Work Text:
Mindy Park sat in her office, focused on her monitor working out new satellite orbits for Europa when Mark Watney arrived at her door.
“Um, are you Mindy Park?”
Mindy jerked so hard her knees slammed into the underside of her desk. He was standing in the open door wearing a too big NASA hoodie and a sheepish expression, his eyes flicking between her and the two placards on her door.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I was just...” he trailed off looking more closely at the second placard on her door, the one that read Mindy Park Space Paparazzo.
“Space paparazzo?” Mark asked sounding confused.
“It was a joke,” Mindy said as he wrinkled his nose in confusion. “They had to call the position something and Venkat said since it was my job I could call it whatever I wanted. I had the placard made up to screw with him. Like it?”
“Hell yeah, I like it.” Mark smiled like he had just been let in on a great joke and he tilted his head.
“Speaking of Kapoor, I just got out of really boring meeting because he told me that I should probably meet you. You were the one to watch me when I was on Mars, weren’t you?”
Mindy felt a little awkward, sure it had been her job but it did make her sound a bit like a stalker if you thought about it too much.
“Yeah I was.”
When he said nothing further she began to feel even more awkward.
“Did you have any questions?”
“Oh! Right!” Mark shook himself as if trying to remember why he had turned up at Mindy’s door well after most people at NASA had gone home.
“Is it okay I sit down? I’ve been doing a lot of PT and I’m bushed.”
Mindy gestured to the couch she’d shoved against the far wall of her office. She rarely used it herself, choosing instead to sit curled in the armchair facing the window. The office was too small, really for the furniture she’d put in it, but she didn’t care. She wanted her space to be comfortable; the furniture and coffee pot she’d put in her office had assured that.
Mark looked around with interest, his eyes landing on her framed poster of America Chavez.
“So Marvel, not DC?” He asked lightly.
“I have one of Wonder Woman at home,” she said with a shrug.
Settling down in the aforementioned chair Mindy was pretty sure she knew why Mark Watney was sitting in her office. If she been isolated from everyone for a long time she’d want to at least meet the person whose job it was to spy on her (if she ever got the chance).
Mark chewed on his bottom lip before he began to speak. “I’ve spent most of the past three days in boring ass meetings with administrators and lawyers and I don’t even know who else going over every single detail of what’s happened over the last three years. Do you have any idea how dull that is?”
“A little,” Mindy answered.
“At first I was worried that it was going to be an elaborate plan to scapegoat Commander Lewis for the whole situation but so far it's been really boring. Mostly they just want to make sure I don’t sue them for negligence.”
Mindy nodded. “It took them a long time to take any imagery of the landing site, they didn’t want to show the world images of your body with a comm antenna sticking out of it, so they never actually visually confirmed the crew’s conclusion that you were dead. If they’d done that sooner they would have had more time to come up with a rescue. At least that’s what some lawyers were saying about it.”
Mark shrugged. “Maybe, I mean I’m here now so I’m not going to sue, but it is weird to think about.”
Mark seemed to think about she’d said again and his face screwed up in confusion.
“Why’d they change their minds? About confirming my death I mean. It was like two months later before they got around to confirming I was actually dead.”
Mindy squirmed in her seat.
“What?” Mark now looked suspicious.
“Well,” Mindy began in a hesitant tone. “They wanted to know how damaged the site was. Venkat figured that since the evac happened at six Sols he might be able to reuse most of the supplies for another mission if it wasn’t damaged.”
“Oh.” Mark sat very still on her couch. “Makes sense I guess. He didn’t want the mission to be a total loss. I get it, really,” he said holding up a hand to forestall Mindy’s interruption. “I’m not mad, just... wow. So what? Kapoor took one look at the imagery and freaked out cuz suddenly he didn’t have a dead astronaut but a stranded one?”
“No.”
Mindy and Mark both jerked around in surprise when Venkat Kapoor spoke from the doorway.
“No, I looked at the imagery and saw the HAB was intact and wondered why the junior SatCon officer had woken me up at three am to tell me the site wasn’t destroyed. It wasn’t until she pointed out the pop tents and the clean solar cells and spelled out the implications of both of those things did I have any idea anything was wrong. Even then it wasn’t until she explained what she’d read in the mission logs and that she couldn’t find your body did it click.”
Mark stared at Venkat, his mouth hanging open in confusion. “She...wait.” His head snapped back to look at Mindy. “You? You were the one who found me?”
Mindy shook her head. “I was just the first person to see all the pieces and put it together, that’s all. Venkat put me in charge of the Martian satellites ’cause Bob had other projects to work on and couldn’t spend all his time watching you.”
But Mark wasn’t listening. He got up and put his arms around her before she could protest further.
“Thank you Mindy. Thank you.”
Mindy reacted instinctively and hugged him back. Eventually he pulled back and sat back sniffling a little.
Mindy felt flushed, embarrassed by Mark’s show of misplaced gratitude.
“Someone else would have figured it out you know. Even if I hadn’t. All our images are public; someone would have put the pieces together eventually.”
“But it wasn’t anyone Mindy,” Venkat spoke from her doorway. “It was you. It was you that found him, and you that watched him for eighteen months. You were the one who learned Morse code and changed your sleep schedule to match Mars time and you changed satellite orbits to get image gaps down to three and a half minutes. You helped save him Mindy.”
Mindy’s face was bright red by the time Venkat finished, uncomfortable with the awed look Mark was giving her.
“Stop it. I didn’t save you, not like the crew or Purnell did. I just...” She trailed off and started again. “I just watched you.”
Mark tilted his head to look at her. “You weren’t space paparazzi; you were my interplanetary babysitter. Oh christ, I must have stressed you out on a daily basis.”
Mindy snorted. “I found gray hair by the time you were on board the Hermes. You are so lucky I dye it anyway.”
Mark snorted then perked up, his eyes bright with excitement.
“There’s this bar downtown that has a bunch of fandom themed drinks and nerd paraphernalia. You’ll love it.”
Venkat frowned. “Did your doctor clear you for alcohol consumption yet?”
“Oh my god, you too? Beck keeps harassing me about not overtaxing myself like I’ll drop dead the moment I eat something fried. I survived Mars, I can survive bar fare.”
Venkat looked hesitant, so Mindy leaned forward. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep him out of trouble.”
Mindy decided it was totally worth the gray hairs to see Mark Watney look between the two of them like he’d been betrayed.
“Come on Iron Man, you can talk about how much you hate potatoes.”
In the end they had a pretty good time and talked about X-files. Nerds.