Sol 60, Pt. II
“Nope. No more work.” Jane’s hand started to wave between Darcy and her beloved StarkPad, completely obscuring the latest press release she was working on.
“Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?” Darcy asked, giving up on doing work with Jane present and sitting back in her desk chair. “It was you who I had to force to eat last week because you were on a Science! bender, right?”
“Which is why I’m dragging you away from updating Twitter or Instagram, or whatever you’re doing,” Jane said, coming around the desk and holding out her hands. “Come on - you were in Arlington yesterday, stayed up half the night monitoring social media - I know you did, and Tony’s introducing Bucky and Steve to Monty Python.”
Jane had actually become fast friends with the ex-Hydra assassin. Mostly because they were currently the people left behind to mind the store. Also because Bucky was kind of brilliant. Darcy suspected that if he’d grown up in the 21st century, he’d be some kind of scientist. He’d taken the Feynman lectures off the bookshelf in Bruce and Jane’s lab, and two weeks later was discussing the impacts of relativity on Einstein-Rosen bridges with Jane. And since anywhere Jane was, Darcy ended up, and anywhere Bucky was, Steve followed, the four of them ended up hanging out more often than not.
But still.
“Holy Grail?”
“No, the Meaning of Life,” Jane scoffed. “Of course, Holy Grail! Come on, woman!”
Darcy sighed dramatically. “Fine. Fine, I concede. But there needs to be popcorn.”
“I promise you popcorn.” Jane held out her hands once more. Darcy took them and lifted herself from the chair with a groan. Her entire spine popped and crackled like a 80s cereal cartoon.
Maybe it is time for a break. Purely in the interests of my physical health, of course.
……………
“I like to push the pram a lot!” One of the knights of Camelot sung onscreen.
Well, Darcy assumed he sung. She, Tony, and Jane were all belting out the Camelot song at top volume, and what with Jane’s tone-deaf caterwauling and Tony’s harmony, Darcy couldn’t hear herself, let alone the knight on the screen.
“Miss Lewis?” Jarvis’ voice cut off the movie, pausing it and sending everyone’s head turning to find the problem.
“What's up, J?” Darcy asked, even as her stomach started to churn, the popcorn re-popping.
“I know you like Life of Brian better,” Tony put in, “but that's no excuse-”
“If I may, Sir,” Jarvis interrupted, but Director Kapoor is on the line for Miss Lewis. He says he cannot wait.”
Darcy shook her head. I just wanted a day. Half a day. To enjoy a movie. Was that so much to ask?
With a sigh, Darcy started to lever herself off the couch. Started being the important word. Her progress was impeded by a certain supersoldier’s arm. She glanced up at Steve.
“You can take it in here,” he said. “We don't mind. Unless you want privacy?”
Darcy snorted. “As if you wouldn't get the information in five minutes anyway.” She relaxed back onto the couch. “Fine. J, put him through, please.”
A pause, and then -
“Darcy?”
“Hey, Venk. Made it back to Houston ok?”
“I did,” Venk said. He sounded weird - almost wooden. “I was going to raid the Scotch I keep at the office, but Mindy Park came in before I could get going.”
“Mark’s alive, Darcy.”
What?
No. that's not.
Darcy sat there motionless, not quite able to process what Venkat had just said.
“Repeat that?” That was Tony, speaking while she couldn’t.
“Who’s this?”
“Tony Stark. Lewis had you on speaker. Now - what did you just say?”
“Oh -okay. Well, Mr. Stark - it turns out Mark Watney’s alive. Miss Park was taking a look at the satellite footage, and she noticed that the rovers had moved. And that the solar panels had been brushed off.”
“We’re sure he’s alive, Mr. Stark. It's why we waited until we had confirmation before letting Darcy know.”
He’s alive.
Alive.
“Venk?” Darcy managed.
“Yeah, Darce?”
“Pac-Man?” It was an old joke, from her days programming, when she and Mindy had been working on a PacMan sim problem and Venkat had gone in and hacked them, just for the hell of it. She and Mindy had worked on what they thought was a bug for 72 full hours. Then Venkat had walked into their office (read: closet that housed the unpaid interns) and offered them both jobs. Pac-Man had turned into their communal shorthand for something squiffy, something that looked to be working, but was full of bugs. Something that wasn’t true. Darcy asked in case the data was falsified, in case Venkat had been asked to say Mark was alive, because it all seemed far far too good to be true.
Venkat chuckled. “No Pac-Man, Darcy. He’s alive. And we will do everything in our power to get him home.”