Chapter Text
First Encounters
“Sam Wilson!” At the shout, both Sam and Bucky turned from their supervision of the squad of recruits that were running laps around the track.
“Uh oh.” Sam muttered under his breath. Bucky frowned, and watched warily as the owner of the voice, a small brunette woman with glasses and curves for days, approached them like she was going into battle. She didn’t seem overly threatening, physically at any rate, but Sam seemed to be steeling himself to be on the defensive. Bucky looked her up and down again, intrigued.
Sam grinned at her when she was close enough and turned up what Bucky was sure he thought was his charm.
“What can I do for you Doctor Lewis?” He asked her. The brunette was not fooled at all by his tone, which made Bucky like her already, and marched right up to him and jabbed him in the chest with a bright red tipped finger.
“You promised me a lab.” She accused.
“So I did. And you do in fact, have a lab.”
“Ohhhh no, shield boy. When you called me up and invited me to come on down to this circus, you promised me, and I quote, ‘a top shelf lab with all the best equipment a brilliant astrophysicist like yourself could need.’ What I have, is a big empty room with three tables in it. You, sir, turned on that Louisiana charm and lied to me through your goddamned teeth!”
“Well, to be fair, I didn’t expect you to turn up at the door practically the next day, the equipment you asked for has been ordered…”
Her eyes narrowed and she jabbed him again, much to Bucky’s amusement.
“I told you when I was coming. Right then and there. You said ‘great! It’ll be ready when you get here.’ An empty lab is not ready, oh Captain my Captain. I told you if you wanted me to Science! for the Avengers, I expected the digs to do it in. You better believe that I am going to be your personal nightmare until I get what I was promised.”
She punctuated each statement with a prod to Sam’s chest, to the point where he took a step back, she was poking him so hard.
“It’s on the way, I promise. It just wasn’t as fast as I thought it would be. You asked for some pretty unique items.”
She huffed at him.
“Look buster, I may not be Jane, but I’m the only one around here who knows how her shit works. If I don’t get my lab squared away pretty pronto, I will open up a rainbow bridge under your bed and send you to the ass end of the universe in your shorts. Understood?”
Sam straightened, and even Bucky had to resist the urge to salute her.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Eugh. Your military is showing, tone that shit down.”
With that she turned and stalked back into the building behind them. Bucky may or may not have watched her until she disappeared behind the tinted glass. Sam let out a breath and shook his head. Bucky grinned at him.
“Who in the hell was that?”
“That was Dr. Darcy Lewis. Astrophysicist. Expert in the field, currently on the planet at any rate. She has a history with Thor.”
“She’s….something.”
“She’s a pain in my ass right now is what she is. It’s not my fault. The list of equipment she said she needed was as long as my arm and half of it I’ve never even heard of. If FRIDAY wasn’t an AI, she would have cried. And the woman came with some kind of a space van full of her own equipment.”
“A space van? That’s not a thing.”
“Man, it is definitely a thing, you should see it, it looks like the Millennium Falcon had a baby with a postal truck. Thing looked like it was on it’s last legs too.”
Bucky tried to picture it, but was coming up short.
“You said she has a history with Thor?”
Sam laughed and turned back to the recruits, who were now being put through some serious calisthenics by the instructor of the day.
“Yeah. You should read the file sometime, home-girl electrocuted him with a taser.”
Bucky blinked once and looked back to the building, where she had suddenly reappeared in an open door.
“Hey! Tall, dark and studly! How about you come and make that arm useful? I have a van full of shit that needs moving!”
Bucky snorted, and behind him, Sam chortled.
“Oh look out, you’re on her radar now man.”
“Taser, you said?”
“Uh huh.”
Bucky nodded once and turned on his heel, heading towards where she was waiting, arms crossed and toe tapping.
“I’ll take my chances with that over the ass end of the universe.” He called back, over Sam’s indignant squawk of protest.
This was going to be interesting.