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Girlfriend, You've Been Booked!

Summary:

Post-college, Darcy Lewis is struggling. Lots of debt and a degree that doesn't seem to be particularly helpful in the industry she wants to be in doesn't give her too many options. So she signs on for an escort service. She's not the typical woman on the site and forgets about it until she gets the email "Girlfriend, You've Been Booked!" She almost doesn't open it, but low-and-behold she does. With friendship, and new introductions, and fights, her life changes like she couldn't imagine.

Notes:

I'm going to admit. I started writing this over a year and a half ago and as I type this it sits at about 115,000 words. That being said, that total hasn't changed in probably the last year? I'm hoping that posting this gives me more of a reason to go back and finally finish the thing. I'm going to aim for updates every week or two (starting 8/26/18), but wanted to give fair warning that I can't promise an end.

I'll update relationships as the story progresses, I just didn't want to give everything away at the beginning of the story. I'm rereading parts of it tonight and I'm thoroughly enjoying it, and I hope that you will too!

Enjoy

Chapter Text

They met at a bad time for Darcy.  She had finished up her internship with Jane (finally official after the clusterfuck that was London) and she had packed up and finished her degree at Culver.  The problem was that she then graduated with a ton of debt, NDA’s about the only interesting things in her life, and a degree in political science.  All of which wasn’t particularly helpful in a post-recession economy where only the best and the brightest made it into the political science field with an actual paying job. 

Darcy knew she was bright and she knew that people liked her, but it didn’t change the fact that she didn’t have quite what anyone was looking for.  After all, working for free on various political campaigns might be good experience but it didn’t exactly pay to keep a person in poptarts and coffee.

What she did have was the, aforementioned, mountain of debt, a good knowledge of computers (and some friends from a misspent youth), a shitty apartment in a corner of Washington, DC that she didn’t like having to walk to late in the night or early in the morning (or ever, really), and a job at Starbucks near the Capitol. 

But DC was expensive and even her long hours making coffee for uptight people in suits couldn’t quite cover her rent, school loan payments, health care, food and the occasional treat to literally anything else. 

In other words, she desperately needed a new job, or at least a side job.  Something with weird hours that she could fit in between shifts.  She looked into tutoring, all that took was a few meetings with college students at GWU and American University to realize that wouldn’t be her cup of tea.  It wasn’t that there was an issue with the students, they seemed decent and smart.  But so many of them had the life she had always dreamed of with two parents that loved each other and helped pay for their kids college education. 

It wasn’t even that she was bitter.  Mostly a form of nostalgia that hurt her deep in her chest.  It wasn’t worth the measly money they would pay her to hold onto that feeling of sadness.

Most of the other jobs she had considered had the same problem.  They wanted more time than she could afford to take.  With all the hours she was putting in at the Starbucks she was sure they were going to make her a manager and she didn’t want to risk missing out on that for another low paying job.

However, she did find a service that would provide arm candy for men who needed dates.  It was made clear on the website that sex was off the table (which Darcy took with a “wink wink” meaning that if the ‘arm-candy’ was willing they could work it out with their date, technically keeping it legal).  All it took was one look at her bank account and her upcoming schedule and Darcy signed the fuck up.

 

Her ‘persona’ had been up on the website for a matter of weeks before her first hit.  Honestly, she had almost forgotten she had signed up for the website in the first place.  After a number of double shifts and her sad attempts at cooking on a budget, she didn’t have the time to dwell on her apparent unwanted status. 

She wasn’t tiny.  She had curves aplenty and a stomach that couldn’t be considered flat.  With her form, she had realized how to dress herself when she wanted attention, and how to dress herself when she didn’t.  To be fair, most of the time she didn’t want the attention and was happy to dress in her slouchy but comfortable sweater dresses and plaid (anything to hide the girls).  Luckily she had a few pictures from college: a few from normal nights going out and one from the night where she and Jane had decided to dress up for stargazing.  That picture was her favorite.  She hadn’t even realized that Erik was taking it.  If you looked from the right angle she almost looked like a pinup girl from the 40’s.  The black dress was tighter up top than she normally went for, but was cheap enough in the secondhand shop that she couldn’t say no, and something about the red belt and polka dots just screamed out at her.  Plus, the way the stars shone on her face while she leaned back on an extended arm?  At time Darcy almost didn’t recognize herself in it.

But she wasn’t what was in; a quick browse through the website showed that the vast majority of the ‘girlfriends’ were basically models.  All of them had perfect hair and a body fact percentage that would make the vast majority of the population’s eyes pop out of their heads.  They were gorgeous.  And if a guy was gonna shell out decent money to get a girl on his arm, most guys would probably go for that.

All of which is why at the point where Darcy got an email saying “Girlfriend, You’ve Been Booked!!!” she almost deleted it without opening it.  Clearly it was spam. 

At the last moment she opened the email to see a quick message.  “Normally I would want to meet you first but I have a friend that’s throwing a gala really last minute and desperately need someone so that my friends will finally stop trying to set me up.  Would you be available Saturday night at 8pm?  Do you still have the polka dot dress in the picture?”

She considered deleting the email, if only due to the short timeline, but she couldn’t help but to think of the sizable student loan payment she had coming up the next month.

It was enough to get her to hit reply.  “Yes, I still have the polka dot dress.  I can do 8 pm this Saturday.  Would you prefer to meet a bit beforehand to talk over our cover story?  I assume you don’t want to tell everyone that I’m a call girl after all.  Is the standard rate offered over the site okay with you?”

The basic contract of using the website was that the owner took a cut, about 25%, of the seemingly ridiculous $75.00 an hour.  Then again Darcy wasn’t complaining about getting paid way more an hour than she made at her actual work…  If she managed to get real money in her bank account she could go back to looking for a better job.

After clicking send she immediately shut her computer and went to treat herself to a $4 bottle of wine that she had grabbed in Trader Joes.  It was the kind of night where she wanted to treat herself.  Because she couldn’t afford to actually treat herself, getting pretty damn tipsy was going to have to do.

 

Tuesday, after an incredibly long day of dealing with a  few too many people looking at her like she deserved to be treated like crap for not getting them their coffee the minute it was ordered, she was dreading opening her computer. 

Setting up this date was almost as bad as setting up a blind date.  She had always done her best meeting new people in spontaneous ways.  When she knew she was meeting someone new it always led to thinking about what was going to happen, and then overthinking. It was simplest to say that her personality got turned to 110% and that rarely ended well. 

But there, waiting for her, was a reply.  “Of course, the standard rate should be perfectly fine.  A strategic planning meeting before the offensive sounds like a good idea.  May I take you to dinner?  Meet at The Obeslisk in Dupont at 6?”

Darcy did a quick google search for the restaurant and gulped at the prices.  She didn’t want to say no to the guy who would hopefully allow her to buy food, and not just ramen, for the next month.  At the same time, she would have been much happier with a simple burger than the ‘roast suckling pig’ that appeared on the menu. 

She gritted her teeth and replied with a peppy.  “Of course.  That sounds wonderful.  I will see you at 6pm.”  She just had to hope that he intended to pick up the check because at a fixed price, that meal would be almost an entire day of work.

 

Meanwhile, she had to go on about her life like nothing new was happening.  Pulled a couple of shifts at work.  Looking at the sad state of her bank account.  Kept up a text chat with Jane, current topics: how much they both missed Thor’s abs, if Jane’s research had come of anything, if Darcy’s job search had come of anything, how much they missed their lab in the desert, and cute kittens.   Turning down a mutual friends question about clubbing.  Two problems: that shit is expensive, the girl wanted to go Saturday night and Darcy already had plans that she didn’t want to confess to.

And then Saturday night arrived.  Darcy put on the polka dot dress which flared around her hips and dropped to just below her knees, with a pair of sensible heels and the bright red lipstick she wore as an armor.  Nobody questioned women in red lipstick, they would eat anyone who did alive.  It was a known fact.

The overly long metro ride gave her plenty of time to stew but she ended up outside the restaurant with five minutes to spare.  She stood outside, looking at the fancy white stone building, waiting for her date. 

“Looks pretty intimidating doesn’t it?” Said the blonde in a black suit standing next to her.  His face sharing the same slightly disbelieving look as Darcy’s own.

“Yeah.  I looked at the prices online and almost swallowed my tongue.”  She went back up to staring at the building, feeling dread start as a ball in her chest working its way to her fingers.

“It’s good to know I’m not the only one who can be shocked by how expensive things are nowadays.”

“I kind of wish that I had suggested to my date that we go somewhere else, but it was his suggestion and I didn’t want to look pushy.”  She glanced back at him smiling.

“Oh thank goodness.  A friend of mine recommended the place and I didn’t think to check what kind of restaurant it was before asking you.”

Her jaw dropped as she looked closer.  He wasn’t just a blonde man, she was standing next to the newly resurrected Captain America.  A Captain America who was apparently her date for tonight.  He grinned sheepishly at her reaction.

“Sorry about not sending a picture, I tried to find a few women before you but they all thought I was ‘catfishing’ them?”  He said, the quotes clear around the word, furrowing his eyebrows.

“No shit they thought you were catfishing them.  Nobody expects that Steve Rogers would need help getting a date.”

His shoulders dropped though he tried to keep up eye contact.  “You know who I am.”  It wasn’t a question but a serious statement.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t get out much do you?  You and the Avengers are still plastered on the news constantly.  I’m pretty sure the only people who wouldn’t recognize your famous mug are dead, blind, or born in a decade without cable news.”

His hand rubbed his face, a seemingly unconscious gesture. 

To placate him she added, “To be fair, that might not be completely true.  I was a political science major in college and one of my professors had a hard-o…. I mean, was a bit in love with you.  There was an entire semester where I saw your face almost every day.” 

He seemed to relax over that, which in turn made Darcy relax. 

“Great, and now that I know you’re my date for the evening,”  she wound her arm through his, “and that we both think this place is too fancy,” she waved her hand at the building as they slowly walked away, “why don’t we go to that pizza place over there to have our ‘strategic planning meeting before the offensive.’”

He chuckled a little, “Pizza sounds perfect, and I knew I shouldn’t have said that right after I sent it.  I’ve never been great with girls.”

“Not a problem, Steve.  It was charming.”

 

They were tucked away into a corner of Alberto’s, eating their slices of thin crust pizza (“you know this isn’t as good as Brookyn’s pizza back in the…”  “Is any pizza even gonna come close?”  “…no”  “then let us who can’t time travel enjoy our pizza”) and planning their story.

In the end they (Darcy) decided they should steal the plot of so many rom-coms and have met in a bookstore.  Steve was old fashioned and didn’t like to order books on the internet and Darcy knew the college student trick of studying in a bookstore because sometimes it was the only quiet space you could find.  They went to the café attached to the bookstore afterwards and ordered an overpriced appetizer (it’s still DC, pretty much everything is overpriced) and barely ate any of it after talking for hours.

This was only the agreed upon story after Darcy veto’d running in the park (with this upper body I don’t think anyone would believe I’ve ever run a mile in my life Steven) and Steve veto’d meeting as a contestant/judge in a wet t-shirt contest (Darcy even if you were the judge, I still don’t think anyone would believe I would participate in a contest like that).

Just as Steve was eating the last of his crust Darcy asked the question she’d been dying to ask since she realized who she was contracted with.  “So… why did you need to hire a date?  Don’t let it go to your head,” she joked, “but you’re an attractive guy.  Smart, if you look at your battle tactics, and you’re Captain America.  I would have thought women would be lining up.”

From the way he hunched it was clear she had stepped on another landmine.  “You don’t have to answer.  That was a super personal question.”  She backtracked.

“It’s hard to find someone with shared experience…” he mumbled.  He looked up at her, eyes wide.  “I think it’s easy for people to forget that I lost everyone I’ve ever known.  It’s a bit hard to be willing to open up to anyone after that.”

“You’re talking to me?”  Darcy offered.

He shrugged, “I’m paying for your attention, I guess I’m kind of treating you like a therapist.” He chuckled a little, “I had a buddy who would have gotten a kick out of this whole situation.”

Darcy smiled sadly, the use of the past tense, and his history in general, made it clear that the person wasn’t around anymore.  She didn’t want to leave the atmosphere so sad before they had to go to a party and pretend to be a couple. 

“Well, luckily I can be a pretty good listener. But also, I can talk to a brick wall if need be so if anyone starts bugging you tonight just give me a signal and I’ll talk to them until their eyes cross.  Speaking of we should probably go.  We’re already crossing the border from fashionably late to just plain late as it is.”

“Man, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.  This is the kind of event where I have to dodge Senators that want to shake my hand and their wives who... want something else.”  He paused, not wanting to be rude or imply anything untoward. 

“Well lover boy,” she intoned, “tonight I’ll be your guard dog.  Bring on the competition.”

 

The party went surprisingly well.  Darcy’s knowledge of political science, and claim that she was a student completing her grad course online made her fairly popular with a small contingent of the Senators, not so much with their wives.  However, any time she was getting too many angry looks Steve would casually break in ‘begging’ to get in a dance.  Darcy did the same for him, any time he was starting to get a glazed look or someone was getting a little too touchy Darcy would swoop in with a  drink in hand to talk at them until they made an excuse to talk to someone else. 

All in all Darcy hadn’t had such a stress free evening in a long time.  Steve didn’t seem like he hated the time either.  By the end of the evening his shoulders had lost the tightness he had carried since they met, and he was gesticulating more in conversation with the few like minded people he had found. 

Still, around midnight he begged off claiming that Darcy had a big test the upcoming Monday that she would need to study for the next day; that he didn’t want to throw off her rhythm.  Darcy nodded along with his explanation and took one last look around the atrium with the soft lighting and windows that captured a view of the sky above.  It wasn’t exactly a look she would normally get so she savored the moment before grabbing Steve’s hand and leading him out.

Steve waved down a cab and ushered her in it.  “Thank you so much for tonight.  I’m hoping this goes through the grapevine back to my friends so they stop trying to set me up with women.”

“Happy to help you there Steve.”

He smiled and turned to the front of the cab, “Can you take us to…”  He looked back at Darcy, “What’s your address?”

She fidgeted, “You can just drop me off at the metro.”

His brow furrowed, “It’s late, I’d prefer for just take you home.”

Darcy steeled herself with a deep breath, “Its not pretty Steve.”

“All the more reason for me to make sure you get there safe.”

She sighed, of course Captain America would make sure his date got home safe.  She gave her address to the taxi driver and saw the double take.  It probably didn’t make sense that a man in a nice suit and a girl in a pretty dress would want to go to such a crappy neighborhood late at night.

The rest of the ride was pretty quiet.  Darcy was a bit embarrassed for Steve to see where she lived.  She couldn’t know why he was quiet but didn’t want to break the silence.

They pulled up outside of her apartment building and all Darcy could see were the cracks in the foundation, the overgrown garden and the complete lack of functioning streetlights.

“Well,” she reached for the door, “it’s been a blast.  Let me know if you ever need a beard again.”  His hand rested on her arm. 

“This is where you live?”  His eyes scanned the street, pausing on what he thought could be people hanging just around the corner.  Like Darcy his eyes took in the lack of lighting and the lack of care given to the building.  He turned to the driver, “do you mind waiting for a moment while I walk the lady to her apartment?”  The hesitation that greeted him made him break out his Captain voice.  “Sir, you will wait for the ten minutes I need.  Feel free to drive around the block, but you will pick me up in ten minutes.”

The man nodded his assent and let them leave before starting the car.  It was the kind of neighborhood where if you left your car idle for too long someone might start to take parts off of it. 

With trepidation Darcy let Steve follow her up the front steps, through the door that didn’t require a key or a code to get through, up three flights of grimy stairs to the door of her tiny, crappy, shoebox of an apartment.  She drew the line at letting him see the state of her apartment.  She had given up trying to keep it clean once it had become clear that her roommates were happy to let her play apartment Mom.  A month of being the only one vacuuming, washing dishes and wiping down the countertops was enough.  Her room still got the same attention it always would (growing up in the Foster system made her aware that a person may not have much but could at least take care of what they had) but she only did the bare necessity outside of that. 

Before she could say anything Steve was talking, “Look, I know that I make my payment through the website but I also know that you lose part of that, so…” he pulled out his wallet and started counting out some bills.  Of course he still carried around paper money. “Please take this.  You did a wonderful job tonight and…”

She took a step back, dismayed. “I don’t want your pity.”  Eye flickered down to the bills neatly folded in his hand.  Mind battled with heart; she didn’t want a handout but a little bit of extra money could go a long way.

“Please.  You really helped me out tonight, I might want you to join me on another night like tonight, and I…” his voice dropped, “I know what it’s like.”

Darcy’s mind flashed to that history class.  Single mother, grew up poor, couldn’t afford heat in the wintertime which didn’t do his various illnesses any favors.

“Okay.” Hesitantly, she reached out to take the money.  “But don’t expect this will get you any sexual favors.”  She joked weakly.

His face went bright red, “Of, of course not.  Has anyone…”

“Fuck, no, it was a joke Steve.”

“Oh.  Well, good night Darcy.  And thank you for your help.”

“Thank you Steve.  Get home safe.”  Though really he had nothing to worry about.  He probably had a cushy apartment and even if he didn’t nobody would mess with a guy his size.    She smiled one last time and then unlocked her door and tried to make it through without him being able to see the brunt of the pigsty. 

The apartment was as dirty as ever.  The couch that was old as balls and looked like it should be a home to a lovely rodent family was still covered in dirty clothes and empty pizza boxes.  Lights were still turned off, meaning that Leslie couldn’t be home, and the oven wasn’t on which meant that Jonny couldn’t be home.  There was a brief window of quiet, she knew, before her roommates would come home and throw the entire place into chaos. 

She went and unlocked her room; locked only because she had found Leslie in there going through her stuff once, and that was more than enough, and threw her purse on the bed.  Returning to the kitchen she opened the refrigerator, hoping the wine from earlier in the week would still be there, but no.  Sighing, she shut the door and went back to her room.  Once she locked herself back in; Jonny may have liked to watch people as they slept, she fell back on her crappy craigslist futon and groaned.  Way to piss off Captain America, who had paid her to play a girlfriend to keep him from getting accosted.  It was obvious she had offended him, and she knew, just knew, that there was no way he would want to see her again.