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The first time Darcy meets him she is eleven years old. It’s her third foster family this year and she hates feeling so alone. The house itself is clean, the couple are kind in their own way but the house is full of fosters. The other kids haven’t been great and Darcy has never felt more isolated.
She turned on the sidewalk and sets off in a different direction from the house she now lives in. Her back pack thumps the back of her thighs, the straps are too long and the bag really is made for someone much taller than she is.
Darcy isn’t sure how long she walks for, just knows that by the time she stops her feet hurt and the sun has set long before. She turns and looks back the way she came. The street lights are on and she thinks if the town were bigger they might call where she is now the bad part of town. But this isn’t New York or Chicago, it’s just a modest size town in Missouri. She’s on the outskirts now, can see the highway up head as she continues to walk past the warehouses and up the embankment onto the road.
She hides when she hears cars coming along, the trees are plentiful here and make it easy to duck off the road and behind some cover. Eventually she’s too tired to keep going and finds a little space just off the road in a small circle of trees. She pulls the pop-up tent from its bag and crawls in, her sleeping bag gets pulled out too and she wriggles into it before opening a packet of chips and grabbing her water bottle.
Darcy Lewis is nothing is not prepared. She has a plan. She’s going to make it to New York, somehow, and then she is going to find the adoption agency that gave her to the Lewis’ and find out who her real parents are because she just can’t do this bouncing from foster care to foster care thing anymore. She’s ran away before, she knows and has learned how to hide, how to make it look like she is where she is supposed to be. A mistake is a lesson, not a loss and she will make each lesson count.
Her current Fosters think she’s gone on a camping trip over spring break and the family who were taking her think she’s cancelled at the last minute, so she has maybe three or four days at least and a week at best before anyone puts out an amber alert, if they even bother. She has three hundred dollars from the odd jobs she did last summer and the small allowances she’s saved.
It takes her two weeks to reach New York, a lot of it walking but a good deal of hiding in the back of trucks when they pulled into roadside dive bars worked too. She’s down to her last sixty bucks when she finally finds the agency. She looks presentable she thinks. Public pools were a great way of keeping clean on the move, no one questioned a kid wanting to go swimming and so far she’s heard nothing on the radio or TV about her going missing.
She sits at the bus stop across the street and watches for a few hours before wandering off to buy some food. She comes back around four and sits down to watch again. There’s a man in a baseball cap that makes circuits of the block at 10am and 3pm. She notices because the cap he’s wearing has the same logo on it as hers. The Brooklyn Dodgers. She repeats this over a couple of days, getting familiar with the employees faces and the security guard. The man in the cap is still circling the block a couple of times a day, she makes a point of not looking at him as he passes.
She sets up on the third day, on a fire escape with a good view of the back entrance, and continues her vigil. The man in the cap is no longer on the street, instead she see’s him taking the back way up the building opposite and onto the roof. After that, she keeps an eye on him when she’s not watching the door at the back of the agency. He looks homeless, but he’s too clean and he holds himself like he knows he’s the biggest threat in the room. If he’s noticed she’s watching him, he does nothing to show it, but she’s felt eyes on her at times that she can’t find. Something tells her it’s him.
Darcy has learned to be patient. You don’t survive as long as she had by making rash decisions. If you want to get anywhere you have to plan, observe, draw up contingencies. She likes that word, contingencies, it was on the word a day calendar one of the Fosters work mates had given them for Christmas.
On the fifth day she’s still on the fire escape and has drawn a rough map of the floor plan of the agency. She’s moved around enough to get an idea from looking through windows what goes on in the offices and where the records are likely kept. She knows they’ll never give them to her, but she’s not stupid enough to try that track anyway.
The whisper of material directly behind her and the slight groan of the metal platform tell her she’s no longer alone. She stills and cocks her head to one side. She’s eleven, but she’s not stupid. She knows it’s him, the man in the cap. He’s about four times her size, if he wants to hurt her there is nothing she can do to stop him. If she tries to run, she’ll break her neck trying to jump from here and again, even if she made it, he would catch her without much difficulty, even before she would make it to the main road and out of the alley. She grabs the bag of chips and offers the open packet over her shoulder.
“Want some?” she asks casually, keeping a tight lid on her fear. Like she said, not stupid, but panic wouldn’t do her any good, better to act like how she wants the situation to go down than react without assessing first.
He doesn’t say a word, but she feels the bag lighten a little and wonders how he manged to take the chips without rustling the bag. He must be a regular artful dodger with skills like that.
Darcy continues to watch the back entrance to the agency and jots down little notes in her log book from time to time. A half hour after her visitor landed in the fire escape she feels more than see’s that he lowers himself to sit beside her.
“Why are you casing this place? There’s nothing worth stealing there.” His voice is deep and the hint of a Brooklyn accent peaks though. He truly is a little perplexed at her odd behaviour. What gets her is that he’s questioning the validity of her choice of place to case, not that she’s an eleven year old alone in a huge city.
“It’s not a matter of worth, that’s subjective. As for what I’m stealing, I’m taking my past and hoping it will be worth more in future dividends.” Darcy grins internally, that word a day calendar really was the best secret Santa gift ever, she’s glad she dropped it in her bag before she left.
He shifts beside her and bumps his arm against her shoulder. She turns her head and looks at him questioningly, her own blue eyes meeting his. For a second Darcy forgets to breath. His eyes are beautiful. She’s never seen anything so blue in her life. With his overly long hair tucked up beneath the cap she gets a good look at his face, it’s one she’s seen before, countless times as she pored over her history text book. Welcome to the twilight zone she thinks as her eyes go wide in surprise.
He frowns at her reaction to looking at him and she realises that he doesn’t know why she looks like that. How can he not realise why she recognises him? He’s been on the cover of nearly every history text book since 1950, along side his more famous pal Captain America.
“You’re looking for your birth parents.” He figures it out fast.
“Yup.” She pops the ‘P’ as she answers than looks back down into the alley.
Silence rears back up between them and Darcy slowly starts to relax. He’s not going to hurt her, she can feel it. She’s been around enough nasty asshole men to know it in her gut.
She doesn’t ask what he’s doing here, doesn’t offer her name and quietly ponders the conundrum that is the mysteriously resurrected James Buchanan Barnes. He leaves without a word and Darcy says nothing in acknowledgement.
The next day just before the cleaner leaves by the back door, Darcy sneaks down and places a piece of gum in the door jam, enough to stop the lock engaging properly. When the security guard takes an unauthorised nightly trip down to the corner for take out she enters the agency and quickly disarms the security system. It’s the same code she’s watched people type in every day for the past week. She had about twenty minutes to get what she came for and get out without detection. She makes her way down to the basement and locates the box files with her paperwork. She doesn’t stop to read it, only takes pictures with her camera phone and then puts everything back in place as she leaves. It’s on the way out that she thinks she’s nearly caught. The security guard is back early. She holds her breath and presses herself up against the alley wall as he sweeps down the alley with a high-powered torch. She feels her heart beating wildly in her chest and fights to not start hyperventilating. She knew no plan survived contact with the enemy, but she had been so close. She suddenly feels herself being lifted off the ground and clings to the straps off her backpack as she’s lifted up to the fire escape. Even before her feet touch the metal grating she knows who just saved her. She turns quickly on her toes and faces him. His clothing is different tonight. A leather vest with too many buckles and the shine of metal from one arm. She ignores that for now and throws her own arms around his waist, giving him a tight hug and breathless thank you. He pats her shoulder awkwardly and she lets go, staring up at him. He wears a mask covering the bottom half of his face, the only feature she can make out are his eyes. Blue eyes lock on Blue eyes and she smiles at him gratefully. He stoops a little and whispers in her ear.
“Stay out of trouble kid. Stay safe.”
Before she can respond he is gone and she knows that he is truly gone this time. She won’t see him again.
The papers the next day scream their headlines from the front page. “NY CEO Murdered in Locked Room.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who the assassin was, Darcy has seen the CEO many times the last week. He worked in the same building Barnes had been watching. She doesn’t bother to wonder why he did it, it wouldn’t change her mind about who she believed he was. He had helped her, he didn’t need to, but he did. She’s seen enough of people to understand that the world isn’t back and white. He might have killed that man, but he had saved her without killing the security guy who nearly caught her. When she goes through her back pack she finds a roll of hundred dollar bills, two thousand dollars in total and knows he put it there to help her. Bucky Barnes with the gleaming metal arm is her own personal hero. She boards the greyhound to LA the next day with an address and hope.
Three Years Later.
Fourteen-year-old Darcy Lewis was happy. She lived in a good neighbourhood in a nice town outside LA and had a modest allowance and decent adult guardian keeping house for her. Darcy liked routine, it was comforting. Finding her birth father had been mostly straight forward, telling him that she wanted to stay off the radar had agreed with him and his lifestyle. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, he was just, busy and self-involved. Darcy had no need to be in the limelight she was happy to be obscure. Finding out Tony Stark was her father had been a shock, but it gave her options she wouldn’t have had otherwise. He visited once a month to check in on her and make sure she was safe and well looked after. She had agreed to behave, keep up with school work and keep a good grade point average and to be home by curfew every night. She was happy to comply. In return Tony bought her a house, hired a nanny so chained up in NDA’s the woman might as well have just handed over her soul and let Darcy get on with her life. It was a good arrangement for them both. She’s not sure how anyone found out about her, but someone had. Her walk home from school had been interrupted by a sudden bag being thrust over her head and a man twice her size throwing her in the back of a van. From the conversations she picked up they were planning to ransom her back to her father. Darcy had no intention of letting them get away with it. It took two days before they got lax enough to underestimate her. From the landscape, after she managed to get away from the ramshackle trailer they were holding her in, she had figured out that she had been taken over state lines and was probably somewhere in Nevada. The desert air was cool and dry as she hiked towards what had to be a highway. She’s done this before, she knew how to hide while she made her way back to civilisation. She had taken the gun the idiots had left in the kitchen, a back pack, water and some granola bars. It would be enough keep her alive, now she just had to keep out of sight long enough to not get re captured. The highway was empty, the moon was out and there were no trees for cover that she could see. The only way to hide if a car came by was to scramble down off the road and lay flat against the embankment and hope for the best.
That’s what she does when the next car comes by. It’s the sound of a motorcycle that has her sharp ears twitching and her body sailing down off the road. She watches as the car approaches, followed by the bike. The sudden rapport of a gun and the explosive noise of a tire giving out has her peaking over the edge, wide eyed and shocked. The car careens off the road opposite to where she’s lying and flips a number of times before settling in the desert dust. The motorcycle slows and the man riding it comes to a stop. He adjusts the kick stand and rises from the bike, slowly stalking towards the car. The silence is earie, she watches as he crouches down and reaches a hand into the car. Seemingly satisfied he stands and wrenches the back door open, pulling out a briefcase and making his way back to the cycle. She holds her breath and tucks her head back down, hoping against hope that he hasn’t spotted her. No such luck she thinks as she is suddenly lifted into the air and set on her feet in front of the mysterious assassin. She opens her eyes and lets out a sigh of relief. It’s him again. What are the odds? Right? The leather straps and buckles are exactly the same as the last time she saw him. A metal hand gently tilts her chin up till she meets those same blue eyes. He’s just the same, no new wrinkles, he hasn’t aged a day. Time hasn’t touched his face. He unclasps the mask and she smiles brightly.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay out of trouble?”
“I did, I was minding my own business when I got kidnapped. It’s not like I thought a stroll down a deserted highway at dark o’clock in the morning was a good idea. I escaped and now I’m trying to get back home.”
He rolls his eyes and muttered under his breath in Russian and she forgets to be afraid. He tugs at her arm and she follows him back to the bike. He secures the briefcase and straddles the seat, handing her the helmet.
“Where is home these days doll?”
She frowns for a moment before answering.
“Agoura Hill’s, it’s a little bit outside LA.” She huffs and then puts the helmet on. Bucky Barnes is a mother hen and checks and adjusts the straps before motioning her to climb on behind him. It’s a little uncomfortable, the edge of the briefcase digging into the back of her thigh, forcing her to scoot forward and wrap her arms around his middle. He’s warm, really warm, something to be thankful for when out in the desert at night. He tugs on her arms until she plastered against his back and locks her hands together before starting the bike and taking off down the highway.
They stop for the day in a tiny motel on the border between states and she falls gratefully into the twin bed and sleeps. The smell of coffee and cheese burgers wakes her up, the sun just starting to go down on the horizon. Darcy chatters away about what she did after she saw him last, tells him about Tony and her Nanny and how she’s getting on at school and generally keeping the conversation going with only the odd grunt or frown from him to tell her to explain something. Darcy internally fist bumps herself a dozen times when she manages to get the man to crack a tiny smile at her stories. The longer she’s in his company the more the emptiness leaves his eyes. She wishes she knew his story but can tell he doesn’t want to talk about himself. The only question he answers is his name, when he tells her he’s called the Asset she bites back tears. The more she puts things together the more the picture starts to make sense. He doesn’t know who his is. Someone, somewhere is using him as their own personal attack dog. He tells her he’ll drop her off in Bakersfield at the police station there, she wants to argue, wants him to come home with her. When she suggests he could come back with her he tells her he has a mission to complete. He can’t come with her, but he’ll make sure she’s safe before he leaves.
He drops her off a few blocks from the precinct and she hands back the helmet. She stands uncertainly in front of him and says goodbye.
“Will I see you again?” she asks.
“For your sake I hope not doll. Now, stay outta trouble this time, okay?”
“I’ll try, can’t help it if trouble finds me first though.” His eyes twinkle and he throws her a small wink before taking off on the bike.
A few days later she finds the taser in her room, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. She grins and almost hugs it to her chest. She knows it could only be him who left it for her. She hopes wherever he is that he’s okay.
Tony freaks about the kidnapping but tells her quietly that the men who found out had all disappeared mysteriously, along with the Nanny Tony had hired to look after her. This time he suggests a boarding school, she agrees and finds herself packed off to England the next day. Tony introduces her to Rhodey and swears the man to secrecy. He’s the one that takes her to the school and makes sure she’s settled before disappearing off back to his life. St Trinians turns out to be the best decision anyone has ever made for her. She loves it.
2006
Darcy Lewis is head girl and she adores it. St Trinians does it’s best to build all the strengths a girl needs to go forward in the world and rule it. At the moment she’s at the top of the totem pole, she’ll be sad to leave, but looks forward to all the challenges to come. Kelly Jones is her little protégé, the girl is smart as a whip and seamlessly follows Darcy’s lead. When Darcy leaves next year, Kelly will do an admirable job in her place. She had the cliques set up now, well defined and ordered, if there can be such a thing in the chaos that is St Trinians, but it worked to help the girls know where they belong while promoting the idea of community, after all, only when they work together can they truly accomplish impossible goals. St Trinians had taught her how to survive and Miss Firtton’s, often odd and confusing instructions taught valuable life lessons when you finally reached the punch line. Now she had to decide what to do next. She had offers from a dozen excellent Universities in everything from Computer programming to Political science. Kelly’s sudden appearance at the door has her dropping the papers back on the desk and motioning the younger girl to come in.
“We just got a sighting, flagged it off the MI6 severs the geek squad have hacked into.”
Darcy takes the file from Kelly and reads through it quickly.
“Right, Kelly, you are in charge until I get back. Get Flash to start the car, I need to change.”
It was no secret among her inner circle as to who she was looking for. She’d explained everything once she knew she could trust them, especially in light of the skills many of the girls possessed. The majority of the girls were linked to powerful families, government officials and spy’s. The network of former St Trinian's girls was vast, with people in places that could always be counted on to share with information with others of their former alma matter. Once a St Trinian, always a St Trinian.
Flash had the car started and waiting when she made her way down and helpfully already had the blue police siren and his very much authentic and valid warrant card as a member of MI7’s operations and training division. She was in London in under and hour and off to hunt down her… well, her friend.
Kelsey’s information was good. He was holed up in an office in the Shard, sniper rifle and the rest of his kit spread out before him.
“You said you would try to stay outta trouble this time, why are you here Darcy?”
She stepping to the room proper and closed the door.
“I wanted to check on you. You disappeared for years, don’t you notice that time is passing and I’m growing older but you’re not?”
“It’s the cryo. They put me on ice when I’m not working a mission.”
“I don’t think it’s just the Cryo, Bucky.”
“What?”
“It’s your name. I know who you are.” He glares at the ground.
“I don’t have a name, I’m the asset. You need to leave doll, now before my handlers find out you’re here.”
“Fine, I’ll leave. But I want a promise. If you ever need help, if you ever want to leave. Come find me. I’ll even buy you dinner.”
“If I promise to go on a date with you one day, will you leave?”
Darcy grins.
“I didn’t say anything about a date.”
“Sure you did doll, or you wouldn’t be wearing that get up to confront an assassin. You realise I’m far too old for you Doll?”
Darcy shrugs and places one hand on her hip.
“By the time you finally get off your ass and ask me I might be an old woman.”
“If I ever leave, I promise I’ll come ask you out.” he promises her fondly.
Darcy smiles sadly at him and runs across the room, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging the stuffing out of him. For a moment he does nothing, his arms lax by his sides and then he brings his arms around her and buries his nose in her hair, inhaling her scent.
“Don’t forget me Sarge. If you need to track me down, any St Trinian’s girl can find me and any one of them will help, if you ask for it. They all know who you are.”
“Calling in favours for me, what’s that going to cost you Darcy?”
“Nothing I can’t afford. Now, stay out of trouble handsome, I’m counting on that date.”
She left quickly and without looking back. One day, he’d break that programming and now, at least she hopes ,she’s returned the favour. He helped her when she was in trouble, she thinks sometime in the future he’ll be ready to let her repay it.
2016
Romania.
Kelly Jones had been forewarned about the SWAT team assigned to go after Barnes. She adjusted the pin on her jacket with the St Trinians emblem and allowed herself to run straight into the form of one James Buchanan Barnes. His arms came out to catch her and stop her from landing on the ground, his plums spilling out of the bag he dropped. He held her away from him, every line of his body defensive. Kelly let herself relax in his hold.
“I’m a St Trinian, do you know what that means Seargent?”
His eyes locked on the pin before he met hers again.
“You’re a friend of Darcy’s.”
“Yes I am, and right now your safe house has been compromised. We know you’ve been framed, we’re working on getting the evidence, but it looks like it might take a few days. Darcy sent me to tell you if you need help, you can ask. I have a private jet waiting five miles from here with pre approved clearance. Darcy’s talking with some lawyers right now and we have a neutral country willing to shelter you and give asylum. “
He looked at her like she had lost her mind. She dug into her pocket and let him see her badge.
“MI7? I thought they were a myth.”
“Nope, just very... secret.” He bit his lip and looked towards the apartment and all the journals he had left behind there, making a decision, he took a breath.
“I need help, please. I want to come in.”
The almost silent SUV pulled up in front of the curb and both of them climbed in.
Tony's phone rang insistantly from the depth if his suit pocket. the ring tone could only belong to one person. Darcy. He answered quickly, walking abway from the bickering General and Agent.
"What's up spawn, kinda in a bit of bind right now."
“Hey Tony, you know how you promised me one future favour for that thing I did two years ago that saved Jarvis life?”
“What sort of trouble are you in this time Darcy.” Tony asked his daughter with quietly affectionate exasperation. The Interpol building was jumping as Ross and Ross et all were having heated debates over Barnes suddenly being in the wind and the fact that the swat team had inadvertently taken down Captain America.
“You remember I told you about the guy that saved me twice while I was growing up?”
Tony did indeed remember about the friend that Darcy said had helped her out a time or two, the one he still suspected to this day had been behind the disappearance and probable disposal of the scum who had kidnapped his kid.
“I remember, why?”
“He needs my help dad. Someone set him up and I need you to authorise the money for the lawyers I want to hire.”
“Sure thing baby girl, I’ll clear it with Jarvis and you get him whatever help you think he needs.”
“Thanks Tony, you’re the best.”
She hangs up and Tony considers it quietly for a moment before his eyes grow round as he connects the dots.
“Son of a bitch.” He mutters. Agent Jones on the other side of the desk smiles at him cheekily and he notes the St Trinian's Pin on her lapel. Tony groans internally, what was he thinking sending her to his mother’s old school? She would have been less trouble if she had attended the Shield Academy.
One Year later.
Darcy sighs and pushes the laptop away. She’s just been named UN ambassador to Asgard and she had to pick a retinue and staff for the embassy in Norway. Thor, Loki and Bruce turning up with their people in tow had really upset the applecart on earth. The last year has been a whirlwind and she is exhausted just thinking of all the work she has yet to do. Thankfully everything was mostly alright with the wider world right now. No alien invasions and all the supers were getting along okay. The UN Bombing had been dealt with fairly quickly after Darcy’s lawyers and Interpol had found out about Helmut Zemo. Thankfully Kelly Jones was the agent that brought him in and she had banned anyone but herself and Everette Ross from speaking to the madman until they had verified and compiled all the evidence against him, including the existence of trigger words and programming in Bucky Barnes and the video evidence of her grandparent’s murder. That had been a difficult one. She hadn’t had a chance to see him before she had found out about it and very quickly after, King T’Challa had offered the use of their medical facilities to find a cure for the programming. Bucky had gone to Wakanda without any word to Darcy other than a short note of apology and heartfelt thanks for her help. Darcy didn’t blame him for what happened. It hadn’t been his fault, he had been used as a weapon and from everything they had found out about the winter soldiers missions he had never killed anyone that he hadn’t been ordered too. It was also obvious from the files that even though he had met Darcy three times, never once had he told his handlers about her. Some part of him still able to protect an innocent young girl. Taking her home after she escaped her kidnappers had made him late back to Hydra, the files indicated that they believed his programming was weakening but he had never divulged where he had gone to them or of anyone he had met, not even under torture. It had taken the doctors months before they came to the conclusion that the chair used to program him could only target specific memories and wipe them, they couldn’t erase what they didn’t know about which was how he had remembered her time and again. It was also how they had trained him, after all, an Asset that couldn’t remember his training was worthless. Darcy shook her head tiredly, she spent far too much time thinking about James Barnes. She had kept her promise to help him and one day, perhaps, he would be cured, that was all she could ask for.
The firm knock on her apartment door had her frowning in confusion. She really wasn’t expecting anyone right now. Answering the door, she swung it open to be confronted with the largest bouquet of flowers she had ever seen.
“Delivery.” A gruff voice said from behind the flowers.
Darcy let the man in and he placed the flowers on the table and offered her a cheerful good day before leaving.
Darcy smiled at the beautiful flowers, they really was stunning. Searching among the blooms she soon found a small card.
Darcy,
I really hope you’ll let me take you to dinner tonight.
A promise is a promise.
J.B.B
It took a moment for Darcy to understand and another before she let out a startled squeal. Turning the card over there was the name of restaurant and a time. Darcy looked at the clock and spun on her heel. She had three hours to make herself presentable for her date.
When she sees him waiting patiently outside the restaurant she almost doesn’t recognise him. His hair is short and curls around his temples, he is clean shaven, the sharpness of his jawline and cheekbones on display. Darcy stands for a moment and observes him. He looked relaxed for the most part, his only tell to nervousness was the way he kept glancing at his watch. When he looks up and sees her, the smile he sends her way leaves her breathless. Every promise that she had made to keep a cool head and not get in too deep had been dumped by the wayside the moment her eyes met his. Darcy doesn’t care. She’s been half in love with him since she was fourteen. This time when she throws herself into his arms, it isn’t to say goodbye, it’s to say hello. He doesn’t hesitate to crush her close in his arms this time, he even lifts her a little off her feet and spins in a slow circle with her before lowering her back down.
“You remembered, I thought you’d forgot.”
“Doll, there is nothing anyone could ever find forgettable about you. Besides I made a promise, didn’t I?”
“You made a promise to a seventeen-year-old to humour her.” Darcy retorts with blush. She’s under no illusions about the promise he made. He did it to get her to go before she ended up in more danger than she had courted just following him. Her younger self had had impulse control issues, to be fair she still did, her father had a lot to answer for.
“Well, the girl didn’t forget the promise she made to me and saved my life and my sanity and even got me pardoned for the things I did under Hydra. I think in this instance that girl deserves a dinner to say thank you. Besides, I think she’s someone worth getting to know better, easy on the eyes too. Prettiest dame I’ve ever seen in fact.”
“Thought you were too old for me.” She said hesitantly from under her lashes.
“I think we’re maybe all caught up with each other now?”
Darcy grins. This, she thinks, is the beginning of something wonderful.