#runverse

Digging the Trenches

Yawning widely, Darcy finished her unpacking, pulling out the pair of dresses she'd brought. A green for the rehearsal dinner, and a plum-colored one with a little mandarin collar for the wedding itself.

She shook them out, smoothed the pleats and yawned again. It was four in the afternoon but her body clock insisted it was seven in the evening, and with jet-lag, and the long-ass flight and the equally long-ass drive from Seattle, Darcy was about done with the day. And she hadn't even greeted 90% of her relatives yet.

"That's a real pretty dress."

Darcy swiped an unruly lock of hair from her eyes and turned to offer Bucky a smile. He was leaning against the doorjamb looking unfairly attractive while she felt like a wilted piece of lettuce. Darn him.

Holding up and studying the green dress she'd got in London, Darcy silently agreed with him. It was forest green with a cascade of bright flowers down the front. She kind of loved it, too.

"Thanks," she said, "I'll wear it to the rehearsal dinner."

"Who all's going to be there?"

"Everybody," she said with a sigh. 'Everybody' was so many people. "I mean the people actually in the wedding will be at their own table, but the rest of us will cram ourselves into the dining room, too."

He nodded and pushed himself away from the door, wandering over to look out the window and the breathtaking view beyond.

Tired of playing the destitute slacker of the family, Darcy decided it was time to not give a shit, and she scored them the best and most expensive room available. Their suite overlooked the meadow and stream and mountains beyond. The clerk promised her it was the prettiest view in the place, and damned if he wasn't right. She planned to spend some time zoning on their balcony, trying to embrace a moment of peaceful mountain zen for a little while.

And view aside, it was a danged nice suite; worth the price. It had two large bedrooms with lots of rustic wood and colorful throws and pillows. A good-sized living room space, with a big fireplace and a bigger TV. She did't anticipate needing the TV, what with dinner tonight, rehearsal dinner tomorrow night, the wedding and reception/dinner the next night, and finally escape on Sunday. And add to that the various daytime events scattered here and there, and the eventual, desperate need for a good long walk or two. No TV for her. But, Bucky didn't sleep much — the curse of a super soldier — and while she was sure he brought a couple of books, he also liked the sports channels as much as any other dude. Yay big TV and big suite.

"How'd I do?" Bucky cleared his throat and turned back to her. "With your parents, I mean."

"You did great," she told him, her praise sincere. He'd been as absolutely normal as he was able to be. She hadn't asked it of him, but he'd decided he was going to be a regular guy and to hell with his issues for one weekend. "You chatted! You were your best charming self. I've very proud of you. My mom likes you already."

Bucky scratched at his cheek, missing his scruff. The shave and haircut had been a surprise, and it was still a little jarring to see him with short hair. She didn't hate it, but it was super new. "Your dad isn't so sure."

Darcy waved a hand, shooing away his concern. Her dad was an even-keeled sort of guy; there would be no catastrophic, emotional blowups like there might be with Tony. "He liked you fine, but he's still trying to get his brain around the fact that I'm not 12 anymore."

"The look on his face when you said we were sharing the suite." He grimaced and shook his head. "You should have just told him the suite has two bedrooms."

With a light snort she said, "That's boring. I'm helping him come to terms with the fact that I am a grown woman."

"Allegedly," Bucky murmured quietly, half to himself but she heard it anyway and scowled.

"See if you get so much as a kiss this weekend, Sugar Plum."

Bucky smirked and turned to walk out the room. "Noted. Come on, you've got to see your family at some point. Talk me through them all again. "

Darcy hung her dresses and followed him out into the main room of the suite. "How about a pop quiz? Oldest?"

"Aunt Judith," he replied. "Goes by Judy. Two kids. Evil cousin Ericka is her oldest. Right?"

"Right. Which is weird because Judy is one of the sweetest people you could meet," she mused as she dropped onto the couch and reached for her shoes. "She's quiet and a little bit reserved, but she's really kind." Darcy laughed and said, "Except with Francine. They've been at war my whole life. No clue what it's about."

He winced and sat next to her on the couch. "Fun."

She offered him a shrug. The bad blood was what it always had been, no changing it. "Next."

"Aunt Edna," he replied promptly. "Also known as Eddie. The gossip. Knows everybody's medical history inside and out. Likes a bit of a tipple. Four kids. I don't remember any of them."

Darcy patted him on the back and then bent over to finish pulling her shoes back on. "Seriously, there's like a zillion of us, don't sweat it. I'm not even going to get into the Marellis. I can't remember half of them. They're all mostly okay. I don't have beef with any of them. If a golden retriever was a large Portuguese Jewish family, that's the Marellis."

He laughed a little. "What a thought. Next is your grandma Francine. Three kids. Your Aunt Donna is the oldest. Is she coming?"

"I doubt it," Darcy said with a sigh and leaned back on the couch. "She and Francine are fire and gasoline. I know my mom keeps in touch with Donna, but I haven't seen her in probably five or six years. She lives in Yucca Valley, has a hippy art shop and cafe in Joshua Tree. She's fully a desert person and happy where she is."

He frowned and asked. "Desert person?"

Darcy pressed her lips together and nodded in a way that said 'Buddy, you have no idea.' "I can't do justice to desert folks. I'll take you to the high desert some day, and you'll get to experience them yourself." She rubbed at her chin and sighed. "They're fine. Just a lot of walking-to-the-beat-of-their-own-hallucinogen-inspired-drummer. Don't get me wrong, I love the desert, it's beautiful and peaceful — when the meth labs aren't exploding around you."

"Now I don't know if I want to go," he laughed.

She gave him a crooked smile. "You'd probably like Aunt Donna. She's pretty chill. She makes jewelry and pottery mostly. I have a really pretty bowl she gave me for graduation. I mostly keep spare change in it, but it's still pretty. She sells work from other local artists, too. Paintings, weaving, books, whatever. We'll go one day."

"Okay." He was always so curiously, unflinchingly willing when she threatened to take him somewhere. After this she was taking him to New Orleans to see Madam Odette. He hadn't even batted an eye when she told him. She even took him to Jersey once and he was just like 'that was fun.' She supposed getting sent around the world on missions all the time, he just learned to roll with it. Still, it was an interesting side of him.

Darcy stood and shook her shoulders. Contemplation of Bucky over, she had her shoes on and no more excuses to avoid going downstairs to see everybody. It was Showtime. "Next."

"Uncle Larry," Bucky said, standing with her. "The youngest. Nice guy, bad at magic. Six kids. Damn."

"There's a set of twins in there, at least. Two for one."

"Identical?" he asked.

"Fraternal, lucky us."

***

"Darcy! Darcy! Oh my God, Darcy!"

On stepping foot into the resort's large event room, Darcy was tackle hugged by cousin Marcia. It was downright shocking. She and Marcia hadn't seen each other or even talked in a few years.

Cautiously, Darcy hugged her back. "Hi, how are you?"

"I'm so glad you came," Marcia said breathlessly. She glanced at Bucky and offered the brightest smile her orthodontist parents ever created. "Hi, I'm Marcia."

"I"m Darcy's partner, James," Bucky said with a baffled smile of his own. "Nice to meet you. You sure picked a pretty place to have your wedding."

"Oh, thank you," she said, still flashing that smile. "Derek's dad renovated the whole place a couple years ago. They got us a nice deal on everything."

"When do I get to meet Derek?" Darcy asked.

Marcia turned the smile on Darcy. "He and his dad are helping his grandma get settled. She's not, like, infirm or anything, but she travels like she's going on safari for six months. It's a production."

Marcia stepped back and looked Darcy over. It was slightly unsettling. Marica was tall, willowy, with sandy brown hair and hazel eyes. She'd actually done some modeling when she was in high school. Nothing fancy, local Penny's ads and things like that. But, she was beautiful and knew it. Darcy was almost her exact opposite in every feature.

"You look gorgeous," Marcia said after a moment. "God, I'll never have curves like that. I could have ten kids and I'll still be straight as a stick."

"Thanks," Darcy said, feeling like she'd dropped into Wonderland. "Also, what have you done to Marcia and where is she?"

With a laugh, Marcia leaned forward and hugged Darcy again. "I just … I kind of had a scare and after that a revelation. Like six months ago. But that's pretty recent."

"Wow." A scare? Like a getting sick scare or car accident scare? Darcy felt she would have heard about any of that. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Marcia put her hands on her face like she was trying to calm herself down and will away the flush in her cheeks. "Derek and I had some stupid fight about mopping. Mopping! Of all the idiotic things. I don't even remember the details of that fight, that's how dumb it was."

"Sure."

"Darcy and I had a fight about donuts one time," Bucky offered, trying to be oddly supportive of the dumbness of some fights. Well, he did grow up with Steve. She imagined he had to have some extra stupid fights with Mr. More-Stubborn-Than-Anybody-Anywhere-Ever.

"We didn't even fight, you just gave them the stink-eye and went all weird about them," Darcy corrected him.

"You spent an hour telling me the horrible things Foster does to them," he said, countering her point.

"It was like ten minutes, tops," she exclaimed.

Marcia laughed. "Yeah, exactly like that. So, anyway," she took a deep breath, "I went to Target to get one of those fancy mops. I just really wanted a fancy mop you don't have to wring out in a bucket or sink or whatever."

"Got it. I love a fancy mop."

"We'll have fancy mops in the bar," Bucky promised for some reason. He was really, really trying to get on her family's good side, no matter what it took. Fancy mops, honestly.

"Okay," Marcia said slowly, cocking her head to one side and giving Bucky a funny look. "So, I'm in line with my fancy mop and this guy comes in and starts screaming and pacing around in front of the doors. He's got a machete he's waving around. Completely incoherent, and running up to people to scare them with the machete and, God, I was terrified."

"Oh my God, that's awful," Darcy said. She might be used to people shooting at her, but most people weren't her. This would be terrifying to a normal person. "You weren't hurt, were you? I would have heard if you were hurt."

"No, no. Security tackled him and then the police came, but it really unsettled me. For like weeks. I got nervous about going out and stuff, but I think it was more, like, I'd just had this dumb fight with Derek and what if that was the last thing we ever did together? Fight about a mop."

"I can see that, for sure," Darcy said. She'd had the same thought about her dad a time or two. The most recent last thing she and Tony did together was fight about Ultron. Not so dumb of a fight, but maybe it didn't need to be a fight at all. She sighed quietly. What a mess.

"A couple weeks later we went to my parents for dinner because Aunt Judy was in town and grandma showed up, too, and you know how they are together. And while they're fighting across the dinner table, about some fifty-year old nonsense, I'm just thinking 'what's the point'? We're family, we're supposed to at least try to love and support each other. What was so important when they were teenagers that they're still fighting about it? What about forgiveness? It's all just so stupid. And then I thought about you and me. I know I was pushy and bossy and you were a scheming little sneak—"

Darcy laughed. "Yeah, I was."

"Do you know, dad remodeled my old bedroom into his study last year and he found paint under the carpet. What? Twelve years later? There's still purple glitter paint turning up," Marcia exclaimed with chuckle.

"I'd perfected the paint bomb on my dad by that time," Darcy told her. Ah, the lightbulb paint bomb. An oldie and a goodie. Everybody had been furious with her. Ha, no regrets.

"Jesus, I guess so."

A random relation wandering by paused to shake a finger. "Don't take the name of Lord in vain, Marcia Marelli!"

"Yes, Aunt Beth."

"And who are you?" Aunt Beth said turning on Darcy. She was a stout woman in her fifties and Darcy felt only the faintest hint of recognition. Beth had to be one of the myriad Marellis.

"Darcy Lewis," Darcy told her promptly. You don't mess with any of the aunties, whoever they belonged to. "I'm on the Perlman side."

"Judy's?"

"No, for my sins, Francine's."

Aunt Beth narrowed her eyes and then smiled a little. "Go with God, sweetie." And off she went. The trio watched her go with puzzled frowns.

"She went Protestant on us," Marcia mused. "We're learning to be patient."

Shaking herself out of that interruption, Marcia continued. "So, anyway, Judy and grandma were fighting and I thought about you and me. And we had some stupid kid stuff we were hanging on to and it felt so futile. What are we doing? We had some fun times, too, after all."

"Like the time we rode out bikes to the ferry to go to Vashon Island?"

"Dad likes to remind me of that one," Marcia said with a giggle and snort. "He says I'm still grounded."

Darcy laughed along with her. They got to the ferry terminal but discovered they didn't have enough money for the crossing to the island. Also the workers were giving them looks that said they wanted to call their parents or the police. The ride home was long and by the time they got home it was dark and Uncle Hugh had called the police. Whoopsie. Critical miscalculation. Darcy was nine, Marcia was eleven. Common sense was an entirely foreign concept at those ages.

"Man, if you added up all the 'grounded until you're thirty!'s I got, I'd have a life sentence," she said, wiping at her forehead. Bucky laughed at her.

"I only got the one." Marcia gave her a smile and another hug. "That's why I'm so glad you're here. I want us to get to know each other as grownups and put that kid stuff in a box labeled 'funny stories' and not the one labeled 'dumb lifetime resentments'."

Darcy frowned a little. Marcia was right about this, but Darcy was a little nonplussed that she'd never looked at it that way herself. She was so used to carrying the mantel of black-sheep Darcy, that it didn't occur to her that she really didn't have to. All those kid things that she'd built into a facade for family and why? At first it was to cover a life with Tony, but now she was an adult. She could let go of those resentments, put down the facade, take down those weird barriers she'd built between her and her relations, and let herself figure out who adult Darcy was in the family. God knew she could claim any number of non-slacker careers — engineer, sort of astrophysicist, government flunky job that she'd have to come up with a cool name for, Stark Industries flunky that also needed a name, Maria Stark Foundation flunky who reviewed grants and endowments, barkeep, pilot, sniper wrangler — wait, scratch that last.

Who was grownup Darcy Lewis to her family? A fine question she didn't have the answer for.

"That sounds great, Marcia. It really does." She scratched at her neck, and nodded. "I guess I never really thought about it. But, you're right. It's all stupid kid stuff."

"Awesome," Marcia said, clapping her hands. "It's a packed weekend, I know, but I can squeeze in breakfast around 8:30 tomorrow, if you want?"

Bucky chuckled and looked away quickly when Darcy glanced over at him.

"That sounds great," Darcy agreed, only kicking Bucky in the ankle a tiny bit.

"Super and we can—" Marcia stopped and her eyes went wide. "Aunt Edna, at your five o'clock. You're on your own." And with that, Marcia dashed off the other direction and vanished into the mob. Well, maybe not all the kid stuff would be resolved this weekend.

Pulling in a deep breath, bracing herself for a long and intense familial info dump, Darcy turned and said brightly, "Aunt Eddie! How are you? It's been too long."