Chapter Text
Darcy loved her boys. Bucky and Steve had been the 2nd best thing to ever happen to her (the best having been when she met her celebrity crush, Ryan Reynolds, and during the photo, he’d agreed to take with her his knuckle briefly touched the side of her boob). Something Darcy loved most about her boys and their polyamorous relationship was how well they communicated.
“Relationships need clear communication,” Steve had said when they were first getting together. “We gotta be able to talk about what is and isn’t working before it gets out of hand and someone gets hurt.”
Being the terrible angst child she is, she had thought he had made the comment with her in mind. More specifically that she might have been unwelcome by Bucky, who only tolerated her so that Steve could have his dream pin-up girl. The meaningful stare Steve had held with Bucky as he said this made her stupid traitorous, love-addled heart squeeze painfully.
After the drama, and when they actually did start to talk, the communication came easier and faster with each open foray into each other’s needs.
“I need you to call me more when you are on assignment.” Darcy had blurted over their first dinner together in over 3 weeks.
She’d blushed to the tips of her ears, but they listened and now she got SAT phone call updates or small communiques via SHIELD runners.
“You can’t sleep here tonight!” Bucky had yelled one night.
Darcy wondered how they could stand there when her heart had clearly been ripped out of her chest at his words.
“Bucky!” Steve had yelled back. “He doesn’t mean it that way!” he’d said this to Darcy. “The nightmares have been bad lately and it wouldn’t be safe.”
Something had happened in their last mission. HYDRA had been there. A Code Word had been used and poor Clint was still in hospital.
“I’m a part of this. I can handle-“ Darcy had started in a small voice, but Bucky had caught her up in his arms then, effectively cutting her off.
“I know you are more than capable, but at night, if I wake up, I’m the Winter Soldier.”
They’d talked it out for hours and while it hurt to not be there for him, she didn’t brood over it wondering if this meant they didn’t love her because of CLEAR COMMUNICATION!
So why was Darcy so hesitant to tell the boys she loved this part of herself?
Poli-Sci was a means to an end. Darcy’s real passion and love had been Rhetoric. She had been fascinated at a young age by the idea that with a few words someone could shape how people looked at a thing and how over time that thing would change to be as the person said it was because everyone had been convinced that it was. Poli-Sci was the natural direction one could take such passions because what better thing to look at for rhetorical persuasion than the workings of governments?
Kenneth Burke, a philosopher and rhetorician (who Darcy wished would father her future children), opened her eyes to the idea of Terministic Screens in an early undergrad class. Basically, the theory goes that language does three things at any given time. It can reflect, select and deflect elements of the speaker and their goals either unconsciously or consciously.
The best example to look at can be found when looking at Sex Worker, Prostitutes, and Whore. On the surface, all three names talk about the same work. Rhetorically speaking, however, each is doing very different things.
If one were to use the term Sex Worker, then that is REFLECTING the political stance of the speaking. Probably saying that the speaker believes the work is a job that deserves protection and should be made legal. It is also working to SELECT elements of the profession, specifically that it is WORK. The name is working to convince the listener that the person working this job is a worker like anyone else (to some degree). And finally, it DEFLECTS the seedier elements of the work by having no allusions to the titles that have moral baggage.
If one were to use the term Whore, it becomes very clear what this reflects of the speaker. So too is it obvious their political stance and what they are deciding to select and deflect. Prostitute fits neatly in the middle by reflecting a more neutral stance on the work and any political question of the legitimacy of it as work. If one didn’t know about the debate over making such a profession legal, they might use it openly, unaware perhaps of any negative connotation it might be selecting or failing to deflect.
This all being said, Darcy was definitively a whore in all connotations because what she wanted was not fitting with the way her boys saw her.
“Our Rose,” they called her.
“Our little flower,” Steve would purr into her ear, “Look how you bloom open for me.”
“Doll,” Bucky would groan out when she held him tight inside.
“Such a good girl!” they’d coo when she took them in deep.
She was the feminine part of their relationship. They loved each other, but still loved tits. She was the tits. This was her role. Please, don’t misunderstand. Darcy was a feminist and fuck the patriarchy and gender roles, but her boys were from the ’40s and she liked being girly sometimes and maybe she still angst-ed over her “usefulness” in a relationship with two super-soldiers who’d been in love for like 100 years and so she was the girl... maybe even when she didn’t really feel like being that way. Insecurities fucking sucked.
Basically, Darcy felt that each time they called her cute girly endearments they meant with nothing but love in their heart, she was being persuaded into that role and because she loved them, she did it for them.
So, no… she couldn’t tell them that her greatest fantasy since the first time this relationship was an option, was to fuck Bucky in the ass with a silicone mould of his own dick. Or maybe Steve’s. She liked the poetics of it being Bucky’s, but would be just as happy with Steve's. As long as it was a dick strapped to her waist that she could go to pound town on Bucky’s ass, she would be happy.
They fucked each other in a rushed, musky male fashion that she enjoyed watching. They’d fuck each other in slow-loving ways too that she equally enjoyed. Her enjoyment, however, was always undercut by a raging jealousy. She wished she could be the one doing the fucking.
“What was that look about this morning?” Bucky said over breakfast. Sometimes his directness helped with their communication and sometimes it set her teeth on edge.
“What look?” she hedged and began to gather her things to leave for work.
Steve looked put out, having missed the look while cuming on Bucky’s cock “There was a look?” He turned hurt eyes on Darcy, “Everything okay?”
At this point, there was zero doubt in their eyes that she would just spill the beans and they could talk it out, but she couldn’t rock the boat with this one. It was too big and while 2 years was a long time, and their love was strong…. She just couldn’t. She was a fucking insecure whore that suddenly needed to be anywhere but there.
“It’s fine guys, my foot was cramping trying to hold myself up, that’s all. Listen, I’m going to go to work early. Jane has Science and stuff that I gotta help prep. I’ll see you guys tonight?” And before they could stop her, she rushed out of their shared apartments.
Fucking whore coward, she thought bitterly to herself.