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Steve knocked on the frame of her office cubicle. Darcy took one look at him and saved and closed out of her work. The lab was relatively quiet- just the whir of fans keeping running electronics cool.
"What's going on?"
Steve looked like he didn't want to say, and she knew she probably didn't want to hear it. "Bucky's been kidnapped."
A flash of adrenaline chilled through her. "What?! Who took him?"
If it were Hydra, Steve should have been running out of there for an Assemble- he shouldn't have stopped at her desk at all- every minute Hydra had him was a minute too long. Tony should have activated some kind of tracking program to find-
"It was AIM."
"Oh." Darcy blinked, her worry dropping to a simmer. Now Steve's expression made a bit more sense. "That was stupid of them."
Steve gave her a little grin. "Just thought you should be kept in the loop."
"Thanks, I-" Her desk landline rang.
She never got calls unexpectedly on the landline. It was for food deliveries dropped at the front desk and lost-cell-service emergencies.
It rang again and she scrambled to pick up. Then she hit speakerphone for Steve’s (and FRIDAY’s) benefit.
The voice on the other end was being filtered through a modulator. " Dr. Lewis, we have your boyfriend. We will return him to you in exchange for the Bifrost Algorithm. You will put it on a drive and leave it at- "
Darcy muffled a laugh behind her hand and rolled her eyes as the AIM agent rattled off instructions.
"Yeah, no," she interrupted. "I'm not doing any of that, least of all handing over Jane's work."
The voice paused for a second, then came back with an angry buzz: " Dr Lewis, you will bring us the Algorithm as we specify. We have the one you love most, and we will harm him if you do not follow our instructions exactly. "
"Oh really?" she said archly, exchanging an amused look with Steve. "You're going to keep him hostage and hurt him?"
The voice paused again. " Yes. " This conversation was clearly not going in the direction they thought it would, but the AIM agent rallied. " He will be tortured until you provide the drive. We will start with his hands: broken fingers seem fitting, don't you think? "
Steve snorted audibly.
Darcy just said, "Good luck with that. Start with his left hand and see how far that gets you."
Coincidentally, that's when the yelling started. It was modulated over the phone, but panicked shouting was pretty unmistakable even when it was in the background and robotic.
They heard a few aborted screams, some gunfire, boots running, more yelling. Someone near the phone shouted, “ Don’t let him-! ” and then there were several more shots, much more controlled than the previous frantic fire. Darcy glanced at Steve while these sounds filtered to them over the line; he was watching the phone and shifting on his feet like he could either picture just what was happening or wanted to be there in the fight. Probably both.
Close to the phone at the other end of the call, there was a wet crick and a shocked scream, and then a distinct thump. Steve winced. Darcy didn’t hear any further fight sounds, but she didn’t know if that was a good thing for Bucky or not.
The silence on the other line only lasted a few seconds, and then a modulated voice said,
" You alright, doll? "
Darcy sagged back against her desk chair, only now feeling how tense she'd been. Steve's hand fell to her shoulder and squeezed. He looked as relieved as she felt.
"Yeah," she took a sip of tepid coffee so she wouldn't sound choked up. "Can't believe they took you."
Bucky's warm laugh came over the line, un-modulated. "Buncha idiots got the jump on me and that's about all I can say for their kidnapping skills."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah… I think this shirt is ruined, though." She could hear him tutting over his clothes, distracted despite a few groans in the background.
Steve bent over her shoulder to say, "Where are you, Buck? We'll come get you."
At least Steve was thinking about practical things. Darcy was still shaken after hearing that fight and not being able to do anything or see what was going on. What if they’d managed to get a shot in? She knew AIM were worse than Stormtroopers, but they had to hit their target sometimes.
She interrupted Bucky’s loose description of his location to ask, “And you’re really okay? You’re not hurt?”
“Doll,” Bucky said gently, his footfalls taking him away from the room? facility? warehouse? AIM had used, “I’m okay. They got a few licks in on me, but Steve hit harder in 1938 than these guys-”
“Hey-” Steve laughed, fingers flying on his phone screen, doubtless narrowing down Bucky’s location to organize a pickup.
“-so I ain’t any the worse for wear. On the other hand,” his tone turned arch,” I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to play nurse later.”