"Steve?" His eyes wandered up and down her. He had known that Daria was not well disposed towards Steve, but he had never found out why until now. He also didn't know how it had come about that Steve and she had come into contact.
But all these questions did not matter at this moment.
What mattered to him was that he could calm his little wolf down and convince her that she was safe here with him.
That if anyone even tried to touch a hair on her head, he would shred that person in the air with his own hands.
"Yes... Steve Rogers. Captain America. He... I..."
Bucky pulled Daria close to him and wrapped his arms tightly around her to give her a sense of security. To show her that he, too, could be the supporting pillar in her life that she had become for him.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to Daria." He whispered in her ear as she sobbed into his chest. "I just --"
"No. No, it's all right. I just had one of those many flashbacks. I think I owe you an explanation."
✾
Hoboken, New Jersey 2012 - 4 months before the Chitauri attack.
"Are you done then?" Echoed the deep voice through the lovely furnished apartment in Hoboken near the Hudson River.
"I'll be right there."
Daria expertly traced black eyeliner along her upper lid before surveying herself once more as she stepped out of the bathroom and into the apartment's kitchen-living room.
On the orange velvet couch sat a blond, well-built man who went by the name of Steve Rogers and with whom Daria had been dating for several months.
They had met rather by chance and when he had invited her for coffee and told her his story, Daria had been hooked.
Everything happened pretty fast.
They got along well and Steve was a gentleman like in the storybook.
On every date he literally showered her with a bouquet of flowers, he held the doors open for her, opened her door when they drove through the area in the cab and helpfully held out his hand to her every time they got in and out.
He treated her like a princess and as if she was the most precious thing he had ever held in his hands.
Daria enjoyed the courtship to the fullest.
Never before had anyone been seriously interested in her on this level. Men had only ever been the means to satisfy her needs - but not Steve.
Steve was the first man for whom she had developed feelings.
