InsaneJournal

Who: Darcy Lewis & Bucky Barnes
What: Chatting
Where: Fury's office
When: mid April
Warnings: probably not
Status: complete


Finding out that she was Tony’s daughter was quite a shock for Darcy though she liked to think she was handling it okay. The addition of security and a giant trust fund were kind of a lot to deal with, but ultimately they didn’t change much in her day to day life. She was hardly going to become a socialite or try to keep up with the Kardashians, so she was still working her job at SHIELD and hanging out with her friends. Maybe she had a little more money to spoil Wanda’s twins and maybe she was shopping more than she strictly needed to, but overall, her life wasn’t all that different.

She was working on updating some reports in the system when someone came into the office and she glanced up from her computer to greet whoever it was. “Oh, hey,” she said, recognizing Bucky. They’d chatted a bit before, but she didn’t know him well. “I assume you’re here to see the boss.”

Having a job with SHIELD was kind of strange, but in good ways - mostly, Bucky just had to get used to working a 9-5 type of deal, and being responsible for writing up actual reports concerning his field work. He wasn’t just a weapon pointed at a target, and that felt good - it felt like, if he kept at it, he may even make a dent in the enormous debt he had to repay. Chipping away at it would take time but that he had - he hoped.

Losing another five years to a universe-wide genocide would put a damper in things, but he was assured that wouldn’t be a thing here. Now to just hope he didn’t get blipped out randomly.

“Oh?” His glacial gaze settled upon Darcy when she spoke, thoughts pulled back to the current moment. “Yeah, I was - but. Stopping to smell the roses can’t hurt, right?” he smiled crookedly. He needed to make other friends besides Steve - it was slow going but he tried.

Pushing up the sleeves of his shirt, vibranium forearm exposed, he decided now was a good time to do some trying. “How have you been?”

“Are you calling me a rose, Mr. Barnes?” she asked, unable to keep the flirtatious tone out of her voice. It was pretty much her default setting and now she could blame the Stark genes for it.

Darcy grinned at him. “I can’t complain, I guess. I mean, this whole universe thing kind of sucks sometimes with the people randomly disappearing, but overall life is good.” She missed Talos, he’d been a lot of fun, but she still had plenty of friends around. “How about you?”

“Well, I haven’t smelled you yet, but sure - you’re pretty rosy,” Bucky replied, realizing then that...he just wasn’t very funny. Not anymore. He used to be but that was a long time ago. Now he was just old and tired and cranky (hey kids, get off his lawn).

Though he had to agree that the unstable mechanics of the universe were off-putting. Weird. Kind of made you stop and think that, hey, things could fall apart at any second now. “Guess you gotta appreciate what you have when you have it, huh?” he mused, leaning against the edge of the desk. “I’m okay though. Just trying to keep a low profile.” Apparently he was still a wanted criminal, even with the five-year jump, so that was fun. It was bad enough to where Loki offered to make him look like someone else, which Bucky couldn’t really see himself going for.

Darcy found his comments awkwardly charming and she chuckled. “Feel free to sniff away,” she joked, glad that she wasn’t the kind of girl who did yoga or took a long walk on her lunch break. Otherwise, that would be a lot less appealing.

“Yeah, I get that,” she said. “I’m not sure if you heard my news, but it turns out I’m a secret Stark heir.” Luckily so far no one had found out her identity, but she knew that if the tabloids found out, they would never leave her alone.

Other than the press release, which didn’t name her, she wasn’t sure who all knew at this point and who didn’t. It wasn’t like any of them were keeping it a secret amongst the other Avenger types.

Bucky lifted an eyebrow; it skyrocketed upward, actually, because what the hell. “I hadn’t heard that,” he admitted. Mostly he stayed out of the gossip rags, because none of it was relevant to his job or his life. But that was one hell of a reveal. He knew Tony had played it sort of fast and loose before (and hey, so had Bucky - once upon a time), but he didn’t know why he hadn’t considered a child out of wedlock.

Made sense, he guessed.

“Are you - okay with it?” he asked. “It had to have been a lot to digest.”

That was quite an understatement. “Yeah, I am,” Darcy said. “It was a surprise, that was for sure, but I knew my parents were kind of… you know, hippies. They were pretty hands off parents when I was growing up.” Probably because they’d been a bit older than her friends’ parents. She still wondered if either of them ever suspected that she wasn’t biologically her father’s child.

“It’s kind of fun having a little sister,” she said. Morgan was a great kid and she enjoyed spending time with her.

Between Morgan and Wanda’s twins though, Darcy knew that she did not see motherhood in her own future. She liked other people’s kids and had zero intention of having her own.

Some people wanted to reproduce, some people didn’t. Bucky didn’t blame anyone who chose not to - he was pretty far in that camp himself, but it wasn’t like he needed to worry about it. The amount of years that had gone by, since he’d been with anyone, was pretty damn embarrassing. Not like most of that time had been by choice, however - Winter Soldiers weren’t supposed to date. Now, if he tried, he didn’t think he had a shred of a clue about what to do in this day and age.

But anyway. “You can teach her all sorts of things,” he said about Morgan. “And Tony’s probably looking out for you. So that’s good too.”

“Oh, he definitely is,” Darcy said. “And I had to do so much paperwork because apparently that’s what it means to be an heiress.” It was still weird to refer to herself that way and she didn’t feel like having access to Stark money had changed her lifestyle. “Having security has taken some getting used to.”

At least she didn’t have to worry about that when she was at work. SHIELD HQ was secure enough.

“So, what have you been up to?” she asked. “Anything interesting?”

An heiress. Well, that was fancy. And the security was to be expected - something about it gave an odd twist in Bucky’s stomach; he was still attempting to make amends with Tony, though at first he didn’t even see how it was possible - but they were both trying to work things out and it seemed to be going okay. His original plan of just staying out of Tony’s way hadn’t been successful. Maybe that was for the best - they couldn’t avoid each other forever.

“Nothing too exciting,” he replied, smiling sheepishly when he answered the question. “I’m not - all that interesting.” Not anymore - he wasn’t a lot of things, anymore. “Mostly just getting a chance to research the new waves of social media these days.” YouTube and tumblr and whatever a Tweeter was.

He’d love to really explore Brooklyn, see how it had changed since he’d been young and dumb, but he was constantly advised not to go out and wander and it was starting to wear on him. Still, a little should be fine. “You want to grab lunch sometime?” he asked. “There should be some good places around here.” At the very least, the hot dog vendor at the corner.

Somehow the idea of Bucky exploring social media was equal parts entertaining and terrifying. “You need to give me all your usernames so I can follow you,” she said. And that way she could also keep an eye on him and make sure that he wasn’t getting into any trouble.

“Sure, that would be great,” Darcy added. She didn’t care about his history, knew that he was a good guy now and their few conversations had been interesting enough that she wanted to get to know him better.

“If I can remember what my usernames even are,” he winced. Bucky was teasing, but then again, he kind of wasn’t - a Tweeter wasn’t something he kept up with, for a few reasons. One being he had nothing fascinating to share about his day, for another he was still a wanted criminal. Details. “But yeah, alright. Lunch tomorrow, then? I better get back to work now.”

He almost forgot why he came over here in the first place - oh, right, to chat with Fury about a new field assignment. Hopefully he could get something going that kept him busy and away from the YouTube rabbit hole.

Darcy laughed. “I’ll text you mine and you can follow me,” she said. She was big on social media though she was a lot more careful now than she ever had to be before.

“I’ll let the boss know that you were looking for him. No idea where he got to.” Despite being his assistant, Darcy seldom knew what Fury was up to. She mostly just did a lot of paperwork.