I'm going to write so much for this. I cant promise any schedule for it, but there'll be loads, honestly!
Disclaimer: I don't own the avengers.
So, Steve has this problem.
His problem isn't exactly normal, if there even is a normal for a guy who spent seventy years frozen and unconscious.
His problem is Darcy Lewis's clothes.
Yes, it's weird.
It isn't particularly the clothes alone, it's the clothes on Darcy.
The clothes on Darcy and they way she's so...Darcy, in them. He can't quite describe it, but it leaves him a little bit breathless, and a lot distracted.
He can remember the first time he met her. It was just after the battle of New York, and he was covered in rubble dust, sore and exhausted, mourning Coulson and relieved that he could sleep for about a week.
She had obviously just woken up, and he would later find out that she had hopped a S.H.I.E.L.D quinjet to help out, even if helping was just feeding some tired, hungry heroes.
She was wearing sweatpants, fluffy socks, and a loose, slouchy sweater that was falling off one shoulder.
Oddly enough it was the socks, more than anything, that caught his attention; neon, and covered in pink sheep, with googly eyes on her toes. He couldn't stop staring at them, which he knew partly stemmed from his sleep deprived state, and partly from the fact that they were the brightest, most colourful socks he had ever seen.
It was only when she placed a chilly hand on his arm that he realised everyone else had gone to bed, and he was standing staring at a girl he had just met, with very peculiar socks.
"Captain Rogers? Are you okay?"
"Your socks are very bright." He blurted. In the back of his mind, someone who sounded very much like Bucky was calling him an idiot, and he grimaced.
"Yeah, I like a little colour. Makes everything a little happier, even when it isn't happy, don't you think?" She didn't question his odd conversation opener, but led him to the kitchen, where she proceeded to bustle around, grabbing the kettle and filling it up, setting it to boil and then opening a cupboard she could barely reach, to try and get two mugs down.
Stretching up on her tiptoes, she made tiny frustrated noises as she tried to reach the shelf. Without even realising he was moving, Steve leaned over her shoulder and fetched a green mug with a yellow bird on it and a plain white one down, setting them on the counter for her. Beaming at him, she spooned powder into both mugs, and nudged him towards his bedroom.
"Go shower and get into something that doesn't have half a building in it." She said gently. He stumbled into his room, stripped and showered on autopilot, and donned stripy pyjama pants and a t-shirt. When he returned, Darcy had migrated to the sofa, and was clutching her mug tightly, the other mug on the table in front of her. He sank into the plushy couch, and she nudged the mug closer to him.
Picking it up, he peered at the contents, and smiled.
Hot cocoa.
Sipping it, he raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"Good?" She asked quietly.
He nodded.
"Tastes like my momma used to make it." He told her, equally quietly. He sipped it again, mentally catapulted back to his childhood and the warm chocolate drink his mother would give him on his birthday, halfway through the winter, even though they were barely scraping by. Then she died, and Bucky made a point to always find some, even during the war, when rations did not include luxury items such as hot chocolate.
"I'm glad." She drank her own drink, comfortable in the sleepy silence.
He wondered why she would do this for someone she had just met, and voiced his thought.
"Because you needed someone to, Captain."
"Please, call me Steve." He had no other response, only the thought that she was the most genuine person he had ever met. She smiled at him over the rim of her mug, and they sat in quietude, drinking their hot chocolate, and yawning. Steve set his empty mug down, glancing over at the girl he had just met, grinning at her dozing form. Removing her mug from its precarious perch atop her thigh, and carrying both over to the sink, he rinsed them out, and then paused.
"Jarvis? Where's Darcy's room?"
"Opposite your own bedroom, sir. Might I suggest leaving her night light on?"
"Thank you, Jarvis." He still felt odd talking to thin air, but his mother raised him with manners, even if his conversational partner was an artificial intelligence.
Returning to the couch, he very gingerly scooped the now sleeping Darcy into his arms, and carrying her to her bedroom.
Laying her down, he pulled the duvet over her and switched the night light on her bedside table on. Turning to leave, he started as her small hand grasped his wrist.
"Thanks, Steve." She mumbled sleepily. He smiled.
"Goodnight, Darcy." He left, closing the door quietly behind him, and crossed the hall to his own room, sliding into bed, and drifting off to sleep with those bright socks dancing through his head.