Elevated

Tony spent several minutes trying to calibrate the Coolidge Machine. His monologue as he did so started off disparaging; making fun of Bruce and Nora both for being unable to do it themselves. Then, as he realized the machine was the spawn of Satan himself, it turned into loud complaints about the machine. And then suddenly he had the machine in a million little pieces, spread across the worktables that Nora and Bruce didn’t really use.

It was interesting, because the second the machine was in pieces, Tony stopped being obnoxious. He surveyed each piece with interest, seemed to catalogue it, and then set it aside. He frowned and hemmed and hawed about it, then started putting it back together.

“Oh, what the fuck?” He said when it was done and still apparently calibrated to multi-solar star systems. He whacked the side of the machine with a wrench. Luna got up from under Nora’s desk and went to press against his legs instead. Tony gave a little start, eyed the dog suspiciously, and patted her head.

Bruce leant back in his own chair, took his glasses off, and cleaned them on the edge of his sweater, “I guess we won’t be getting anywhere today,” he said mildly.

Nora made an annoyed sound. She’d been trying to make do without the machine by jerry-rigging a magnetoscope and one of the micrometers together, but it was giving her even weirder results that she could only attribute to her not being a mechanical engineer.

“May as well start the weekend early, Nora.” He suggested.

“I guess,” Nora muttered. She grabbed her bag and Luna’s leash, “This is going to kill me all weekend. I really thought that we’d be able to recreate our results right away and it’s like the universe hates us instead.”

Bruce nodded, “I’m used to that.”

Nora laughed but Tony gave him a sour sort of look, “See you later Bruce, Mr. Stark.”

“It’s Tony,” He called after her as she trudged toward the door with Luna at her heel.

“No,” Nora called back. She didn’t go straight to the elevator but wandered into Jane’s lab instead. She and Darcy were both slumped in their big armchairs and Luna ran immediately to greet them. They both patted her, and then she climbed up into the chair with Darcy, “You guys look sad too.”

“Yeah.” Darcy agreed, “Jane misses Thor and it’s making her bad at math.” Jane gave a frustrated kind of noise and covered her face with her hands, “Why are you sad?”

“Tony couldn’t fix the Coolidge Machine and our numbers are still all-“ she flapped a hand, “We can’t even make the equipment give us reasonable numbers, much less recreate the ones we had.”

“Tony couldn’t fix it?” Jane asked with interest, “That’s bizarre.”

“I guess.” Nora slumped herself into a nearby office chair that rolled a few feet back from the table and put her near something that looked like a waffle iron but was filled with delicate glass tubes of blue gas. She eyed it with interest, “You guys wanna get margaritas somewhere?”

“Yes.” Jane answered immediately.

“I have a date tonight,” Darcy answered mildly. Jane shot her an upset look, “Tomorrow? You can come here.”

Nora nodded and Jane seemed soothed, “Who’s your date with?”

So, Darcy launched into a story about very literally running into one of the Stark security guys in an elevator when she was headed down to steal from some guys in R&D because Jane needed a magnetometer. Nora vaguely wished she could have a meet-cute in an elevator. It seemed a lot nicer than a panic attack, “Who’d you end up stealing from?”

“Why do you ask?” Darcy said like she thought Nora was likely to narc on her.

“Cause I used to work in R&D with Fowler and Shmidt. Little mustache?” She waved vaguely at her own face, “And Shmidt kinda looks like Jesse Eisenberg if you squint?” Darcy squinted at Nora, then sort of nodded, “Anyways they suck. You should definitely steal their stuff next time.”

Nora went home and spent an agonizing evening trying to visualize her and Bruce’s readings on the ceiling of her living room from where she lay on the floor. She didn’t get anywhere and remained pretty frustrated.

Saturday, she walked Luna to get a coffee and some lunch, then considered her closet. She ended up in a pair of black trousers that looked nice, but were extremely comfortable, and a thick blue sweater. She figured it was good for lounging, but also for going out in the case that the night took a turn. She didn’t take Luna to the tower because she really wanted to try to get past the elevator thing, and then had to text Darcy from the lobby to help her after she tried and failed to get on six times.

Darcy strolled into Jane’s apartment without knocking and kicked off her shoes.

“Hi Jane,” Nora greeted. The scientist was already filling a blender with tequila and Darcy made her way over to start salting glasses. Nora hefted the bag in her own hand, “I got snacks.”

“What kind?” Jane asked with interest.

Nora began pulling things from the bag and showing them off in the style of Vana White. Both women were suitably impressed by her choices. Someone knocked gently on the door. Nora shot it a curious look and Darcy darted across the kitchen to yank it open, “Wanda!”

That made Nora extra curious. She surveyed the woman stepping through the doorway with interest. She too, had red hair, but not nearly as vibrant as Natasha’s. She was taller than Jane but not as tall as Darcy and had on a loose sweater and jeans. She was, overall, an extremely normal-looking person, if maybe a little nervous. She caught Nora’s eye and gave her a tiny smile.

“Hey, I’m Nora.” She waved a little awkwardly.

“Wanda,” The woman supplied, but didn’t try to shake Nora’s hand. She didn’t mind.

“You gotta sign Nora’s cast, you’re the last one!” Darcy crowed, yanking open a drawer full of junk and digging for a marker. Wanda looked confused.

“Clint thought that I couldn’t get the whole team to sign my cast,” She explained as she waved the pink monstrosity that was now covered in a solid layer of black sharpie.

“Oh,” Wanda said, taking the marker from Darcy automatically as it was shoved at her, “Okay. I’ve never signed a cast before.”

“Really?” Nora asked, “I guess it’s sort of an elementary school thing. Just seemed like fun.”

Wanda slipped into the stool beside her and considered her cast, laughing softly at Clint’s drawing, “Tony took up a lot of space.”

“Yeah. He’s a menace.” Nora replied easily. Jane handed her a margarita.

Bucky felt better. Or, maybe not better, but back to how he had been at least. It wasn’t exactly progress, but it was something.

It had taken Sam a week to drag him to the ninetieth floor, insisting that if he put himself in a room with Nora he could know for sure if she was afraid of him or not. Bucky had been terrified. As strongly as the team had asserted that she wasn’t, the clawing thing in his chest asserted she was. He wanted to be proven wrong and was scared he would be proven right. It might not have taken so long, except Steve and Sam seemed to be fighting about the issue too.

But they had gone, proved his anxiety wrong, and solved the mystery of Thor’s little yellow dog. It had been easier to be in the lab with her at his feet, or maybe with Nora looking at him with the soft bemused expression she had worn. It was so different from the angular, coiling fear.

He kept seeing it. The little smile at his writing on her arm. Unbidden, as he was training with Sam, or reading on his couch, or having lunch, it would pop into his head. It was as persistent as her fear had been, burying itself under his skin. But this thing wasn’t poisoning him. It didn’t wedge in and claw at his lungs. It sat with a strange sort of feeling he didn’t recognize. A feeling that made him recognize the emptiness of his hands.

He lay on the couch in the lounge, feeling like he wouldn’t shake apart. Almost fine. As close as he usually got. Steve was cooking something, and Sam had put on a movie that he thought was supposed to be funny, but he kept missing the jokes. Natasha was sitting at the counter over his shoulder and he fought a little with the need to be watching her. He had shot her once. Fought her with a ferocity he didn’t think he knew how to have anymore. She made him nervous. Ashamed.

The elevator doors slid open and he did turn to look then, because the stomping footsteps were all wrong. Nobody on the team stomped, except maybe Thor, but he was gone. He recognized the woman who came in, because she was often with Thor, but that didn’t make him feel any better. Anxiety sliced through him, and he ducked his head a little, hoping she wouldn’t see him.

“Sup, heroes?” Darcy announced. She strode right past Steve, ignoring his surprised look, and slid open the freezer.

“Hey Darcy,” Sam greeted. Bucky was glad she didn’t look at Sam, because she would have seen him too. She sort of waved over her shoulder, “What are you doing?”

“Need ice. Aha!” She yanked a bag out, then another, and looked triumphant, “We’re having a girl’s night.” Bucky didn’t really know what that was supposed to mean but Sam seemed to and Steve was nodding. She looked at Natasha and raised an appraising eyebrow, “Natasha, you’re a girl.” Natasha nodded, a little smile curling on her lip like that wasn’t a weird thing for Darcy to have said, “You like margaritas?”

“Of course,” Natasha said.

“Wanna come with?” Darcy waggled her eyebrows and gave a silly sort of shimmy. Bucky got the impression she’d probably already had one or two margaritas.

“Where and who?” Natasha asked.

Darcy was already bouncing backwards through the kitchen forcing Steve to move out of her way, “Jane’s place. Jane, Wanda, Nora.”

It was a little bit like getting electrocuted. A sudden zing of something that shot through his chest and down his metal arm. Natasha seemed unaffected by whatever had hit him, nodding and sliding smoothly from her chair, “Alright.”

“I like margaritas too!” Sam announced, waving his arms dramatically. The women paid him no mind, filing onto the elevator together. Darcy started up a story about the date she had been on the day before, and then they were gone.

Bucky glanced at his left hand, flexing it absently.