Squeaking it in under the wire, here is my entry in the Darcy/Steve Holiday Fic Art Exchange. Merry Christmas, Melifair! The original prompts I was given were: snowed in sexy times, super soldier egg nog, and hot cocoa and kissing. Elements of all of these are incorporated in the story, though the piece kind of took on a life of its own and ended up spiraling out into other directions, possibly influenced by one too many Christmas themed romcoms. I hope you enjoy it – it was incredibly fun to write!

The story takes place after Thor: The Dark World in some nebulous time between Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the second Avengers movie. Also, don't look for the science (what little there is here) to make too much sense. Just blame the aliens.

Darcy Lewis knows she can be a bit impulsive at times. It's a virtue of hers, that ability to leap before she looks into parts unknown. So far in life it's served her fairly well, with the exception of a few times her mother had to haul her to the emergency room because of a sprained ankle or a broken elbow. She could handle spending six weeks in a cast with her eyes shut, however. Or the time she ended up driving a stoned Japanese exchange student to a lake three hours away from Culver so he could feed the ducks or something like that. Okay, it's not always wise, but it is often fun.

It's this impulsiveness that leads her to take the internship with Jane in New Mexico. Why spend eight hours a day for three weeks straight with her nose buried in dull chemistry text books when she could be running around the southwestern US with a crazy obsessive scientist looking for gateways to foreign planets for a few months? Then Thor arrived, changing everything and sending her life spiraling off into bright, shiny new directions. Directions that didn't pay all that well, but still. Crazy, cut aliens with the bodies of gods. Darcy's never said that she isn't shallow and can easily appreciate a nice set of muscles when they're dropped right in front of her. At least when they stop stumbling around hollering for their hammer.

This impulsiveness isn't always a good thing, however. Because when Jane accidentally opens up a portal right above the lab to an ice planet Darcy gets the idea that, hey, she's got some solid, non-skid boots on. She can easily run back in and get that last bit of research that she knows Jane needs instead of listening to the experts and getting the hell out of the lab before the snows get too heavy and make it impossible to get out again. When she acts that impulsive, Thor ends up sending one of his superhero friends (the one with the ass you could bounce quarters off of - which isn't all that unusual for Thor's friends - and a set of fingerless gloves that hit all of the right kinks) inside right after her. And sure enough, the snow swirling above gives way to surround the building before they can get out (she's got no clue how – this isn't anywhere remotely near her area of scientific expertise), and Darcy ends up getting snowbound with said superhero for those four hours until the rescue teams are able to fight their way through the massive drifts outside. So yeah, now she's got the unshakeable reputation as the woman daft enough to run back for research and get herself and Captain America snowbound in a lab that's been buried under an intergalactic avalanche.

That's not the impulsiveness that's weighing on her mind, however. She can live with that reputation – honestly it's kind of amusing and another entry for Darcy's Diary of weird shit that's happened since New Mexico. No, impulsive is when you have sex with that very superhero, right there on one of the lab counters, while waiting to be rescued. That has never, ever been Darcy's style. Sex is very good, make no mistake, but she prefers to know the person she's sleeping with for more than a couple of hours before inviting them to take a tumble with her.

But the Captain was a million times nicer than she had ever expected (which isn't that surprising because – barring Loki for all obvious reasons – Thor is an impeccable judge of character. Also, hello, Captain America), could keep up with her snark and toss it right back at her while still being a bit of an old fashioned gentleman, and even though she couldn't actually see his whole face, there was something about him that was undeniably handsome. And surprisingly, he was just as attracted to her as she was to him, in a way that was clearly more than just how she looked in a skirt and how he looked in his uniform.

Although, come to think of it, hardly any clothes actually made it off during their little tryst, Darcy remembers, fighting back the heat she can feel rushing to her face.

The Captain's got his hands in those damn gloves on her, one skating up her bare thigh below her skirt, the other one under her shirt, fingers tracing over the silky patterns on her bra. "We should probably slow down," he says, breathlessly. Still, his head tips back slightly so Darcy can nibble on the birthmarks that are visible on the skin of his throat from where she opened his collar. She can feel the vibrations of his moan under her mouth. Between that and the lower half of his face, it's the only skin she's got access to, and she's determined to make the most of it. Her perch on the counter brings her up to his height, and it's quite easy to get her lips on him from that angle.

"Probably," she agrees, trailing her mouth up to the birthmark on his cheek and flicking at it with her tongue, "but do you really want to?"

In response the Captain just pulls her closer until he's right between her legs. It's all too easy to tell that he's just as into it as she is, hot and hard and pressing right up against her. The fabric of her panties and his uniform is fast becoming an inconvenience. Darcy trails a hand down to his waistband, playing with the fasteners in a teasing sort of a way. He ducks his head down and finds her mouth with his, tongue gliding quickly along her lower lip before diving inside.

The helmet feels slightly odd against her face, but as his fingers are sneaking under her panties to stroke the bare skin there, Darcy really doesn't care about the damn helmet and lets herself get lost in the sensations.

The only thing that had stopped them from going back for a third round was the insistent squawk from the Captain's comm unit that the teams had figured out how to break through the crust of ice and snow on the outside of the building and would be indoors in five.

Things were a whirlwind after that, with the rushing to pull their clothes back into place before the strike teams crashed into the lab, followed quickly by debriefings, lots of long-winded explanations, and promises to SHIELD and other government agencies that no, Jane would not be accidentally opening up any portals to snowy realms anytime soon (she makes no guarantees as to deliberate portal transports however, Darcy notes). They're forced to find a new lab afterwards as the ice and snow was too much for the old building to take, leading to a nasty collapse just a few weeks later.

The new lab is bright and shiny, with state of the art equipment and all of the fun toys Jane could want for science purposes. Only downside? The lab's in Staten fucking Island, on the far ass end of New York City. When Jane told her they were relocating to New York, she hadn't quite envisioned a suburban patch about ten years behind the rest of the world when it comes to culture, music…life. There's something about the area where the lab is that reminds her of Puente Antiguo, that sort of land that time forgot feeling, although much busier than and nowhere near as cool as New Mexico. There's also a suspect smell in the air. The other scientists say it's because that's just the way marshland is, but Darcy's convinced it's because they're not all that far from the miles of land that used to be that damned dump that could be seen from outer space.

And even though it's been a busy three months since the snowstorm from outer space, Darcy's unable to shake the memories of what had happened with the Captain while they were waiting for rescue. She's got the strong suspicion, however, that calling up SHIELD and asking to speak with Captain America because they had the most earth-shaking, knee-wobbling sex ever (proving that the hero is super in more ways than one, she thinks with an immature mental snicker) while he was technically rescuing her would not go over well. At all. And if she were to ask Thor for his personal contact info he'd know something was up, and she has no desire to answer any of his probing questions about what happened when they were snowbound.

But still, the sudden, sharp, and bright connection that developed between she and the Captain so quickly can't be ignored that easily. Hell, if it was just about the sex she wouldn't be this wound up about it. There's something else, something more there, Darcy's certain.

'And I don't know his real name or what he even looks like under that mask,' she thinks. 'This is just my luck, isn't it?'

Darcy can't afford the distraction at the moment, however. She's got Christmas shopping that needs to get done, especially now that she's back in the States and her parents have demanded her presence at the family gathering in Jersey this year, and time's a-wasting. There's relatively easy access to Manhattan at least from their end of the boondocks, so Darcy sets her sights on the big city to knock out her shopping and do some major damage to her credit card.

'Maybe I can get the Captain a Christmas present,' she thinks idly, flicking at a rack of men's scarves somewhere in Macy's. 'Send it courtesy of SHIELD.'

Her brain follows that train of thought until it leads to jack-booted thugs ending up on her doorstep and tossing her in jail for stalking, never to be seen again until the end of time.

'Yeah, no,' she tells herself, tossing a scarf into the basket for her father and moving on to the next rack.

She likes to blame those wandering thoughts for what happens next, not even an hour later as she's getting off the train at Rockefeller Center. Honestly, Darcy isn't even paying the slightest bit of attention to her surroundings, which is more to blame. This is why it's not exactly that surprising when she walks smack into what feels like a massive wall of brick – or one really built human being. One of her bags crashes to the ground, spilling goods out across the subway platform. She's about to heartily apologize for being such a spastic klutz when she feels a large hand clamp down on her shoulder, warm even through the heavy coat she's wearing. "My god," she hears a voice mutter, which freezes her in her tracks.

Darcy knows that voice. Even though she only heard it that one night a few months ago, it's hard to forget a voice that spoke so breathlessly in her ear as his hands made their way further under her shirt to where it was all too easy to find bare skin. She looks up, but her eyes only make it as far as his neck before she zeroes in those birthmarks that she remembers kissing and licking as she worked open the collar of his uniform. "Holy shit."

She can't say no when he – when the Captain – asks her if she wants to go get a coffee. But damn if it isn't one of the most awkward few minutes of her life as they're standing there on line at Starbucks there in the Rockefeller Center Concourse, stealing quick glances at each other out of the corners of their eyes as they wait to place their orders. The Captain's younger than she had imagined he'd be; the confidence that the uniform must bring not really translating over into the civilian look as he shuffles his feet while they wait. Then she remembers what Thor once said about the Captain's many years asleep under the ice, and mentally adds 'slept with a senior citizen' to Darcy's Diary.

'Not bad for an old guy, though,' Darcy thinks, taking in the jeans, Henley, and jacket that he's currently wearing. Off-handedly, she wonders what he thinks of her right now, looking harassed and tired from dealing with tourists and other shoppers that thought it was a good idea to swarm New York that weekend like rabid bees. She's pretty sure any makeup she had one was left behind somewhere in Macy's shoe department too, when she almost had to break up a fight over a pair of riding boots and broke into a nasty sweat.

"Egg nog latte? Really?" Darcy can't help but blurt out as they make their way over to a free table in the corner. Privacy's pretty much unimaginable in the cafe at the moment, but this is New York City. Everyone'll be too busy looking at their phones or trying not to walk right into the path of those same tourists that they won't be paying attention to the conversation that two people are having inside one of five billion Starbucks around. It takes a hell of a lot more than that to get their attention.

The Captain shrugs with one shoulder, offering up a sheepish smile. "I like sweet coffee," he says, pulling out a chair for her.

Darcy's a bit taken aback by the move, but she thinks she covers it well, saying thanks and sinking down into the seat as he gets himself settled in. "So, uh, how have you been?" he asks, hands wrapped tightly around his egg nog latte.

"Pretty good," Darcy says, nodding. "And yourself?"

"Not too bad."

Darcy sips at her own peppermint hot chocolate (it's Christmas time, there needs to be peppermint everywhere), but then shakes her head. "Are we really going to do the awkward pleasantries thing?" she asks. "I mean, I've already had my tongue down your throat amongst other things so I think we've kind of moved past that stage."

The Captain huffs out a laugh, running a hand over the back of his neck. He really does look like that wholesome, all-American farm boy, she thinks, with that blond hair and those blue eyes that scream mid-western cornfield. "You have a point," he says. "All right, how's about this: I thought you guys were based out of London. What are you doing here in New York?"

"Surprised to see me here?"

"Well…yes."

The honesty is a bit startling, but it's better to be blunt and honest than coat the truth in pretty little frilly lies, Darcy believes. She can work with honesty, even though the truth may hurt. "We were in London, but the lab hasn't exactly recovered from the snow. Actually it's still a totally broken down mess. So Jane was able to find new lab space in Staten Island of all places. Not sure who she had to pay off to make that happen, but there you have it." She licks some lingering traces of cocoa off her lips, and cocks her head at him. "Why are you here? Didn't Thor say that you came straight from D.C. last time?"

He taps a long, slender finger on the lid of his drink, face drawn and suddenly serious. "D.C. didn't quite work out like I'd hoped it would," the Captain says slowly. "So I decided to come back to New York."

"Been here before then?" Darcy asks, before mentally smacking herself in the head. Duh, of course he's been to New York; there's video proof of it from Loki's invasion.

The Captain smirks, a twist of the lips that's not quite bitter but certainly verging on it. "I was born here," he says, the syllables suddenly becoming clipped and accented in an unmistakable New York way. "Spent a long time away before coming back, however."

"Because of the ice nap thing?" she blurts out before giving herself another mental smack. That probably should have been handled with a bit more delicacy.

"How…?" he trails off, face now a masterwork of puzzlement.

"Thor."

"Ah."

Darcy takes another sip of hot chocolate, tasting whipped cream and just a little mint on her tongue. "Look, Ca—what exactly am I supposed to call you?" she blurts out. "Unless you don't have a name and have decided to go by the title all the time instead? Either which is cool. It's totally your choice."

He chuckles lowly, a warm tone that makes Darcy's stomach clench in a not uncomfortable way. "Steve. You can call me Steve."

"Surprisingly normal for such an unusual sort of a guy."

"Hey, I didn't pick the name. Either one of them, actually."

Darcy sighs and tosses her head back dramatically. "Such is the life of a walking comic book character," she says, making him wince. She's not sure if it's because he's embarrassed about his situation or the way she's acting, but doesn't really care.

Besides, now is the time for courage and for forging ahead, because she's got to get one small, emotional little thing off her chest before she goes any further. It probably won't make much of a difference in the long run, but she'll at least feel better for putting it out there. The spirit of impulsivity deems it a good idea. "Anyway, Steve, I just want you to know that what happened there in London, back in the lab with the snow beasts from hell and all that, that's not something I usually do."

The look on the Captain – on Steve's – face is puzzled, so she rushes to clarify because it seems words have abandoned her when she needs them most. "Not that I regret it!" Darcy blurts out. "It was amazingly fun. And, like, earth-shakingly good. But I've never actually, you know, slept with someone after only knowing them for a couple of hours. It's sort of a self-imposed rule, you know. One that has spared me from a lot of potentially stupid situations in college, so it's done its job well." Darcy smiles, hoping that she looks cute rather than totally banana balls crazy. "Usually there's at least dinner involved first," she jokes, taking another sip of hot chocolate to cover up the nervousness. "Seriously, though, there's something about you that makes me want to set the rule book on fire and toss it right out the window."

At the very least, she can now add 'made Captain America blush' to the list of accomplishments in Darcy's Diary. Steve looks up at her through eyelashes she'd probably give her left arm for (maybe a pinky toe) and smiles back. "I know what you mean," he says. "It was a…nice distraction."

And if that's not a bucket of cold water dumped over her back, Darcy's not quite sure what is. Her stomach knots uncomfortably, and all she wants to do now is get the hell out of there before she embarrasses herself even further. Better to leave now while she looks strong and not visibly kicking herself for being so fucking stupid. It's the thoughts of a foolish fangirl for thinking he could actually feel something for her beyond trying to get into her pants. Just call him Captain Douchebag.

Which, actually, is the total anti-thesis to how Thor had described the guy, but Darcy's not exactly thinking clearly right now.

"A distraction," she parrots back, nodding slowly as she loosens her grip on her cup. "And that answers that question." She grabs her bags and stands up, looking for the nearest exit. "Good speaking to you again, Captain," Darcy says. "Have a nice life."

"Darcy, what - ?"

She doesn't hear the rest of what Steve says as she's already halfway through the door of the café. Serves her right for taking a leap, Darcy thinks as she storms through the underground Concourse heading to where she remembers the street exit is. Sometimes being impulsive sucks balls. 'I start to have feelings and he thinks I'm just a distraction. This is what happens when you hook up with superheroes and their egos, dumbass.' She emerges onto Sixth Avenue, with a lead-grey sky above that speaks of twilight and the possibility of oncoming snow, and a sidewalk full of holiday shoppers and tourists stopping dead in the middle of it so they can get pictures of Radio City all lit up for the Christmas season.

Darcy growls under her breath and resists the urge to beat the next tourist out of her way with her shopping bag. She's so not in the mood for this right now.

"Darcy, wait!"

Nope, definitely not me they're referring to, Darcy thinks as she darts across the street, narrowly missing getting mowed down by a passing food truck.

"Darcy!"

She spins in place on the sidewalk to see Steve running up to her, weaving through the passersby until he's only a few feet away. Darcy draws herself up until she's standing ramrod straight. Even if she doesn't have the upper hand in this situation she's sure as hell going to look like she does. "This had better be good or, spandex or not, I will push you in that fountain and it will be very, very cold," she says, waving a hand at the pool next to them that's currently featuring a centerpiece of oversized glittery red baubles stacked up like a pyramid.

Steve raises his hands up, as if he's trying to either calm her down or defend himself. Really? She's not that threatening. Yeah, she took down Thor once but apparently Tasers are illegal in New York so she's not allowed anywhere near her favorite weapon. "That came out very wrong," he says. "Can I explain?"

He looks so damn earnest and sorry that Darcy can't help but hear him out. There's a part of her that hopes like hell she's not being taken for a ride. But she also knows that there is a man underneath that mask who probably wants the same things that other guys out there want, and in the past that's often been them trying to feel up her tits without consequences. As she slugged the first guy who'd ever done that to her, all the way back in middle school when she started to develop, and left him with a black eye that lingered for a good three weeks, she's got no problem with belting Captain America one if she has to, even if she breaks her hand in the process. "All right," she says. "Go ahead, explain."

"First off, I've never, ever done anything like that either. I take my role seriously and the last thing I do, especially when I'm in uniform, is use it to meet a dame. Second…it's not exactly a secret that I really don't like snow or ice," Steve says, suddenly looking awkward and rubbing at his forehead. His breath escapes in little white puffs, dissipating into the air above and mingling with the rest of the street steam.

Darcy cocks her head in agreement.

"Thor asked for my help, however, and I wasn't going to say no. Then there was that damn avalanche. But you were there, and we started talking, and you were so fascinating – in a good way - that I didn't care that we were buried under a pile of snow, as long as you kept talking to me." Steve takes a deep breath, eyes meeting hers directly. "And that's what I mean by a distraction."

Her arms fall to her sides, as if they're too heavy to even hold the shopping bags let alone provide Darcy with an imposing stance. It's a bit intense to have such feelings directed right towards her, to know that just being herself is enough to distract Steve from some of the worst trauma he'd ever lived through. She's not that special, not really. It's just the Lewis family luck that she was in the right place at the right time (or wrong time. Anything involving an intergalactic avalanche is the wrong time). "Wow," she says. "That's uh…that is a pretty good explanation." She looks up at him, and hopes she hasn't fucked it up past the point of no return.

To Darcy's surprise, Steve steps forward and reaches for her hand, tangling their fingers together. "I tried to get in touch with Thor after we got out of there," he says, lips curving into a small smile once more. "I wanted to ask him if he knew your phone number so we could catch up, but I couldn't get a hold of him."

"That's way better than my idea of sending a Christmas present to SHIELD for you." Darcy purses her lips thoughtfully, looking up at Steve over the rims of her glasses. "And a hell of a lot smoother than your distraction statement there."

"I'm really not smooth. At all," Steve says, sheepishly. "That was probably a once in a lifetime event."

"I dunno, I wouldn't mind sticking around to see if I can make you be that smooth again," she grins at him. "Oh, and Thor had to go back home for a little bit. Apparently his piece of shit brother who was supposed to be dead isn't quite as dead as everyone thought he was."

Steve's jaw tightens at that one, eyes going stormy, and Darcy doesn't blame him one bit. She had a hard time dealing with the invasion, and she was stuck in an observatory in the back end of Norway. She can only imagine what it was like for the people on the ground directly in Loki's path. "But Thor spoke to Jane," Darcy continues, "and it looks like he's not setting foot anywhere near Earth. He's just being a troll back on their home planet." Darcy pauses for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the giant baubles next to her. "Is it weird that we talk about our friends like 'he's going back to his home planet' instead of going back to England or something?"

"Extremely. But I suppose I really can't say anything, given what I've been through." Steve squeezes her hand again, bringing his gaze back her way. "What are you doing tomorrow night?"

The look Darcy gives him is playful, she hopes. The goal is to look cute and flirty, but when she tries too hard she thinks she looks demented instead. "As of right now I am going to be wrapping presents, but if something better comes along I can easily put that off until later. Like, in a heartbeat. What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking dinner, maybe a movie?"

"I like the way you think."

An old receipt dug from the depths of her purse and split down the middle makes the perfect scratch paper for trading contact info. She tucks the scrap carefully into her wallet, a precious little gem she doesn't want to lose track of (and she likes being able to take the paper out and look at it, something that wouldn't happen if she'd just programmed the number into her phone). And then it's time to go, until tomorrow at least. But that's okay. Darcy's been patient enough for three months. Waiting another twenty-four hours will just make the date all that much sweeter.

That doesn't mean she can't take a little something for the road, however.

"Hey." Darcy pulls at the open zip of Steve's jacket, urging him closer to her. "Don't forget, I did this first last time too," she smirks, stretching up on tiptoes to kiss him, right there in the middle of the sidewalk that lines a New York street lit up with lights and decorations as people swell like tides and pass around them. Steve smiles into the kiss, wrapping an arm around her hip and pulling her in closer. And Darcy will swear that he tastes like chocolate and nutmeg, like the holidays, and, strangely enough, sort of like home.