sending her text messages and asking if he can come over when he's free. He never breaks the "no drop-ins" rule.
They go on some more Not Dates to official things, and he buys her more jewelry. This is very obviously against the rules, but he decides that it will seem suspicious if he stops--Tony will definitely ask why--so he keeps doing it and she lets him. The first time he shows up at her door with another velvet box, he has a whole argument in favor of jewelry purchases ready to go, but she doesn't bring it up.
So that's one rule broken right from the start, but there are seven more, and he'll stick to those.
Darcy is a text messaging fiend, sometimes sending several in a row faster than he can respond to them, even if he's got his phone in his hand already. She sends him pictures of herself, of interesting or funny stuff she sees while she's out and about, and sometimes embarrassing photos of Tony doing things like getting his facial hair dyed. Other times she sends him sweet messages like Good morning, handsome that end with something that looks like a little sideways butt, or maybe an ice cream cone: <3. He has no idea what that means, but the words stay with him all day, and he often re-reads them when he needs something to cheer himself up, so the sideways butts hardly matter.
As time goes on, more and more often he finds himself seeking her out after a mission, either looking for her in the house if she's working, or asking if he can come to her place if she isn't. At the house they can't ever to anything more than talk for a few minutes, but sometimes that's all he needs. At her place they always have sex, but sometimes he naps with his head in her lap for a while first. Just seeing her makes him feel better, and while there's no rule in particular against what he's doing, he suspects there should be, because he feels like he's becoming dependent on it.
There are a lot of things about his friends he understands so much better now. He understands the way Tony acts toward Pepper, the way he focuses on her and defers to her in a way Steve rarely sees him do with anyone else. He understands the look on Thor's face when Jane walks into the room, and Betty being Bruce's first phone call after he de-Hulks.
Before this, he'd never known what it was like to have a beautiful girl waiting for him when he took off his uniform and went back to being Steve Rogers; not during the war, not during his stint with the USO. Back then he'd spent months with only the thought of Peggy, the hope Peggy represented, and one black and white picture of her, torn from an article in Stars and Stripes, and nothing more. It had felt like enough at the time-it had felt like everything, more than he'd ever had up until that point-but this is different. He and Darcy have so many of the things he never got a chance to have with Peggy, but wanted to so badly. Some days he can barely believe how lucky he is.
People like the Avengers work hard to make sure people like Darcy never have to know just how truly terrible human beings can be, and never have to suffer it first-hand. That's all Steve's wanted his whole life, was to do what he's doing now-to push back, to protect people. He had never imagined the cost, of course. He'd naively thought the worst price he'd pay would be his own life. Now he knows there are worse things to lose.
When he's with Darcy, he doesn't feel like a man whose body was created to go to war. A man who has seen the worst of humanity, who has killed more people than he cares to count, or even can count.
He feels good, he feels happy. He feels almost normal.
~*~
Summer passes, then turns into fall, and they slowly start doing more things together that aren't official Avengers functions, but are still Not Dates. They go to a few movies, and out for meals a couple times, all things that can be passed off as friends hanging out. Darcy always insists on splitting the bill, which offends all of Steve's sensibilities, but he lets it go.
She goes to Brazil with Tony for ten long days, and Steve nearly loses a thumb to a guy with four arms and three swords, but he doesn't tell her about it. He's fully healed by the time she gets home anyway, which is a good thing, because she texts him as soon as she's back in New York, a little smiley-faced invitation to come over, and practically tackles him at the door.
He doesn't even get his jacket off before she's pushed him down onto the couch and opened his pants, and as she leans over to dig a condom out of her bag, he sees she's not wearing any panties under her skirt. She's soaking wet and swollen when he touches her, and she sinks down onto him hard and fast, moaning in his ear that she couldn't wait to see him, couldn't stop thinking about this, and he pants, "Me, too, Darcy. Me, too," and manages to wait until she comes twice before he uses his hands on her hips to hold her down as he thrusts up into her and muffles his cries in her neck.
Two days later they have their first real fight, which seems to spring up out of nowhere. Steve swears one minute they're having a normal conversation and the next they're arguing, about something so pointless he can't believe he's not just letting it drop, but it escalates until Darcy invites him to leave, and that's what finally brings him up short.
"Okay, wait," he says, spreading his hands placatingly between them. "I don't want to fight about this, and I really don't want to leave when we're mad at each other."
"Well, I'm not leaving. This is my house!" Darcy says. Her cheeks are flaming red.
"I meant I don't want either of us to leave," he explains, after he takes a deep breath. If there's one thing he's learned so far in his life, it's that every time you walk away from someone, it could be the last time you see them. He's not going to storm out of here while they're both still angry.
He doesn't tell her this, because he doesn't want to come across as manipulative. One thing Steve hates is being treated differently or pitied because of the way his life has turned out, both good and bad. What he says is, "I don't even know why we're fighting about this."
She glares at the television, which isn't on, and chews on her lip. "I don't either," she admits grudgingly. "I guess."
He spreads his arms. "Let's hug it out," he says, which is what Tony uses to get hugs even when no one is arguing with him, and that dispels about half the tension in the room right there, because she cracks up.
"Seriously, don't say stuff like that," she says, shaking her head as she walks into his open arms. "I can't handle you talking like Tony." But she grabs on tight anyway, and he folds himself around her as thoroughly as he can.
"I'm sorry," he says against the top of her head, and he doesn't mean for talking like Tony.
She gets it. She gives him a squeeze. "Me, too."
"You should have seen him today," Steve tells her when it becomes clear they're going to be standing here hugging a little longer. Tony is a safe subject right now. "Someone put an 'Intel Inside' sticker on the back of the suit while we were waiting for the police to get the perimeter set up." Even Steve knows Tony considers this a grave insult.
"Oh my God," Darcy says, sounding awed. "Did you get a picture?"
"Clint did," he assures her.
She lets go of him long enough to do a double fist-pump. "That's totally going on the Twitter account!" she crows. "I bet it makes Boing Boing, too!" Darcy gets a five thousand dollar bonus every time Tony gets mentioned on Boing Boing. Steve's been to that website and it seems like a lot of stuff about bananas and zombies, but Tony thinks it's a big deal.
He grins at her, relieved the fight's over, and also just naturally pleased to see her so happy about something; Darcy's enthusiasm tends to be contagious, especially where Steve's concerned. She grabs him by the hand and tugs him over to the couch, which is another good sign. Her cheeks are still red, but now it's from excitement, and probably the warmth generated by imagining what she'll do with five thousand dollars.
"So, are we cool?" Steve asks, after they get settled and exchange a few kisses, just to make her cover her face and laugh. It works.
~*~
"Hey, are you coming over tonight?" Darcy asks Steve as she bounces in a circle around him. She's convinced him to jump on the trampoline with her while she waits for Natasha to finish cleaning up and get downstairs. Natasha's teaching her how to do a backflip in the air; she's already mastered the somersault.
Thor and Bruce are likely crashed out in their rooms, and Tony has already climbed into his helicopter and left for a conference in Seattle, much to Darcy's obvious relief. Natasha got held up at SHIELD with a couple necessary stitches, which is how Steve beat her home.
"Absolutely," Steve says. It's become a more or less regular weekend thing now, or as regular as it can be when he's an Avenger and she works for Tony Stark. But Saturday has sort of become their night, if they're both available. He looks forward to it all week.
"Good, because we're leaving on Monday, and I need to get my fix," she says, giving him the little teasing smirk that makes his whole body feel hot. She's going to China with Tony and Pepper for two weeks, on some combination of business trip and vacation. She's been looking forward to it for months.
Darcy doesn't travel with Tony every time he goes somewhere, but when she does it tends to alternate between being a complete blast and a constant heart attack, from what she describes. She seems to like it anyway, and loves telling Steve all about it, complete with what has become a spot-on Tony impression. Steve actually enjoys these insights into Tony's life, which oftentimes is even more absurd than Steve realized. Rich guys are weird.
"I think we should get tacos," she says, bouncing so high he's looking at her knees. "And a giant basket of tortilla chips."
"Uh huh," Steve says, distracted. It's really hard to not look at her shirt when they do this. He can feel himself starting to respond to her already, which is pretty normal, but right now that response is being accelerated by thoughts of seeing her later. Specifically, of what he wants to do later. He recently confessed to his fondness for watching her touch herself, and she's been extremely accommodating in that regard.
He's a little shocked, sometimes, by the sex. Before Darcy, he'd spent a lot of time imagining sex in general, but he never pictured it being as fast and hard as it sometimes gets, certainly never imagined the things she says-the things he says-or how good it would feel to just forget everything and thrust into her over and over, let his body do what it wants.
But he also didn't expect it to sometimes be slow and almost lazy, when he feels like he could keep moving inside her forever, and he makes her clench around him again and again, as many times as he can. Or expect her to tease him with her mouth or her hands, until he's shaking and desperate. Once she even made him say, "Please," which he did, over and over again, until he spilled over her fingers and onto his own stomach. He hadn't expected that at all.
He's not sure how long they're going to continue to be fuddies, but he thinks he could keep doing it for a long time yet. He loves the way she looks, the way she tastes, all the different noises she makes, which he's learned to differentiate as time goes on. When he doesn't see her for days at a time he wants her so badly he can barely think of anything else. Sometimes it's a little frightening, how much power this thing with her has over him, and how much he needs it.
He smiles at her as she bounces on the trampoline in the afternoon sunlight, hair wild, laughing as she flings her arms over her head, and it almost feels like he didn't watch someone else's blood swirl down the drain in the shower less than an hour ago. He's so grateful for that, he wouldn't even begin to know how to tell her.
~*~
Winter comes, and she wears the ladybug scarf. They go ice skating, and to see the Rockettes, which they both love. When the sun shines and the air is brittle, they go window shopping and drink hot chocolate, and he wishes he could hold her hand, and squeeze her fingers through her thick red mittens, but doesn't dare try. He's happy with what he has, he really is. He's happy with what they agreed on, even if it's not perfect. Nothing ever is.
There's a holiday party at the house, just for the group, and everyone exchanges presents. Steve gives Darcy a pair of sapphire earrings, and a coin purse shaped like a monkey's face. She gives him a beautiful book about the Louvre--seven hundred pages in all--full of some of the most gorgeous reproductions he's ever seen. Everyone exchanges gifts that night, and Tony's are preposterously extravagant-a few people get cars-so their gifts to each other don't stand out at all.
The next night, they go to an official holiday ball, for a charity that's a pet project of Bruce's. Before they leave the house, Steve gives Darcy the second part of her Christmas present, which is a necklace that matches the sapphire earrings. Her dress is a pale, icy blue, nearly white, and the jewelry is perfect with it. She looks like a sliver of winter itself, except when she smiles and the warmth of it isn't wintery at all.
The ball feels like it has an even bigger crowd than usual, and for some reason Steve's finding his tolerance for the dog and pony show is wearing thin. When he's reached his limit, he smoothly guides Darcy out of the ballroom and they go for a walk in the atrium, which is deserted. It's full of tropical flowers and fruit trees, welcome in the middle of winter. There's also a small waterfall, but it reeks of chlorine, which kind of ruins the illusion of being in a rainforest.
They sit down at a small bench by the waterfall and she scoots under his arm. This technically breaks the "no public displays of affection" rule, but there's no one else here to see.
"Are you okay?" she asks him. He can feel her eyes on him, and gives her a reassuring smile. She reaches up to where his hand is cupping her bare shoulder and threads her fingers through his.
"I will be. I'm just a little tired, I guess. And I never know what to say to people at these things," he confesses.
She does an almost comical double-take that makes him stifle a laugh. "Really?"
He's surprised she's surprised. "Yes, really." He supposes he should be glad his discomfort isn't obvious, even to someone who knows him as well as Darcy does. He's gotten good at pretending.
"I would never have known," she admits. "You always seem so…I don't know. Confident. Like you always know exactly what to do. And it's not like you have to impress anyone, anyway. People love you."
"People love Captain America," he says with a little laugh. "They don't even know me."
"I know you," she says, leaning in a little closer. She bumps her nose against his. "And I-" Steve heart feels like it just flat out stops "-like you plenty."
It's close enough, Steve tells himself as he smiles and kisses her on the cheek and tells her he likes her, too. Close enough.
Continued here.
When Steve gets back to his room the next morning, there's a text message from Darcy waiting for him, sent shortly after he gave up on trying to ignore the noise from Thor's room and dragged his pillow and blanket downstairs. So last night really did happen, and she really does want him to come to her place, Steve thinks, as he stares at the message. When he woke up with his face mashed into the back of the couch, it almost didn't seem real.
The text is simple, her address and a time to meet, and he almost replies and tells her this whole fuddies thing is a really bad idea, but when his finger starts typing it comes out Thanks, see you soon.
The house is unusually quiet for most of the morning. Even Tony, who seems to need very little sleep and almost never suffers from any kind of hangover, no matter how much he drinks, isn't up and around. Steve goes for a run in Central Park, churning out the most distracted five miles of his life. As he's standing on the curb across the street from the house, winded and sweaty, he sees Darcy come out and get into a waiting cab. She spots him and gives a little wave as the cab pulls out into traffic. He barely has time to lift his own hand before she's gone.
He spends the rest of the day vacillating between excitement and dread, unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds. I'm going to Darcy's to have sex with her, he thinks to himself, and can't get over how strange it feels to know that. Bucky made this kind of thing look so easy, but everything having to do with women seemed to come easy for Bucky.
Steve changes his mind about a hundred times before he leaves for her apartment, and then twice more between her stoop and her apartment door, but in the end he knocks and she answers. Some of his nervousness subsides when he sees Darcy standing there, looking a little nervous herself, but still undeniably cute in a bright purple sweater and the kind of yoga pants all women seem to wear now, whether they actually do yoga or not. Her hair is falling loose over her shoulders, like it was when he kissed her the night before.
He almost says, "I don't think we should do this," or something equally stupid, but before he can speak she grins at him and tugs him inside by the front of his jacket. He's barely over the threshold when she kisses him on the mouth, and he suddenly remembers why this seemed like a good idea.
"Hi, Darcy," he says, against the corner of her mouth, a little surprised to find his voice sounds mostly normal, even though his heart feels like it's beating at a ridiculous speed.
"Hi, handsome," she says, and gives him another quick kiss. It's almost embarrassing how happy that makes him feel. He knows, objectively, that he's good-looking now, but he'll always remember what it was like to be the short, skinny guy women didn't look at twice. It still surprises him, sometimes, when other people find him attractive. He's beyond pleased Darcy does.
He looks around a little as she takes his hand and leads him over to the couch. The apartment is a lot like Darcy: an interestingly shaped space with a lot of personality. She's right, though-the red bedroom at the mansion really is bigger than her apartment. The place is filled with colorful, mismatched furniture and odd little tchotchkes, the kitchen is basically just an alcove, and the bedroom has a curtain for a door. It's a comfy, welcoming place, and he notices with delight that she has a crowded shelf of actual paper books. It seems like no one has real books anymore.
The couch is small and beat up, and a weird orange-brown color, partially covered with a fluffy yellow blanket. He sits down on it and tries not to look surprised when she straddles his legs and kisses him some more. This is what he came here for, after all.
The sleeves of her sweater are, like almost all of Darcy's sleeves, way too long, coming down to over her hands, and the fuzz tickles the sides of his face when she runs her thumbs over his cheekbones. "I was afraid you'd change your mind," she says, between kisses, and he must look guilty, because she stops kissing him and makes an exaggerated shocked face. "You were going to back out!"
"I'm not backing out," he says, and he's never meant something so much in his entire life. Now that he's here and she's in his lap, it would take an alien invasion to pry him away from her. Which is always a possibility in his line of work, so he hopes that won't happen for at least a few more hours. She nudges at his jaw with her chin until he tips his head back, and then she leaves a line of hot, sucking kisses along the tendon in his neck. "Definitely not backing out," he chokes out. "Um. Oh, that's--"
"Good to know," Darcy says, her breath on his wet skin sending shivers through him. She uses her hand on his cheek to turn his face until their mouths meet again, and whatever response Steve might have made is lost in the kiss, and the kiss after that, and all the kisses that seem to blend into one long blur of her mouth on his, and her hands in his hair.
Her purple sweater is really soft and fuzzy, and it feels good under his hands when he slides them around her waist and up her back. She makes a pleased sound into his mouth and presses down on him, where he's already hard and ready for her. It makes him suck in a breath and lift his hips to meet her as he slowly tugs the back of her sweater up, trying to get his hands under it, until she says, "Wait, wait."
He stops kissing her and lets his hands fall to her hips, feeling inexplicably guilty about what he was doing, even though they've already agreed to do that and more. She leans her forehead against his as they both catch their breath.
"I forgot we should probably talk about the rules," she says, sitting up a little. "Since I guess you don't know them."
That wasn't at all what Steve was expecting to hear. He had no idea there were rules. If he didn't already feel over his head, he would now. "Right," he says, trying to focus on what she's saying and not how eager he feels and how gorgeous she looks right now. It's not an easy job, especially with her fingers still slipping through his hair, making a mess of it.
"First rule," she says. "Condoms always." Steve nods. He has no problem with that. Theoretically. He knows some guys-jerks, in his opinion-complain about it, but he wouldn't know the difference, so it's nothing to him, and he knows it's the responsible thing to do.
"Second: no spending the night unless invited." This one brings him up short. He hadn't realized that wouldn't be allowed. He nods anyway, even though he's a little disappointed. He's never spent the night with a woman before, obviously, but the idea of it had been appealing.
"No one can know," she says. That one he is on board with, 100%. He's still not even sure if he's totally comfortable with what he's doing, and he feels like he'd mostly be embarrassed if everyone knew. Not embarrassed by Darcy, but that people would know something so private about them. He nods again, vigorously.
"No public displays of affection, especially when we're around our friends. We can talk to each other, act normal, but no kissy face stuff," she continues, and then rattles off the rest more quickly. "Anyone can call it quits at any time, no explanation necessary. No holiday gifts. Always call or text before coming over, no drop-ins allowed." Steve just continues to nod along until she gets to the last one: "And no feelings."
"Feelings?" he asks, taken aback. He already has feelings toward her. That's why he's here.
"Like, romantic feelings," Darcy explains, flipping her hand in the air. "You're my fuddy, not my boyfriend. So no hearts and flowers stuff."
"Ah. Got it," Steve says, and then, because he's finding he doesn't really like this conversation very much, he pulls her down into another kiss. That must be all the rules, because after that the talking stops completely.
The kissing gets a little messier, and he slides his hands up under her sweater and cups her breasts, which makes her squirm pleasantly in his lap. He can feel her nipples poking up through the silky material of her bra, so he circles one with his thumb, which makes her squirm even more, and tip her head back so he can kiss her throat at the same time.
"We should go in the bedroom," she murmurs, sounding gratifyingly short of breath, and Steve couldn't agree more.
Once they get to the bed, it doesn't take long for clothes to start coming off, and his shirts join her sweater on the floor in no time. After she shimmies out of her pants, Darcy rolls him over onto his back and straddles his hips, just in her bra and panties, her hard nipples showing through the nearly transparent pink fabric. Her hair is curling in dark swirls against the skin of her shoulders, and her mouth looks even more lush and tempting than usual, pinked by his kisses. She's even more beautiful this way. He feels like he can't stop touching her.
He's not sure how long it's polite to wait before he tries to take her bra off, so he works around it for a bit, sitting up so he can kiss her neck and the center of her chest where he can feel her heart pounding under his mouth. When he finally works the hooks on her bra loose and gently pushes it away, she's rolling her hips against him, and she guides his head down to suck gently on a nipple. Her breasts are beautiful, round and heavy in his hands, and unbelievably soft. He spends a few minutes concentrating on them, figuring out what makes her moan.
Just when he feels like he's getting the hang of it, she suddenly pushes him down onto his back, rubbing against him, and the skin on skin is a bit of a shock, a sensation he's never felt before. It's wonderful. But then she reaches for his belt, and it's time to come clean. He closes his hands over hers, stopping her. She gives him a questioning look, and there's no turning back now.
"I need to tell you--I've never done this before," he says.
"You've never…." she trails off, eyebrows raised.
"I've never done any of this before," he clarifies. There, he said it.
The shocked look on her face makes him feel even more ridiculous. "Are you joking?" she asks.
"No." God, this is so humiliating.
"But you're-Look at you!" she says. "How did no one hit this, ever?"
That's at least a term he understands-Tony uses it all the time. "It's a long story," he says, and then, when it looks like she might want to hear it, he adds, "And not a very happy one."
"Oh," she says in small voice. "I'm sorry."
Her fingers stop clutching at his belt and instead thread through his and squeeze. It's a sweetly comforting gesture.
After that, there's a long, excruciating silence. Finally, Darcy asks him, "Do you want to do this?"
"Yes. Absolutely," Steve says immediately. Even this painful conversation has barely made a dent in the hard ridge nudging persistently against his belt buckle. There's no way she can miss it.
"Good," she nods. "Me, too." She gives him a reassuring smile. "Listen, I just want to have fun and make you feel good, okay? No pressure. So don't worry about it."
He doubts it's possible for him to not worry a little, but he appreciates the sentiment. "Okay." After another extended silence he asks, "I killed the mood, didn't I?"
"A little," she admits, but she's smiling again, rubbing her thumb against him through his pants, which makes his hips roll up to meet her touch. "But I'm glad you told me. You want to take off your pants now?"
Does he ever.
He feels a little shy about it for a few seconds, mostly because he's unaccustomed to the frankly appreciative look she gives him as he stands and strips. She reaches for him as he crawls back up onto the bed, lightly running her fingers up and down the hard length of him, a teasing touch that makes him shiver. No one's ever touched him there before.
He kneels on the bed between her knees and hooks his fingers under the lacy edge of her panties, then slowly eases them down. She's bare down there, completely, and his surprise must show.
"Yeah, that's another thing about the 21st century you'll have to get used to," she says with a small laugh. Her fingers are still rubbing him gently, making him twitch in her hand. "Wide variety of styling choices for the nether regions."
"Fine with me," he says, and his voice sounds a little more gruff than usual. "Fine" is probably an understatement.
He reluctantly takes her hand off of him-it's too distracting-and nudges her thighs up and apart with his hands so he can finally touch her. She obligingly reaches down and uses two fingers to spread herself open a little for him, and the sight of her touching herself makes him feel like he's been hit in the back of the head, right down to the ringing in his ears. He really-he really likes that. A lot.
Most of his fevered imaginings involved him touching a woman, or a woman touching him. He'd never thought to picture a woman touching herself, and in hindsight that seems like an unfortunate lapse in judgment because holy smokes.
"It's okay, you can touch me," Darcy says, nudging him with her knee, and he realizes he probably looks like an idiot, staring at her with his mouth hanging open. Or maybe she thinks he's hesitant to touch her, which he certainly is not. He shifts a little closer and slides his palm down the inside of her thigh.
He's never seen a naked woman up close like this before, and definitely never one this naked everywhere. He's an artist; he's seen nudes, even drawn nudes himself, and of course there's always been pornography around, no matter what decade he's been in, but this is different. Darcy is live and in person, and right there for him to touch. There's nothing hidden at all.
He runs the pad of his thumb along a delicate pink fold of flesh and hears her suck in a breath as she pushes up towards his touch. She's warm and wet, and not afraid to tell him what feels good as he explores her with his fingers. Once he has the lay of the land, he holds himself over her with a hand braced on the bed and kisses her as he touches her, and slowly slides two fingers up inside her, where she's even hotter and wetter, and unbelievably soft.
She feels impossibly small and tight around his fingers as he works in and out of her body, and when his wrist bumps against her, she moans and says, "Yes," so he changes the angle of his arm until she says, "Right there." Her hands dig into his shoulders, and she arches her back and bears down on the heel of his hand as he presses forward again and again. At the end she gasps and shudders, and he feels her squeeze tightly around his fingers in a fast rhythm. He had no idea that would happen.
They kiss for a while as she catches her breath, him trying not to push himself down into the soft skin of her belly, until she taps her knuckles on his chest and says, "Ready for the main event?"
He really, really is, but he kind of had other plans. "Can I-with my mouth?" He'd been looking forward to it before, and is even more so now.
She looks pleased that he wants to do that, but shakes her head and says, "There'll be time for that later," as she reaches for a box of condoms on the table next to the bed. Steve hadn't even thought to buy any, he realizes much too late. He's lucky Darcy did.
He expects her to hand the little packet to him, but she doesn't. She tears it open, pointing with her chin where wants him, so he kneels between her thighs while she gets the condom out and rolls it onto him with confident fingers. It's snug but not uncomfortable, and she strokes him a couple times after she gets it on, watching his face. He already feels a little-lightheaded.
"C'mon, handsome," she says, urging him down with her knees against his hips. "I think you've waited long enough."
He agrees with that sentiment, so he carefully settles between her legs, propped over her on his arms. His heart is pounding and he's incredibly nervous; he hates that he doesn't know any of these things, what exactly he's supposed to do. The aching part of him slides against her, where she's slick and ready for him, and he shivers.
She reaches down and takes hold of him, guides him into place, much to his relief, because he doubts he would be able to find his own way. He's not prepared for how it feels, how tight she is around him, how hot she feels, even through the condom. He sinks into her with a shuddering breath and says, "Oh, my God."
Darcy doesn't say anything, just gives him a minute to gather his wits as she slowly strokes his sides with her hands, kisses his temple. She's so patient with him. He wants to kiss her face, hold her tight and tell her how much he appreciates it, how much it means to him, but the words get tangled in his throat and he can't. Words are quickly becoming an after-thought anyway, because his body is over-riding his mind, demanding action. He rocks his hips a little, and it feels fantastic, so he does it again, pulling back a little more this time, which makes the slow slide back in even better.
"Mmmm, just like that," Darcy breathes, clutching at his back. "Just like that."
He has no plans to stop, so that's an easy request to follow. He thrusts into her over and over, trying not to go too fast or too hard, but it feels so good it's hard to concentrate. She starts moving with him, tilting her hips up to meet his downward stroke, and that makes it even better. It's indescribable, not at all like he'd imagined, and he's imagined this quite a lot. He's not going to be able to hold out.
He pants, "I don't think I can-"
"It's okay, just do what feels good," she says, urging him on with her hands on his backside. He drops his head next to hers and moves faster, gets maybe a dozen more thrusts in before he's done, breath caught in his lungs as his hips hitch against her in jerky little thrusts. It's so intense his vision swims a little, and he sort of half-collapses on her as the last tremors work through him.
Afterward, he's winded and sweating, like he just ran ten miles, and her fingers are combing through his hair where it's sticking to his neck. He lifts his head and she kisses him, laughing against his mouth and he laughs, too, which kind of ruins the kiss, but makes him feel better, less awkward.
"See? First time out of the way, and you did great," she says, taking his face in her hands and kissing him again through a smile. He knows it wasn't actually great for her in the same way it was for him, but he'll make it up to her as soon as he can.
He's wondered, a time or two, if it wouldn't be easier-and less humiliating-with someone he didn't know, someone he'd never have to see again. At times he's been tempted to treat it like a necessary burden and just get it over with, like getting a haircut. Now he's glad he didn't, because it's nice this way, with Darcy and her smiles.
As relaxed as he is, he's still conscious of how heavy he must be, so after a few minutes he reluctantly lifts off of her. There are a lot of instructions involved in pulling out of her and dealing with the condom.
"You're still totally hard," she says, sounding surprised, as he sits back on his heels, handful of tissues at the ready.
"Yes." He thinks he might be blushing, even after everything they just did. "It usually takes two or three times before--"
"Oh my God, we are going to have so much fun," Darcy says, before he can even finish the sentence. She hands him another condom and says, "Suit up, you're goin' in again."
The second time lasts a lot longer, and he doesn't feel so overwhelmed by sensation, and can pay a little more attention to what's going on, and to her specifically. She bites her lip and says, "Slow, slow," so he goes as slow as he can. Based on the noises she makes, he figures out a gentle, languorous rhythm with a little pause, as deep as he can get, and then an equally slow retreat. That seems to do the trick, and he's able to keep going much longer, and then she starts really talking, telling him yes, like that and now a little faster. He does everything she asks, determined to let her finish first this time, gritting his teeth when she digs her fingernails into his biceps.
It's close, so very close, but finally her thighs tremble against his hips, and she tips her head back and makes a sound that reaches right into his gut and twists. Her orgasm feels amazing, all her little muscles contracting around him in a fluttering pulse, gripping him even more tightly as he rides it out, wanting to wring every inch of pleasure out of her. He watches her, thrilled, until he can't hold back anymore, and then he squeezes his eyes shut and finally follows her.
~*~
Steve feels terribly guilty for thinking it, but there's no denying that he sort of dreads seeing Darcy at the house for the first time the next morning. Even more so when he belatedly realizes that his home is her place of employment--he's been to the SHIELD workplace sexual harassment seminar, he knows the rules. Also, Tony might not be thrilled that Steve is fuddies with his assistant, though Pepper used to be Tony's assistant, Steve remembers, and, well. Tony should understand.
Eventually he also remembers that Darcy is Jane and Thor's friend, and that having sex with her could complicate everyone's relationships with each other. For several uncomfortable minutes, Steve's horrified that he's managed to simultaneously break so many rules.
Then Darcy walks into the kitchen and nonchalantly punches him on the shoulder with her phone and says to Bruce, "I'll take one with blueberries, please." She sits down next to Steve and smiles, nudges his knee lightly under the table before becoming completely absorbed in updating Tony's Twitter account, and none of that stuff matters at all.
After that it's fine. They're both really good at being discreet, and both aware that Jarvis sees everything, so there are no stolen kisses or secret liaisons, even when they're alone in the house. But there are a lot of kisses and liaisons when they're elsewhere. A lot.
Steve thinks that if he had known just how great sex is, he wouldn't have waited quite so long to have some. And Darcy appears to know a lot about sex, and lot of different ways to have sex, and she seems perfectly comfortable-and very enthusiastic about-showing him all of it.
They spend a whole day on oral sex alone, which is a glorious day as far as Steve is concerned. First she teaches him how to use his mouth on her, which he enjoys immensely. For long, long minutes she lays open in front of him and tells him what feels good and what doesn't, moaning encouragement when he gets it right, and gently nudging him elsewhere when he doesn't. She hangs onto his head and arches up against his tongue, which makes him so hard he can barely see straight when he finally levers himself up and guides her hand to him. It doesn't take much before he's gasping for air and striping the gentle curve of her belly, barely done before he collapses next to her.
For about half an hour or so, it's the most intense sexual experience of his life so far, and then she completely flattens him with his first blowjob.
After that they spend several visits on all the variations of her on top of him-Steve had no idea there were so many-and then she gives him an appraising look and says, "Super strength, huh?" and they try a few more acrobatic positions. A few of those end in laughter, and only one in bruises.
It seems there's no end to the things they can try, and even the ones he thinks are just okay are still pretty darn good. But many of them are absolutely fantastic. He kneels on the bed and pushes into her from behind-a favorite, because he can span her waist with his hands, smooth his fingers over the rounded curves of her hips, watch himself moving in and out of her. He holds her up against the wall of the shower and blinks water out of his eyes and thrusts up into her; curls up behind her and presses inside while his fingers work between her legs; kneels next to the bed and makes her cry out over and over again with his mouth, hands pressing her thighs open until she begs for a break.
As much as he enjoys the sex, he likes the parts before and after it nearly as much. He likes going to her apartment and cuddling on the couch a little beforehand, catching up with each other before they move to the bedroom. He likes standing in the kitchen, naked and pleasantly tired, eating cold pizza from the refrigerator. He likes the way she sometimes pushes his damp hair off his forehead and kisses him there when they're done, and he likes dozing in her bed with his arm slung over her between rounds. As much as he hates to leave, he likes kissing her goodbye at the door, pinching her lovely bottom on his way out, just to make her laugh and smack him on the arm.
But he does hate to leave before morning. He hates it more as time goes on, really, but he respects her too much to try to talk her into letting him stay. He thinks it would be nice, though, if she wanted him to. He'd like to wake up together in the same bed, naked and warm. He'd like to make her moan, and watch her hands clutch at his shoulders in the early morning light, and then eat breakfast together, just the two of them at the crooked little table under the window. He's not sure she would welcome the suggestion, though, since there's a rule against it and everything. It's better to not say anything about it at all.
~*~
At first they see each other once a week or so, and he leaves it to Darcy to initiate, but their lives being what they are, sometimes plans fall through, and after a while he gets more comfortable sending her text messages and asking if he can come over when he's free. He never breaks the "no drop-ins" rule.
They go on some more Not Dates to official things, and he buys her more jewelry. This is very obviously against the rules, but he decides that it will seem suspicious if he stops--Tony will definitely ask why--so he keeps doing it and she lets him. The first time he shows up at her door with another velvet box, he has a whole argument in favor of jewelry purchases ready to go, but she doesn't bring it up.
So that's one rule broken right from the start, but there are seven more, and he'll stick to those.
Darcy is a text messaging fiend, sometimes sending several in a row faster than he can respond to them, even if he's got his phone in his hand already. She sends him pictures of herself, of interesting or funny stuff she sees while she's out and about, and sometimes embarrassing photos of Tony doing things like getting his facial hair dyed. Other times she sends him sweet messages like Good morning, handsome that end with something that looks like a little sideways butt, or maybe an ice cream cone: <3. He has no idea what that means, but the words stay with him all day, and he often re-reads them when he needs something to cheer himself up, so the sideways butts hardly matter.
As time goes on, more and more often he finds himself seeking her out after a mission, either looking for her in the house if she's working, or asking if he can come to her place if she isn't. At the house they can't ever to anything more than talk for a few minutes, but sometimes that's all he needs. At her place they always have sex, but sometimes he naps with his head in her lap for a while first. Just seeing her makes him feel better, and while there's no rule in particular against what he's doing, he suspects there should be, because he feels like he's becoming dependent on it.
There are a lot of things about his friends he understands so much better now. He understands the way Tony acts toward Pepper, the way he focuses on her and defers to her in a way Steve rarely sees him do with anyone else. He understands the look on Thor's face when Jane walks into the room, and Betty being Bruce's first phone call after he de-Hulks.
Before this, he'd never known what it was like to have a beautiful girl waiting for him when he took off his uniform and went back to being Steve Rogers; not during the war, not during his stint with the USO. Back then he'd spent months with only the thought of Peggy, the hope Peggy represented, and one black and white picture of her, torn from an article in Stars and Stripes, and nothing more. It had felt like enough at the time-it had felt like everything, more than he'd ever had up until that point-but this is different. He and Darcy have so many of the things he never got a chance to have with Peggy, but wanted to so badly. Some days he can barely believe how lucky he is.
People like the Avengers work hard to make sure people like Darcy never have to know just how truly terrible human beings can be, and never have to suffer it first-hand. That's all Steve's wanted his whole life, was to do what he's doing now-to push back, to protect people. He had never imagined the cost, of course. He'd naively thought the worst price he'd pay would be his own life. Now he knows there are worse things to lose.
When he's with Darcy, he doesn't feel like a man whose body was created to go to war. A man who has seen the worst of humanity, who has killed more people than he cares to count, or even can count.
He feels good, he feels happy. He feels almost normal.
~*~
Summer passes, then turns into fall, and they slowly start doing more things together that aren't official Avengers functions, but are still Not Dates. They go to a few movies, and out for meals a couple times, all things that can be passed off as friends hanging out. Darcy always insists on splitting the bill, which offends all of Steve's sensibilities, but he lets it go.
She goes to Brazil with Tony for ten long days, and Steve nearly loses a thumb to a guy with four arms and three swords, but he doesn't tell her about it. He's fully healed by the time she gets home anyway, which is a good thing, because she texts him as soon as she's back in New York, a little smiley-faced invitation to come over, and practically tackles him at the door.
He doesn't even get his jacket off before she's pushed him down onto the couch and opened his pants, and as she leans over to dig a condom out of her bag, he sees she's not wearing any panties under her skirt. She's soaking wet and swollen when he touches her, and she sinks down onto him hard and fast, moaning in his ear that she couldn't wait to see him, couldn't stop thinking about this, and he pants, "Me, too, Darcy. Me, too," and manages to wait until she comes twice before he uses his hands on her hips to hold her down as he thrusts up into her and muffles his cries in her neck.
Two days later they have their first real fight, which seems to spring up out of nowhere. Steve swears one minute they're having a normal conversation and the next they're arguing, about something so pointless he can't believe he's not just letting it drop, but it escalates until Darcy invites him to leave, and that's what finally brings him up short.
"Okay, wait," he says, spreading his hands placatingly between them. "I don't want to fight about this, and I really don't want to leave when we're mad at each other."
"Well, I'm not leaving. This is my house!" Darcy says. Her cheeks are flaming red.
"I meant I don't want either of us to leave," he explains, after he takes a deep breath. If there's one thing he's learned so far in his life, it's that every time you walk away from someone, it could be the last time you see them. He's not going to storm out of here while they're both still angry.
He doesn't tell her this, because he doesn't want to come across as manipulative. One thing Steve hates is being treated differently or pitied because of the way his life has turned out, both good and bad. What he says is, "I don't even know why we're fighting about this."
She glares at the television, which isn't on, and chews on her lip. "I don't either," she admits grudgingly. "I guess."
He spreads his arms. "Let's hug it out," he says, which is what Tony uses to get hugs even when no one is arguing with him, and that dispels about half the tension in the room right there, because she cracks up.
"Seriously, don't say stuff like that," she says, shaking her head as she walks into his open arms. "I can't handle you talking like Tony." But she grabs on tight anyway, and he folds himself around her as thoroughly as he can.
"I'm sorry," he says against the top of her head, and he doesn't mean for talking like Tony.
She gets it. She gives him a squeeze. "Me, too."
"You should have seen him today," Steve tells her when it becomes clear they're going to be standing here hugging a little longer. Tony is a safe subject right now. "Someone put an 'Intel Inside' sticker on the back of the suit while we were waiting for the police to get the perimeter set up." Even Steve knows Tony considers this a grave insult.
"Oh my God," Darcy says, sounding awed. "Did you get a picture?"
"Clint did," he assures her.
She lets go of him long enough to do a double fist-pump. "That's totally going on the Twitter account!" she crows. "I bet it makes Boing Boing, too!" Darcy gets a five thousand dollar bonus every time Tony gets mentioned on Boing Boing. Steve's been to that website and it seems like a lot of stuff about bananas and zombies, but Tony thinks it's a big deal.
He grins at her, relieved the fight's over, and also just naturally pleased to see her so happy about something; Darcy's enthusiasm tends to be contagious, especially where Steve's concerned. She grabs him by the hand and tugs him over to the couch, which is another good sign. Her cheeks are still red, but now it's from excitement, and probably the warmth generated by imagining what she'll do with five thousand dollars.
"So, are we cool?" Steve asks, after they get settled and exchange a few kisses, just to make her cover her face and laugh. It works.
~*~
"Hey, are you coming over tonight?" Darcy asks Steve as she bounces in a circle around him. She's convinced him to jump on the trampoline with her while she waits for Natasha to finish cleaning up and get downstairs. Natasha's teaching her how to do a backflip in the air; she's already mastered the somersault.
Thor and Bruce are likely crashed out in their rooms, and Tony has already climbed into his helicopter and left for a conference in Seattle, much to Darcy's obvious relief. Natasha got held up at SHIELD with a couple necessary stitches, which is how Steve beat her home.
"Absolutely," Steve says. It's become a more or less regular weekend thing now, or as regular as it can be when he's an Avenger and she works for Tony Stark. But Saturday has sort of become their night, if they're both available. He looks forward to it all week.
"Good, because we're leaving on Monday, and I need to get my fix," she says, giving him the little teasing smirk that makes his whole body feel hot. She's going to China with Tony and Pepper for two weeks, on some combination of business trip and vacation. She's been looking forward to it for months.
Darcy doesn't travel with Tony every time he goes somewhere, but when she does it tends to alternate between being a complete blast and a constant heart attack, from what she describes. She seems to like it anyway, and loves telling Steve all about it, complete with what has become a spot-on Tony impression. Steve actually enjoys these insights into Tony's life, which oftentimes is even more absurd than Steve realized. Rich guys are weird.
"I think we should get tacos," she says, bouncing so high he's looking at her knees. "And a giant basket of tortilla chips."
"Uh huh," Steve says, distracted. It's really hard to not look at her shirt when they do this. He can feel himself starting to respond to her already, which is pretty normal, but right now that response is being accelerated by thoughts of seeing her later. Specifically, of what he wants to do later. He recently confessed to his fondness for watching her touch herself, and she's been extremely accommodating in that regard.
He's a little shocked, sometimes, by the sex. Before Darcy, he'd spent a lot of time imagining sex in general, but he never pictured it being as fast and hard as it sometimes gets, certainly never imagined the things she says-the things he says-or how good it would feel to just forget everything and thrust into her over and over, let his body do what it wants.
But he also didn't expect it to sometimes be slow and almost lazy, when he feels like he could keep moving inside her forever, and he makes her clench around him again and again, as many times as he can. Or expect her to tease him with her mouth or her hands, until he's shaking and desperate. Once she even made him say, "Please," which he did, over and over again, until he spilled over her fingers and onto his own stomach. He hadn't expected that at all.
He's not sure how long they're going to continue to be fuddies, but he thinks he could keep doing it for a long time yet. He loves the way she looks, the way she tastes, all the different noises she makes, which he's learned to differentiate as time goes on. When he doesn't see her for days at a time he wants her so badly he can barely think of anything else. Sometimes it's a little frightening, how much power this thing with her has over him, and how much he needs it.
He smiles at her as she bounces on the trampoline in the afternoon sunlight, hair wild, laughing as she flings her arms over her head, and it almost feels like he didn't watch someone else's blood swirl down the drain in the shower less than an hour ago. He's so grateful for that, he wouldn't even begin to know how to tell her.
~*~
Winter comes, and she wears the ladybug scarf. They go ice skating, and to see the Rockettes, which they both love. When the sun shines and the air is brittle, they go window shopping and drink hot chocolate, and he wishes he could hold her hand, and squeeze her fingers through her thick red mittens, but doesn't dare try. He's happy with what he has, he really is. He's happy with what they agreed on, even if it's not perfect. Nothing ever is.
There's a holiday party at the house, just for the group, and everyone exchanges presents. Steve gives Darcy a pair of sapphire earrings, and a coin purse shaped like a monkey's face. She gives him a beautiful book about the Louvre--seven hundred pages in all--full of some of the most gorgeous reproductions he's ever seen. Everyone exchanges gifts that night, and Tony's are preposterously extravagant-a few people get cars-so their gifts to each other don't stand out at all.
The next night, they go to an official holiday ball, for a charity that's a pet project of Bruce's. Before they leave the house, Steve gives Darcy the second part of her Christmas present, which is a necklace that matches the sapphire earrings. Her dress is a pale, icy blue, nearly white, and the jewelry is perfect with it. She looks like a sliver of winter itself, except when she smiles and the warmth of it isn't wintery at all.
The ball feels like it has an even bigger crowd than usual, and for some reason Steve's finding his tolerance for the dog and pony show is wearing thin. When he's reached his limit, he smoothly guides Darcy out of the ballroom and they go for a walk in the atrium, which is deserted. It's full of tropical flowers and fruit trees, welcome in the middle of winter. There's also a small waterfall, but it reeks of chlorine, which kind of ruins the illusion of being in a rainforest.
They sit down at a small bench by the waterfall and she scoots under his arm. This technically breaks the "no public displays of affection" rule, but there's no one else here to see.
"Are you okay?" she asks him. He can feel her eyes on him, and gives her a reassuring smile. She reaches up to where his hand is cupping her bare shoulder and threads her fingers through his.
"I will be. I'm just a little tired, I guess. And I never know what to say to people at these things," he confesses.
She does an almost comical double-take that makes him stifle a laugh. "Really?"
He's surprised she's surprised. "Yes, really." He supposes he should be glad his discomfort isn't obvious, even to someone who knows him as well as Darcy does. He's gotten good at pretending.
"I would never have known," she admits. "You always seem so…I don't know. Confident. Like you always know exactly what to do. And it's not like you have to impress anyone, anyway. People love you."
"People love Captain America," he says with a little laugh. "They don't even know me."
"I know you," she says, leaning in a little closer. She bumps her nose against his. "And I-" Steve heart feels like it just flat out stops "-like you plenty."
It's close enough, Steve tells himself as he smiles and kisses her on the cheek and tells her he likes her, too. Close enough.
Continued here.