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Work Text:
Wish Upon a Star
Chapter 1: What the Hell
Darcy clicked the lock on her front door and dropped her keys and Starbucks apron over the table next to the door and threw herself down on her futon. She sank down into the soft mattress and closed her eyes. She smelled like coffee and day old cream, and felt like she had bathed in caramel syrup the way her fingers still stuck slightly together near the base, even though she had washed her hands a dozen times. She pulled the pretty emerald jewel she had found, out of her pocket and dropped it on the table next to her bed.
The familiar rumbling purr of her cat broke her out of her thoughts, and she reached out and ran her fingers over the top of Rusty's head.
"You know, girl," Darcy rolled over and curled around the cat, who circled a couple of times before resting her head against Darcy's belly. "I chose this, you know, I walked away, but as much as running away from killer robots sucked, I kinda miss not smelling like burned coffee all the time." Rusty said nothing, just rubbed her head into her person's fingers. "I know, finish my masters, get a real job, stop bitching. But, it's taking so long," she rolled back onto her back and looked up at the water stains marking the low ceiling, and sighed. "Right," she pushed herself up off the bed and shucked her work clothes as she made it to her small three quarters bath, twisting the shower to hot and leaned back on the cold metal sink waiting for the water to warm up. "God I miss bathes."
The battered and frayed edges of her favorite book was comforting as she trapped the pages open under a heavy pot so she could read while she stirred her soup slowly. The sun had set over the mountains, and she could hear the chattering of voices from the sidewalk outside. Rusty watched the big wooden spoon as it made its rotations inside the pot on the stove, her eyes intent as her nose reached into the air and sniffed the chicken broth that was starting to bubble.
"Not for you," Darcy shooed the cat off the tiny counter and leaned back to look out the window, her bookcase nearly obscuring the entire tiny window that sat over her bed. "You got your kibble in your bowl, this is for my bowl." Rusty just sniffed at her and stuck her tail in the air to find something to amuse herself with. Darcy poured her soup into a chipped Culver University mug and extracted her book from beneath its trap, so she could curl up on her bed and eat her dinner. First thing she was going to do when she got a real job was move to an apartment with more than one fucking room, or at least one big enough to have a table, this eating in bed shit was for the birds.
Her pajamas had definitely seen better days, but with every cent going either to food or her education, there just wasn't enough to stretch that little extra bit to buy her a new pair of flannel sleep shorts. She fingered the little hole that had formed just under the elastic of the waist; they would have to do until they completely fell apart. Darcy turned down the heat as far as she could stand it, and then curled up under the thick wool blanket she had crocheted in high school. It was fucking cold in Virginia in January, and heat was getting more and more expensive every fucking day. Rusty hopped up on the futon and burrowed her way under the covers, her warm little body pressed into Darcy's stomach as she clicked off the lights and tried to force her mind to wind down enough to sleep so she would be rested for her last final of the year the next morning. He fingers wondered briefly over the thumbnail sized green stone she had fished out of the tip jar that afternoon. The small jem felt warm under her touch as she let herself wish, if only for a moment, that she had just gone with Jane, if she had taken the easy path.
Warm fingers traveled down her back, rubbing gently at sore spots, soft lips following down. Darcy let out a sleepy moan as the lips were replaced by a wet tongue on her neck, sucking slightly at the join of her shoulder, just the way she liked it. She cheered her imagination for bringing her such a wonderful dream, as a second set of hands joined the first, these fingers dragging down her front to pause momentarily to circle her nipples, pinching lightly.
"Morning, darling," the voice behind her mumbled into her skin before going back to kissing her shoulders. "You said you needed to be up and out of the apartment by eight, so I think that gives us a whole hour."
"And whatever could we do with a whole hour?" the voice that was making its way down under the sheets in front of her, a rough finger pushing her legs apart. Yep, awesome dream.
Then the alarm went off. "Shit," the man behind her grumbled, warmth of his skin leaving her back, letting cold air travel up her spine, making her shiver. Then the alarm turned off. "Sorry, Buck, I forgot to turn it off."
"Dude, you had one job," the man whose hand was covering her mound gently grumbled, a single finger reaching up to run through her folds, when her mind clicked on. The alarm went off and the dream didn't go away.
Darcy jumped up, tripping over the dark haired man who had been fingering her, and she would have gone down if the other man hadn't caught her and kept her on her feet. "What the fuck."
"Sorry, Darce," the sandy haired man looked sheepish, and kinda familiar. "We wanted to surprise you."
"Well you fucking did," she looked down at herself and realized she was completely naked. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, where the fuck am I, and who the fuck do you think you are?" She looked around the bright expanse of the bedroom, a wall of windows along one side, looking out over a city that certainly wasn't where she had fallen asleep.
"Darcy?" the dark haired man on the bed slid to the edge and sat up, completely in his very aroused naked glory. "What's wrong baby?"
"What's wrong?" she sounded hysterical even to herself as she backed away from the men who were both looking at her like she'd grown a second head. "You kidnapped me, you were feeling me up, I'm naked and you're asking me what's wrong!"
"Umm," the men looked at each other. "Darcy, what are you talking about? You live here. Are you feeling alright, darling?"
"Jarvis, can you contact Dr. Foster?" the sandy haired man asked as he reached over the back of a chair near her, causing Darcy to flinch back. "We need to get Darcy down to medical."
"Jane?" she snatched the flimsy looking bathrobe he handed her, pulling it around herself with shaking hands, the chill of the floor to ceiling windows at her back. "You still haven't answered any of my questions."
"Baby, something is obviously really wrong," the dark haired one pulled on a pair of flannel pants, and she finally got a really good look at him above the waist.
"You have a fucking metal arm, oh god. I know who you are, you've been all over the news," Darcy's back hit the wall behind her hard, again. Feeling nothing but glass through the thin robe. She was reluctant to turn around and put her back to them, but she did, after a moment. Through the tinted windows she could see the Empire State Building. "I'm in New York; how the fuck did I get here?" She turned and faced both men, who were standing a little behind her, their hands raised, worried looks on their faces. "Talk!"
"Umm," the Winter Fucking Soldier looked at the other and he shrugged. "You moved to New York three years ago with Dr. Foster."
"Jane Foster," the sandy haired man supplied. "Right after the Convergence in London."
"No, I didn't," Darcy shook her head, clutching the belt of her robe as tightly around herself as she could. "Jane stayed in London and I moved back to Virginia to finish my degree."
"You're finishing your degree up at NYU," the sandy one said. "You wanted to be out the door by eight this morning so you would have time to get coffee before your last final."
"So, we're in Avenger Tower, where you live," the Winter Soldier slid a picture frame to her across the floor and pointed at it. "We did not kidnap you, we would never hurt you."
"Like I'm going to believe that," she bent down to pick up the frame and turned it over. In the picture she was laughing, the Soldier had his arm around her shoulders, holding her against his chest, while the sandy haired one kissed her cheek. "Photoshop." She tossed the picture onto the chair. "Do I get your names, I mean other than Winter Soldier? You know, since you claim that this is my house, shouldn't I know who I live with?"
"Oh Darcy," Jane came in through the open bedroom door, her hair pulled back carefully into a long ponytail, and her clothes clean and wrinkle free.
"Janie," Darcy sagged and threw herself into her friend's arms. "Someone's been taking good care of you, you're new intern must rock."
"Darcy," Jane took her friend's face between her hands and looked at the woman. "You take care of me, you always have."
"No," she looked down at the astrophysicist, her neatly painted nails and her figure having filled out a little bit since the last time Darcy had seen her. "I left, it was too much after London, I left and you stayed in London with Thor."
"Thor convinced you to stay," Jane's head shook. "We promised we would get real funding, we'd move out of mom's place. Thor thought we would be more comfortable here at Avenger Tower, since Tony had offered him space. We moved here and you took over managing the Avenger scientists, and helped with Bucky's recovery, and you have been living in this apartment with Clint and Bucky for the last year."
"No," Darcy sunk to the floor and looked at the three concerned faces. "I left."
"Darce," the sandy haired one, who must be Clint, held out his hand to her, making no move to come to her. "Can we go down to medical and have you checked out?"
"You still haven't told me who you are," Darcy said quietly, looking to Jane who nodded before she took his hand.
"My name is Clint Barton," his fingers curled around her hand gently pulling her to her feet. "You and I met once when you were still in New Mexico, right after Thor landed. I used to work for Shield." That's why he looked familiar. "The team calls me Hawkeye."
"You're an Avenger?" she looked him up and down. He was certainly fit, not her usual type with all the muscly muscles, but nice looking. His gray eyes were sad, but she could see the laugh lines around his eyes and lips. "Aren't you a little old for me?"
"Not as old as Bucky," the man, Clint, mumbled.
"Bucky Barnes," the dark haired man gave her a small half smile. "My story is way too long to tell here, but," he shrugged, looking down at his metal arm, and then back at her. "We're your boyfriends."
"Yeah right, cause shit like that happens outside of fanfiction," Darcy scoffed and looked at Jane again, who just nodded. "What year is it?"
"Two thousand seventeen," Bucky told her, showing her a phone with the date clearly displayed. The background was another picture of the three of them, it looked like they were all squished into a photo booth. "January tenth."
"But," she let Clint pull her out of the bedroom and into the hallway beyond. "I went to bed last night, and I was in my crappy studio with the heat turned down all the way, and Rusty curled up with me, and I woke up in bed with…" she looked around the apartment. It was huge, and there was definitely a kitchen table and from where she was standing she could even see a dining room. "Where's Rusty?" Did she even have a cat here?
"Probably in the living room with Lucky," Clint shrugged. "My dog," he answered the unasked question. "Let's go to medical and see what's going on, we can fill you in on everything else later."
"With fun visuals, cause you know Tony's got so much video," Bucky was pulling a shirt over his head and then his hair up into an elastic. He had really pretty hair, she noted.
"But not that video," Clint pointed at the other man, snatching his own shirt out of the air and pulling it over his head. He looked down at their entwined hands, and back up at her, looking reluctant to let go of her hand.
"You really need to hold my hand?" she asked him as he slowly pulled his fingers away and pushed his arm through the sleeve and held his hand back out to her.
"Yeah, Darce," he wiggled his fingers and took his hand back. "But if it makes you uncomfortable."
"You don't even know I'm your Darcy," she reasoned. "What if I'm some alternate universe Darcy, and your girlfriend is out there somewhere, waking up to my cat and my crappy apartment, and feeling all alone. How would she feel about you guys all touchy with me?"
"If you aren't our Darcy, I'll eat my arm," Bucky handed her a pair of leggings and an oversized shirt. "It gets cold in medical, and we both know how you feel about getting cold."
"We still haven't proven the existence of alternative universes, Darce," Jane said from the kitchen where she was making coffee. "We've been using the data from the Convergence to try and detect exotic particles that might indicate the existence of other alternative universes, but so far, nothing."
"Can you prove or disprove something like that?" Darcy slipped the leggings up under her bathrobe. "Could you boys turn around?"
"We've seen the show, darling," Clint wiggled his eyebrows.
"I'm still not a hundred percent sure that you weren't violating me half an hour ago," she set her hands on her hips and glared at him until the blood drained from his face. "Look at it from my perspective."
"Right, turning around," he nodded and Bucky smacked him over the head.
"Don't be a dick," the dark haired man told his boyfriend. "Why don't you make Darcy a travel mug."
"Absolutely," Clint trotted over to the kitchen. "I assume you still like it black?"
"As my soul," she confirmed, and tossed the robe back into the bedroom. If they really had been living with her for a year, they would completely understand her need to toss things on the floor to deal with later. Neither man reacted. Clint handed her the mug and held his hand out to her again. Darcy looked at it for a moment before taking it. When in Rome, right?
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