Chapter Text
Darcy had been living on Midgard for a few decades now, learning all she could and seeing what it was like to walk amongst them. They were different from Asgardians in how their secondary genders ruled their society. On Asgard alphas and omegas were seen as equals, and treated with the utmost respect. Betas were the pillars of their society, the ones that were the glue that held things together when times seemed tough.
Being the youngest daughter of the All-Father and the All-Mother she had a lot of freedom. Though she knew sooner or later she would be expected to mate with someone her parents and brothers deemed worthy of her. Frankly, she just wanted to find someone to fall in love with and not someone who would be a good political match. She had a feeling though that if she couldn’t find a mate soon then she was going to be forced into a marriage and mating of someone she would have no interest in whatsoever.
Darcy had just started working for Doctor Jane Foster when her brother crash-landed on Midgard and she tasered him. She wasn't going to lie it was a little freaky seeing Thor on Earth screaming for their father and his hammer. They took him to the hospital and when he got out she and he had a very heated argument on the roof.
“What the hell did you do, brother?” She hissed as she watched for signs of Jane or Erik coming to look for either of them.
Thor glowered at her, “Nothing!” She arched her brow. “I may have tried wiping out the Jotuns.”
Darcy blanched at him, “You did what? But they’re Loki’s people! How could you do that to him, Thor?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face and launched into his coronation day celebration to which she asked why the hell hadn’t she been invited. “I think Mother knew it wouldn’t happen and that’s why you weren’t invited.” Still, it stung that she wasn’t at least given the option to show up.
After that things calmed down and she moved with Jane and Thor to New York to live in the Avengers’ Tower. She met the others that Thor now called friends and teammates and she came clean about who and what she was which shocked Jane. Two months later Steve found his long-lost friend who was tortured and brainwashed by HYDRA. Darcy could tell that Bucky was suffering and one day she caught him sitting on the edge of Stark’s landing pad staring out over the city. Part of her wondered how much it had changed from the New York he had known as a young man and if he liked the changes he saw or not.
She made her presence known so as to not startle him and took a seat beside him. “Sergeant Barnes, how are you this morning?”
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. The first thing that Darcy thought when she had met him was that he smelled perfect. He smelled like how the palace smelled on Yule, spices and something earthy like pine. Yule was always her favorite time because of how lovely the palace became. She wondered if she smelled just as nice to him as he did her.
“‘Bout as good as I always am,” he grumbled.
The omega in her wanted to comfort him, to wrap herself around him and just ease his pain away, but she knew that they didn’t have that kind of relationship. “Are you hungry? I was going to make something for breakfast.”
“I’m fine, Princess,” he said as he focused on the city again.
“You can call me Darcy,” she offered. Ever since they had met he always used her title. Part of her wished just once he’d say her name so she’d know what it sounded like. “We’re not on Asgard and my father isn’t going to glare at you for the breach of etiquette.”
He snorted, “I wonder if your father could make me nervous or if I’m just numb to everything at this point.”
Darcy bit back a whine at the words, at the pain in them. So she tried to go for a lighter tone, hoping to draw out a little smile from the stoic soldier. “You’d probably impress him if you didn’t balk at his rather impressive glare.”
There was a ghost of a smile there on his lips and she took that as a win. His scent lightened a little as if he wasn’t stuck in those dark thoughts he had been in when she arrived. “Think he’d make me an honorary Asgardian?”
She shrugged, “We have the apples of Idunn lying around somewhere I’m sure he’d offer up immortality to someone who doesn’t blink in the face of an imposing force.” She grinned and deepened her voice, “‘You’d make a fine Asgardian, get him an apple!’ is probably what he’d say.”
That earned her a snort and her heart lightened at the sound of it. “When do we go?” He looked at her fully then and she had to fight to keep her breathing under control with how handsome he looked in the golden glow of dawn.
“I can call for Heimdall right now,” she teased but both of them knew she was also a little serious at the same time.
He seriously seemed to consider it for a moment and then said, “Maybe some other time.” That was when she knew their conversation was coming to an end and she shouldn’t push him further. If she wanted to befriend him baby steps were important, and not treating him like a bomb was also called for in this case.
She got up and dusted her pants off, “Offer stands. I’ll be in the kitchen, just come find me if you want something to eat.”
She left Bucky there on the edge of the landing pad and felt his eyes on her the whole way in. It was only when she was inside that she let out a shaky breath and allowed her heart to beat wildly in her chest. She wasn’t sure what it was about the alpha that called to her omega but she wasn’t going to throw herself at him hoping he’d realize what she had come to know about them.
Bucky watched the omega - Darcy - walk away after offering to make him something to eat. He didn’t know much about her outside of the fact that she was Thor’s younger sister and that her official title was Princess of Asgard. Part of him wondered just why she hung around him or was kind to him. There wasn’t anything he could offer her when she had her brothers and title to back her. Another part of him knew she had a whole planet at her beck and call so what was it about him that drew her in?
He sat on the landing pad for a little while longer before he got up and wandered inside. He wasn’t ashamed to admit he followed her scent all the way to the kitchen where she was making breakfast for everyone. She smelled vaguely like home to him, memories of his mother’s perfume or the bakery not far from their apartment they had gone to when they had the funds. There was a part of him that remembered Thor and Loki introducing her as the goddess of the hearth and home. She protected people and made sure they had everything they needed. Darcy had been a child when Odin had found her on Earth and brought her back to Asgard. The Norns had apparently come to him and told them that like Loki she was meant to be a part of their family.
There was probably more to it that than but Bucky hadn’t fully been listening at the time. He had still been new to the Tower and to the Avengers and was working through all the shit HYDRA had put in his head. He was too embarrassed to ask her backstory now, not wanting to draw attention to himself or send a message. He wasn’t sure how the princes or their parents would feel about his attention to Darcy.
Thor was a jovial person, oftentimes seeming dumber than he actually was, but Bucky knew Thor wasn’t an idiot. If he asked the wrong question or seemed too interested in Darcy then Thor would know what Bucky secretly wanted. Something Bucky hadn’t craved since before the war. The thing that had seemed like such a dream now. No omega wanted him anymore, not when he could kill them so easily or with the blood that stained his hands. Then there came Darcy with her bright smiles and her jokes. It had stirred something inside him, the alpha side of him slowly raising its head in interest after being dormant for decades.
“Park your butt on a stool, Sergeant,” Darcy called over her shoulder. He had to remember her senses were on par with his and Steve’s and that she had probably known the moment he had entered the kitchen.
He did as she said and continued to watch her move around the tower’s kitchen with practiced ease. There were flashes of magic as she summoned things to her and he watched in wonder as she worked. She was just beginning to plate the food when an explosion rocked the tower. Bucky was up in a heartbeat and pulling Darcy closer to him, shielding her as some tiles from the ceiling came crashing down. “Fri, status report,” he barked as he began checking Darcy over for any signs of injuries. She was watching him with wide, blue eyes, something simmering in them that he didn’t have time to decipher.
“HYDRA is attacking the building, sir,” came her response. “Mr. Stark, Captain Rogers, and Agent Romanoff are all responding to HYDRA agents flooding the building as we speak.”
Bucky began cursing softly in Russian. “Doll, you need to get to one of the panic rooms.”
She was going to argue that she was Asgardian and could fight just as well - if not better - than he could. But there was a look in Bucky’s eyes, a wild look that told her he was afraid right now and he needed her safe.
The omega part of her brain preened at that thought, however, the Asgardian in her grumbled. She pointed at him, “Just this once, James.” Then she dashed off to find Jane and make sure she was safe leaving Bucky behind to go fight his demons.
Her clothes melted away into her armor and she burst into the lab as Jane was scrambling to make sure her research was safe. “Darcy!” She cried when she saw her friend. “What the hell is going on out there?!”
“HYDRA’s attacking the building,” she explained as she waved a hand and made Jane’s work vanish. “We gotta get to a panic room.”
There was a moment where Jane hesitated, “Shouldn’t you be fighting with them?”
Darcy had wrenched the door to the panic room open and let out a long, suffering sigh, “Let’s just say a certain alpha needs me safe at the moment and I’m willing to oblige him right now.”
Jane grinned as the panic room door slid shut behind them. “Aw, was Bucky worried about you?”
Darcy’s heart fluttered a little at the thought of Bucky, covering her body with his when the explosion happened. “Yes,” she said with a smile at her friend. “I’m giving him some grace since he was triggered, especially since it was HYDRA.”
Jane had heard many rants about the super soldier during girls’ night. She had sworn her friend to secrecy not wanting either of her brothers to find out about her feelings and scare Bucky. Not that they could, but it might become awkward between the two of them and she was getting so close to getting him to open up a little more around her.
Jane let out a dreamy little sigh, she was rooting for the two of them to work this out. She wanted to see Darcy happy and mated to the alpha of her choosing. The thought of Odin making her mate with someone else did not sit right no matter how much Darcy said she would do it willingly. Jane didn’t believe that for a second, she knew Darcy too well by now to know that she would be miserable the entire time.
The two of them sat there, Darcy shifting her outfit back to something she’d wear around the Tower, and waited for the all-clear. She kept her sword just in case the HYDRA goons managed to bust their way into the panic room. It was a few hours before Thor came for them both, a little curious why Darcy was there, but she didn’t answer her brother’s questioning look. She merely headed back for her apartment in the Tower, not feeling up to trying to redo the breakfast she had been working on earlier. The team could order in if they were hungry. Instead, she worked on a list of supplies they were going to need and told Friday what to order. She was halfway through checking things over when a knock on her door. “Fri?” She asked.
“It’s Sergeant Barnes, Princess,” came the AI’s voice.
“Darcy, Fri. Call me Darcy.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Stark has made it so my programming won’t allow that. Shall I let Sergeant Barnes in?”
Darcy was going to have words with Tony later. “Go ahead and let him in.”
She heard her door swing open and the sound of Bucky’s boots on the hardwood floor as he rounded the corner into her living room. He looked worse for wear, with little cuts and nicks on his face, and clothes covered in dust from the explosion. And most of all he looked tired, so tired. “Does the offer to go to Asgard still stand?”
A smile graced her lips.