Day 72
“No, Jane, you need to get some rest,” Darcy said into the phone. “I don’t care what the other scientists are doing. You’ve been up for 30 hours. Get some sleep, at least six hours, and get back to the scienc-ing later.”
“But Darcy!”
“No buts,” Darcy said. “Don’t make me get on a plane.”
Jane sighed noisily. “Okay fine.”
“JARVIS is locking you out in five minutes, ok?” Darcy informed her friend. “Finish up what you need to finish up, then get some rest.”
Another sigh. “I hate you.”
“I love you too, bestie.”
“Bye, Darcy. Talk to you later.”
“Sleep first!” Darcy ended the call and sighed herself. Scientist wrangling wasn’t technically even in her job description anymore. But if anyone could stop Jane Foster from trying to keep up with the over caffeinated, fresh out of college engineers at JPL without physically dragging her out of the lab, it was Darcy.
“Thanks for doing that,” Bucky said, voice rumbling rather closer to Darcy than she remembered him being. “She was gonna wake up in a day or two and be steaming mad that the other scientists had made all those discoveries without her.”
“Burnout is real,” Darcy agreed. “Although in this case, it’s more a case of Jane working herself to the point of exhaustion. ‘The mind is strong, but the body is weak,’” she quoted.
“‘Or lacking caffeine,’” Bucky completed the quote with a smile.
“You know, you’d be a great scientist wrangler in your own right,” Darcy said slowly.
“No.” Darcy looked up at the super soldier, doing her best to embody all that was sweetness and light. With a side of ‘I can take care of myself, thank you very much’. “I’m not leaving you here all on your own.”
“I’m not on my own,” Darcy protested. “Bert and Caroline are here.”
“And when they can protect you from a Doombot or something from AIM, your argument will have a leg to stand on,” Bucky said.
Darcy grumbled, but secretly, or not so secretly, based on Bucky’s particular brand of shit-eating grin, she was glad the soldier was there. If only so she had a member of her adopted family with her while she was in Houston.
“Miss Lewis?” an assistant came over holding an open laptop. “The edit of the interview with Doctor Shields is here for your approval.” The boy looked very young - Darcy would have guessed fresh out of high school, if she didn’t know better.
I’m getting old.
Darcy snorted inwardly at her own ridiculousness, and took the laptop.
“Thank you, Mark,” she told the assistant. “I’ll watch it now.”
“Shields?” Bucky asked as the assistant scurried off.
“Psychiatrist,” Darcy made a face. Bucky mimicked her. “Let’s see what she had to say.”
Not five minutes later, Darcy was torn between the urge to burst out laughing and a strong desire to strangle Doctor Shields with her bare hands.
“Darcy?” Bucky’s voice startled Darcy out of her reverie.
“Huh?” she said, intelligently.
“You don’t think…” Bucky said.
“That she’s right? That Mark will get lonely enough, get depressed enough to kill himself?” Darcy asked, scorn clear on her face. “No. Mark wouldn’t do that. He’s even more stubborn than me. And he keeps his promises.” She realised she was twisting her engagement ring, back and forth, back and forth. Even if we won’t have a spring wedding. “To suggest he’d use the morphine in the ship’s stores? I could have gone forever without thinking about that one.” Darcy shivered, just once.
“You know him better than she does,” Bucky said, although he still looked skeptical.
“Damn straight.” Darcy’s shoulders squared and her chin went up. “He’s died on me once. He doesn’t get to do that again.”
Bucky frowned at the laptop. “So, are you going to kill the segment?”
Darcy’s shoulders drooped back to their normal setting. “I don’t think I can,” she said. “I said I’d kill any lies. Not opinions I don’t agree with. Even if I think Doctor Shields is as correct as the Flat Earth movement.”
Bucky chuckled. “Whatever you say, doll.”
“Exactly.” Darcy grinned at Bucky. “Whatever I say. And what I say is that we finish up here, grab Bert and Caroline, and go out for BBQ. Thoughts?”
“Ma’am, yes, ma’am!” Bucky saluted with all the polish he could muster - which wasn’t much, being honest - and turned his attention back to his own laptop. Thor only knew what he was doing on there. It could be writing code to help with rocket trajectories, it could be watching the latest Adventure Time episode…