AN: The sentence about compliance being rewarded is, of course, a paraphrase of that moment in Agents of Shield. The jaws of death line is also paraphrased from Captain America. Together or not all is a riff off of Doctor Who and Amy & Rory's final story arc. Seriously, just listen to "Together or Not at All" from Season 6's soundtrack when you get to the Bucky & Steve part (it was on repeat as I was writing). The 'kill me with her brain' line is a reference to Firefly.

And The Wounded Sing

Part Eighteen

By: Wynn

Bucky plays two games of darts with Clint and wins both of them, his enhancements from Hydra giving him a slight edge over Clint and thus the victories. He understands after though why Clint is an Avenger, the man as good as a name like Hawkeye suggests, far better than Bucky had been despite his superiors in the Army claiming that Bucky had been one of the best they'd ever seen in Basic. Despite Clint's urging, Bucky bows out after two games. He feels the party beginning to overwhelm. He lasted far longer than he thought, having talked more and smiled more than he ever imagined that he could upon waking in the chair, his memories restored. Waving goodbye, Bucky retreats to a clump of couches in the far corner of the room. Darcy quirks a brow at him as he sits on one that faces the party. He nods his okay as he settles down, and she smiles before turning back to Pepper and their conversation about colleges in New York.

Ten minutes later they return to the party, or at least Natasha and Sam do. Bucky waits for Steve, but he doesn't follow, and the unease that developed within Bucky at Clint's revelation of intel resurges. He glances at Natasha and Sam to try to gauge their mood, and thus try to determine the kind of intel she and Clint had brought in, but they give him nothing, Sam immediately swept out of Bucky's line of sight into a conversation with Tony and Natasha too cool and composed for Bucky to glean anything from. He watches her anyway, the comparison that Clint had made between them compelling him to do so. She stops by Clint, now by the food and stuffing his face with miniature sausages. They communicate something in hand gestures, no, in sign language. Clint points to him, avid, smiling despite the sausages, and after Natasha wrinkles her nose at him, she turns to follow his gaze. They lock eyes, and Bucky tries his best to stay calm, to keep his heartbeat slow so as not to alert Jarvis and thus not to cause a commotion. He pulls in a deep breath and gives her a slow nod, and after a moment, she returns the gesture before turning back to Clint.

Bucky doesn't relax, not completely, anticipating more, perhaps even a clarification on the intel, on Steve's continued absence. The opportunity arises fifteen minutes later as Tony ascends to center stage in his appeal for something called karaoke. Natasha slips to the back of the group then makes her way across the room toward Bucky, her gait unhurried yet direct in its advance, giving Bucky plenty of time to walk away. He doesn't, and thirty seconds later, she sits upon the couch to his right, keeping both Bucky and the rest of the room in sight.

"Clint said you beat him at darts."

Bucky stares at her a moment, thrown by the innocuous opening. He'd imagined something more invective, more accusatory for the man who abandoned her to horrors untold and then shot her twice. She lifts a brow at his silence and he looks away, swallowing, as he latches onto this the second lifeline offered to him in as many days. "Yes. Twice."

Her mouth twitches, as though she were restraining a smile. She looks at Clint but says nothing to Bucky, and he wonders by her expression if she and Clint were more than friends. He doubts thought that she'd volunteer that kind of information to him, not yet, so he shifts in place and says instead, "Steve mentioned what you and he have been doing. Not the details," he adds as she looks back at him. "Just that you were helping. Trying to keep Hydra away." He sucks in a deep breath, her gaze too steady upon him. But he doesn't look away, not for this. "I wanted to say thank you. I mean, I know you did it for Steve, but still—"

"What makes you say that?"

Bucky looks away then, down to his hands, where his right begins to tremble. Pulling in another breath, Bucky grits his teeth and answers her, not in words, but in a glance, first at her shoulder and then her gut. He braces himself for the memory, for the past to consume him, first the windy hill near Odessa, then the screaming street in D.C. Yet the present remains unsullied by the past, by the memories coursing through his mind.

It takes Natasha less than a second to understand his meaning. Leaning toward him, she says, "I don't blame you. For either of them. You weren't in control of yourself. You—"

"Could have done something. I should have done something." He pauses, the glare of the child he saw in Russia bleeding through the woman who sits before him today. His breath hitches in his chest as he says, "You were just a kid…"

Just a kid, like the other girls there, and he did nothing. He hurt the Ten Rings, Bucky made them suffer for what they did to those girls in the cave, but he did nothing to those who held Natasha, too afraid of what Zola would do to him if he stepped out of line.

"What could you have done?" she asks as she leans back on the couch. "You were outmanned and outgunned."

"I don't know. Something."

Natasha says nothing. Bucky can't read her expression, which shifts and settles as he protests her denial of action. She glances off to the side, at what Bucky doesn't know because he keeps his gaze on her, resolved to his guilt, perhaps hopeful for her forgiveness. After a moment, Natasha meets his eyes once more. "You did help."

Bucky frowns at her, his heart beating fast.

"The way you looked at me," she continues, and he expects her eyes to go distant in memory but they remain here, fixed upon him. "It wasn't pity. More sadness and anger. Not anger at me," she clarifies, "which is what I thought then. That you were disappointed in me, in my performance. It wasn't until the next person looked at me the way that you had that I understood." Her eyes drift back over to Clint, where they linger. "You were angry for me, not at me."

She drifts into silence, now caught in the reminiscence. Bucky glances from one to the other and seizes the opportunity, his curiosity too much. "Are you and he…?"

Natasha looks back at him, a smile pushing at the edges of her mouth. "No."

"Really?"

She tilts her head to the side, still amused. "Yes. Why?"

Bucky drops his gaze to the necklace near the hollow of her throat. The arrow glints in the light.

Natasha smiles then. Her gaze drops to the St. Michael's medal he wears beneath his shirt. "We all have our talismans," she says, catching his eye again.

They did, their lights in the dark, the firm ground beneath their feet. His sits beside hers as they watch Thor boast in karaoke about being a dancing queen. Darcy doesn't glint like the arrow, but she glows and Bucky hopes if she ever needs him as Clint needed Natasha, he has the strength to go toe-to-toe with the world and win.

"She asked me to train her."

Bucky's head snaps back toward Natasha.

She looks past him, to Darcy, where she arches a brow. "She called Clint earlier today and asked for my number. I was already with him, so we spoke for a few minutes. She's not looking for expert instruction. Just the basics."

Just the basics because he tormented her with the horrors of Hydra, of how they would target her, of what they would do if they caught her. Bucky closes his eyes, her evasion on the phone earlier spinning again through his mind, Thor and his admonishment, how Darcy would follow him into the dark, how he'd drag her down—

"It's smart."

Bucky opens his eyes. Natasha regards him now, her gaze frank and steady. "She's been lucky so far, but now there's you, Foster, and Thor in her life, and Darcy would be a target due to any one of you. Stark's got his share of enemies too, and she'll be even more publicly associated with him. And he doesn't always think things through before he acts. She needs to be able to defend herself."

"That's what Tony said."

Natasha blinks at that. Bucky thinks it's the closest he'll ever see her to being surprised.

"Of course," he says, sending her a crooked smile as he finally relaxes against the couch, "then he called me a popsicle and I called him an idiot, so you're not looking at a whole lot of maturity here."

Natasha, like Sam, takes the olive branch he offers and returns his smile. "I never am. You have met the rest of the team, right?"

Bucky laughs then. "I have. I told Steve that I didn't think it was possible for him to get a crazier team than the Commandos, but that he's actually done it."

"That he has. And speak of the ancient…"

She points to the main door, currently shepherding Steve into the room. Bucky reads tension in clench of his teeth and the line between his brows, reads the attempt not to be in the slow breath he pulls in and the tight smile he sends Sam. Scanning the room, Steve finds him, then Natasha, in the far corner. He pauses, his eyes darting from one to the other, then the lack of grief and bloodshed processes, and Steve continues on. As he does, Natasha stands.

"I'm happy to help train Darcy, unless you object."

Bucky frowns again. "Why would I object?"

"You might want to train her yourself. Your skills exceed my own when it comes to combat."

Bucky shakes his head before she even finishes. The sound of Darcy's clavicle snapping beneath his hand resounds in his brain. He won't hurt her, not again. Bucky averts his gaze, yet Natasha continues to stare. What she might see, Bucky doesn't know. She makes no comment though, for which he is grateful.

"I'll let Darcy know that I've said yes. If there's anything in particular that you think she should know, just tell me."

Bucky nods and Natasha starts away. She arches a brow at Steve as they pass each other, but she says nothing. Bucky watches her cross to the other side of the room, snag a cookie and a beer from the food table, and then plop down next to Clint on the couch to watch Tony take the stage for karaoke.

Steve sits beside Bucky with significantly less enthusiasm than Natasha. "You okay?" he asks as he slumps down. "I asked her to wait—"

"It's fine. Surprisingly." Bucky glances at Steve and attempts a smile. "I thought she'd shoot me, or at least punch me a couple dozen times in the nuts. But we talked. It was… It was okay."

Steve nods but remains silent, and this lack of a response unnerves Bucky more than his slumped shoulders and frowning brow. "You okay?"

Steve shakes his head.

Bucky takes a moment before asking, the right tone needed, the correct posture, concerned yet still relaxed, this, secret knowledge, what he and Steve fought about before. "You want to talk about it?"

"Yes." The lack of hesitation eases the apprehension in Bucky. "But not now," Steve continues, eyeing the party on the other side of the room. "I don't want to spoil everything."

"And you sitting here stressed out won't do that?"

Steve opens his mouth to protest only to snap it shut a moment later.

Bucky smirks at him. "That's what I thought." He stands then, reaching down to slap Steve in the knee. "Come on."

Steve looks again at the party, at Darcy, who tossed a handful of popcorn at Tony as he called for Jarvis to give him a spotlight. "But—"

"It's fine, Steve. She was okay with me leaving before, when Clint and Natasha got here. Plus," he adds, smiling, "leaving early will give 'em fuel for the old man jokes they love so much."

At that, Steve groans. "As if they need more. I swear Natasha's got a list of them as long as my arm."

"And now she's training Darcy, so they'll share with each other and it'll get twice as long."

"Three times," Steve says as he pushes to his feet and follows Bucky toward the door. "Because of Sam."

"Four, if we include Tony. Which we must. He'll pout if we don't."

"Yes, he will."

"But hey," Bucky says as they pass through the door, "at least we can turn around and use them on Thor. He's older than us."

This finally pulls a smile from Steve. "That he is."

Back in their apartment, they change into comfortable clothes and pour some scotch. Bucky texts Darcy, telling her about Steve's need to talk and to invite her and Sam up after the party winds down. He hopes that will give them long enough to talk and to help bolster Steve afterward. In the living room, they sit, relishing the silence after the delightful chaos of the party, and some of the tension tightening Steve leeches away. But not enough, his face still pinched and mouth still taut.

"Okay," Bucky says, taking another sip of the scotch. "Spill."

"Rumlow's alive."

The revelation knocks the breath from Bucky, though he'd been prepared, expecting something dire from the moment Steve returned to the common room. The memories knock the breath from him, Rumlow always with Pierce, hovering on the periphery, his hand on his gun and his eyes on Bucky as he screamed and screamed in the chair.

Movement from Steve, him raising his glass, pulls Bucky from the brink of the past. He holds it there a moment before lowering it to say, "We thought he died. He'd been in the Triskelion when the Carrier went down. But apparently not."

He takes a long drink then, nearly draining his glass, which makes Bucky frown. Rumlow wasn't good, but he wasn't the worst either, not enough to pull this pall over Steve. "What else?"

Steve hesitates a second, eyeing Bucky, perhaps assessing him, his state of mind and capacity to endure the stress, then he says softly, "Natasha thinks he's with Zola."

Bucky's jaw tightens. He looks away, breathing in slowly so as to not break his glass. "Makes sense. Zola always needed an attack dog."

"There's more."

Bucky looks up at Steve. The expression on his face unsettles Bucky more than the stiff set of his shoulders or the grim line of his mouth. Steve smiles, but one without humor, with cold disbelief and bitter incredulity instead. The smile of a man struck down once more but this time struggling to stand.

"Natasha's been going through the files she uncovered from SHIELD. From Hydra. I know Tony has too, but Natasha's been looking for specific things. Things no one wants Hydra to have."

"Let me guess," Bucky says as he reaches for the scotch bottle beside him, "she found out that they have one of these things."

Steve nods. He holds his glass out to Bucky, taking a more measured sip as Bucky pours a glass for himself as well. He waits until Bucky's settled again, the bottle back on the table, before he continues.

"It's called the scepter. Or that's what we call it. It's what Loki used to control Selvig and Clint and to fight too, some sort of energy blast emitted from it when used. Thor let it stay here when he went back to Asgard. Partly because he was already taking a weapon back to his world. But also in good will. He and Fury went at it about the weapons that SHIELD was building, stuff that Fury said was to defend the Earth against alien beings like Thor. So he left it here, to show trust in Fury and in SHIELD."

"And now Hydra has it."

Steve nods again. "Apparently with someone called Strucker. He worked for SHIELD, one of the task force assigned by Fury to test the scepter, to figure out how it worked. Natasha thinks he's using it on people now, to do… to perform experiments on them. She's not sure though. I tried contacting Fury tonight, but I couldn't get a hold of him. But still…" He shakes his head then and expels a long breath. "This still looks bad, even knowing as little as we do."

"It is."

Steve looks at him. Bucky preps to explain, to tell what he knows about Strucker, but his throat clamps down and his hands start to shake. He fumbles the glass, barely getting it onto the table in time. Standing, he moves away from the couch, away too from the memory, but it pursues him across the room. Bucky waits for it to seize hold as he stops before the window, but the memory remains a memory, just the recollection of the German watching him through the window. Bucky tenses, feeling again the burn of whatever chemicals the man had pumped into him. He ran and jumped, climbed and fought, his pulse pounding in his ears, not loud enough though to drown out the scratch of the pencil on paper as Strucker made a notation—

"Bucky?"

"He was one of the ones who ran tests on me. The main one, with Pierce. He tried— he tried to make me better. A more efficient asset. More willing to comply." Bucky grits his teeth and tries not to vomit at the rounds of brainwashing he endured, Strucker pushing him first to his physical limits, then when he was exhausted, broken, pumping Bucky full of chemicals, restraining him, and making him watch the show. His compliance, of course, would be rewarded. But Bucky couldn't comply, not like Hydra wanted; the serum hindered the efforts, repairing the damage to his brain as it was wrought. Only the chair worked, and that only for a time.

Bucky closes his eyes, nausea rising within him again. Bucky, Natasha, Clint and Selvig, those girls in the cave, and who knew how many others both now and in the past, their wills stripped and stolen, twisted and broken by men who viewed the world as theirs to own, to conquer by any means necessary, no thought spared for the lives crushed in the effort.

"I'm calling a team meeting tomorrow to let everyone know what's happened." He pauses and Bucky hears him take a drink, hears him sigh again, a soft one, heavy with exhaustion. "Thor's… not going to be happy. Clint either."

Bucky turns then to look at Steve. "He doesn't know."

Steve shakes his head. He stares down at his glass, and some of the hardness within Bucky fades as a sad smile appears on Steve's face. "Natasha didn't want to ruin this, him meeting you for the first time. And he and Darcy are friends. Natasha wanted to give him one night."

One night, one brief respite before the resumption of the fight, the fight that never ended, no matter the sacrifices, the enemy succumbing only for a time, only to rouse again, stronger and more cunning, or new foes rising in the distance, perpetual phoenixes all. Bucky and Steve stare at each other, the weight of the moment upon them. The crazy team laughs in the distance, but when Steve eyes Bucky now, he does so not with the hesitation of before, the fearful anticipation of seventy years ago, of whether or not Bucky Barnes will follow Captain America into the jaws of death. Now, fear seizes hold of Steve, dread of a fate repeated, of falling into hell once again.

"Steve…"

"I can't. I can't ask you. Not again. I thought I could. Here, when you and I and Darcy fought, I thought that I could. Because together or not at all, right? But I can't." Steve pauses, his face crumpling, his breath shuddering in his chest. "Seeing you and her tonight, I can't. You deserve that. This. A life with her. You shouldn't have to fight. Not anymore. Hell, you shouldn't have had to then. But I…" Steve stops again, snapping his mouth shut against the swell of emotion within him, the burden of guilt and of lives lost. "I'm not doing it again. Being selfish like that. I won't."

He throws back the rest of the drink, grimacing, presumably, at the burn of the liquor. As Steve reaches for the bottle to pour another round, Bucky straightens, shoulders low and chin high. He breathes in, deep and slow, before starting forward, saying, as steady as he can as he crosses the room, "Well, it's a damn good thing it's not up to you then."

Steve freezes at the comment. Bucky plucks the now filled tumbler from his hand and swallows the drink and his doubts. Setting the glass on the table, he says, his voice low, "You said that you saved the world when you came out of the ice, but that you felt like it wasn't your world. So you didn't try to live in it, to make a life in it. But it is. It is your world. And it's mine too. They made it ours." Bucky points in the general direction of the party, at Tony and Pepper and Bruce, at Thor and Jane, at Clint and Natasha, at Darcy and Sam, at all the people who reached out first for Steve, those who saw past Captain American to the lost man beneath, and then, inexplicably, wondrously, did the same for him. "They made it ours," he says again. "They've given us something, a chance for a life, for a family. And we're going to take it. Because we deserve it, both of us, both of us, Steve, and I will be goddamned if I let anyone try to take it from us. So no, I shouldn't have to fight. Neither should you. We already have, we've been to hell, and we died there. But we will fight, for them and for us too. And I want to do it with you, but I'll do it on my own if I have—"

"No, no. No, no, no. Not alone. Together. That's good. Let's do that."

Bucky releases a long breath at the acceptance by Steve. He sees Steve do the same, and Bucky almost smiles and he almost laughs, the sudden realignment of the world, of his place in it, here in this Tower, in this city, beside Steve and with Darcy, dizzying and giddying. Steve stands then and reaches for the glass that Bucky had discarded. He pours a serving of the scotch, pours one for Bucky too in the glass he appropriated from Steve, and then sets the bottle back on the table. As he straightens, he lifts his glass and looks at Bucky, and Bucky sees the same within him, a settled maelstrom, a firm foothold for the freefall to come.

"Welcome to the team."

The sixth inning of the Dodgers vs. Giants game plays on the TV and the entire bottle of scotch has been consumed as well as a large frozen pizza by the time the door to the apartment opens and Sam and Darcy return.

"—and that's when Steve threw the egg at his ass. He's got, like, wicked aim, Bucky does too, so that's why we gotta go with— Hey there, golden oldies. What's up?"

Bucky cranes his neck back to peer over the top of the couch. Darcy stands at the threshold to the living room, still in her purple dress but with her hair up in a bun and barefoot, her sandals dangling from one finger. She carries a tray with brownies in her hands, and she smiles at Bucky when they lock eyes.

"That's why you gotta go with what?" he asks as the door clicks shut.

Her smile widens as she makes her way toward him. "Pancakes, dude. You and Steve are banned from future egg dishes."

Sam appears in the threshold then, even more laden down with food than Darcy. Steve finally rouses himself from his Dodgers despair and moves to help transport the leftovers to the kitchen. Darcy rounds the end of the couch as they do and places the brownie tray amid the empty scotch bottle and pizza plates.

"As I recall," Bucky says as she snags one of the brownies and sits beside him, "you started it."

Darcy shrugs. She breaks the brownie in two and passes him half. "It's not the timing of the act, bear. It's the accuracy that matters. Besides, you like pancakes."

"I do."

They sit in silence as they eat their respective brownie. As she does, Darcy slumps back, leaning her head against the couch and closing her eyes. She draws her knees up and props them against Bucky's thigh. Popping the last bite of brownie into his mouth, Bucky sinks down until he can set his head beside hers. Darcy finds his hand, his left, and threads her fingers through his. The warmth of her beside him and the sounds from the kitchen, of the fridge opening, of Tupperware containers being unearthed from the back of the cabinet, of Steve laughing as Sam fills him in on the karaoke hijinks that occurred in their absence, wash over Bucky, sloughing off the stress of the future and the weight of the past.

"So," Darcy says slowly, pulling his attention back to her. "I wasn't going to ask, but the empty bottle of Glen over here makes me wonder. Is everything okay?"

"In here, yes. Out there, no. It seems you're gonna get your first Avengers meeting tomorrow."

Darcy says nothing, but Bucky feels her stiffen a bit beside him. He pulls back far enough to be able to look at her. "You okay?"

She nods as she meets his eyes. "Just nervous. I mean, not about the people. Because everyone is awesome, even Natasha, who I thought might kill me with her brain before I got to know her at the party. I just…" She huffs out a soft sigh and tries to smile, but the action falters, ending in her worrying her bottom lip. "I just hope I can help."

"You can."

The affirmation, as always, catches her by surprise. Darcy presses her lips together to try to curb the emotions within her, but a smile breaks still free. She squeezes his hand before lifting it up to lay a small kiss on his thumb. The tenderness of the gesture steals Bucky's breath, it reaffirms the choice that he made with Steve.

"Speaking of," he says as he clears his throat, staving off the rush developing within him. Bucky moves to stand, smiling as Darcy pouts at the movement. He tugs on her hand, reaches down to clasp her other, and tugs on that one too. Her expression turns tragic and she ends up flopping over onto her side on the couch.

"Too tired. Standing sucks. Don't want to."

Bucky crouches beside the couch, bringing his face close to hers. "If you do, I'll go to your place and get you your pajamas."

She cracks open one eye. "And my iPod?"

"And your iPod."

Her distress melts into a contented smile. "You're a prince among bears, good sir."

"I'm something all right." He rises, tugging on her hands again to help her to stand. "In fact," he continues when she's standing before him, "that's why I wanted you up." Bucky eases back then, far enough for him to be able to hold out his hand. "Bucky Barnes. Official Avenger."

Darcy blinks at that. Her gaze drops down to his hand, where lingers and then, to his surprise, it hardens. "I swear to God," she mutters, her hands fisting by her sides. "I'm going to shove that ugly nameplate up his pampered ass. I don't care how fired it gets me."

Bucky gapes at the vitriol before the pieces fall into place and his confusion clears. "No, no, no. Not Tony. He didn't ask me. Steve did. Or I asked him. Well," he amends, his eyes flitting over to the kitchen entrance, where the ding of the microwave sounds, "I kind of told him I was going to whether he liked it or not, and he said yes."

At that, Darcy's head flops forward in relief. "Thank Christ. I was..." She looks up then and rubs both hands over her face. "I like Tony. I do. But he's so wound up right now about Hydra, and he can be so goddamn persistent at getting what he wants that I…" Darcy lowers her hands as she meets his eyes again. "I just didn't want him pressuring you. Not for this. For fighting again."

"He didn't. He didn't the first time either. I had to convince him."

Darcy raises her brows. "Really?"

Bucky nods. "It was my choice. It is now too. I don't want to fight, Darcy, but this matters to me, this life, you and Steve and everybody else. And I'm gonna protect it in any way I can."

"Well, okay then."

Now Bucky blinks at her. "Really?"

Darcy nods. "That's all that matters. For you to be you and do you, so to speak." She straightens her shoulders then and thrusts her hand out into the space between them. "So let's try take two."

Bucky glances down at her hand. As he does, he sees Darcy now, clad in her purple dress, grinning and giddy, like him, in love, and he sees Darcy before, egg in her hair as she proposes a handshake to commemorate their partnership, and then her with her arm in a sling, engaging him in another handshake, reeling him in from the madness in his mind, in his newly restored memories. She changed his life with each clasp of her hand, with each vow that she made, both to him and for him.

"Okay."

She picks up on the reference. This time, though, Bucky sees no flush at the remembrance, just a cheeky grin and a quick peek down, which, in contrast to that puzzling fog of a time in the motel, definitely stirs some interest in him now.

Lifting his hand again, Bucky clasps hers, keeping his grip light but sure. "Bucky Barnes." The name rolls from his tongue without hitch, with the cadence of normalcy, of certainty. "Official Avenger."

Darcy shakes his hand. "Darcy Lewis. Also an official Avenger. And an official person. Mostly."

"Mostly," he adds, smiling again, and as they stare at each other, Bucky waits for the tumult, for the whirlwind spin of self that he felt in Tony's workshop as he vowed and begged and heckled to join the fight. But he feels nothing amiss now, no hesitation and no doubt. Instead, this, her and him and here and now, feels right.

It feels like coming home.

Thank you to everyone who read and commented and left kudos and encouragement. Bucky's story became a lot more involved than Darcy's story, which makes sense given how much farther he had to go to recover and discover his sense of self. I truly appreciate everyone who stuck by and waited for me to finish. I hope the ending was worth it.

I do have plans for the final third part, in which Hydra does make its return and Bucky must struggle with getting back in the mix, with trying to retain the stability he's fought so hard for in the story, while Darcy struggles with her decision to be in the mix, to be an Avenger and what all that entails. I'm not going to write it now. I need a break, having worked on this story since Cap 2 came out basically. I'm still going to mark the story as complete because it is, in a way, both Bucky and Darcy reaching the same place by the end of each part. Whenever I do get around to writing and posting the third, I'll un-complete it until it's well and truly finished.

Thank you again to everyone for all the support. This has been an absolute rollercoaster of a fic writing experience, especially with the wonderful response. Thank you.