Chapter Text
It's not even a second after she removes her finger from the lift button that the alarms start sounding.
Weeeeee-owwwwww weeeeeEEEEEE-OoooOOOWWW
'Jarvis,' she yells over the din and then rolls her eyes. 'I said a mass extinction event, alright? Unless there's an actual emergency and by that, I mean Avengers Assemble kinda emergency, why the hell are the alarms-'
A disembodied voice which sounds like Jarvis but lacks all the emotional equivocation that Stark has managed to program into a goddamn robot tells her to 'stand put for more instructions. A level 4 event has been recorded. This building is on lockdown. Please remain where you are.' A beat. 'and calm.'
She snorts. Typical of Stark to make 'calm' an afterthought - she supposed that the mere humans that lived in his treehouse were an unfortunate afterthought. Although, Stark did seem to care about Pepper. She doubted that the woman was human given she was far too graceful and far too patient. Regardless, he’d said to her the other day 'Never find yourself too far from an Avenger in an alien apocalypse. You're breakable.' What an asshole. What the heck was a level four event anyway? Why not use colours - green for some half-baked space terrorist and red for Loki. Simple.
'That all you've got me for then, bud?' she yells.
Jarvis, clearly not quite functioning to his normal omniscient and frustratingly chirpy self just repeats the warning again, the alarms suspending their shrill chorus while the recording plays.
The noise just explodes again, giving Darcy a distinct feeling of being in a shitty rave before the alarms pause to allow Jarvis to repeat his irritatingly unhelpful spiel.
'Noisy,' a voice grits out, behind her. 'He is noisy.'
Darcy pivots on the spot to find the Winter Soldier glaring her down, hands curled ominously at his sides. She has never seen a human reverse anthropomorphise a plank of wood but 4.30 in the morning is when miracles happen.
'Uh..'
'A level 4 event has been recorded. This building is on lockdown. Please remain where you are.'
'Yeah, thanks Jarvis,' Darcy huffs, ostensibly because she's worried that one more weeeeEEEoooOOOW might trigger whatever killer instinct the blood hound in front of her has only tentative control of, 'we got it. Shut up now.'
'A level 4 event has been record- Shut Up Procedure activated.' The alarms don't turn off but they're like being in the bathroom of a club rather than living inside of a boombox.
Huh. Cute.
Her first instinct, despite the location, is not to start complimenting the Winter Soldier’s hair or ask him for a tampon but despite this, after a moment of slight more quiet blaring the tension seems to ebb from the Soldier in waves and she only blinks once (she's heard it works with bears) to avoid detection when she finds him kneeling, hands flat against the floor.
Every movement he makes is so deliberate that this trembling is somewhat more disconcerting. In fact, any vaguely human response from him is so bizarre. Her breath had caught in her throat the first time he'd said something to her when he'd moved in. Steve's briefing had been exceptionally lacklustre and had set her up to expect Barnes to talk in the third person and point when he wanted something. It had been astonishing to find him walking around the next morning asking if someone could please explain how the coffee machine worked.
(It didn’t, you just begged Stark to make JARVIS do it for you, the sneaky bastard)
But this moment is not that one and she is alone at 4 am with a weapon that is Not Okay. Darcy's brain splutters to life to summon up basic first aid from somewhere and she recognises, albeit to her surprise, that what she is watching unfold is a panic attack.
'Not a software malfunction,' she says, thinking it’ll soothe her racing heart and takes a tepid step forward. From somewhere deep in her memory she remembers Thor telling her how to disarm angry Cherpinks with a firm hand, gripped under their jaw and a determined stare, but on reflection, she was pretty sure they weren't real, even on Asgard and he was just fucking with her. She’s also not sure she wants to get within ‘gripping jaw’ distance of the Soldier.
'Hey, hey, hey buddy,' she whispers, 'you gotta breathe.'
She's fairly sure he hasn't actually exhaled since he spoke a few minutes ago, his breath coming in short spikes, eyes fixated on the floor. She kneels down beside him because there's a lot less vulnerability if she's side-along (one less very metal very unpredictable wholly Stark unapproved arm.)
'It helps to count,' Darcy starts softly and after a moment she takes his palm and starts to recall the process.
3 in, 4 out, 3 things you see, 4 things you hear.
'Can't,' he gasps.
'Sure you can, sure you can, one two three and out two three four. Now three things you see, four things you hear.'
She’s not sure what it is supposed to do - grounding or something, she can’t remember what the instructor had said but it can’t hurt and he's not quite there but she hears him exhale on three and four in a shudder and he forces himself to sit up.
'Floor, you, me. Alarm, you, alarm, alarm.'
Darcy nods, 'again?'
They do it twice more before his hands aren't clammy anymore, or perhaps her hands are so sweaty now that it’s like a shared traumatic event? In any ways, his hands are large and she can feel the callouses when he squeezes her hand on the three four exhale. He starts to recite objects, forgets to say things he hears.
'Why'd you come to this floor?' he blurts out, after at least the fourth successful breathing exercise.
His voice has a cadence now, deep and broad. One she had either not noticed or had not been there before.
'I have the bedroom on the common floor.. I wanted to be closed to the kitch- living room and uh.. Clint had decided to make a kale milkshake. In the middle of the night.'
He doesn’t need to know about her midnight house calls with the fridge.
Barnes - and she finds it easier to use a name when he's using sentences and holding her hand, warm and broad - just says, 'and?'
'And uh, well. Jarvis told me this floor was empty. That Nat wasn't using it.
'Nat wasn't using it. I was using it.'
Darcy huffs, 'well I know that now.'
He laughs - or, it is a breathy exhale? - but it resembles a laugh. So she crinkles a smile. 'How'd you turn Jarvis off, then?'
'I didn't manage it at first, just some of the sensors initially,' Barnes starts and then looks quizzically up at the alarms. 'I think these might be my fault.'
'You?'
'I shut down Jarvis for this floor tonight - I didn't like Stark monitoring me. The system must have some sort of a failsafe for obstructions to surveillance.'
Darcy really hopes it was because of Barnes because she is somewhat (marginally) happier to die here than have to deal with the inconvenience of being kidnapped or beaten first.
'Where'd you learn to do that?' she says, amazed, wondering when the KGB managed to fit murder training alongside complex hacking in the time that Barnes wasn't 'on ice'.
'Along the way,' he says and then quietly, 'I don't actually know.'
'It's cool,' Darcy says when his breath hitches again as if he didn’t intend to tell her. For the first time this night, she means it.
‘Is it?’
‘You kinda get used to madness living here.’
‘I think I have gotten worse.’
‘That makes sense,’ Darcy says, trying to imagine what having thousands of snippets of different lives trying to squish around in your brain for space. ‘You might actually have a PhD in it already.’
‘I am sorry I asked you about the coffee machine.’
Darcy winces. ‘I did not realise you weren’t a threat.’
Not quite true. She hadn’t realised he could compute.
His breathing is even as he says, ‘am I not?’
‘I’m not sure what you could do with-‘ and then she gurgles out a laugh, ‘don’t actually answer that.’
He smiles.
‘Was it just this floor?’
‘I think so – I don’t actually know how I got it to shut off, and I’m not sure if JARVIS operates each floor as part of the same system or if they are all individually closed circuit.’
‘No idea what that means – are we gonna get out of here?’
She realises, as the alarm drift slowly back into her conscious awareness, that she is not afraid.
The thought makes her leap up and she doesn't know what to do with herself when his eyes lift up and pin her down.
'I'm sorry, doll,' he starts as he kneels up, 'Don't usually get like this with company.'
Doll? Why did he suddenly sound like he'd walked out of Williamsburg?!
Her apprehension must show because his hands go up in surrender and he sits back down on his heels. ‘Oh. Force of habit. It wasn't a thing in the 40s.'
Darcy frowns. 'Your panic attacks?’
'No, doll.'
'Oh. That. No I don't really mind it. It's fine.'
Was it!?
‘They say it helps with the.. disassociation.’
‘Lingo from the past?’
He nods.
‘I’d be up for some swing-dancing,’ she says before she really knows what she’s saying. Did she just propose an outing? Did she just propose a date?! She sinks to her knees again and hopes this will make the offer seem flighty and half-hearted. Or something.
‘I hear the talkies have come a long way too.’
‘Movie night is Thursday,’ she says brightly, too brightly. She feels gratitude down to her toes that he didn’t take her up on her offer in any strong way.
‘Steve says a lot of the films are about war.’
‘Oh. Well, sure. But there’s also rip offs of you guys, you know. But DC sucks. As a rule.’
‘What is a rip off?’
Whoops.
‘A bad imitation,’ she tries.
‘They do movies of them?’
‘Bad movies. With bad actors. And bad plots. Terrible dialogue.’
‘I thought this was secret.’
‘Some of it is – most of it – but you can’t go and blow up a bunch of aliens in New York and not end up on Twitter.’
‘Aliens?’
‘Oh yes. Have you not been caught up?’ Darcy sighs and shifts so she’s sitting in front of him. Somehow, it’s not as bad being face to face. He’s expressive now.
‘So, I mean – we’ll get to the pornos because they’re more funny than sad – but really the kinda crux is that, you guys are heroes and people love heroes. So there’s like merch too but most of that is just weird. Like the fleshlights. Ugh. But the rip offs are great – because they can’t use anyone’s actual name or likeness because Pep is very good at hiring lawyers so it’s all like Brian Bammer and Admiral America – it has a naval spin and it’s just Not Right.’
A soft ding! sounds from behind her.
‘Bucky, buddy, stay where you are.’
Darcy pivots to find Steve, pale and disappointed(?) standing in the lift.
‘Let’s get you out of here,’ he says and Darcy gets to her feet, stepping aside to let him pass to Bucky. Except Steve grips herupper arm and starts to pull.
‘Wait-’
‘I’ll deal with it,’ Steve says, quietly. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Sorry?!’
Darcy doesn’t have the wherewithal at this time of morning or physical strength to exactly deny Steve so she finds herself gaping at Steve from the lift as he gives Bucky a curt nod.
Before she can summon some sort of shock or response, the lift doors close. Instead, she looks over at Bucky and she can’t decide whether he is watching her go with relief or disappointment.
The alarms are completely muffled by the insulated lift which she vaguely recalls is also some sort of short-range vehicle in case some crazed terrorist tries to trap them in an elevator. It had made her laugh when Stark had explained it and she had started calling him Wonka for kicks. He had been supremely unimpressed which he had failed to understand was in and of itself the appeal for her.
But right now, standing beside Steve, she wants to hit the eject button and get herself the heck out of dodge.
‘What was that?!’ she huffs once the silence gets awkward.
‘I’m so sorry – he doesn’t normally… he shouldn’t… he was getting a lot better,’ he finally gets out and looks balefully at her.
The height and his sad doe eyes give him the appearance of a large, sulky Labrador. This just makes her angrier.
‘No-’ she says because Bucky’s neuroses she can understand but being yanked out of there she does not get. ‘Why me – why not Bucky!’
She points toward the door vaguely, ‘you know, super assassin having trouble breathing?’
‘What?’
‘He didn’t hurt me, he was having a panic attack.’
‘A panic attack?’
Darcy grimaces, ‘maybe. Probably. I was, I dunno. I didn’t have time to speed dial a therapist while he was on the floor.’
‘I thought-’
‘Why’d you just leave him up there? That doesn’t seem smart, he was calming down before you barged in!’
‘He didn’t look like himself, I thought-‘
‘But you didn’t ask, I don’t like yanking. Not my thing.’
Steve gives her a look and then his face splits into a frustration. At himself, she thinks.
‘Shit.’
‘Ya, duh doi.’
‘I’ll let you go to bed and I’ll go back and check on him.’
Darcy watches his ridiculous Labrador face give her a pitiful grimace as she steps out onto her floor.
‘If it’s any consolation, thanks for getting me. But that was a shit friend move.’